Okay, maybe that wasn’t the most inspired question, but I’m just getting started, and I have plenty more where that came from.
“So tell me,” he said, resting his forearms on the table and leaning toward me. “What made you decide to become a stewardess?”
I knew I couldn’t answer that with a simple nod like he had, so I just shrugged and said, “Um, well, it was purely by accident. I mean, I like to travel, I heard they were hiring, and I thought it would allow me plenty of free time to work on my writing.” There, I’d brought it back to writing, the perfect segue into my next question.
“So tell me about training. What was that like?”
“Are you serious?” I asked, feeling my shoulders droop and my heart sink as I looked into his deep blue eyes.
“Very.” He nodded, reaching for his wine. “I want to know everything.”
By the time we left the restaurant, the sky had cleared, and deciding it was too nice of a night to drive, Harrison dismissed the limo and we made our way down the smaller, cobblestone streets of SoHo while my already compromised heel came dangerously close to snapping off completely.
“So let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re not actually getting paid during boarding, since you’re only paid for actual flight hours. Am I right?”
“Yes,” I said, rolling my eyes, not even trying to hide my annoyance. We’d been having this same boring conversation for nearly three hours now, and I was beginning to think that this celebrated author was just another creepy bore with a stewardess fetish. “Door close to door open,” I repeated, for the third and final time.
“But isn’t boarding the worst part of the flight? All those passengers screaming about their seats and baggage?”
Boarding was the worst part of the flight, but I was totally over discussing it. “Harrison? Do you think we could maybe talk about something else? Like, I don’t know, books, publishers, agents, Pulitzers? Basically anything other than the Atlas Airlines employee handbook?”
But he just looked at me and smiled. “This is home,” he said, motioning to a beautiful four-story building. “Would you like to come up for a nightcap?”
Like all New Yorkers, I had an insatiable curiosity for how other city dwellers lived. Especially those with glamorous careers, who made loads of money and occupied four floors all to themselves. “Sure.” I shrugged. “But just one drink and then I have to go,” I said, not wanting him to get the wrong idea.
“Are you flying tomorrow?” he asked, inserting his key and opening the door.
And even though I was, I shook my head no. I mean, there was no way I would encourage any more airplane talk.
Leading me through his enormous, multistoried home, we entered room after endless room, with Harrison pointing out the ceremonial tribal masks, ancient family photographs, and abstract paintings by artists I’d actually heard of that seemed to fill every square inch of wall space. And as we entered his study, my breath actually caught in my throat as I gazed upon the beautiful, old, scarred wood desk and worn leather chair where he’d crafted all of his novels. I trailed my fingers along the well-oiled, pockmarked wood, thinking how it looked exactly like the picture I’d seen in Architectural Digest a few years back. And now I was standing here, touching it. Unbelievable.
“May I use your bathroom?” I asked, still fondling the desk.
“Down the hall, last door on the left. I’ll go pour us a drink. Do you have any preference?” he asked.
Not being big on nightcaps, I just shrugged and said, “Surprise me.”
Harrison Mann’s guest bathroom was a large, cavernous room that reminded me of those found in grand old hotels. Not that I’d actually stayed in many of those, as most of my hotel experience was limited to the lower-end, Atlas-contracted, chain hotels they provided for layovers. But every now and then, they’d throw us a bone and book us somewhere nice, mostly in Europe where they liked to project a false image.
I washed my hands with almond soap, and dried them on a plush red towel. Then I peeked in the cabinet under the sink, searching for a clue into the private world of this celebrated author. But other than the usual array of expensive hand soaps and extra toilet paper rolls, there really wasn’t much to see. So I sat on the edge of the old claw-foot tub, reapplied my lip gloss, and evaluated the evening so far.
