Dream • Lost on the Airport Shuttle

I am traveling to NYC with Barb & Cindy for a fun girls getaway. Despite it being a short, weekendy thing, we pack suitcases with regular stuff, including phone chargers, money($300) etc. the flight is uneventful, although Cindy is separated from a chatty Barb and I and seems consumed with her phone. Figure she is texting with family. She is across the aisle as our seats are not together. Barb and I are excitedly and animatedly going over our lists of things to do, plays, museums etc. When we disembark in the airport, there is much hubbub and we must climb many stairs to get to baggage claim. One set of stairs are blue & stainless steel, very industrial, with switchbacks. We also are in our checkpoint security socks, so we must claim our shoes as well as luggage. Piles of bags & shoes to go thru… Cindy is surprised, I did not text her across the aisle during the flight, as this is now her main way of communication. She hands me her iPod-like phone to hold during the baggage claim. I can't find my cordovan wing tips and suggest I will catch up with them both, once I locate them soon. I have an old brown leather valise, but in searching for my shoes, it somehow disappears. I wander in the airport, re-climbing those stairs, looking optimistically for items that I'm realizing may have been stolen. I still have my carry-on small purse with my phone. I get into a service elevator, that takes me to the surface, but it turns out to be a special transport for an odd, homeless crew (they cajole and have an urban wisdom) that takes us not only vertically but across town miles away from the airport and a waiting Barb & Cindy. Above ground, I realize I must exit this jitney bus before another stop and end up on a quiet, street across from a handsome guy, working late-night in in street level window of his intriguing and cleverly decorated brick walled office. He is dark, and looks like a scruffy Max Weinberg. I watch from outside trying to plan my next steps, when I am approached by a similar looking guy who is a bit off. He is very sweet, may have been on that transport bus, and is trying to be helpful. We talk and he hands me a zine of his own making that explains what he does. It is filled with equations, so I surmise he is scientist, he corrects me— a theoretical physicist. Impressive, but I suspect he may be delusional. I like and trust/warm to him, as he greets, hugs and converses amiably with the Max/architect guy who is leaving to go home in the pre-dawn. I am in an increasing panic & tizzy, because I'm still separated from friends and can't seem to get my bearings from surrounding landscape/skyscrapers. The physicist (Steve Trilling-like) sez he'll help me get to my friends and we are at once in his panel/bread delivery truck. He is very methodical and suggests I call, text, or email. As I reach into my purse for my lacking-a-charge phone, I start laughing, tell him he is going to love this, and pull out Cindy's phone that I have been carrying. It holds an unsent missive to her friend in NYC  that I try to amend with my need for help, but the interface is foreign and I can't even manage to send a new text that she won't see or receive anyway without her trusty device. It is early morning and my dread and remorse upon the realization that they are also stranded, like me and I have stymied the fun beginning of our vacation in NYC.