Mile High Guy (13 page)

‘Yes?’ she shrills.

‘I’m just checking the duty free cart for jellybeans,’ I say and to my absolute mortification, I feel myself going red even though I’ve done nothing wrong.

I open the cart and start rifling through it. I can feel Snakely staring at my shoes, my tights, my hair, everything. I hope to God my hem isn’t hanging down or anything. I would hate to give her any excuse to write about me.

‘Is that a silver bracelet you’re wearing?’ she asks.

Aha. She’s got me. Isn’t she so clever? You’re only allowed to wear gold jewellery at work. Some bored person must have thought up that rule years ago and nobody ever bothered to change it.

‘Oh sorry about that,’ I say slipping it off and putting it into my apron pocket. I’ve been wearing it since last night and completely forgot to take it off. I wonder if she’s going to say anything else. Where are those damn jellybeans? I’m going to kill
that bloody kid for putting me to so much trouble. Just ’cos he’s too young to have a hangover! I hope the jellybeans (if he ever gets them), make him sick!

I’m sure her eyes have now worked their way up to my neck and are examining my scarf which I’m sure has make-up on it. Oh well, I’ll just have to give it a good rinse when I get to my hotel, and hope nobody notices between now and Boston. Oh
the thoughts of my hotel bed. I just can’t wait to get into it and curl up with my book.

Phew! I’ve found a packet of those damn jellybeans, thanks be to God. A long nail taps me on the arm and I’d swear the force of it has broken my skin.

‘Who is your supervisor?’ Snakely asks, smiling an evil smile.

‘Rowena Little,’ I say, rubbing my arm at the same time. ‘A lovely lady. She really is wonderful.’

Snakely looks put out. I’m sure she’d obviously prefer me to be terrified of my supervisor, but she isn’t going to get that satisfaction from me. And besides, Rowena is sound. I’m one of the lucky ones. Some of the supervisors are hell and spend their
time reducing crew members to tears. I’ve even heard of a couple of the girls being told to lose weight. Imagine that! In this day and age? If some old biddy dared to tell me to lose weight, I’d have my solicitor onto them before the plane’s wheels
had a chance to touch the runway.

I pick up the jellybeans, and I’m about to head
off when Snakely asks me why the buckle on my belt is undone. I look down in horror. How did that happen? She must have undone it with her eyes. The witch must have put a spell on me.

‘Oops,’ I give an embarrassed laugh. She eyes me coldly and I can see I’m about to get lectured for no reason at all.

‘There is no excuse for bad grooming,’ the old hag starts off. ‘I don’t need to point out that . . . ’

‘Excuse me?’

Myself and Snake-Face turn around simultaneously. We both smile and I sincerely hope my smile looks a bit more genuine than hers.

The tall middle-aged man in the well-cut suit asks me if there’s any chance he could have a glass of water.

‘No problem,’ I tell him, reaching for a Waterford Crystal glass. I wonder if he can feel the tension in the galley.

I fill his glass and ask whether he would he like lemon.

‘It’s fine,’ the man says quietly. ‘This is great.’

He peers at my name badge. At least I hope it’s my name badge he’s examining. It’s stuck on my left breast so it’s kind of hard to tell.

I can sense Snakely is dying to get rid of him so she can continue slating me but our friend is showing no signs of wanting to get back to his seat, and he is a first class passenger, so as far as the airline
is concerned he must be treated like a mini-god.

‘Not long to go now.’ The man leans back against the toilet door. He looks at his watch. ‘Just another couple of hours.’

He looks from me to Snakely and I guess he’s had a few drinks taken. ‘Why are you not working up here?’ he looks at me questioningly.

‘Oh I’m working down the back today,’ I tell him brightly. ‘I just came up to get jellybeans for some kid and I got, er, talking to Clarissa.’

‘So I see,’ the man says in a laid-back tone of voice.

Clarissa looks extremely uncomfortable. How unfortunate for her that her little intimidation game has been cut dead. I’m laughing to myself. Serves her right.

