A Gift of Wings

The cart rumbles past as she smiles at herself for her drama, at the porter in apology for not watching out.

He says a word, “You be careful, miss,” and they go their way, smiling still. She is gone out one door, he out

another, and I stand there and watch and somehow feel tender and loving toward all mankind.

It is like watching a fire, or the sea, this watching of people at Kennedy, and I stood quietly there for weeks, munching a sandwich sometimes, just watching. Meeting, knowing, bidding farewell in the course of seconds to tens of thousands of fellow people who neither knew nor cared that I saw, going their way about the business of running their lives and their nations.

I don’t like crowds, but some crowds I like.

The form said:

Lenora Edwards, age nine. Speaks English, minor traveling alone; small for her age. Address Martinsyde Road Kings Standing 3B Birmingham, England. She is arriving alone on TWA and is making a flight to Dayton, Ohio. Please meet and assist with transfer. Child is coming for three-week visit with her father. Parents divorced.

For one day I joined Traveler’s Aid, because I’ve always been curious about Traveler’s Aid, seen them at their little posts at train stations and never really aiding anybody, that I could see.

Marlene Feldman, a pretty girl, former legal secretary, was the one who took the form, handed me a Traveler’s Aid armband, and led the way to the International Arrivals Building. Our little girl’s flight was to have arrived at three-forty on a holiday weekend. At six o’clock we learned that by seven o’clock we might know what time it would be expected to land.

“She will probably not make her connection,” Marlene said in a voice that was used to preparing for the worst. She must have been a good legal secretary. Now she was unruffled and in control, grasping the threads of unraveled plans and trying to weave them back together, for the sake of Lenora Edwards.

“You can be around this every day, but every time you see a plane take off or land, it’s still fascinating. It’s just beautiful. And every time you see one go up, you say, ‘I wish I was on it …’ Hello, United? This is Traveler’s Aid, and we need a late flight from Kennedy to Dayton, Ohio …”

There was no late flight to Dayton.

By eight p.m. the flight with Lenora Edwards on board still had not landed, the airport was a choking swarming mass of passengers and passengers’ friends come to meet them, the sound of engines in the air.

Marlene Feldman, telephone in hand, was supposed to have finished her working at five p.m., it was now eight-thirty, she had had no dinner.

“Just a minute. One more call and we’ll go eat.” She dialed TWA for the twelfth time, and at last they had an expected arrival … Lenora’s flight would be unloading in twenty minutes.

“Well, there goes dinner,” Marlene said. Which wasn’t quite the truth. The restaurants at Kennedy were crowded, even the lines waiting at them were crowded, but the candy machines were almost unpatronized. She had a Sunshine Peanut Cheese Sandwich Lunchie for her dinner, I had a Hershey bar.

We found Lenora in the crowd by the Customs area, waiting for her one piece of baggage, a white suitcase.

“Welcome to America,” I said. She didn’t reply.

She did talk to Marlene, in a very clear little British voice, “I suppose I’ve missed my plane, haven’t I?”

“I’m afraid so, honey, and there’s not another flight going out till tomorrow morning. But don’t worry. We’ll get it all fixed up for you. Did you have a nice flight coming over?”

We breezed through Customs without even stopping at the desk, and I hoped faintly that the white suitcase I carried wasn’t packed with diamonds or heroin. It didn’t feel like it, but those things are hard to tell.

The crowd by now was a New Year’s Times Square crowd, and we wedged slowly through it to the office. Excuse us. Excuse us, please. Could we get through? What was the poor little girl thinking? All this chaos, met by two strangers, missed her flight, no plane out till tomorrow? She was calm as a teacup. If I were nine years old in that place, five hours late in a foreign country, I would have gone up in kind of green smoke.

Marlene was on the telephone again, calling the girl’s father, collect to Dayton. “Mister Edwards. Traveler’s Aid, Kennedy Airport. We have Lenora here, she missed the flight to Dayton, so do not go to the airport. She’ll stay here tonight, we’ll arrange for that. I’ll call you back just as soon as I know what’s happening.”

“How are you doing, honey?” she said, dialing again on the phone.

“Just fine.”

It was arranged. Lenora would stay that evening at the International Hotel with a TWA stewardess from the flight on which she arrived, who would bring her to the United Air Lines Terminal in the morning.

The telephone again to the father, to give him the name and number of the stewardess and the hotel. “Lenora will be arriving Flight 521, into Dayton at ten twenty-six in the morning. That’s right. Yes. Yes. Of course I will,” Marlene said. “You’re quite welcome.”

“OK, Lenora,” she said when the telephone was still at last, “I’ll meet you at the main information desk at United at eight-fifteen tomorrow morning, and we’ll get you on that flight, OK?”

The TWA stewardess stopped by for the girl, and as they disappeared into the crowd Lenora put the small book she had been reading back into her purse. Woodland Animals was the title.

“I didn’t think you were supposed to come to work till eight-thirty, Marlene,” I said. “And don’t you get to sleep late if you’ve stayed five hours over, the night before?”