IN THE 1970S, when flight attendants were stewardesses and traveling was glamorous and only for the wealthy, the average time spent on the job was eighteen months. Stewardesses were required to remain single and childless, which ensured that the position remained a job, not a career, and enabled the airlines to use their young, attractive, and somewhat mysterious workforce as a marketing tool. Today most flight attendants either last just a couple of months or hang in for a whole lifetime. It’s that extreme. In that first few months the drastic lifestyle change coupled with the difficulties of juggling a home life from 35,000 feet almost always results in pressure from loved ones to make a choice—them or the job. Flight attendants fresh out of training will either quit or watch their relationships crash and burn.
The day Georgia greeted me with the bad news outside on the front stoop, I had a phone number written on a beverage napkin for a new crash pad crumpled up inside my blazer pocket, and I didn’t believe in fate. I thought the idea of fate was for the weak of heart, the kind of person who sat around waiting for life to happen, which is how I came to the conclusion that this thing with Georgia was just a bad move on her part, something that could be rectified. That is, if I got involved. Certainly she wouldn’t have quit if I’d been home that day. While I knew she was under a lot of pressure from Jack, Jake, Jason, whatever his name was, I refused to sit back and allow her to throw in the towel so easily. I honestly believed if she’d just give it a little time in order to accrue more seniority, things would get better. They had to! Why else would anyone keep the job? It was up to me to make her see that.
Easy enough, I thought, picking up the phone and dialing our supervisor’s number at LaGuardia Airport. When I heard it ring, I handed the phone to Georgia.
“Just tell him you made a mistake,” I said.
Gently she placed the receiver back in its cradle. “I didn’t make a mistake, Heather. This is what I want. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I know it’s hard for you to believe this, but the job isn’t for everyone. I want to go home. I signed paperwork. It’s over.”
I took one look at Georgia’s giddy, ruby red smile and knew she needed help, the professional kind. “You’re delirious. You’re not thinking straight.” Quickly I dialed our supervisor’s number again. “Tell him you were depressed, that you didn’t know what you were doing. Do it now before it’s too late and he leaves the office.”
Without any sense of urgency, Georgia started tossing a few pairs of jeans and a couple of sweaters into an opened suitcase on the floor. “You don’t understand. You’ve never been in love before.”
“Excuse me!” I hung up the phone. Never been in love? I’d told her everything about Brent! Well, almost everything …
What I had accidentally-on-purpose forgotten to share was, well, Brent and I kinda-sorta hooked up last week. When crew scheduling assigned me my first trip to Austin, Texas, my heart dropped. That’s where Brent, my ex-ex-boyfriend lived. You see we hadn’t broken up once, but twice—both times on or around Valentine’s Day. The significance of the day didn’t matter to me. At least that’s what I’d been telling myself every day for a year and a half now. Which might be why as soon as I stepped off the airplane in Texas and found myself in familiar territory, feelings from the past came flooding back. It was torturous being there without him by my side. Looking out the window of the crew van on our way downtown to the hotel, I spotted all the same places I used to see while driving around with him in the passenger’s seat of his beat-up Corolla. I couldn’t stop myself from going down memory lane as Everything But The Girl blasted through my headphones. When the song “Missing” came to an end, I hit replay, quite a few times, until we pulled up to a hotel not too far from Sixth Street and I, too, could not move on, because I, too, missed him, Brent, like the deserts miss the rain. Hidden inside a drawer beside the bed in my hotel room, I found a phone book. All I initially wanted to do was see if his name was listed. That’s it. I just wanted to know if he lived in the same apartment we once shared. He did. Without thinking it over, I decided to call and hang up. Just to hear his voice. Nothing more. What could be the harm?