Other than Harrison’s obsessive curiosity about my job I guess it really wasn’t so bad. For all I knew he was writing an airplane scene and just wanted to nail the details. And who was I to mess with his creative process? Besides, wasn’t that a valuable trait in a writer? The ability to really listen and learn about others? And since years of mind-numbing passengers had left me jaded and all too willing to tune people out, it was obvious I could learn a thing or two. And really, wasn’t that the whole point of being here?
I gazed into the Venetian mirror and ran my index finger gently under each eye, feeling thankful that he hadn’t tried to kiss me or hold my hand. I mean, even though it might be cool to say I made out with a Pulitzer prize winner, it’s not like he looked like Michael Chabon.
The second I left the bathroom I was enveloped in darkness. And other than the faint, flickering glow at the end of the hall, all I could see was black. “Harrison?” I called, squinting as my eyes adjusted, nervously groping my way along the wall.
“I’m in here,” he answered, in a faraway voice.
He’s a famous author, not a serial killer. He writes literary fiction, not horror, I reminded myself as I tried to remember where the front door was located, just in case.
“Um, are you still on the third floor?” I asked, stopping to peek over the banister, thinking about making a run for it.
“I’m at the end of the hall. Just head toward the light.”
Okay, now I was officially creeped out. “Is everything okay”?” I asked, hesitating just outside the doorway, on high alert, ready to bolt.
“Everything’s fine, Hailey. Please, come join me.”
And even though he sounded pleasant enough, I still glanced longingly toward the stairway, assuring myself that with his heavy drinking and mounting birthdays, I could definitely outrun him if I had to.
Then I took a deep breath and stepped into the large candlelit room, where the critically acclaimed, Pulitzer prize—winning, New York Times bestselling author was splayed across his bed, snifter of brandy in each hand, completely naked.
“Ready for takeoff?” he asked, rising to hand me my drink.
I stood there in shock, watching all of Harrison’s various body parts move and sway as he approached. Then, shaking my head and averting my eyes, I said, “Um, I think I should be going.”
Oh my God, this was so not what I meant when I told him to surprise me, I thought, racing down the hall.
“Hailey? Are you sick?” he asked, chasing after me.
“Um, yeah,” I mumbled, taking the stairs as fast as I could while still favoring the nearly broken heel on my sandal, noticing he was moving surprisingly fast for someone in such an advanced state of atrophy.
“What happened? Was it the shrimp?” he asked, so close now I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
I grasped the door handle and pulled, feeling a flood of relief as the cold night air hit my damp, panicked face. “Yes,” I nodded, catching my breath and turning to face him. “It’s definitely the shrimp.”
And as I stepped outside, I felt his rough, callused fingers press firmly into my shoulder. “I’d love to read your novel,” he said. “Feel free to send it anytime.”
Then I ran down the stairs, onto the street, and all the way to the corner, where I hailed myself a cab, feeling totally relieved I wasn’t nearly desperate enough to take him up on that offer.
By the time I made it to my door, all I wanted was a glass of wine, a hot shower, and a memory erase like the one I’d seen in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And now that Lisette was healed and back at work, I was really looking forward to having the place to myself.
I walked in, kicked off my shoes, and was just about to untie my dress when I noticed Lisette’s hairy, married captain dozing on my couch/bed, clad in nothing more than some ill-fitting tighty whities and a pair of black dress socks.
“What’re you doing?” I asked, dropping my purse and narrowing my eyes. I mean, two visual assaults in one night was truly cruel and unusual.
But he just grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.
“Where’s Lisette?” I asked, approaching him, determined to get an answer.
“Paris,” he mumbled, still not looking at me.
But I was looking at him. And was growing increasingly agitated at the sight of his half-naked body enjoying such close proximity to my bed. “This is not your apartment,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. “You don’t live here, you don’t pay rent, and you’re not allowed to stay here without Lisette.”
“She knows I’m here. So if you have a problem, you can take it up with her,” he said, giving me a smug look.
