Armed with the trash cart, the flight attendants head back into the aisle, where they are prodded in the ass with dirty fingers, half-full coffee cups, filthy diapers, sticky tomato juice cans, ball-point pens, mass-market paperbacks, CD jewel cases, coffee stir sticks, shoes, baby bottles, hairbrushes, thermoses, and one time even a small brown dachshund, as everyone assumes they are being ignored, when actually the crew is only trying to retrieve the items in the same order in which they were given.
Once the trash pickup is concluded, the cart is parked and flight attendants are back in the aisles, making themselves available for questions like:
“Did my bag make it on the flight?”
I’m not sure, but I’ll be right back.
“Am I going to make my connecting flight?”
I don’t know, hut I’ll he right hack.
“I liked our last crew better; they all had such cute Southern accents. Why don’t you have a cute Southern accent?”
I’ll have to check, hut Til he right hack.
On final approach, when flight attendants are required to walk through the cabin performing the FAA-mandated safety check, suddenly the majority of passengers are all too happy to roll up their sleeves and pitch in by pointing out every infraction, real or imagined, that their seatmates may be engaging in.
When the plane finally arrives at the gate and the door is opened, all passengers swiftly leap into the aisle, engaging in a rowdy, pushing, shoving stampede toward the exit. Yet once it’s their turn to step off the airplane and into the jetway, they each stop, smile, and say “thank you” to
the pilots
for providing such a wonderful flight.
When the last person has deplaned, the flight attendants make a mad dash into the terminal, running past fifty unwanted, unclaimed, empty wheelchairs—
because wheelchairs get off last
—in an attempt to purchase and consume a dinner from Starbucks in just under eight minutes flat.
And then boarding is announced, and the wheelchairs are quickly claimed, thus beginning an encore performance.
We call this “The Miracle Flight,” since immediately upon landing everyone is miraculously ambulatory again. And it is always like that. And it never varies. And now I was actually feeling depressed about the possibility of getting booted from one of our longest-running shows.
“So how long are you staying?” Clay asked, waking me from my reverie.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I have ten days off, but I’ll probably only stay for a few. I’m getting kind of panicked about the layoffs. I mean, have you even thought about what you’ll do if it happens?” I grabbed a handful of trail mix and looked at Clay.
“Yeah, I’m thinking about going back to school, and finishing my master’s. Peter said he’d help me with the finances.” He shrugged. “Do you ever think about going back to school?”
“I do now. Though in my case it would be to finish up my undergrade I shook my head and took a sip of wine. “We’ve really been living in a bubble, you know? I mean, I used to think this job was so great, and I truly believed the low pay was worth it because of all the fun we were having. But now, six years later, what do I have to show for it? A passport full of stamps, a plastic key card collection from the cheapest hotels in America, some amusing anecdotes, and that’s about it.”
“What are you saying?” he asked, giving me a worried look.
“I’m saying that I’m right back where I started six years ago. Single, with no idea of what comes next. You know, after all that happened with Michael, I tried to convince myself that it was the dawn of an exciting new time, a second chance, a whole new beginning. But now I realize I’m just stuck. And I haven’t made an inch of progress.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. And now Atlas is gonna have the last word, and I’ll be out on the street.”
“You’ll be out on the avenue. Fifth Avenue.”
“You know what I mean.” I looked at him.
“Well, what about your book? What’s going on with that?” he asked, motioning to the bartender for the check.
I just shrugged. I was in full-on self-pity mode now, which meant I wasn’t really into talking about
possibilities.
“You know, you could call that author guy, Harrison Whatever. Or you could rewrite it like that editor suggested.”
“But I don’t want to do either of those things,” I said, taking a sip of my wine.
“But sometimes you don’t get to choose.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I looked at him.
“Only you can decide how desperate you are. Only you know how bad you really want it, and just how far you’ll go to get it.”
“You urging me to sell out?” I asked, searching his face, curious where he was going with this.
“I’m urging you to explore your options and keep your mind open.” I He shrugged, dropping a twenty onto the bar.
I should have been happy. I was headed to Greece, to visit an island I’d only seen in glossy travel magazines, where I’d stay in a luxurious villa with a good friend and her new boyfriend whom I was very curious to meet. But as I headed up Madison Avenue, gazing into shop windows displaying clothes I knew I’d never be able to afford, I started to feel panicked in a way that I hadn’t fully admitted to Clay.
Recently I’d read some hateful statistic stating that 75 percent of women are married by the time they reach their twenty-seventh birthday. So you can only imagine the statistics for the over-twenty-eight crowd. And it’s not that I necessarily wanted to get married, or even have kids for that matter. (Dogs yes, but kids?) But something about those numbers made me feel so solitary and isolated—like that lone species, left on the dock, that all the other animals on the ark refused to mate with.
I mean, how did so many women figure out so quickly just who to spend the rest of their lives with?
It was true that most of my friends were married, and the majority
of them seemed pretty happy. And even though their husbands were nice, with no glaring personality disorders or fatal character flaws, I had to admit that nothing about them struck me as all that remarkable. And even though just a short time ago I too had been all too willing to settle, now that I’d narrowly escaped a mediocre mingle, I couldn’t help but wonder if merely being “nice” was really enough?
I mean, until
death
do you part?
I felt like I’d been on some crazy, never-ending scavenger hunt, like I was the only person still searching for that last, elusive item, while everyone else, pleased with their findings, had packed it up and gone home early. And if I ended up with the treasure, then clearly I’d win. But what if it didn’t even exist? What if the idea of an exciting, toe-curling relationship was just another urban myth? And what if I was the last one to figure this out?
