Home
by Susan Weber
I check my phone for directions in the shade of a royal palm. The streets off SE Fifth are prettier than their names suggest. They have yards and tended gardens. Pastel homes are dwarfed by ferns and fronds. To my sleep-impoverished brain, T. Rex crashing through the greenery would not seem strange.
I take pictures of a turquoise tarp that floats above a patio, bright against accumulating clouds. I half expect the owner to appear and question my intentions, but air conditioning’s a drug. No one surfaces.
Cutting through SE 3rd Place to SE 2nd Avenue, I take SE 3rd Terrace to Federal Highway. Numbered etchings on a sprawling human grid. Languid teenage girls speaking Spanish walk ahead of me. Hips swivel in clinging jeans. Swim To Success says a big blue sign on the fence around a school. Do the girls swim to success here? I’m hoping that they do. I didn’t make it to the coast today, but I feel successful.
The commercial strip is withering hot as it was when I set out. There’s growing darkness to the sky. I wouldn’t mind a downpour. I think the hotel staff would appreciate a rain-soaked person more than the sweaty pungent creature that I am. As I cross at the light onto Stirling, wind picks up but clouds withhold their prize. For the past half hour I’ve been dreaming of the Comfort Suites. I’ll ask for my luggage and a place to change. I’ll be shown to the hot tub, plush white towels, and sparkling water in a goblet of ice.
All Star Auto Body, Sofadreams, Dania Beach Scrap Metal lie in my wake. Sam’s Coin Laundry shimmers by. Thoughts of treasure buried in my suitcase—wrinkled shorts, pristine shirt, underthings not plastered to my skin—carry me at last to the manicured receptionist at her desk.
Minutes later, locked in a bathroom off the lobby, I open my suitcase on the floor. I spritz my salted rind with freshwater gushing from the tap. I dry myself and all the splattered surfaces with wads of paper towels. The bathroom gleams. I stride past reception to the cooler. I take a plastic cup of lemon water to the lounge, remove a last bagel from my pack, and plug my phone into the wall.
A man walks in and switches on a movie. I don’t care if I speak to him or not.
“Hard to hear,” I say with my mouth full, pointing at the overhead speaker. “Hotel music’s pretty loud.” Where’s my usual reserve? Down the drain with all the sweat and worry. The movie watcher nods without bothering to look my way. He turns closed captions on.
“Good idea,” I say, and he ignores me.
After awhile I pack up and tell the receptionist I still want the six o’clock shuttle. The teenage boy beside her in a crisp white shirt says he’s the manager, the hotel is family run, and he hopes I had a good stay. To be fair, he might be in his twenties. Is there anything they could do to improve things here, he wants to know.
Well…
The night shift could lose her attitude when her driver can’t locate her guest in the middle of the night. And she might refrain from calling her guest at six-AM-twelve-hours-before-the-scheduled-airport-shuttle. Extended check-out for the guest arriving at two AM (because-of-your-broken-shuttle-system) could be, say two PM no question. The cleaning staff could vacuum the room between occupants and the coffee maker…
But I’m not the person who might have said all that. I’m a drifter who happened on a mangrove swamp. A pilgrim who met a Sanskrit poem and embraced my unencumbered self. I’m a visitor who took more than my share of breakfast and in the hotel’s tidy bathroom, scoured sweet sweat of the day from my pores. What do I say to this courteous man?
That guests who land at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport for the first time need clear directions to the pick-up location, or your driver might not find them.
The airport has enormous golden sea shells emblazoning its floors. As for me, running on four hours sleep, generous water refills, a clutch of tired bagels, and a hike like none I’ve ever known, this glittering world can do no wrong. The plane is ninety minutes late. I sip bottled juice, nibble crackers from a zoo box like a little kid, and doze off in the waiting room. Seat mates in economy make me smile. My reliable friend collects me at Cleveland Hopkins airport in the wee morning hours without complaint. By two AM I’m in my bed, switching off the light. There’s not a chance in the world anyone will wake me before dawn. This, the epitome of home.
Photo Susan Weber CC BY-SA 4.0