Blue Skies

“And there’s a flight tomorrow afternoon with plenty of room in first class.”

“I much prefer first class,” she admitted.

“Yes. I know.”

Opal scooted to the edge of her chair and wiggled her feet around until they found her shoes. “You’re in mourning,” she said, hanging on to Precious. “You should be indulged right now. I’ve lost a husband, remember. I know what this is like. I wish Mayer’s children from his first wife had left me alone to go through his belongings, but they were not nearly as considerate as I.”

That was Opal. Ousted with all the delicacy of a cattle prod and taking credit for being considerate.

I’m not in mourning! Nikki wanted to shout. I’m enraged! I am so damn tired of getting screwed!

Two

Nikki was back at work a week later—a week in which she had neither gone through Drake’s things nor talked to the kids about their lack of legacy. Now, as she made her way to airport security, she forced her thoughts from her current problems and let her mind wander back to the days when she’d first fallen in love with the aviation industry.

When she was a little girl in the sixties, the airport was a mystical, magical fantasyland and the air crews were like movie stars—so exotic, so glamorous, so beautiful. The pilots were tall and handsome. Women would tilt their heads and gaze dreamily at them, and small children reached out to tentatively touch the silver bands on their sleeves. The “Stews,” as they were called in those days, were slender beauties who showed up to work in narrow skirts and high-heeled shoes, each with a matching square makeup bag that held her cosmetics. The crew would enter the airport en masse—two or three stately, distinguished pilots and their gaggle of long-necked beauty queens—and glide down the concourse toward the big shiny planes. As they passed, the crowds would part like the Red Sea. They were magnificent.

“Do you want to be like one of them when you grow up?” Opal had asked her one day when they were at the airport together.

“Oh, yes,” Nikki said with a deep sigh of longing. “Do you think they’ll let girls be pilots of big heavies by then?”

Opal had groaned, but Buck had smiled down at her. “If they don’t, you can be the first,” he promised.

“You’re hopeless,” said Opal.

It wasn’t just the flight crews that were different, Nikki recalled, but the entire airport scene. And the industry was regulated. The government established the routes for the carriers and there wasn’t much competition, so flights were expensive. Damned expensive. It cost more to fly from New York to Los Angeles in 1975 than it did in 2002. There was a certain formality to flying then. Women wore dresses, sometimes hats and gloves, and men were in their business suits.

Security in those days was almost nonexistent. Crews and passengers alike entered the airport and went quickly to their planes without being subjected to bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors. And passengers were extremely well-trained. They did as they were told. They were civil. Polite. No yelling at the gate agent, no demanding compensation for a delayed or canceled flight. Airlines were admired, pilots were revered. If a flight was delayed to repair a mechanical problem, your life had just been saved by their diligence, their skill. Through the flight, passengers were well-behaved. God forbid one of those beauties who served the meals—and they were meals, make no mistake—be abused in the commission of her duties.

There was no denying that times had changed. As Nikki passed through security in her pilot’s uniform, complete with ID badge, she was curtly reminded to take her hat off her head and empty her pockets. Randomly chosen, she was told to step to the side, remove her shoes and extend her arms so she could be scanned with the magic wand. Now, it wasn’t as if just wearing the flying costume should get you special treatment; she could as easily be a bad guy as anyone in civilian clothes. But—

“Hi, Virg,” she said to the security agent with the wand.

“Hiya, Nick. You have the same trip this week?”

“Yup. Phoenix, Chicago, New York, again and again.”

“Take off your shoes. Extend your arms. That a good trip?”

“Not bad.”

Nikki saw these same people at least once a week. Did they really think she was packing a weapon or bomb? She had wondered aloud once why they didn’t just move on to the next stranger in line when they saw she drew the random pick. It might give them a better chance of actually catching someone with something to hide. Virginia had replied that they just did it by the book.

