Cruising Attitude (14 page)

One of the strangest things for me in the beginning was to really connect and work well with a flight attendant, only to part ways so quickly, so coldly, as if I’d imagined the whole thing. Before the flight would even touch ground, all that we’d shared had already been tucked away and zipped up like a passenger’s discarded gossip magazine inside a flight attendant’s tote bag for the next flight. I have no idea how many of these moments accumulated before it was I who took off without a proper good-bye. I started doing it on the phone, too. As soon as I hear we’re heading down that road, I cut it off and hang it up—literally. Drives whoever is on the other end of the call nuts!

As for Georgia, I missed the wedding. At least I think I did. Because I never did get the invitation in the mail. To this day I have no idea whether or not Georgia and what’s his name even tied the knot. I never would have thought the last time I’d ever see Georgia would be the morning she climbed into a Kew Gardens cab and waved good-bye through an open window. We spoke a few times over the phone after she left. She had begun working for a reputable makeup line at a mall in North Carolina. I’d tell her all about the crazy passengers, weird flight attendants, celebrities sitting in first class, hot pilots who didn’t ask me out, long layovers in wonderful cities like Chicago, Boston, Denver, Miami, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle, and she’d tell me about the latest lipstick shades and the best moisturizers for fair and dry skin. Our conversations became shorter as I found myself holding back, playing down my travel experiences because even to my own ears my life sounded so much more exciting than it actually was. I lived a lifetime in three days compared to Georgia. Whenever a trip would end I always felt like I’d been gone for weeks, not just for a couple of days. Though no one on the ground seemed to notice I’d even left. At work my life was on fast-forward, while at home it seemed to come to a complete stop. At the same time I had to figure out a way to not give Georgia the wrong impression. I didn’t want to make her think that perhaps she’d made a mistake.

One day I dialed her number only to be greeted by a computerized voice informing me the number had been disconnected. At first I didn’t think much of it. I assumed she had moved and would eventually be in touch. I never heard from her again.

It took a long time to realize Georgia had “broken up” with me, but it’s true what they say about one door closing and another opening. While Georgia packed up her things, I dialed the number scribbled across the beverage napkin. A flight attendant had given it to me on my last flight, even though I had told her I didn’t know of anyone looking for a place to live. Imagine her surprise when I called her that very same day. I told her I didn’t need to see the place to know I’d be moving in—I recognized an emergency situation when I saw one, and there was no way I could deal with Victor’s antics without Georgia. So what if I couldn’t afford the extra fifty bucks for my own room? If that meant starving into a smaller dress size to afford the $200-a-month room, so be it.

I
HAD ONLY BEEN
in my new crash pad for two days when I became Yakov’s wife. My new roommates and I had no idea who called code enforcement about illegally rented rooms, tied-up street parking, and general neighborhood shoddiness, but someone thought we were a public nuisance and wanted us out. Yakov, the homeowner and our landlord, cheerfully informed the two enforcement officers standing on our doorstep that we were
not
renters; we were family. That’s how I became the wife of Yakov, an overweight and frequently sweaty Russian cab driver. Lucky me. Yakov then pointed to my roommate Jane and said, “My sister.” Jane’s eyes bugged out of her head, but she forced a smile and nodded. Our five other roommates were working, but unbeknownst to them we were now cousins. The men in suits didn’t blink an eye. Still, they wanted to see the place, so Yakov gave them a quick tour and like that they were gone. I could only wonder what I’d gotten myself into.

Yakov had bought the two-story foreclosure in Forest Hills, a prestigious section of Queens, for $200,000 ten years before I moved in. At least that’s the story I heard. The home had five bedrooms, two of which were illegally constructed, and each went for $200 a month. At one time my bedroom had been the other half of the living room and Jane slept in what had once been a sunroom. Tricia, Grace, and Agnes had the three bedrooms on the second floor and two commuters, Dee Dee and Paula, split the attic, which wasn’t half bad for $75 a person.

Yakov lived in the basement. None of us had ever seen the inside of the apartment he called home, nor did we want to. We were too afraid of what we might find—a dead body, a blowup doll, a closet full of women’s clothing, or even worse, our clothing. We just didn’t know. After my experience with Victor, I knew anything was possible. Every time I took the short flight of steps outside our house down to Yakov’s door, where he’d hung a wooden box for us to drop off the rent, I worried that he might be walking out at the exact same time. I didn’t want an accidental glimpse of whatever lurked inside!

There was no explanation for our fears except that Yakov did things a little differently. He used kerosene to remove the linoleum floor. He kept a carton of eggs and a block of cheese on a concrete wall outside in the backyard under the green-and-white-striped awning that hung above his door, just a few steps away from the back door of the house. He wore the same blue sweatpants, bunched up around his gigantic calves, with thin white socks and brown leather lace-up shoes that had seen better days. While he’d hole up in the basement avoiding us at all costs, we always knew when he was home because Lucy, the dog, would disappear. We even knew when he was on his way home because Lucy, the psychic dog, would start barking nonstop twenty minutes before his yellow cab would pull into the drive.

