“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
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
