Chapter Seven Beverly
Chapter Seven
Beverly
The humiliation of my last day in New York still rankles me as I lean my head against the city bus that will take us all to the training offices in Miami. But I’ve learned that sometimes fire needs to scorch the old land before it can be reborn into something new and better.
“Let’s go to the Plaza for one last tea,” my friend Eve had suggested. She’d been a boarder at Marymount, a cattle heiress from New Zealand whom we affectionately called “Kiwi.”
It had been our Saturday tradition, Eve being my closest friend when I usually kept them at arm’s length. But here she was, a literal world away from her home, and I’d always been fascinated—envious—by how she managed to live her life on her terms.
I pulled off my gloves one finger at a time and folded them into my handbag as we entered the Plaza’s tearoom. One last hurrah before I left for Pan Am training.
“I’m sorry, Miss Caldwell, but we don’t have a table for you today.”
The ma?tre d’ would not meet my eyes as he choked out the words. There were at least twelve tables available.
“But we have a standing reservation.” And I always tip you generously, I thought to myself.
“I’m sorry, but we will not be able to accommodate you at this time.”
Confused, Eve suggested manicures at Kenneth Salon instead, but again, we were met with rejection.
“My deepest apologies, Miss Caldwell, but your account has been closed.”
“Closed?” My chest tightened and my face burned with embarrassment. I should have seen this coming.
“I’ll pay,” offered Eve, pulling out cash as she spoke.
But the salon owner squirmed and shook her head. “We cannot accommodate you anymore.”
That was the same word that the ma?tre d’ had used.
If I’d had any illusion that this was all an anomaly, it was shattered when I went to pick up a hat I’d ordered weeks ago at my favorite milliner’s.
“Beverly. Dearest,” the Frenchman said in words dripping with honey. He took my regloved hands into his own and kissed each of them, squeezing as he let go. “Your account is paid in full and your hat is ready. But”—his face darkened as he continued—“I am so sorry to deliver the news that this will be the last one I can make for you.”
“What do you mean, Marcel?” My words came out as ice.
Because I knew. I knew , even before he said it. My father had made good on his threat. My hands were shaking at the realization that I’d called his bluff. And he hadn’t been bluffing.
Marcel leaned in, elbows resting on the glass counter. “I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but your father has rung up all the places where you have accounts and permanently closed them.”
Eve gasped. “He didn’t!”
But I wasn’t surprised. My anger bloomed until I could feel the blood vessels in my cheeks blossom.
“He did , darling. You don’t get to be a lion in New York without having a roar, and my girl, he used it today.”
Something that he said lingered in me. “Did you say he called himself? Not his secretary?”
“Not his secretary.”
He really meant business, then, and my mother hadn’t been able to stop him. My own father was shutting down the only life I’d ever known, one vendor at a time. It was his way of forcing what he wanted. But while I had my mother’s eyes, his stubbornness was my greatest inheritance.
Two could play at that game.
“What are you going to do, Beverly?” asked Eve. Who, despite her distance of thousands of miles from her family, was still irrevocably tied to her allowance from them. This news must be even more inconceivable to her than it was to me.
I curled my hands into fists and stuffed them into my pockets before coming up with an answer.
“As one last favor, Marcel, may I use your phone?”
He lifted the mint-green telephone over the counter and handed the receiver to me. I dialed the number I knew by heart but rarely used.
“Richard Caldwell, please,” I said, tempering my ire for the sake of the innocent secretary. “Tell him his daughter’s on the line.”
One minute passed. Sixty long seconds that I’m certain were a ploy on his part meant to give him the upper hand.
“Beverly,” my father said when he came on the line. A triumphant tenor to his voice, no doubt convinced that I’d called to concede in the face of his drastic actions.
But I was not going to give him that satisfaction.
I said only one thing before hanging up: “I’m going to be the best damned Pan Am stewardess that anyone has ever seen.”
