My brother left me on the sidewalk at Los Angeles International Airport and yelled, “Run!” Our timing to get to LAX was thwarted by the kind of notorious Los Angeles traffic that airline change fees and dashed dreams are made of. Departure for Newark, New Jersey, was at 8:05 am.
It was 7:25 a.m.
I ran through the terminal and up the escalators, two at a time, with a carry-on and boots that weren't made for running. The line to get through security was a mile long.
“Am I going to make it?” I deliriously asked the TSA agent as I handed him my boarding pass, shaking from the mad rush.
Without saying a word, he led me through a serpentine of travelers and straight to the metal detector. I was taken aback. Maybe he was psychic. I thanked him profusely and kept running.
I couldn't miss this flight.
My mother insisted that I fly “home” to New Jersey for my birthday – it was a gift for her. I was in the throes of a divorce, disillusioned, depressed, and avoiding the other “D” word… dating. I also hid from unwanted advances once word got out. I felt perpetual fear and felt shaky. “Get out of there,” Cher told me in my mind.
When I reached Gate 40, I was dizzy with shock and out of breath. I looked around and exhaled.
To my left was a tall, bald man wearing glasses and a tweed jacket. He looked familiar. “Who is that?” I whispered to the also tall and handsome man on my right, holding a cup of coffee and wondering if I was talking to him.
He looked at me curiously and narrowed his eyes: “Isn't that the guy who wrote 'LA Confidential'?”
Bingo. Awesome. But none of us could remember his name. It was fun to try.
Suddenly, I felt compelled to tell this lovely man how close I came to missing my flight, how much traffic there was, how fast I ran, in high-heeled boots, and how I imagined he probably would have experienced exactly the same thing minus the boots.
No. He had gotten there hours earlier, had breezed through security, and was drinking his third cup of coffee.
Boarding began. It seemed like we both wished there was more time. “It was nice talking to you. Have a good trip,” I said and I meant it.
“You too,” he said, returning the smile.
Sparks flew.
After the in-flight movie ended, I looked up and there he was. I greeted; I was glad to see him again. I thought I was on my way to the bathroom. It wasn't. He had come to look for me. It was nice to have an aisle seat.
For the next two hours we immersed ourselves, surrounded by strangers.
He had spent the last few years in Los Angeles dating other people since his divorce. He seemed as universally disillusioned as I was, and a few days earlier he had told his mother that he was going to give up.
At one point, he knelt in the hallway to get closer. His graying coldness felt warm. He touched my shoulder a couple of times. I didn't care. He was confident, funny and very much a grown man who also seemed immune to heavy turbulence.
People in the nearby rows could hear everything we said. Some were watching. Some climbed over him. Then the drinks cart came in. We made plans to have dinner when we got back to Los Angeles. He gave me his card.
“That was amazing,” said the woman next to me, who had pretended to be asleep to give us some privacy. It was incredible. A great cloud arose. I couldn't stop smiling.
When I got to pick up the luggage, there it was again. I told him my mom would come pick me up. “Can I meet your mom?”
His SUV was waiting exactly where we left. He ran out to hug me and open the back door, wondering who that guy was carrying my luggage.
“Mom, this is Mark. “We met on the plane,” I said.
“Hello, I'm your daughter's new boyfriend,” he said as if it were already true.
Without missing a beat, she responded, “Good, because you are very handsome.” We said goodbye in a hurry.
“What happened to you on that flight? You are different. “You are going to marry him,” my mother said emphatically.
I stuttered. In a way I believed him. I was different. Over the next week, we texted and decided to have dinner with Terroni, a mutual Italian favorite.
He was waiting for me outside. We spent five hours in a booth drinking, eating and laughing. When we were in the middle of dessert, fireworks went off from the Christmas tree near the Grove. They all ran outside. He sat next to me when we returned to have our first kiss. We closed the place. We didn't want the night to end.
A few nights later, at a sushi bar, he made me an engagement ring out of a plastic stick. We didn't feel like we were going too fast. We felt like we couldn't move fast enough.
With that, I had to move my divorce from stalled to finalized. Fast.
Our marriages had come to a standstill very unexpectedly. He had years of healing under his belt. I was still in the middle of it. I was stuck in quicksand and he helped me get out. His patience was constant as he cut ropes and untangled me.
We had planned to get married at a rooftop restaurant in Los Angeles, with views of the skyline beyond the smog, to symbolize how we met and fell in love. However, exactly two weeks earlier, my mother was rushed to the emergency room with severe strokes. We flew back East with my brother and his wife.
Miraculously, my mother recovered but could not fly. We canceled the wedding. She insisted that we would still get married on the day we had planned: July 8th. It was July 7th.
Since my brother was getting married anyway, we thought: Why not get married on the plane? Fly back to Los Angeles from New Jersey, the same way we met but in reverse?
And we did it. Flying over Tulsa, Oklahoma.
United Airlines published a story in an in-flight magazine about our mid-air ceremony with the headline: “On This Flight, I'll Marry You.” Ring-sized steel hose clamps from the hardware store served as stand-in wedding bands. A flight attendant made a bouquet out of tissue paper.
“Do you believe in life after love?” Now yes, Cher. I finally got out of there.
The author is a writer and creative producer who directs the music documentary “Play That, Teo”. She is a recovering comedian, proudly from New Jersey and now residing in Los Angeles. She is on Instagram: @olanadigirolamo
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