WE GATHER TOGETHER by Edward L. Woodyard

We Gather Together Chapter Twenty-One

Scott McCulloch didn't get far on the 101 South. He had forgotten about the pilots' strike at the airport, as well as the sympathy strikes by other unions, including two transportation locals, which had effectively blocked any traffic from entering SFO. Almost all intracontinental flights were delayed or canceled as the busiest travel days of the year approached. Thousands of tempers were overheated with traffic at a standstill and passengers scrambling from vehicles on the freeway to confront a frenzied terminal. Drivers abandoned their cars on the shoulders of the highway as police and demonstrators clashed with each other while countermarchers protested. Media were trying to interview panicked passengers with roller luggage bags who were rushing toward the terminal for delayed or canceled flights. It was not only happening at SFO, but also at Oakland and San Jose.

Any thoughts Scott had of flying off to somewhere, anywhere just flew out of his head.

In the midst of the chaos and pandemonium, Scott recognized an upset and distraught woman on the side of the road. In her early thirties, she was wearing running shoes and a Burberry trench coat over a light orange linen pinafore dress. She was talking on her cell phone while propping two suitcases on the concrete Jersey median barriers separating lanes of traffic.

Scott rolled down the passenger window of his Bimmer to get her attention.

"Maya! Maya Noguchi!"

She looked around and then in the passenger window. "Do I know you? How do you know my name?"

"I'm Scott McCulloch. We worked together a couple of years ago. On the San Francisco Opera's materials for their fundraising effort. You did all the graphics. I did the printing."

"Yes, of course. Radiance Press. I'm sorry. It's just that I. . ."

". . . need help."

"Every flight east was canceled."

"Where east?"

"New York."

"Get in. Let's see if you can get an Amtrak train out of San Jose."

"I was just trying to. . ."

"Get in now. Traffic is moving. You're no good being where you are. It's dangerous."

Maya grabbed her two roller bags and put them in the backseat of the BMW. She jumped into the front seat.

"You don't have to do this."

"I know."

"Thank you." Maya buckled her seat belt and then tapped an app on her cell phone. "I was going to check the train and bus schedules."

"When do you have to be there?"

"Wednesday. I'm supposed to stay with a friend tonight in Hoboken, New Jersey."

"I don't think that's happening."

"I have to be at work on Wednesday. I'm starting a new job downtown. Flatiron District."

"The day before Thanksgiving?"

"They have a Monday deadline. The entire place is working through the holiday weekend. They need me there especially to help with the presentation. At least we're not having Thanksgiving in the office, but it's no four-day holiday, if you can believe that. Some way to start a new job."

"What do the schedules say about San Jose to New York? Same with Oakland?"

"No flights out of either. And I just missed the train east from San Jose. That'll take three days and eighteen hours. "

"The bus?"

Maya looked at her cell phone screen and then laughed. "That takes three days and five hours. It's faster than the train."

"I could do better than that with this car."

"That's not a bad idea. Can you take me to the car rental area?"

"I'm talking about this particular car. Take I-80 all the way."

"You're serious."

"As a pimple on prom night. We can do this."

"We?"

"Let me turn around on the 101. Once we get across the Bay Bridge, we're launched."

"We?"

"Don't trust me?"

"I think so."

"Then we're doing this."

"At some point, you have to eat and sleep."

"Do both in the car. You drive?"

"I was born in California. What do you think?"

"Want to?" Scott asked.

"Want to what?"

"See if we can beat those times?"

"Have to get out of this mess first," Maya said. "We could still be here three days from now."

Scott saw a small break in the stalled traffic, drove on the right shoulder and got off the freeway at the Millbrae exit. He turned to Maya, "We need to get back onto the 101. That'll take us to the 280 and across the bridge."

"Take 82, El Camino Real, to 101 to 280. It'll beat the traffic backup on the 101 north."

"You know your way around the Bay Area."

"Actually, my traffic app does."

Maya showed Scott her cell phone.

"You'll be a great navigator," Scott said as he turned north on Route 82. "'Houston, we have lift-off.'"