1 NOW In all my years as a flight attendant, I’ve never been late to work. Until today. My nose is so close to the center of the automatic doors at the Boston Logan Airport, I can smell the hot rubber wafting up from the base. As soon as the doors whoosh open, I step across the threshold and race through the airport, dodging a toddler tugging a Bluey suitcase and nearly smacking into a cloud of twenty-somethings clad in clothing that screams bachelorette party. My overly-aggressive arm swing causes my palm to get tangled on a pink and gold sash that drapes across the soon-to-be-bride. “Sorry!” I turn back and shout as my lower body keeps pumping ahead. I look down at my phone for a split second to check the time. I have two minutes to get to gate E-11 before my supervisor marks me as a no-show. Incoming text bubbles fill the screen. My work husband, Christopher, is wondering where the hell I am. I’ve been known as the “mother” of every flight, the one who shows up on time and always takes care of everyone else. It’s a red flag for me to be late.
The gate number is in my line of vision, the E and the 11 glowing against the brown backdrop. I lift my luggage and carry it. I stretch my strides out longer, pumping my free arm faster. If I appear as awkward as this movement feels, then I probably look like one of those wind-up toys that wobble side to side, their weight distribution off with each step. A brusque voice announces a missing passenger from the intercom. Thank God they don’t call out flight attendants when they’re late. The last thing I need is my departing and arriving colleagues at Velocity Airlines to know that I’ve missed a beat. I can’t let that happen. I have a reputation to uphold. It’s bad enough the inflight crew will know I’m late. It’s a good thing I already prepared my excuse. A line of passengers wind around the perimeter of the gate area. I bump shoulders with a suited man. When I go to apologize, he’s already turned around, an ear pressed to his phone. My bicep is burning from holding the luggage. It gives out when I get to the gate entrance, and I nearly topple over. Relief comes in a wave of heat crashing through my body. I offer a tight smile to the gate agent. She’s new and frazzled, and my supervisor, Ron Goldsmith, hovers over her like he does everyone. Ron doesn’t have time to lecture me. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and widens his eyes. I murmur,“Sorry, Ron.” I make sure to do all the things that make me look innocent. Press my lips together in an apologetic smile, scrunch up my nose and squint my eyes.
“We’re thirty minutes out from departure. Don’t apologize to me…apologize to your crew.” He rocks his head toward the tunnel that leads to the cockpit. “Sorry,” I apologize. “I will.” I almost fall forward as I walk the downward slope toward the plane. By the time I get on, Christopher has completed all our pre-flight checks, he’s prepared the cabin, and he’s standing erect at the entrance. He thinks I’m a passenger when I first approach. I know this because he smiles and starts to greet me. Then his face falls flat when he realizes it’s me. “Where the hell have you been, Sloane? Passengers board in ten.” He leaves his throne at the entrance of the cockpit and follows me to the overhead compartment where I have to hide my luggage. Crew luggage goes beneath the aircraft. It’s a major no-no to take up passenger space and if Ron finds out he’ll be rolling his eyes at me for our next seven flights together. “Sorry…long story. Josh had an incident at work and I had to help out.” The lie slips through my lips like all the others. Josh doesn’t exist. Being a flight attendant is kind of like being an actress. The second the pilot announces, “We are cleared for departure,” I slip into my role. It’s like the curtain opening on the stage, or the movie director announcing “lights, camera, action” from behind the lens. My persona, from the moment I slide into this ridiculous navy blue skirt suit, takes on an entirely different role. I glide my fingers along the red silk scarf that’s knotted at my throat. I tug on the edge of my sleeve, covering the scar on my wrist, as I tend to do.
