Chapter 30

Our get-away plan came together surprisingly well, given the spontaneity and suddenness of my/our decision to fly to Atlanta for the weekend.

Mostly because Helga is so efficient. She did all the necessary spadework, not me. I merely paid for the tickets. And that was simply a matter of handing over my credit card when she asked for it.

What with the short notice of our trip, I hadn’t taken any advance steps with my daily calendar to ensure I left work early – or at least on time – but my super-efficient assistant had instantly anticipated that need as well. She’d organized for the weekend duty administrator (I’m so glad my days of being in that rotation are gone) to come in for her briefing early, so even with the usual Friday afternoon queries, I was away from the office by quarter past four, just at the start of the get-away-out-of-town-to-the-beach-for-the-weekend rush that heads past Mel’s place in Woodland Hills. Another thirty minutes, it would have been in full flow (and, in these circumstances, I’m using the word ‘flow’ in the sense that glaciers, volcanic lava and thick mud ‘flow’), and I’d have been caught up in it.

Not that the cloverleaf intersection between the 101 Ventura Freeway and Topanga Canyon Blvd is ever really flowing all that freely, in my experience. If it’s not commuters, it’s leisure drivers, tourists, service vehicles and trucks. There’s too much else going on around that intersection. First, you have to negotiate the lights at Burbank Blvd with its five lanes of traffic each way; there’s always someone who doesn’t move into the left-turn lane when they should ... Then under the freeway, dodging the emerging southbound traffic, then the exiting eastbound vehicles, just in time for the lights at Clarendon Street and the first of the retail parks in the southern shadow of the freeway, which are of course backed up from the lights at Ventura Blvd...

Oh, the joys of driving in the City of the Angels!

After all that localized excitement, Topanga Canyon Blvd turns into what passes for a ‘normal’ city street at Avenue San Luis, and it’s only another couple of blocks before the turning for Mel’s place. I heaved a big sigh of relief I’d made it without a hold-up.

Mel must have heard the door opener noise; she rushed into her garage to greet me as I exited the car, remarking happily as she kissed me that she hadn’t expected me to make it quite so soon. Which made two of us.

Based on past experience, and my natural pessimism as far as travel is concerned, we’d allowed ourselves plenty of time for the flight; it wasn’t departing until eight. So there was no great pressure to get to the airport; I even had time for a (solo) shower and a change of clothes before we ate.

My wonderful fiancée had a meal all ready and waiting to be cooked on my arrival; though it was a little strange not to have our usual doggie company. Mel assured me Max had seemed happy enough to be going with Kara and Tara; I grinned and replied that, as long as his belly was full, he wasn’t gonna pine for me. She laughingly swatted me for my pretend callousness. Okay, the little fella has gotten under my skin, and I was missing him already. Doesn’t seem right being home and him not there. I was glad this time around he was with two friends, so his separation would seem to pass more quickly. (I still vividly remember all those woebegone eyes looking up as I passed the doors at the shelter; dogs are companionable creatures (once the pack hierarchy is sorted) and that’s why I always went for a dog-sitting service rather than straight stockade-like boarding kennel. It’s more expensive, but they get much more human interaction.)

We cleaned up – like me, Mel hates to come back to an untidy home – and I took the bags out to my car. Mel checked the house was all locked up and the alarm set, and we headed for the airport. On to the 101 – by now much quieter than it had been two hours earlier, but still busy – and then off at the 405, heading south past the Getty Museum and on towards LAX. Fifty minutes and we were rolling into one of the onsite parking garages. Not at all bad for that route at the start of the weekend.

LAX ... was its usual crazy self; even worse for it being Friday evening. Don’t even ask what it’s like at holiday times; it’s why I take the whole week at Thanksgiving, to avoid the worst of the crush. The world’s third-busiest airport; there’s no space for further expansion. Which is why Burbank (Bob Hope), John Wayne, Ontario and Long Beach are taking an increasing amount of the strain.

The flight time LAX-ATL is four hours (yeah, I know, I know, real dumb traveling that far for a two-day weekend away) in the air, plus the usual hassles – moving around the airport to the correct departure lounge, negotiating the TSA security checkpoint, waiting for boarding, and all the rest. At least we had each other to talk with while we waited in line; whenever I’m flying on my own, a good book is absolutely essential.

We were placed in Business Class, which was a welcome step up from my usual coach – call me a tightwad, but I normally quibble with the massive price differential as to exactly where on the airplane I’m sitting reading my book and trying to ignore the discomfort of fitting my six-two frame into a seat designed by a midget with an obsession for cramming a quart into a twelve-ounce glass.

During our twenty-minute ‘taxiing’ before actual takeoff, I informed Mel we had Helga to thank for our more luxurious seats. She grinned and assured me five-ten with long legs was extremely grateful not to be scraping her knees on the back of the seat in front, as usually happened.

My secretary had confided she’d been a little lucky to secure my booking thirty-odd hours before the flight, even with two weeks elapsed since the Memorial Day holiday rush, and, actually, our situation could have been worse.