Despite all that, life with Yakov turned out to be pretty good. Except when he had late-night poker games down in his basement apartment with a group of cabbie friends we’d never see but always hear, their thick accents getting louder and louder while smoke grew thicker and thicker. Always the first to break was Jane. She believed in nipping things in the bud. At five-feet-two, she wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all Yakov. With her light brown, shoulder-length hair tied in a topknot, she’d hop out of bed, stand at the opened back door, and hiss into the night, “Yakov! Stop smoking! And keep it down, down there!” Then she’d stomp through the house in her Birkenstocks and a long white terry-cloth robe to let him know she meant business. Yakov never acknowledged Jane’s weekly scolding, and things would actually quiet down for a little while until once again the cycle would repeat itself and Jane would toss aside a copy of
Runner’s World
, slide her tiny feet into her man shoes and exclaim, “What’s wrong with him, it’s one o’clock in the morning!” as she passed through the living room where the rest of us sat watching late-night TV if we didn’t have an early trip the following morning.

Jane had no problem letting all of us, including Yakov, know when we were out of line. Rules were meant to be followed.

“I don’t mind your germs,” Jane once said to me, holding a container of toilet bowl cleaner while still in uniform after having worked a trip. “But not theirs!” She glared at the ceiling. Apparently one of our roommates had walked out of
our
bathroom, not hers, and announced she’d been up all night scratching. Bed bugs, I assumed. “It’s safe to use now,” Jane said.

Flight attendants work with the public in confined spaces with recycled air for hours on end, so germs are a major concern. It’s why so many of us are addicted to antibacterial hand lotion. No joke, flight attendants alone probably keep Purell in business. This is also why our work shoes were not allowed to enter the house—a Jane-enforced contamination-free zone. On layovers Jane wore flip-flops in the hotel rooms and always used a washcloth placed on the bathroom counter to protect her toiletries. A shower cap became the perfect buffer for the remote control. Comforters went straight to the floor, since it was common knowledge they were rarely, if ever, cleaned. Hotel tubs were doused with a sprinkle of Bon Ami Jane kept inside a Ziploc baggie and scrubbed with a sponge tucked inside her tote bag at all times (and replaced often). Because there were rumors of flight attendants using coffeepots to wash out their hose, and because I myself had once witnessed a housekeeper using the same rag on the toilet seat and the rim of a glass, coffeepots and glasses got dunked in scalding hot soapy water for a good ten minutes before being used.

A no-nonsense woman with a little-girl voice, Jane went green way before it became popular. She’d collect newspapers and empty cans on flights even if she were landing at an airport that did not recycle. In 1995, most did not. Ten years later things weren’t much different. In 2006, the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reported after a yearlong study that the U.S. airline industry discarded enough aluminum cans each year to build fifty-eight Boeing 747 airplanes and discarded nine thousand tons of plastic and enough newspapers and magazines to fill a football field to a depth of more than 230 feet. Even today what flight attendants collect on board is not recycled at many airports, particularly the smaller ones, though most airports do have recycling stations available throughout the terminals. And while you may see flight attendants collecting aluminum cans and newspapers on most of your flights, many are doing this of their own accord in hopes that somehow the neatly sorted collection will miraculously make its way to a recycling station. Jane was no different. From time to time “trash” would even make its way home where she could dispose of it properly. Nothing too crazy, just an empty water bottle here and a rinsed out paper cup from Starbucks there, random things she’d acquire over the course of a three-day trip. Jane was so passionate about protecting the environment that one houseguest decided it might be easier to pack a small bag of garbage inside her suitcase and fly home with it than sort it the way Jane had instructed.

Even though Jane was into organic food and I liked Chef Boyardee, we got along surprisingly well and quickly became good friends. Even after I caught her regifting a shirt I bought for her birthday. She made no apologies about it, either. That’s what I liked about her, along with the fact that she could be super sweet, the kind of person who’d run, literally, two miles to the grocery store in a foot of snow to buy oranges when I got sick. When I began feeling down about the way things were going—more like not going—with Brent, Jane would write words of encouragement on Post-it notes and stick them on the bathroom mirror for me to find in the morning. And she was funny, too. Only Jane could make me laugh after Brent refused to take me to the airport because his favorite wrestling show was going to be on television. He gave me two choices. Either he could take me to the airport two hours early or I could call a cab. I did what any other flight attendant wouldn’t do. I took a cab. Most of my colleagues will walk three miles uphill in a foot of snow to save a buck. That’s how much I liked Brent. Plus, I didn’t want to spend a second longer than absolutely necessary at an airport when I could be on the couch with him. And Hulk Hogan.