I glanced at his ring finger, noticing that the simple gold band had yet to be replaced, and suddenly I was so completely over this sloppy loser who made over ten times my salary yet insisted on parking his flabby ass on my bed. “For your information, I pay nine hundred dollars a month to sleep on that couch. So unless you want to reimburse me for the portion you’re currently occupying, I suggest you move it to the bedroom. Or better yet, take it home to your wife and kids.’?
And I stood there glaring at him, arms crossed and face burning, as he unplugged the TV, carried it into Lisette’s room, and locked the door behind him.
When I woke the next morning, the first thing I noticed was that the TV was back in its usual spot and the captain was long gone. And after crawling out of bed, I headed straight for Jonathan Franzen’s tank, tapping on the glass in a desperate attempt to get him to notice me. “Who’s the one that feeds you? Who’s the one that rescued you from that overly slick downtown hotel?” I asked. But he just hovered in the corner, bulging eyes staring off to either side, completely ignoring me. I continued tapping on the glass, hell-bent on getting just a crumb of acknowledgment for all of my efforts, when suddenly it occurred to me that as far as pets go, he was turning out to be pretty aloof and unsatisfying.
I headed to the kitchen and poured some cereal into a bowl, realizing I’d have to eat it in dry fistfuls since someone had taken liberties with my milk, polishing off all but the last two drops and leaving the empty carton in the fridge to avoid suspicion. And as I carried my dry goods back to bed, I knew that this phase in my life had definitely run its course, and it was time to start socking away some money so I could find a new place to live.
“I wish we could just skip the flight and go straight to the layover,” I told Clay, gazing at a completely stripped car on the side of the Van Wyck Expressway that’d been there for over a week now.
“Sing it, sister.” He nodded, inspecting his cuticles.
We were on the New York Airport bus, making our slow, traffic-clogged way toward JFK, where by some stroke of unprecedented luck (not to mention a whole lot of schedule swapping), we would be working a seven-hour-and-forty-five-minute flight to France. To be immediately followed by a nice, long layover in Paris.
“So what are you gonna do about your author friend?” Clay asked, glancing at me briefly, then back at his nails.
“Uh, nothing?” I shrugged, not interested in any further discussion on this particular topic.
“You want my opinion?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said, still looking out the window.
“I think you should take him up on his offer.”
“That’s because you’re not the one who suffered the full frontal assault. ’Cause I guarantee you would not be singing that tune if you saw what I saw. I’m telling you it was bad. Very, very bad.” I cringed at the memory.
“My point exactly,” he said, giving up on his nails and focusing on me. “Critiquing your manuscript is the least he can do after subjecting you to that.”
“Forget it,” I said, shaking my head. “I saw the price of admission, and I’m not paying the cover charge. No such thing as a free lunch, my friend.”
“But see, that’s the whole point. You’ve already paid the tab, so now it’s time to head for the counter and pick up your happy meal,” he insisted.
“No cover charge, no lunches, no happy meals, no critiques, and no more metaphors.” I unzipped my bag and retrieved my manuscript, along with the red pen I use for corrections. “Harrison Mann is like a literary casting couch. And I’m not auditioning,” I said, settling into chapter fifteen.
The second we walked into the flight attendant lounge I knew something was up. Normally the room was full of navy-clad people hurrying into briefing rooms, gossiping with friends, cursing at the computers and their forever-malfunctioning printers, or heading for the “sleep room” to catch a quick nap before the long day ahead. But today seemed quieter, less busy. Or at least on the surface. Because if you looked closer, you’d notice a whole lot of whispering and eye darting going on.
“Did you hear?” I looked up to see Kat striding toward us. “Over eight thousand employees are being furloughed. Pilots, flight attendants, gate agents, mechanics, ground crew.” She shook her head.
“What about the supervisors?” Clay asked, eyeing one of the laziest ones eating the last few pieces of popcorn from the machine they’d bought us a few months back, in an attempt to boost morale. So far I’d yet to get a single kernel. Now I know why.
