Chapter One Judy
Chapter One
Judy
1962
New York
Pan American Office Building
It takes everything in me to keep my leg from twitching. The soles of my only pair of dress shoes will echo down the vast, near-empty hall if I am not still. Such a change from this morning, when the acoustics had been muffled by rows and rows of chairs filled with hundreds of perfect, eager girls who know the same thing I do: that most of us will be turned down from this thing we want so desperately.
Or in my case, need.
One in fifty will be awarded the signature blue uniform. One in fifty will be deemed the best of the best of the best.
Only fashion models and movie stars garner more notoriety than a Pan American stewardess. Raquel and Brigitte and Sophia—they are the undisputed darlings of the screen, but you can’t get up close and personal with them. They are relegated to the flatness of glossy magazine paper and celluloid filmstrips, at least for the average admirer.
For the price of a seat across the ocean, however, you can enjoy the rapt and enthusiastic attention of a stewardess as you shoot across the sky in a metal tube fitted with wings and engines before landing in the exotic destination of your choice.
I sound like an advertisement. Maybe I’m pursuing the wrong side of things, but I suspect the women who work on Madison Avenue are more often the secretaries, not the copywriters.
I reach into my purse and pull out my good-luck charm. A bottle of English Leather cologne. Nearly empty, but forever stained with the amber-colored remnants of what once was. I don’t have to open it to know that its initial citrus scent mellows into something warm and evokes the season of fall when it settles onto skin. One of the things that reminds me most of my dad. I used to dive into the piles of leaves he raked and giggle with the innocence of one who doesn’t know what is to come. Always smelling the English Leather that he wore every day.
I imagine him cheering me on. Proud that I’d come here to rectify the horrible mistake I’d made.
My dad gave me a copy of Frank Sinatra’s album Come Fly with Me when I was nineteen. It wasn’t even my birthday or a special occasion—just something he’d seen in a record-store window and knew I’d like. He often did things like that. He put a big pink bow on it and laid it on my bed so I’d see it when I came home from school. I listened to that thing until the grooves formed deep canyons in the vinyl and rendered it unplayable. I’d stare at Frank’s big blue eyes on the cover as he stuck his thumb out and pointed to the TWA stairs behind him and invited me to escape with him to all the places he’d sung about.
Capri. Mandalay. Paris.
London. Brazil. Hawaii.
And yet here I am at Pan American headquarters—it almost feels like a betrayal to that faded, well-loved album cover. If things don’t go well here, I’ll indeed apply at Trans World Airlines. But there is one very important difference between the two companies: Pan American only flies international routes, and I need to get as far, far away as possible.
Even an ocean may not be enough.
I take a deep breath, telling myself that I have nothing to worry about. I’ve done my homework, and I’m ready for any questions they can throw at me. I borrowed aviation books from the library and hid them in the cellar behind the Christmas decorations, reading them only in the daytime when I was alone. I can tell them that the Wright brothers first flew their airship composed of sticks and canvas sixty years ago. Or that it had been only five years since Boeing unveiled the 707—a jet clipper that could fly straight across the Atlantic Ocean with only one stop to refuel in Newfoundland.
If it comes down to a history quiz, I will ace it. I always was a good student. But it’s not a history lesson that passengers want, is it? They want to cross the miles in as much comfort as possible. Pampered by the starlets of the sky.
The young woman across from me is called into one of the interview rooms. Upon first glance, she is beautiful in a girl-next-door, Donna Reed sort of way, a trick of cosmetics enhancing her simple appearance.
The hardness of life has dulled my own features prematurely, and I hope I’ve mustered one half of this girl’s talent to revive them. I borrowed mascara and rouge from my neighbor Ronelle for today’s interview, determined to paint on some of my prior verve. The lipstick was a gift from her—brand new in glossy red Elizabeth Arden packaging.
It’s not all that Ronelle has given—she’s risked much to make sure I could get here without anyone finding out.
I am counting on our plan working.
My legs are itching again, as I feel my stockings compress my skin. But more than likely, it’s due to an excess of nerves.
What if someone here learns what I’ve taken great pains to conceal?
The girl to my right pulls a compact out of a handbag embellished with embroidered flowers. Expensive, if I had to guess. The kind I couldn’t even dream of affording.
The kind I might have been able to buy if I’d made different choices. If I’d listened to my mother’s advice. But that is a topic still so delicate that I can’t let myself think on it.
She pulls a red pencil from the bag and lines her lips, just outside their natural boundary, making them appear to be plumper than they naturally are. Then she takes a matching shade of lipstick and fills it all in, and I have to admit that the effect is extraordinary. Already graced with matinee-idol beauty, the enhancements serve to elevate her to goddess status.
I am clearly not the only one who thinks so.
“Beverly Caldwell.” A man steps out of one of the interview rooms and looks at his clipboard. And when Beverly stands—grace and elegance and sultriness all in one unbelievable package—it is as if it is the first time he has seen the dawn, its magnificent light rising until the full comprehension of its brilliance reaches his eyes. He quickly moves the clipboard down to waist level, and, as man’s predilections are not unknown to me, I can see that she has turned him into a teenage boy once again, with her a pinup of his youth live and in the flesh. I watch, engrossed, as the silent exchange unfolds, and I have no doubt that she is fully aware of the power she wields. Aware and adept at using it to her advantage. She walks toward him with a look of innocence on her face and a sashay in her high-heeled step that could make an onlooker seasick. Oh yes. She is clearly well practiced in the art of femininity, and I doubt there is a man alive who would not be conquered if she set her sights upon him.
She reminds me of Marilyn Monroe, who recently made headlines for singing to Kennedy on national television. Happy birthday, indeed, Mr. President.
Whatever will the male passengers do if she is hired?
I am not envious. Such a presence has a lifespan of one, maybe two decades before the inevitable peak of perfection starts to diminish. Like the lilac bushes my mother used to tend outside my childhood home. In May, their purple blossoms would burst with fragrance, but by June, they’d withered and dried before falling to the ground.
Beauty is fleeting.
But in this moment, in this one-in-fifty endeavor, such advantages make all the difference.
As the door closes behind them, I try to put all thoughts of competition out of my head because it will only deject me. I know nothing of her circumstances nor the situations of any of the hundreds of girls who have fidgeted alongside me during this long, long wait today. I know only my own, and it is laced with this truth: I have to get this job.
It may, quite literally, be a matter of life and death.