After boarding is complete, I push my back to the rear of the jump seat and click the buckle in place across my waist. I loosen it up slightly. I hate the feeling of the polyester strap cutting across my stomach. It’s not like I have a whole lot of fat, but the small amount that bubbles up and over the belt will undoubtedly make me count calories and steps for the next five days. I need to play the flight attendant: poised, classy, yet effortlessly approachable. Excess weight will only get in the way of the persona I’ve created. I’m not proud of many of my life choices, but the creation and careful calculation of Sloane Keller is one that sits high on my list of accomplishments. A symphony of clicks and coughs plays out in the cabin. Christopher’s cologne pricks my nostrils. It’s a masculine scent with notes of pine and citrus. I’m no different than all the other single, straight women who board these planes…I too got tricked when Christopher announced he was gay. He’s six-foot-five, all rippled muscles, and a jawline that could cut through a piece of glass. Wide-set brown eyes with lashes that look as if they’re coated in black mascara. They’re not. I checked. I leaned in really close one day, inspecting the thickness and length, challenging him. “You wear mascara don’t you? There is no way you have lashes like that naturally.” It got to the point where I was tugging on his lashes with my index finger and thumb, trying to slide off some makeup residue. But as he’d promised, there was nothing. His lashes, like his full lips, tan skin, and deliciously white teeth are one hundred percent real. Over time, I’ve started to get a thrill watching the disappointment on women’s faces when he announces his preference for men. Suckers. I twist my head toward Christopher, where he is buckled in the jump seat beside me. “Was Ron pissy?” I ask the question I know the answer to. Ron Goldsmith is always pissy. He’s a firm believer in the glass being half empty. At all times. Miraculously, he manages to find the lack of a silver lining in all situations. On-time departures…the plane might crash. Kind passengers…they are fake. The muffins that Stephanie, the flight attendant who owns a five-star bakery, offers him at the start of every shift…too many nuts. The next time, there weren’t enough nuts. And then there are the constant reiterations of the latest newscast he watched. Yes, the world is falling apart and we are all going to die. Tomorrow. Always paired with an eye roll, of course. Christopher turns his head toward me, smooshing his cheek against the seat. He passes me a perfected eye roll. “Does he have any other way of being?” I nod. Ron Goldsmith has miraculously achieved the role of supervisor, a position that requires everyday interactions with people. It’s one of life’s great mysteries. I have to assume congeniality wasn’t considered on his climb up the ladder. Quite frankly, he’s a miserable human being. But, he, for what I’m imagining are obvious reasons, adores Christopher. “Coming from his knight in shining armor.” I laugh. “That’s only because he wants to hook up with me.” “I’m not doubting that.” I smile.
Christopher’s face transforms into an all-knowing grin. The captain’s voice cuts through the intercom, his words pushed together. “Flight attendants prepare for departure.” The clicks and grinds of the plane punch the air as we roll down the runway. “So, which one?” Christopher asks me the question he always does when we take off. Which passenger on the plane is going to cause the most problems? A plethora of victims pop into my head, past winners of our little contest. Sierra, the frightened passenger who let out intermittent screams the entire flight from Boston to LA. Rick, a.k.a. “Rick the Dick” who was a belittling asshole for five hours straight, making ridiculous demands as if he was a celebrity in first class. He was in coach, for the record. “I said light ice.” He pointed a stubby finger at his Diet Coke and demanded we remove half the cubes. I may or may not have spit in that cup. Then there was Leah, the woman who got intoxicated and refused to sit in her seat. She kept busting out of her seatbelt and dancing in the aisle as if she was part of some mile-high performance club. She was probably my favorite, especially when she attempted to give a lap dance to the eighty-year-old man in row fourteen. I lean as much as I possibly can to the right, craning my neck to see the options. My eyes scan the rows of passengers. The only people visible from this vantage point are the ones seated in the aisle. The rest are mostly tops of heads. A twenty-something girl with headphones on has one leg stretched out into the aisle. Her eyes are closed and mouth parted, the rest of her body lost in her baggy sweatshirt. The only thing showing is a bare bony shoulder that protrudes from the gray University of New Hampshire crewneck. She won’t be a problem. We’ll just need to tell her to pull her leg in, but chances are, she’ll sleep the entire flight. Like all the other hungover college kids we transport. “That one,” I say, the second my eyes land on the