“The OOs stay,” Kat said, directing a withering glance at the corpulent popcorn stealer. “Apparently shuffling papers and sniffing out uniform infractions is what keeps this airline afloat.”
Well, that explains it, I thought, looking at all the worried, angry faces. Our last CEO had just been awarded over twenty million dollars for bringing us to the verge of bankruptcy before saying his final “Buh-bye.” And now the rest of us would be taking the heat for the declining revenue in the form of threatening memos and pink slips.
If I thought I had it bad now, sleeping on an overpriced couch with only an antisocial fish for company, I couldn’t begin to imagine how I’d feel if I lost my job. Because even though I didn’t really like working for Atlas anymore, that didn’t mean I was ready to stop.
And now, with a possible layoff approaching, I had good reason to panic, since I’d spent the last few years cruising through life in an extended holding pattern, going around and around in circles but getting nowhere. And now, like it or not, I was being forced to land. And I wasn’t so sure I could bring it in safely.
“I think it’s time to retire,” Kat said, nodding her head firmly, as though she’d already put some thought into this and it wasn’t just some random statement.
“Are you serious?” I asked, waking from my own private thoughts, and looking at her in shock.
“Who am I kidding? The fun died years ago.” She shrugged.
Clay and I just stared at her, speechless. She was right about the fun—it had died years ago. Although Clay and I had never experienced the kind of fun she was referring to. Kat had flown in the days when air travel was considered a privilege, when people actually dressed up to get on a plane and being a stewardess was a much-sought-after, highly glamorous career choice.
By the time Clay and I came along, the entire industry had morphed into nothing more than a flying bus service—just a necessary evil to get from point A to point B. The glamour was gone, and the party was over—making me feel like that last, annoying guest who ignores the blinking lights and refuses to move on.
But before either of us could respond, the PA squawked, “Hailey Lane and Clay Stevens, please report to room number four immediately. You are late for briefing.”
“Where you off to?” I asked, grabbing my bags and following Clay.
“Athens,” Kat said, smiling as she took her place in the computer line.
I hadn’t flown to Europe in over
six months, and hadn’t dated a passenger during the last six years. But the cute guy in 2B was about to become the exception.
“So what’s going on?” Clay asked.
We were working in the “Business Select” galley, with Clay plating the meals as I delivered them to passengers. “Nothing,” I said, watching as he plucked a curled-up, overcooked piece of meat from its tinfoil container and carefully placed it on a plate of navy-edged Atlas china, then added a flourish of limp parsley for garnish. “Do you think they’ll ever catch on that we’re serving them TV dinners?” I asked, setting it on my linen-lined tray for delivery.
“Don’t change the subject,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel and looking at me.
“He’s cute.” I shrugged. “But you and I already made plans, remember?”
“You have my full permission to ditch me if he asks you out.”
“Seriously?” I asked, balancing the tray with one hand while reaching for the bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape with the other.
“Yup. Now go dazzle him with your home-cooked meal,” he said, pushing me out of the galley.
As I approached Mr. 2B, I thought about what I might say if he really did ask me out. Over the years, I’d kept to a strict policy of never dating a passenger. Which in light of the fact that four of those years were tied up with Michael, not to mention the fact that the majority of men I served weren’t exactly datable, really hadn’t been all that hard to keep.
But now, everything was different. And clearly the old rules no longer applied, as I was out of a boyfriend, and soon maybe even out of a job. So who was I to turn down an interesting diversion?
“You ordered the steak?” I placed it in front of him and tried not to cringe at how awful it looked. “Would you like more wine?” I offered, trying to distract him with the label.
He stared at the curled-up piece of meat, flanked by soggy, yellowish baby carrots and some kind of crispy beige starch that was either rice, potatoes, or cream of wheat. Then he looked at me and smiled. “Please tell me you’re not the chef,” he said, lifting his glass for a refill.