Jane had a killer figure that disappeared under the polyester tent she wore to work. Like me, Jane was still on probation, so her dress had yet to be altered. Since she was just two weeks behind me in seniority, we made a pact to do it together and then go out and celebrate our short hemlines, which, believe it or not, we looked forward to more than using our passes for the first time. That’s how dowdy we looked compared to our more senior coworkers. Imagine our excitement when that day finally came, followed by shock when Jane showed the seamstress exactly where she wanted her hem to fall and the seamstress barked in broken English, “No—uniform!”

Unfazed, Jane said, matter-of-fact as can be, “Do it.”

The woman shook her head violently. “Uniform—too short!”

After a good ten minutes of this we finally got our way, but we never did hear the end of it. Whenever we’d walk by the dry cleaning shop where the seamstress worked behind a sewing machine in the front window, she’d stop working on what she had in her hands and slowly shake her head at us. And every time, Jane would yell out, “Not too short!”

Turns out, we didn’t go short enough, because one day while jogging the famous Venice boardwalk on a layover in California, Jane spotted the captain from her flight, a real ladies’ man with Robert Redford hair and a reputation for dating flight attendants. He was headed her way on rollerblades.

“Hey!” Jane called out to him as he passed her by.

He came to a stop immediately, smiling at the brown-haired beauty wearing short shorts and a jog bra. “Well, hello, little lady. I’m Brad.” He held out a hand.

She just looked at him. “I know who you are. I’m on your trip!”

Later on, she complained, “It’s like they have no idea we have butts and boobs under those dresses!”

Even so, pilots loved Jane. This is because Jane believed in treating everyone fairly, which meant she always offered the cockpit food even if they weren’t scheduled to eat on a leg. This is not the norm. It’s an unwritten rule that flight attendants get first dibs on any leftovers from their cabin before offering anything to other members of the crew. Then, after every flight attendant has had an opportunity to eat, we
might
call the pilots to see if they’re hungry. If they are, we’ll offer an entrée. That’s it. No extras. But Jane treated pilots like first-class passengers, offering up hot towels, appetizers, two different kinds of bread, and both dessert choices if she had them, which is why it came as no surprise when she broke up with a mountain climber from Denver and started dating a pilot she met on a flight from San Diego. Whenever she’d get an earful from another flight attendant for giving pilots “our” food, Jane would just say, “It’s not
their
fault our union’s negotiating skills suck.” She had a point. On domestic routes crew meals were not in our contract.

At my airline before 9/11, flight attendants working domestic routes were catered “snack packs” instead of crew meals. These snack packs consisted of a cat-sized portion of canned tuna, a couple of crackers, a packet of mayo, a brownie, and the smallest apple ever grown on U.S. soil, all thrown inside a plastic drawstring bag. After 9/11, the not-so-filling snack packs were replaced with zilch, while pilots continued receiving the same crew meals they always had. Imagine working a twelve-hour day sustained only by white dinner rolls and soda while having to serve the cockpit a steak with veggies and a baked potato with all the accoutrements, and a slice of cheesecake on the side. Who wouldn’t be resentful? Now, flight attendants have no choice but to bring food from home, which isn’t always easy to do on a multiple-day trip, and which is why Jane’s attitude toward pilots’ food was so rare.

Jane was definitely unique, kind of like the house we lived in. It was in desperate need of a paint job and stood out from the other immaculate homes on the quiet tree-lined street in more ways than one. A cracked walkway led up to three lopsided steps and an aggressively overgrown bush blocked what otherwise would have been a lovely view into Jane’s bedroom window, which would have been the sunroom if the house had not been illegally converted to add more rooms. All the homes in the neighborhood possessed the same floor plan, which might be why our elderly neighbor across the street spent the better part of his days staring at that very bush, which was all that stood between him and knowing what was
really
going on inside a house full of attractive women, an odd Russian cab driver, and a frequently barking border collie. Some days our dear neighbor would walk outside and pretend to collect the newspaper (his neighbor’s), or take out the garbage (on noncollection days), or water the grass (that had already been watered), all in an effort to get a better look at us. We’d smile and wave. He’d turn around and walk inside. All the navy blue polyester and rolling bags in the world didn’t seem to tip him off, and eventually he reported “the whorehouse” to police. When a couple of cops stopped by the house to check out the situation, it didn’t escape my attention when a buff bald police officer placed a business card on our kitchen table and said, making direct eye contact with Tricia, a petite blonde with double Ds from Mississippi, “Feel free to call if the neighbor continues to harass you. Or if you need anything else.”

The neighbor wasn’t the only one who was confused. The cable guy’s eyes about popped out of his head when I answered the front door wearing a short black silk robe with pink fuzzy slippers, my hair a tangled mess, and asked him to please, please, please try and be quiet because my roommates were still sleeping.

“We were working all night last night,” I added. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when Tricia came stumbling down the stairs wearing a silk eye mask on top of her head and a short, somewhat see-through nightie. I noticed a look of confusion followed by outright fear sweep across the repairman’s face.