woman in row fourteen, seat C. She’s fanning her face with the emergency procedures pamphlet. I’m half a plane away from her but I can tell she’s sighing. Her chest expands and she lets her exhale ripple through pouted lips as she looks around. She wants someone to hear her, a fellow passenger to discuss the travesty of airlines with. She’ll moan how back in her day, people used to dress up for travel. Passengers used to get free meals, with a protein, a starch and a vegetable. Everyone was treated equally back then, not just the first-class snobs. My gaze lands on her shoes. Skechers. She’s high maintenance but cheap. She wants the support of a real sneaker but isn’t willing to pay the price for Nike, Brooks, or Saucony. But that won’t stop her from bitching-about the taxes, about all the things she can’t afford. The woman shakes her head in disbelief. I can imagine the thoughts that are spouting off inside her brain. What is this world coming to? People don’t have manners anymore. It’s not like it used to be. I watch her gaze shift to the young man sitting diagonally across from her. She taps him on his shoulder and he startles and spins in his seat, sitting up straighter. She says something to him with raised brows while she shakes her head in disgust. All I have to do is read the expressions to see what’s unfolding. It’s no different from all the other Karens that board this plane every day. The young man holds his phone up to her and shows her something on the screen, then he reaches for his headphones in the seat pocket in front of him. It’s not the first time I’ve seen this type of interaction, and it won’t be the last. It’s doubtful the volume was turned up loud. None of the other passengers were complaining. But there’s always one. One Karen. One Rick the Dick. One drunk. And one over-dramatic princess. It’s like a requirement in airline travel. “Classic Karen right there,” Christopher says, reading my mind. “I think we’re going to have more trouble with that one though.” He lifts his chin in the direction of a worried little boy. He can’t be older than eight. I swat a hand at him. “Eh, a worried kid has nothing on a nosey, overbearing Karen.” “I beg to differ.” Christopher keeps his gaze on the boy, and that’s when I see tears start to bubble, his hands cling to the armrests, and his teeth clench down into a nervous grin. “Oh, yeah…here we go.” After the captain gives us the okay to move around the cabin, Christopher and I go to work gathering the passengers’ drink orders. I silently scold myself for bumping the arm of a mom in the aisle seat. I’m strict with others, but even more so with myself. I don’t like misstepping. It’s an opportunity to shine light on me. I prefer to be bundled up and picture perfect so no one suspects a thing. I smile politely, nod to the necessary questions and move to the next row, scribbling the orders on the notepad in my palm. By the time I reach row ten, I’m exhausted from all the ridiculous requests. Can you make a Shirley Temple for my daughter? Do you have gluten-free pretzels? And then, of course, the expressions I get when I ask the passengers in the emergency exit seats if they’re prepared to use their strength to push the doors open if there is an emergency landing. One lady’s eyes expanded into two giant saucers, as if I were announcing to her in that very instant that we were in fact, nosediving to the ground. After I assured her it was a precaution and I needed her verbal confirmation that she would be physically capable of pushing the door open, she agreed, but I could still see the wheels spinning. The horrific images playing out in her head. This is nothing new. I witness it with the majority of passengers. Unless they are frequent flyers who are used to the bumps of turbulence and take-off procedures. But for those who only fly once or twice a year, there is always a signature look on their faces. Every pocket of turbulence puts them on edge, every announcement made by the captain drives their attention to the front of the plane. They perk up in their seats, eyes wide, hands knotted. The beauty of this position is that I have so much power. I could tell a passenger anything and they would believe me. People, in general, are clueless about how an airplane works. They don’t realize that it is four forces pulled together to create motion. Lift, gravity, thrust, and drag. That’s it in a nutshell. A whole bunch of physics and aerodynamics. Miraculously, row thirteen only has one passenger on the right side of the aisle. A man with his head turned toward the window and his eyes closed. Good, a sleeper. I start to proceed forward, checking one more row off my list, until his voice stops me. “I’ll take a coffee. Black. One sweetener.” I step back and pop a smile on my face, hiding my disappointment that he’s not sleeping. One more order. I jot the item on my notepad and keep my gaze on the aisle ahead, preparing to step forward again. The man shifts in his seat, and as soon as his voice hits the air again, I know I’m in trouble. “Hi, Nicole.” ...
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