Cruising Attitude

none of us had ever seen her use behind her. To Jane’s horror, she’d ditch the eyesore in the middle of the living room and leave it there collecting dust until the next guy swept her off her feet. And she’d start cooking up a storm. While the brownies and lemon bars cooled and a gigantic pot of vegetable stew simmered on the stove, she’d replay the breakup details over the phone in the living room with a glass of wine in one hand and an opened address book on her lap. Starting with the As, she’d torture us until the last and final Z. Tricia had a lot of friends.

“You’re Tricia’s roommate!” coworkers would say whenever I’d happen to mention her name in flight. “Oh my God, I love her! She’s hilarious.”

I’d just smile and nod. No one had a clue what it was like living with her.

Part of the problem was that Tricia had the most crash pad seniority. She was the queen bee. She got the largest bedroom in the house and the entire place was decorated with photographs of her draped all over friends from every corner of the world. Pots and pans, furniture and rugs, microwaves and air-conditioning units, everything belonged to her, either by purchase or by inheritance. Even the bed I slept on had once been hers. I bought it for twenty bucks—the same amount she had paid another flight attendant five years prior, back before it had a big green paint stain. Perhaps she had dated an artist. Because car magazines filled our mailbox when she dated the NASCAR guy; when the golf pro came on the scene, a full set of clubs took over the hall closet leaving absolutely no room for coats and jackets; and much to Jane’s delight, gourmet cookbooks began to stack up on the kitchen counter after Tricia hooked up with a head chef at a five-star restaurant in the city.

It’s not that I didn’t like her, but I could only take her in small doses, which is why I almost died the day I got called out to work a trip with her. When I realized we weren’t just going to be on the same airplane, but in the same cabin—business class—I wanted to slit my wrists and set myself on fire. Business class is the most junior position on the airplane for a reason. It’s a lot of work. In coach there’s not much to offer passengers, while in first class the passengers usually sleep through the service. But in business class passengers want to sample it all and then some. To prove this point a colleague once offered business-class passengers a silver-lined tray piled high with silver spoons.

“Would you care for a spoon?” he asked, and without saying a word passengers would reach for one. Two minutes later he walked back through the cabin and collected all the spoons. Next he put a box of Kleenex on a silver-lined tray and one by one passengers reached for a tissue. So while it was bad enough working with the most demanding passengers on the airplane without crew drama, I couldn’t imagine dealing with such a high maintenance group of people with a coworker like Tricia.

To my surprise Tricia turned out to be a real joy to work with. The service went off smoothly and Tricia proved herself to be one of the most professional, hardworking, and friendly flight attendants I’d ever encountered. And that’s the moment I began to respect her. Passengers loved her, and I did, too! Honestly, Tricia and I had such a nice trip together that I would have “buddy bid” with her if she’d asked. She never did. But who would’ve thought? Not me, that’s for sure. It just goes to show you never truly know someone until you’ve actually lived and worked with them first.

Strangely, I had the opposite experience with Dee Dee. Dee Dee was, in a word, cool. She wasn’t a classic beauty, but she worked with what she had and always looked great. With a dark year-round tan and a trim build, she kept her black hair in the latest style and coordinated brightly colored sundresses with matching strappy sandals. Even though she was older than me, she had a youthfulness about her I’d never before seen in a woman her age. Dee Dee had been flying for seven years, so she had the most airline seniority in the house and always held the best international trips. I was in complete awe of her. If Dee Dee wasn’t taking in a show in London or shopping for spices in Jamaica or buying clothes in Paris or eating Wiener schnitzel in Austria or relaxing on the beach in Brazil, she was rollerblading the boardwalks of Long Island or taking the train into Manhattan before her trips, which always departed late at night. The woman had more energy than all of us in the house combined. On top of that she commuted from Arizona, where she lived with her husband and a cat named Doug. The day before each trip Dee Dee drove an hour to the airport to hop on a flight to Chicago, where she’d connect to another flight to New York, landing after midnight. I never heard Dee Dee going up the stairs late at night to get to the attic, but Jane did, all the time. It was always a topic of conversation the following morning.