When I heard his familiar voice say hello, I froze. I may have swallowed, I might have even said hi, and before I knew it we were sitting across from each other on bar stools at a chain hotel in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday. It almost felt like I’d taken a ride in a time machine. I kept telling myself not to fall for him again, that Mr. Wrong would not turn into Mr. Right, but one thing led to another and, well… let’s just say I should have known better. But at the same time, when he leaned in for a kiss, I thought, A little bit of something had to be better than a whole lot of nothing. That’s when I remembered something wise I overheard a first-class passenger say to her seatmate: “He’s good enough for right now.” Except the reality was Brent was more than good enough for right now. Six feet tall, tan, muscular, and unbelievably gorgeous in a Fabio kind of way (but better), Brent was an almost Olympic athlete who’d broken records in the pole vault and played in a band on Sixth Street on weekends. Women came from afar to see him rocking out with a red guitar on stage in a dimly lit bar. He was everything most women in Texas dreamed about in a one-night stand, which is why so many panties were always being tossed up on stage. And to think he’d been my boyfriend for two years. The boyfriend I never expected to have. The boyfriend I couldn’t believe I’d lost.
After dating through both my junior and senior years of college, Brent and I broke up not long after I graduated—around the time I moved back in with my parents, who lived four hours away and were supporting me while I searched for a job. For three or four months we took turns making the long drive to visit each other, which is why I thought things were okay between us. But long-distance dating is not easy on anyone, including me. It’s especially hard on a man, particularly one who has a hot little thing wearing shorty-shorts chasing after him at work. When he wasn’t jumping over eighteen-foot high bars with a single pole or playing guitar, he was a personal trainer. Yeah, he had it going on. In a way, I’m kind of surprised it lasted as long as it did. Even so, I never thought I’d get over the guy. The job helped. That is, until crew schedule called me out to cover that trip to Austin last week. So for Georgia to say I didn’t know about love and loss and loving someone who should probably get lost, well, that was absurd. I knew exactly what she was going through and I didn’t like it, not one little bit!
“I’m going home tomorrow,” said Georgia, snapping me back to reality. When she stood and gave me a big hug, I realized it was useless. Her mind was made up.
“I’m going to miss you.” I wiped away a tear with the back of my hand. “Promise you’ll keep in touch.”
“Oh, honey, I don’t promise, I pinky promise!” We locked our little fingers and shook on it. In Georgia’s world, nothing was more sacred than the pinky promise—except marriage. “I sure do hope you’ll come to our weddin’!”
I envisioned myself wearing a big poofy pastel dress and jumping up into the air to catch a bouquet of roses, and then I pictured my own wedding, walking down the aisle in a sleek simple dress, toward a nameless faceless groom. I sighed. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
That’s when the one who didn’t believe in fate wondered if God had put her in my life for a special reason. We were best friends. We didn’t need to work the same job in order to remain close. The best thing about being a flight attendant (off probation) is we can fly for free and we’re allowed to choose a few family and friends as travel companions. When the time came, all I had to do was list her as one and we could hang out all the time. It would almost be like she never left.
I’d only been working four months, so I wasn’t used to so many people coming and going in and out of my life. It was the going part that always tripped me up. But saying good-bye is a big part of a flight attendant’s life. Imagine saying it to at least 100 passengers per flight. If you’re scheduled for four legs (flights) a day, that’s more than 400 people to meet, greet, and serve, usually in less than twelve hours. Multiply that by fifteen, the average number of days we work each month, and we’ve connected with 6,000 people in thirty days. That’s 72,000 passengers a year—at least! Even the best of us can’t give it our all to each and every passenger we encounter in our career. It’s just not possible. Not even for the most professional flight attendant. Sometimes there’s just nothing left to give. In the beginning it’s not easy learning to turn it on and off with little transition in between, but flight attendants quickly become experts at it. This affects us in many ways—not just saying good-bye quickly, but opening up quickly as well.
Conversations I’ve had in the galley can only be compared to those that take place in bars, but worse, only because there’s nothing like alcohol to blame it on. I’ve learned things about coworkers and passengers that are shocking, to say the least. For instance, I may not remember her name, but on descent into New York she told me all about her ex-husband, a pilot who cheated on her numerous times with other flight attendants, and whose former mother-in-law is trying to get sole custody of the children by using her job against her. There was another man who never told me his name, but I do know his first sexual encounter took place with a man twenty years his senior and now he only has a thing for older men—with red hair. Just like the one sitting beside him in 22B. I couldn’t tell you their names, but I do know they’ll be spending the night in jail because he punched her after she scratched his face for daring to call his wife in her presence as soon as the flight touched ground. There’s a lot coming at us at once, and just as quickly as it started it’s over, buh-bye, see ya later, thanks for flying with us today.