While she was being wanded, Nikki watched as a very nervous man who seemed awfully protective of his briefcase went straight through the check while they detained and wanded a woman in her eighties. Nikki wondered why security didn’t just adopt the JDLR method. Just Doesn’t Look Right. But no. They kept checking little old ladies and pilots they talked to every week.

“Have a good flight, Nick.”

“Thanks, Virg. You have a great day.”

Another man with a briefcase, in a hurry and obviously disgruntled by the long security process, rammed into her and almost knocked her off her feet. He had both height and heft and smelled like a mixture of booze and perspiration. “’Scuse me,” he muttered. Then, seeing she wore a pilot’s uniform, he asked, “Any idea what time the nine o’clock flight’s leaving for Denver?”

“Nine o’clock?” she ventured.

“That’d be a first,” he grumbled, taking off down the concourse.

So much for the respect offered to pilots in days of yore.

Crowds didn’t part for aircrews anymore, either, and Nikki stuck close to the wall to keep from getting knocked over again. Up ahead she spotted Dixie at the coffee kiosk and went to join her. “Hey,” she said. “I didn’t expect to run into you.”

“Our inbound flight from San Diego is runnin’ late. I should be servin’ Bloody Marys over Albuquerque right now. Want a coffee?”

“Thanks. I’m a few minutes early. I’ll meet you right over there,” she said, pointing toward her gate.

Nikki crossed the concourse and sat in the almost empty gate area, watching the passengers. They were people in ragged jeans and flip-flops. Young families who would be trying to board with car seats, Cadillac-size strollers and half the nursery. Ah—and a pilot. Not one of those distinguished gentlemen of the past, this captain was about thirty-five years old, forty pounds overweight, no hat, scuffed shoes, loose tie and coffee stains on his shirt. He hadn’t had a haircut in a while, either. What a wreck. His appearance didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Dixie handed her a cup of coffee and took the seat next to her.

“Remember the old days?” Nikki said. “When flight attendants showed up in high heels and pilots were like rock stars?”

Dixie took the lid off her paper cup and blew on the hot coffee. “And now they’re just like rock heads?” Nikki turned her head to smile at her friend. “Present company excluded, of course.”

“Remember when people dressed up to go on an airplane ride?” Nikki persisted. “They wore their Sunday best and behaved like they were in church. Even the hijackers were polite! They didn’t want to hurt anyone—they just wanted to go to Cuba or someplace where you couldn’t get a scheduled flight.”

Dixie tilted her head and looked askance at Nikki. “Back in the days when flight attendants were Stews, had to weigh in before each flight, and were fired if they got married?”

“Okay, it wasn’t flawless, but—”

“And the airplanes didn’t have carts and the Stews carried their five-course meals on trays, up and down the aisles in their straight skirts and high heels and precious little hats?”

“Well…”

“And don’t let us forget about girdles. Any decent woman wore a girdle then.”

“Everyone?”

“It was required. And if you weren’t bosomy enough, a little padding could be issued with the uniform.”

“Nah-uh!” Nikki protested.

“Yes, ma’am. Got to have your girls right up there on your chest so Mr. Passengerman could appreciate the flight. And you better not bend over to pick up an olive off the floor because Mr. Well-Mannered Traveler would definitely put his hand right up your skirt.” She blew on her coffee again. “He probably threw that old olive on the floor to start with. Mmm-mmm, those were some fine old days.”

“You have to admit that the passengers were a lot less rude and demanding,” Nikki said. “With the occasional exception.”

“And the pilots were a lot more accommodatin’. They used to carry bags and pay for dinner, and…Well…They were much more accommodatin’.” Dixie smiled suggestively.

Nikki grinned back at her. Dixie had been accommodated quite a few times. And vice versa. “So were the Stews,” she said.

“Coffee, tea or me?” her friend replied, smile dazzling, lashes fluttering. All of Dixie sparkled. She could easily have been one of those airline beauties back in the sixties. Five-eight, blond, blue-eyed, slender as a reed except for “her girls,” which were full and high and elegant. She had the kind of looks that had men crossing the room to ask if she was attached.