I’d never flown with Dee Dee before and I was excited about getting assigned a reserve trip with her to London. We always had a good time hanging out in the crash pad together, so I assumed the trip would be just as much fun. On the flight over she kind of gave me what I thought was the cold shoulder. I was a little surprised, but I figured she was just catching up with her friends after a few days off—after all, these were flight attendants she’d flown with every month for years. And she did make sure to include me in their plans for our thirty-six-hour layover in London.

A few hours after landing, Dee Dee and I met up with some other crew members in the hotel bar, which offered 20 percent off to airline personnel and which therefore was packed with airline personnel. We’d just ordered beers and were snacking on vinegar chips when a handsome pilot I’d never seen before turned his attention on me. He had only one thing on his mind, I’m sure, but I didn’t care. This was a first for me. Flattered, I decided to enjoy it, especially since the last time I’d spoken to Brent he’d made it clear that while he liked me “more than a lot,” he still wanted to date other women. That hurt. This didn’t. Anyway, my mother always wanted me to marry a pilot, not a personal trainer–lead guitarist for a cover band. Not that I had any crazy ideas about walking down the aisle with the adorable first officer who was now whispering something in my ear about taking a stroll outside where it might be a little quieter, but I did visualize us making the most of our flight benefits, heading off on exotic vacations on our days off.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Dee Dee asked out of nowhere.

All eyes were now on me. The pilot took a step back. Nervously, I laughed, “You mean the boyfriend who didn’t call on my birthday because he was on a date with someone else?” I could have sworn I’d told her this already. Perhaps the booze had gone to her head or maybe the jet lag had made her forgetful, either way her block completely caught me by surprise.

I didn’t go for a stroll with the pilot, but I did continue flirting with him. Dee Dee stood nearby, eavesdropping on our conversation, interjecting things that I’m sure would have been better left unsaid, since the rest of the crew was now cracking up. At one point we were discussing books and I mentioned something about feeling passionately about women’s rights. That’s when Dee Dee laughed and then said loudly enough for everyone in the bar to hear, “Didn’t you used to work at Hooters?” All eyes were back on me. After that I decided to go to bed.

On the flight home I got an earful in the form of silence. Whenever I’d enter a galley, everyone would immediately stop talking and just smile. At first I thought Dee Dee and her friends just disliked pilots, and maybe new hires who were interested in pilots. I must have embarrassed her since I should have known better than to accept the advances of someone who worked on the wrong side of the cockpit door. But then a few weeks later a good-looking captain offered Dee Dee a ride home and she accepted. Excitedly, she rehashed the details of the twenty-minute drive, emphasizing the part where he tried to kiss her and she pushed him away. I realized then and there that she didn’t dislike pilots, maybe only new hires who attracted pilots—in other words, me. Or maybe that’s just me and my insecurities.

Besides the fact that they were both married, commuted to work, and lived in the attic together, Dee Dee and Paula had very little in common. We’d know when Paula was in town because a basket with knitting needles would appear next to the sofa, whether or not she was on a trip. Around the house Paula hung out in acid-washed jeans paired with ribbed turtlenecks in the winter or oversized T-shirts in the summer. Her auburn hair was always worn loose and wavy as she sat on the couch crocheting yet another scarf for another relative’s birthday. Rarely did she wear makeup, which is why it was always a bit of a shock to see her dressed for work in uniform with her dark brown eyes lined in kohl and her lips painted a dark red, emphasized by hair that had been pulled back and held in place with a barrette. Even though Paula and Dee Dee were close in age, Paula seemed a lot older and wiser. But she was fun. Well, that is, when she was around, which tended to be hardly ever. In order to spend as much time at home with her two young sons, she’d fly to New York the morning her flight departed and work a high-time trip to get as many hours as possible in the shortest amount of time. As soon as the trip was over, she’d jump on the first flight home. It seemed exhausting. When I asked about juggling the whole wife, mother, flight attendant thing, she told me that if I could work a line of red-eye flights and act somewhat normal between trips, I could do anything, even run the PTA.

“What about your husband and kids, don’t they mind that you’re gone?” asked Jane who all of a sudden