‘Well I’d better excuse myself and get these sweets down to the poor little kid. He must think I’ve gone and jumped out of the plane.’

The man laughs loudly and I’m startled. It wasn’t that funny.

He holds out his hand.

‘Norman Levins,’ he shakes mine firmly.
‘You’re a delightful girl and hopefully I’ll see you on board one of my flights again very soon. You don’t have a comment card by the way?’

‘I’ll get you one now,’ I say reaching over Clarissa to grab one.

‘Charlie is a good friend of mine. I’m going to post my comments to him directly. We’re actually playing golf next weekend, do you know him?’

‘Ch . . . ?’

‘Charles Daviston.’

‘Oh yes of course,’ I smile.

Holy fuck! Charles Daviston is the airline chief executive. Of course I don’t know him. Well, I know who he is but like I don’t know him to say hello to or to play golf with or anything. But I must say I’m pleased that my pal here in first class knows him. And I know Snakely will not look sideways again at me for the rest of the flight.

I sail back into economy class with a huge grin plastered all over my face. I could kiss that kid now for sending me up to get the jellybeans. Where is the brat anyway?

I spot him and he’s fast asleep. Drat. I make my way over to his mother.

‘Too late,’ she snaps.

‘I’m very sorry,’ I explain, ‘but . . . ’

‘Just FORGET it,’ she says rudely and I slink away.

Sugar. What am I going to do with the damn sweets? I want to burst the bag over that spoilt child’s head. Or even his mother’s. Instead I go down to the back galley but the girls have sealed the duty free bars. Sugar, sugar, sugar. There’s no way on earth I’m going up to first class again. In the end I take five euro out of my handbag and buy them myself, just to save me the hassle of going back up there again.

‘Was there any yummy desserts left over in first class?’ one of the crew asks me as I stuff the jellybeans into my little overnight case.

‘Well, if there were, Snake-Face wasn’t offering them to me,’ I grumble.

‘Snake-Face, you’re hilarious. Snake-Face hahaha.’

Suddenly all is quiet in the back galley. It’s deafening actually. I am down on my knees with the jellybeans sticking out of my overnight case as if I bought them for myself. And the dragon herself is standing beside me. I can smell her. That nasty rich
stink that I could get up in first class has made its way down to economy courtesy of its owner.

I look up. Her eyes bore into me. If looks could kill, I would now be swinging from the aircraft ceiling, the straps of one of the yellow safety jackets
around my neck. She says nothing for a few seconds and then turns on her heel and storms off.

‘Oh my God,’ the other girl pales. ‘Do you think she heard you?’

‘I dunno,’ I shrug. ‘She can’t prove I was talking about her, can she?’

‘Do you think she’ll write a report?’

‘I doubt it,’ I laugh. ‘Some man up in first class said he was going to write a nice comment about me, so if she writes something nasty it’ll just look like sour grapes.’

‘Was he nice?’

‘Who?’

‘The guy in first class.’

‘Well he was oldish . . . like probably married
and that, but very funny. I think his name is Norman
something. Devins or . . .’

‘Levins?’

‘Yeah, that’s it.’

‘Well then she’ll be wasting her time writing anything negative about you. That man is one of our top one hundred customers. His company spends over one hundred thousand euro on flights for him a year.’

‘How do you know?’ I’m intrigued.

‘Everyone knows,’ she shrugs, and I wonder for the thousandth time since I started flying, why everyone seems to know everything in this place, except me.

‘Good-bye, good-bye, cheerio, take care now, safe home, good-bye, good-bye, take care now, thank you, you’re welcome, thank you very much, goodbye, our pleasure, not at all, bye.’

As soon as the last passenger disembarks, I rush up to first class to see has anybody left any goody-bags on board. The goody-bags are nifty little bags that first class passengers receive when they take their seat. They contain earplugs (great if your hotel neighbours happen to be the noisy sort), razor (to do my legs when I soak in a long hot bath with a glass of wine), comb (which fits nicely into my back
pocket if I go clubbing), socks (you can never have too many pairs!), perfume spray, lip balm, eye mask, etc.

