Coffee, Tea or Me? (25 page)

He threw up twice.

He spilled his milk all over the seat.

He ran up and down the aisle yelling, “Batman. Batman.” An air force major grabbed him by the arm and whispered something in his ear. Johnny returned to his seat.

“What’d you say to him?” I asked the major.

“I told him I was the Penguin in disguise and that I was planning to throw him out of the airplane unless he sat down.”

“Very effective. I’ll remember that.”

Johnny refused to leave the galley when we asked him to do that little thing. “I don’t have to,” he whined, and stuck his tongue out at us.

Rachel looked around to make sure no one else was watching. Then, she took a knife from a compartment in the buffet and pointed it at Johnny. “Oh yes you do, little boy,” she said with a sinister snarl on her face. He took the hint, but not before showing us his tongue on the way out.

Ten minutes later, his mother stormed back into the galley.

“My boy said you tried to cut him with a knife.”

“Not us, ma’am.”

“He never lies.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t, ma’am.”

“I’ll report you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Johnny stayed in his seat for the rest of the trip. His mother glared at us all the way to Chicago. As we got close to arrival, we decided it wouldn’t be such a good idea to have his mother report us. We felt it might be wise from a practical sense to make amends. We tried, as Johnny and his mother passed by us at the open cabin door.

“It sure was nice having you fly with us today, Johnny,” Rachel said happily, leaning over to make sure he heard her.

Johnny answered her. He stood on his tiptoes and whispered in Rachel’s ear. His mother grabbed him by the back of the neck and marched him out of the airplane. “You’ll hear about this,” she threatened. There was no doubt we would.

“What did he say to you?” I asked her after they’d passed out of sight.

“He said, ‘I hate you, you stupid doo-doo head.’ ”

“Oh.”

“His father made a great mistake having that boy. Someone ought to send them some birth-control literature.”

“Amen,” I agreed.

Of course we heard from Johnny’s mother. Our supervisor called us in to answer for the mother’s letter, which had gone to the president. We told her the story.

“Look, I understand,” she said, “but no knives, OK?”

“OK.”

We’ve had other little boys and girls on our flights who could have benefited from a few threats, backed up with the blade of a knife. But we’d learned our lesson. We’re now more subtle, and tell them things like, “Why don’t you play outside awhile?”

As we said, parents are usually to blame when a child causes trouble on a flight. We realized we were correct in this feeling after taking care of children who were flying unaccompanied. Remove them from mommy and daddy, and they behave beautifully.

If a child is even halfway good on a flight, he or she can be a delight. Children make a lot more sense than many of the adults we’ve flown with. In fact, not all the passengers who require baby-sitting services are children.

It was a night coach from Miami to New York and seemed like a quiet night. But when I went back for a routine check of the seats, I found I was missing two people. I remembered that an older couple had come aboard and I recalled seeing them go into the lavatory. Perhaps they were still there. I checked—they weren’t. I counted passengers again. Two short. I told the other stew. She said, “Come off it, Trudy,” and began counting with an air of great superiority. She came up two short. Together we checked every cranny of the plane—including the johns and the galley. Nothing.

Finally I went up to the captain “Now, look. Don’t say I’m crazy, but two people are missing. They just couldn’t have walked off, but we don’t know where they are.”

The captain walked down the aisle looking at the passengers—some asleep, some reading. Suddenly he let out a yell, “Come here, you’ll never believe this.”

He was looking up at the rack above the seats where pillows and blankets are kept. There curled up in the overhead rack were our two missing tourists, nicely clothed in pajamas, covered with blankets, and sound asleep. I guess they’d always traveled by train before, so they’d figured the racks were berths and just climbed up and turned in. Well, that whole plane broke up. There wasn’t anyone on board who wasn’t laughing hysterically.

I must remember to tell Aunt Laconia about my sleeping beauties.

It was a great party, but hardly worth a thirty-day suspension.

The get-together, an impromptu one, was in honor of a departing stewardess. She was leaving the glamour of the sky for the altar, an event not to be questioned and most certainly to be celebrated.

The celebration began with six of us. It turned into a loud, sloppy ruck within an hour after we toasted our first glass of champagne to the bride-to-be. It ended at 3 A.M.

Rachel and I stayed until the bitter end despite having to work a 10 A.M. trip the next morning. It flashed through our minds a couple of times how tired we’d be, but it wouldn’t be the first time. And we never gave a thought to the rules prohibiting a crew member from drinking twenty-four hours before a flight. That sort of regulation made sense for the men who had to fly the airplane. But it didn’t make much sense for stewardesses. A good toothbrushing, breakfast, a few mints, and no one would be the wiser. Right?

We were checking in with dispatch when we were handed the note.

“What do we have to report to the supervisor for?” I mumbled as we went to her office.

“Maybe we’re going to be commended,” was Rachel’s suggestion.

“Yeh. Like the first trip we made.”

Our supervisor at this period was a pretty good gal. She seemed sincerely regretful as she said, “Sorry girls, but I’ve got to give you both thirty-dayers.”

“What for?” We were just as sincere in our ignorance.

You could almost feel sorry for our supervisor. She hesitated, looked down at her desk and said apologetically, “Drinking within twenty-four hours of a trip.”

“The party last night?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

“Oh, come on. Who the hell sticks that close to that twenty-four ruling? The place was crawling with stews.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t make this up. I’ve got the word to suspend you for thirty days. And I can’t do a thing about it.”

The real implications began to sink in at this point. How did they know about the party and the time it broke up?

“How did you know?”

Our supervisor quickly handed us the suspension notices and got up to leave. “I’m sorry.” She walked out of her office.

