Fly Me to the Moon (9 page)

No wonder they keep him down here, in the bowels of JFK,
I thought as he pointed out the “wispies” that had spontaneously sprung loose from my hair clip.

“Wispies are frowned upon,” he’d reminded me. “Maybe you should try a stronger hair spray.”

And now he wanted to take a meeting”? Not a chance. Didn’t this guy have papers to push, bucks to pass, lightbulbs to change?

I pushed through the filthy glass door and headed for the bus stop, wondering if he’d follow.

He didn’t.

By the time I made it back to Kat’s I was frantic.
Just how many bodies have I left in my wake?
I wondered, making my way down the hall and bracing for whatever horror I might stumble upon. Would I find three emaciated Persians splayed across the kitchen floor, starving eyes staring at me accusingly? Or would Kat be waiting rigidly at the head of the table, flanked by a team of lawyers, ready to charge me with gross negligence?

I hesitated in the doorway, not sure if I had the guts to go through with it. Then, taking a deep breath, I walked into the kitchen, and just like in a clip from
When Animals Attack,
Harold, Conrad, and William came charging toward me, their tiny white paws scraping furiously against the stone floor while their blue eyes remained fixed on their intended prey—
me.
I froze in horror as I watched them closing in, and for a brief moment I considered fleeing down the hall toward the safety of my room. But in the end, I just dropped my bags and stood there, knowing that whatever vicious act they had in mind, surely I deserved it.

But instead of leaping for my throat and going straight for the
jugular, they skidded to a stop at my feet. And then, arching their backs and lowering their heads, they sidled up against my legs, meowing in a way that was more greeting than protest. And as a lifelong, dedicated “dog person,” I gotta admit, I was impressed.

Relieved that all they seemed to want was a little love and nourishment, I busied myself with filling their bowls. Then I got down on the floor with them, and cried while they ate.

When the alarm rang at seven, I was already wide awake, having spent the previous half hour rubbing my itchy, watery eyes and battling through intense sneeze attacks brought on by “the kids.” And by the fact that I’d felt so guilty about their desertion I’d actually let them sleep with me.

I reached over, silenced the clock, and wandered into the kitchen in search of coffee, some paper, and a pen. Yesterday’s tragedy was still fresh in my mind, and I knew that eventually I’d have to deal with it, since I could only dodge Lawrence for so long. But for now, I had the whole day off, and I was determined to use it for more pressing issues.

I had promised myself that as soon as I returned from Puerto Rico I would begin rebuilding my life. And the best way for me to do that is always by making a list. Otherwise I tend to get sidetracked and drift way off course.

So I grabbed a notepad from a hotel in Barcelona and a ballpoint pen advertising a Dublin pub and wrote:

To Do Today:

1. Pick up stuff from Michael’s.

2. Find apartment to put stuff in.

Okay, this being New York City and all, I knew what a seemingly impossible task the second item would be. It can take people with
far more money and resources than I months to find a decent place to live. But this was one of those rare cases when being a flight attendant could actually work in my favor. Since our irregular schedules rarely keep us in one place for more than a few days at a time, we are known to occupy the tiniest apartments in large quantities. So surely, somewhere on this twenty-five-mile island there was a vacant bunk bed waiting for me. I mean, as nice as it was in the Fifth Avenue penthouse, there was no way I could survive the rest of the week with three fluffy Persians and their collective dander. Besides, it was time to reclaim my life and start paying my own way.

So after feeding the felines, and brewing some coffee, I fired up my laptop and logged onto the Atlas Airlines Web site, heading straight for the employee swap board, which serves as a sort of craigslist for flight attendants, offering up everything from unwanted trips to gently worn uniform items and rooms for rent.

Since the majority of New York—based flight attendants and pilots are commuters, flying in to work and then heading back home as soon as their trip ends, there was a long list of available space in Kew Gardens (which due to its airport proximity and apartments chock-full of airline employees is also known as Crew Gardens). But that’s mostly a “twenty people to a two-bedroom” commuter crash pad, hot bed (bring your own sheets, first come first served) situation. And since I was a newly single, noncommuting, full-time New York—dwelling gal, I really preferred to live in the city. And I really preferred to have my own bed.

But after reading through countless listings I knew would never work, I was just about to give up when I read the very last one:

WANTED-

I F, N/S, F/A, 2 SHARE I BDR, IN CITY
CALL LISETTE JOHNSON
.

Since I didn’t know anyone named Lisette, I immediately tried to research her schedule, hoping I could glean something about
her from the type of trips she liked to fly. But when I typed in her name,
RESTRICTED INFORMATION
flashed on-screen, and I immediately assumed that, like me, she too had suffered a bad breakup with a fellow Atlas employee, and was determined not to be tracked.

So, feeling a common bond, I picked up the phone and dialed her number, keeping my fingers crossed that the apartment would still be available.

By the time I reached the fifth-floor walkup I was sweaty, gasping for breath, and vowing to join a gym as soon as I got settled in. Then, combing my fingers through my long, curly hair, I knocked on Lisette’s door, and blinked in surprise when I was greeted by Lisa, whom I vaguely remembered from flight attendant training all those years ago.