Now, most first class passengers could not be bothered taking these little bags home, so they usually just use the eye-mask or say, the socks, and then dump the bag as rubbish. Of course, once a bag is opened, you can’t recycle the products, and the cleaners just take the stuff away unless I happen to help myself. This leaves me with an endless supply of earplugs and combs. Whoever said this job didn’t have great perks?

We wait for our cases and the porter carries them out for us and loads them into our mini bus. Now that I’m here I’m thrilled to be in Boston. It really
is a special city and is beautiful at this time of the year, when the leaves have turned a beautiful warm golden colour. Mind you, it’s not warm here though. Not at all. The weather is freezing. That’s the thing about Boston and New York. It’s either bitterly cold or sweltering hot. They have real winters and summers here not like home, where the weather can never seem to make its mind up.

Snakely is sitting up at the top of the bus chewing the poor captain’s ear so I make sure I head down to the back. One of the stewards is already sitting beside Amy, which is really annoying because I have to ask her about Adam, and I really haven’t
had a chance since my break.

I’ve got a second wind now that we’ve arrived in Boston. I think I’ll wrap up and go for a walk down Newbury Street, or maybe I’ll just go to the mall and wander around. I’m sure some of the crew will be heading out so I’ll try and find out what everybody’s doing. Of course if Snakely is planning
on coming with us, you can count me out.

It doesn’t take us long to get into town. The roads from Logan Airport into town are great. Hmm. A far cry from the route from Dublin Airport into town at the moment. Have you tried it recently? One lane of traffic as you approach Drumcondra – welcome to Ireland, how are ya?

Soon we’re in the Back Bay area where our hotel is located. Everybody stares as we walk into the hotel. Imagine, this is how famous bands must feel all the time. Like fish in a tank. It’s funny the way people always stare at airline crews though, isn’t
it? I mean, it’s not like we’re
that
exciting. It must be the pilots and their caps. Women love men in uniform. Sure just look at all the attention Tom Cruise got in
Top Gun
. And then there was Leonardo di Caprio dressed up as a pilot in that film
Catch me if you can
. He looked great. Sadly, the pilots in our airline look about as much like
him as I look like Gisele Bundchen.

We’re handed our room keys and spending
money at the hotel reception. I rip open the envelope to make sure all the cash is there. It is, thank God. Oh, I can’t wait to go shopping now.

The first thing I do when I get to my room is light a cigarette. I don’t smoke that much usually, but after a long transatlantic flight I’m always gagging for one. I kick off my high heels, and replace them with the furry purple slippers I bring everywhere with me. I wonder whether Adam has arrived in New York yet. I wonder if he’s thinking of me or even missing me. Maybe he isn’t. After all, most men don’t go on with
all that sentimental slush, do they?

After finishing my ciggie, I lie on the bed. My
eyes close and I’m in danger of falling fast asleep. This is something I absolutely must not do, I remind myself. See, if I go to sleep now I will wake at two or three in the morning, which is definitely something I don’t want to do. However, if I manage to
stay awake, I could sleep until six or seven American time, which would be great. After all, tomorrow night will be a long old night. Those night flights are a killer. I’m dreading it already.

The phone rings and Amy is wondering what I’m up to.

‘Not much,’ I tell her. ‘I’m thinking of maybe just wandering around the Prudential Centre ’cos it’s bitter out there. Then I’ll go downstairs for a bit of a sauna and swim and then I dunno . . . are you going out for something to eat?’

‘I rang some of the others and they say they’re just taking it easy.’

‘Taking it easy? The boring sods. I can’t understand people who come to America to stay in their room watching telly. You can do that at home.’

‘I know,’ Amy agrees. ‘Well, let’s say we meet at seven?’

‘Okey dokey.’