George Kelman savored a crisp piece of sausage pizza as he thought about our tale of woe. It was the first night of our suspension and George, already aware of what happened, arrived with the pizza pies and a sympathetic shoulder.

“Well, now you’ll believe me when I talk about stew-spies.”

“You think that’s what happened to us?” Rachel quizzed.

“No doubt about it.”

“Who?”

“Never know.” He started on another piece but discarded it for lack of cheese. “Wish they wouldn’t skimp on cheese. Cheese is the best part.”

“Who’s the stew-spy who turned us in?”

“As attuned as I am to the whole stewardess scene, I have to admit ignorance in this matter. I know there are stew-spies but I don’t know who they are. But this might be a good time to figure it out. Who was at that party?”

We started to think back and realized most of the people crashed the party. We didn’t know 80 percent of them. We told George this.

“That’s a shame. But I’ll check into it further. That’s a promise.” He left our apartment with all the grim determination of a CIA man embarking on a highly dangerous assignment.

“Good luck, George,” we yelled after him.

He completed the role he was playing by muttering grimly over his shoulder, “I’ll need it.”

We got jobs as salesgirls in a department store to tide us over during our suspension. George wasn’t heard from again for two weeks. When he did call us, he was breathless with excitement.

“I’ve got to see you tonight, Rachel.”

He came to the apartment at eleven that night. We’d worked late at the store, and he massaged Rachel’s feet as I made drinks. When I served them, he rose from the couch and paced the room, hands behind his back, face furrowed in concentration.

“It’s atrocious, girls. Abominable. A disgrace on every airline.”

I know it was cruel to break his train of thought but my feet hurt, too. “George, how about rubbing my feet.”

He beat his fist against his head. “Rub your feet? Really, Trudy. I’m about to unfold a story of deceit and duplicity in front of you, and you worry about your aching feet. Really!”

“I’m sorry, George. But we’ve been standing all night and . . .”

“Enough of this. Do you want to know about the stew-spies who were responsible for your suspension?”

“You bet,” we screamed in his ear, our sore feet forgotten.

“OK. Now listen.” He resumed his pacing. “Would you believe your airline has a dozen girls working as stew-spies?”

We reacted with proper surprise.

“Yes, a dozen. Maybe some are your very best friends. What do you think of that?”

“Horrible. Which one turned us in?”

“I don’t know.”

We were naturally disappointed. We had expected him to tell us who the culprit was who caused us our thirty-day stint at the department store.

“What are you girls disappointed about?” he snapped at us. “I can’t work miracles. Anyway, I did find out how they work. Listen to this. All twelve girls are regular stews and collect their salaries just like you do. But the airline has a contract with a private detective agency in Chicago. And that agency has the twelve girls on their payroll, too. They collect double and work as spies. Nasty, huh?”

We agreed.

He went on. “Now, I’m going to Chicago and follow up on this whole thing. Maybe I can find out the names of the girls. This whole thing really has me upset. I always knew there were stew-spies but never really saw any damage they’d caused. Now I’m outraged.”

George made two trips to Chicago but never found out who the girls were on the double payroll. We finished our month in the toy department of the store and resumed our flying careers. The worst part of the experience was the mistrust it implanted in us. We didn’t trust anyone anymore. Every girl we worked with assumed a traitor’s mask, each her own stool pigeon in this despicable plot.

However, despite George’s failure to uncover the names of the girls, we came up with a prime suspect of our own. Her name was Janis Pool, and she talked too much about stew-spies and how terrible they were. She hated to be questioned about what she knew, but seemed possessed by the subject. We asked George about her.

“I ran down a dossier on Janis Pool,” he told us, “and she could be a stew-spy. Very definitely could be. Too much money for just a stew with one income. Lives alone. Always bids Chicago and gets it. Keeps to herself. Loves to talk about stew-spies.”

“We’ve noticed that, too, George. You really think she’s one of them?”

“Can’t say for sure. But she’s a strong possibility. I’ll check further.”

We didn’t wait for later findings by George Kelman. Janis Pool was it, we decided. She had to be.

“Was she at the party?” I asked Rachel.

“I didn’t remember her. But I don’t remember most of the people, do you?”

“No.”

But the girl for whom the party was given did remember Janis Pool showing up. “She came in about midnight and only stayed for a drink or two.”

That did it. Janis Pool was our Nathan Hale and would have to be dealt with.

We began a day-by-day harassment of the suspect. First, on an evening trip, we broke open one of the small ammonia vials used to revive fainting passengers and placed it in the oxygen mask used by us to demonstrate proper technique to passengers before take-off. Janis was all smiles as she held the mask in her hands waiting for me to read the instructions over the PA. I began reading and she placed the mask to her face in accordance with my words. She almost died. She sputtered and coughed, tears carrying makeup down her face, as she plunged into the buffet area.

“Why did you do this to me?” she cried as we stood there in gaping amazement at her condition.

“Do what?”

“Put the ammonia in the mask.”

“Janis, don’t look at us. Must have been one of those nasty cabin cleaners. That’s who must have done it.”

“I’ll get his ass fired,” she threatened through her weeping.

“I’ll bet you can, Janis,” Rachel said.

“You bet I can,” Janis reiterated.

We pulled all sorts of very silly and sophomoric tricks on Janis Pool, each helping us rid ourselves of deep-seated feelings of vindictiveness. Our decision, a kangaroo-court one, was that Janis Pool was a stew-spy and had turned us in to management. We couldn’t see any further. We called her at odd hours and hung up. We took messages from her box and enjoyed her problems when she didn’t answer them or take the appropriate action. We even spilled things on her in the buffet, an especially nasty trick because stewardesses usually maintain only one uniform.