Where would that leave me?
Making my way toward the park, I crossed the street and headed for my building. And even though I had errands to run and bags to pack, I wasn’t quite ready to go inside. So I leaned against the wall and watched all the people go by.
I loved living here, in this tough, annoying, grimy, wonderful city. I loved how on the surface it was rude and abrasive, until you looked closely and noticed that the guy at the deli actually smiled at you, or that your cab driver waited till you got safely inside your building. But if I lost my job at Atlas, I didn’t know if I’d be able to stay. Since in a city full of overeducated, overqualified, hungry,
young
professionals, I wasn’t so sure there was a place for me.
“Hailey?”
I looked up to see Dane holding a long, brown leather leash with a beautiful chocolate lab attached to the end, while Cadence and some blonde I’d never seen before walked alongside him.
“Hey,” I said, patting the dog’s soft brown coat and letting him sniff at my face and lick my hands.
“This is Jake.” He smiled. “And of course you know Cadence, and this is her friend Evie.”
I looked up and smiled at the ever-glorious Cadence, and her almost equally gorgeous friend. Then I focused back on the dog, putting my face close to his and scratching behind his ears. “Oh, I’m so jealous. I love dogs, and this one’s perfect,” I said, glancing at Dane and noticing that Cadence was watching me just a little too closely.
“So, remind me how you two know each other?” she asked, still looking at me.
“Long story.” I shrugged, in no mood to recap. Besides, it wasn’t like Dane and I were friends. I mean, I could barely stand the guy. As far as I was concerned the only thing he had going for him was this amazing dog.
“I was late for a flight and bumped Hailey from her seat. And she was in such a hurry to move she left her manuscript behind,” Dane said, smiling happily and making me wonder if he’d ever stop showing up just so he could torture me, or if I should just learn to tolerate it, since obviously, this is what fate had in store.
“You’re a writer?” Cadence asked, her eyes going wide while Evie decided it was now her turn to look me over.
Was I a writer? Uh, not according to Martina at Chance Publishing, and surely not next to her. “No, it was just. . . I’m not all that serious about it. I mostly just write for myself,” I said, inwardly rolling my eyes at that, but there was no way I was furthering this discussion.
But she just stood there in her designer sweats, gazing at me. And then cute, blond, six-hundred-dollar-shag-haircut Evie glanced at her diamond-encrusted TAG Heuer watch and said, “Well, we should go if we want to be on time.”
I watched as Cadence hugged Dane, peering at me from over his shoulder. And when they left, he turned to me and said, “Mind if we join you?” Then he settled against the wall while Jake lay at my feet, his head resting on top of my shoes. “Look at that.” Dane
shook his head. “He has no loyalties. I’ve been taking care of him for years now. But do you think he cares? The first pretty girl he sees, and it’s like I don’t even exist.”
I just shrugged and gazed down at the lab, thinking how slimy it was for Dane to start flirting with me, like, the second his girlfriend was gone.
“Do you have any pets?” he asked.
“Well, I’m a nanny for three well-to-do cats, and I also have a goldfish. You know one of those black ones with the bulging eyes? I rescued him from the good life at the SoHo Grand, but I have no idea why. He’s arrogant, aloof, and dead set on ignoring me. He’s lucky I don’t flush him,” I said, bending down to pet the top of Jake’s head.
“What’s his name?” Dane looked at me and smiled.
“Jonathan Franzen.”
“Jake is named after a character in
Chinatown,”
he said.
“Jake Gittes? Oh, I love that movie,” I told him, surprised that he had such good taste in films.
“So, did you catch the bouquet?” he asked.
I squinted at him. What a weird question, considering what I’d been thinking before he showed up.
“The last time I saw you? The Bridesmaids’ Ball? The polyester dress? The lacy shoes?”
“Oh, that. And it was taffeta, by the way, not polyester,” I corrected him. “And no. Believe it or not there were several people wearing much uglier dresses than mine.”
“You’re joking.”
“Nope, mine was definitely one of the better ones. Don’t forget, I was up against dresses from the eighties.”
“Oh, right, shoulder pads.” He nodded.
I looked at him, eyebrows raised.
“My mom and sisters were addicted to
Dynasty.”
He shrugged.
I smiled and focused my attention back on Jake, making soft, lazy circles on his head.
“Listen, I know it’s short notice, but are you free this weekend?” he asked. “There’s another party I think you might be interested in. I know I should have called earlier, but I just found out about it.”
“Thanks, but I can’t,” I told him. “I’m leaving for Greece tomorrow.”
He just looked at me and shook his head. “Wow. You come up with the most exotic excuses of anyone I know.”
“I’m a flight attendant.” I shrugged.
“So is this a work thing?” he asked.
I shook my head, not wanting to explain how I was using my benefits one last time before I might lose them forever. “I’m just going for a few days. Visiting a friend.”
“Well, what about now?”
“What?” I looked at him.
“Right now. You’re still in Manhattan, I don’t see any luggage—what do you say? Wanna have dinner with me?”
“Um . . .”
Crap, he’s looking at yon waiting for an answer, and you better come up with something quick, because there’s no way yon’re having dinner with this guy.
“Well, I really need to get upstairs and pack,” I said finally.
“Maybe so, but you still gotta eat. Besides, I promise to get you home early. Come on.” He smiled.
“But what about Cadence?” I asked.
There, how you gonna get around that?
“She’s doing a signing at Border’s.” He shrugged, looking kind of puzzled.
I looked at him, looking at me. Well, I was hungry. And my refrigerator was empty. And I was getting really sick of takeout. “Okay,” I said. “But only if you promise not to talk about writing.”