I call it jump-seat syndrome, and almost all flight attendants suffer from it.
There’s no avoiding it. We get used to quickly getting personal with strangers over short periods of time, and it ends up carrying over into our relationships on the ground. Because of the job, if I make eye contact with a stranger, it’s not uncommon for me to automatically respond by saying “Hi!” or “How are you?” just like I do at the boarding door, which is a little over the top for someone shopping at the mall or riding the subway. In big cities people rarely speak to one another if they aren’t acquainted. This is why they’ll nervously avert their eyes and pick up the pace. In their eyes I’m crazy. To save face I’ll keep walking, still smiling, in an attempt to pretend I was speaking to someone else. Maybe I am crazy. What’s worse is when I see the panicked look in the eyes of a new acquaintance when out of nowhere I’ll share something that, on reflection, might have been better shared at a different time or place. Health and sex are topics normal people don’t usually discuss until they know each other well. Of course, in my life there is no right time or place for anything, and flight attendants end up talking about this kind of stuff all the time.
Even with passengers, we’re more open. In the air, I might think nothing of coming right out and asking complete strangers hanging out in the galley or waiting in line to use the bathroom what they do for a living, since they know what I do and think nothing of asking me where I’m staying for the night or what I’m going to do on my layover. Of course these conversations always revolve around travel, so it’s no big deal. Names of hotels and restaurants are jotted down and tucked away for later use.
On the ground, however, this kind of talk doesn’t go over quite as well, particularly at bars, and especially with men. When I ask about a guy’s job it’s because I’m curious about his schedule, not about how much money he makes! As a junior flight attendant, I need someone who’s free during the week or I’ll never see him. Plus, when it comes to using my passes for non-revenue travel, it’s always easier to non-rev with a person who can take time off during the middle of the week when the odds of getting an open seat are greater. Most normal men, though, assume the worst when conversations turn to work right away. Some will even walk away. It doesn’t bother me. I’m used to it. But it’s only natural that I want to know where they’re going, regardless of what they think about me. Not because I’m a stalker, but because I might want to go there, too—another time. The more people I meet, the more places I want to go! It’s the nature of the job.
To say flight attendants meet a lot of people is an understatement. On the days I get stuck working in coach, I’ll find myself standing in front of the cockpit door saying good-bye and I won’t even recognize 75 percent of the passengers I’ve served. Flight attendants aren’t alone. From Vancouver to New York I struck up a conversation with a passenger on landing. He told me that on his flight out they were delayed three hours on the tarmac. I looked at him funny and asked if his flight had departed a week ago. It had. Were you on my flight, he asked. Indeed I was. How in the world could we have missed each other on a six-hour flight that turned into a nine-hour nightmare with a light passenger load? We were in the same place at the same time with nothing to do but stare at each other and, well, not see each other I guess. Story of my life.
Then there are the passengers I do remember. Like the frail little boy seeking cancer treatment with a well-renowned doctor on the other side of the world. His last hope, pretty much. He asked me to pray with him. The happy couple on their way to China to meet their adopted daughter for the first time. They waited years for this very day. And I was a part of it. The anxious mother of the bride who already felt excluded from the festivities before they had even begun. I tried to help her see the bigger picture. The somber comedian who actually got to know his father better after he’d passed away than while he was alive. The elderly man whose knobby fingers never stopped creating origami birds for all the children on the airplane. When he ran out of kids, he passed them out to adults. One of whom took a stack full to share with the elderly at her mother’s nursing home. In the beginning, I had a hard time getting used to this, all the connections (and disconnections) that never went further than the flight, all the connections (and disconnections) that meant nothing at all, all the connections (and disconnections) that happened in a snap and lasted a lifetime.
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.