“Oh, hey,’ I said, wiping my hand across my sweaty brow, hoping the room hadn’t been rented before I’d even had a chance to see it. “I’m here to see Lisette.”

“That’s me,” she said, stepping aside and revealing a tiny, cluttered apartment with no discernible natural light.

“Wait. You’re Lisette?” I asked, pausing in the threshold and squinting at her, feeling more than a little confused. I mean, sure her hair had changed from its former brown ponytail to a jet black, flat-ironed, chin-length bob, and her formerly bottle-tanned skin was now a pale, creamy white, but I definitely remembered her as being Lisa, the girl who’d pulled me into the raft during the “Unanticipated Ocean Landing” class held in the Atlas swimming pool.

“I passed the French language exam. I fly only to Nice, Lyon, and Paris now,” she said, as though that somehow explained it.

I just nodded, frantically trying to recall anything more about her from our six weeks in the South, six years ago. But unfortunately, the memory bank was empty.

“So, this is it,” she said, with inexplicable pride. “Kitchen there,
bathroom with tub/shower through that door, and my bedroom through that one.” She pointed, her index finger hitting all the important landmarks in the small, rectangular space. “What do you think?” she asked, obviously anticipating a compliment.

“Well . . .”I stalled, focusing on the dying houseplant in the far corner; the hideous, pockmarked, parquet wood floors; and the peeling, bubbled, yellowing walls, all the while trying to convince myself that this would be, at most, a temporary situation. “Can I see the room we’ll be sharing?”

“Oh, we’re not sharing,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “The bedroom is
my
room. This pull-out couch is where
you’ll
sleep. I’m told it’s very comfortable,” she said, running her short red nails along the armrest like a game show model.

Seeing that ugly, dismal, sagging, brown corduroy couch made my eyes threaten to fill with tears; but determined to get through it, I wiped my hand across my forehead, shook my head, and said, “Okay. So how much are you asking?”

She stood there regarding me carefully. “Well, since you’ll be sleeping on a couch, I’ve decided to ask for less than half the rent.” She smiled.

“And how much is that?” I asked, determined to get to the bottom of it. I was in no mood for games.

“One thousand dollars a month, plus half the utilities.” She didn’t even flinch.

“For the
couch?
Are you kidding?” I said, staring at her in disbelief.

“The total rent is twenty-two hundred! I’m paying more than you!” she argued.

“Yeah, but you have a
door\
While I’m just winging it in the middle of the living room here,” I said, feeling deeply depressed that I was actually bartering over a
couch.

“D’accord,”
she sighed, rolling her eyes and slipping into French. “Nine hundred and fifty.”

“Nine even,” I countered, narrowing my eyes.

“Done,
fini.”
She clapped her hands together twice, bringing an end to the bartering.

Shaking my head, I settled onto the crappy, lumpy couch, which would now double as my bed, and wrote her a check for the first and last months’ rent, secretly hoping the first month would be the last.

“I’ll come by later with my stuff,” I said, exchanging the check for a set of shiny gold keys.

And as I headed for the door I stopped and turned, glancing from Lisette to the couch, knowing I’d just been completely had. But I also knew that if I was going to find my own way, I’d have to start here.

Flight attendants are

prohibited from engaging in

any activity that could distract

the pilots from their

performance.

My first night on the couch had not gone well. Never mind the lumps, the bumps, and the creaky springs, not to mention my own germ-phobic paranoia about its murky origins and sexual history. The main reason I hadn’t slept was due to the constant sound of Lisette and her pilot boyfriend going at it so loudly that two earplugs, two pillows, and a thick down comforter thrown over my head couldn’t drown out the noise. And by the time it was finally, mercifully over, well that’s when the snoring started (both his and hers). And before I knew it, it was 3:45
A.M
. and my clock radio was blasting the oddly appropriate “All Out of Love,” which would play in my head for the rest of the day.

I stumbled into the bathroom, turned on the taps, and peered in the mirror as I waited for the water to warm. My hazel eyes had bags the size of checked luggage, my hair was a frizzed-out mess, and if I wasn’t mistaken, my chin held the promise of what by day’s end would surely be a freakishly large zit. And as I opened the glass shower door and cautiously stepped inside, I asked myself.
once again, why I always traded my afternoon trips for ones that signed in early, when clearly I was not a morning person.

Yes, it was true that all I had to do was survive two quick yet tediously boring round trips to Washington, D.C., and back, but if the small gash I’d just made while shaving my legs was any indication, my hand-eye coordination was severely hindered. And as a person whose secondary responsibility is to get piping hot coffee swiftly and safely into the hands of the politicians and newscasters who frequent the shuttle (even though they think it’s my
only
responsibility), my early-morning handicap would surely work against me.

But the flip side was that a 5:00
A.M
. sign-in often made for an early-afternoon return. And I knew that once I’d choked down a few cups of that brutal airplane brew, I’d be just coherent enough to get through the first flight of the day bomb check that was now required of me.

Freshly showered, with one towel coiled around my head and another tucked tightly around my body, I was bent over the sink, spitting mouthwash into the bowl, when a pale, paunchy, middle-aged man, unfortunately clad in a pair of tighty whities, threw the door open and demanded, “Have you seen my bag tag?”