If I’d known how blisteringly hot Miami would be, I might have welcomed Mr. Wall Street derailing this venture with one phone call to Mr. Trippe. But that never happened—maybe my mother successfully intervened at last. And the result is that I am positively boiling here in the southernmost tip of the country.
Jeez Louise , how does anyone live here and endure it? I’m afraid I’ll barely survive the day, and yet we have six whole weeks of training ahead of us before we get assigned to our bases. Well, I can tell you this. If we get any say in the matter, Miami will not be at the top of my list. Nor will New York, for obvious reasons. That leaves London and San Francisco and a smattering of others. But it’s probably going to be luck of the draw, so I can only hope.
The training room is rather dull, belying the glamorous life we’re supposed to be embarking upon. White walls, blue carpet, green chalkboard. We could be anywhere, save for posters illustrating all the exotic places that are within Pan American’s vast purview. But even their corners are curling in protest of the humidity. Ceiling fans are roaring at full speed, accompanied by four box fans placed around the floor. Both are so loud that I fear it will be difficult to hear the instructor.
I pull a compact from my purse and powder my nose and chin, adjusting the mirror ever so slightly with the subtle purpose of taking a peek at the other girls who’ve made the cut.
My competitive side begins to stir. Even though we’ve all made it this far, there is a precedent that thirty percent of us won’t finish training for one reason or another. I am not going to be one of them.
I can’t be.
I will not go back to Manhattan a failure. I will not give my father the satisfaction.
I recognize a few girls from the interview in New York. Three or four in this class of forty. The others have come from all over the world—from thirteen countries, I’d heard. Recruited from interview posts established in major cities, mostly on college campuses. The Texas delegation—there are a disproportionate five of them—look positively unaffected even as the rest of us wither in the heat.
But maybe that’s part of the test. They throw you into the most distemperate climate possible and see who survives.
I. Will. Survive.
The nervous chitchat dies down as the classroom door opens and a man enters with an armful of paperwork. He’s a good-looking one, I must say, but doesn’t seem to know it. That’s the best kind. He’s young—maybe five years older than me. Blue, Sinatra-like eyes. But unfortunately, he doesn’t smile. This one is all business.
“Good morning, ladies. If you can all have a seat, we are ready to get started.”
He turns toward the chalkboard and writes his name on it as if we are back in first grade.
Joe Clayton
I’d whistle, Joe Clayton, if I hadn’t been taught to act like a lady. And looking around the room, so would every other girl.
Eyes back in your heads, lassies. We’re here to do a job. The fun will come later.
He faces us again. “Welcome to Pan American Airways. You’ve been selected from a highly qualified group of women. So congratulations on being here. I’m Mr. Clayton, and I’ll be on hand for most of the six weeks assisting with the classes.”
He sounds like he’s given this talk one too many times. Smile, Mr. Clayton, won’t you? Let’s see those teeth. I’ll bet they’re as pearly white as that shirt you’re wearing.
“There is more than meets the eye to being a Pan American stewardess,” he continues. “To the passengers, you are ambassadors of the airline, of the United States, and of the countries you are visiting. At all times, you are expected to be professional and pleasant. Making them comfortable and relaxed from takeoff to landing. We want them to have only the best things to say about their experience.”
I traveled with my mother several times growing up. Paris for shopping. Denver for skiing. Maine for cooling off in the summer. And so on. We flew many different airlines (not to mention the occasional private charter), but there was something about the Pan American stewardesses that was a cut above. They were the best . To pilfer a Marine Corps advertisement, “The Elite of the Elite.”
Exactly.
Joe Clayton pauses and looks around the room. All eyes are on him, but maybe not for the reason he thinks. When his glance lands on me, I see none of the flush that I usually encounter from the men in my circles. Yep, all business this one. Maybe he’s married. If I were his wife, I’d be worried about him spending so much time with those elite of the elite , but I don’t see a wedding ring. So who knows?
He continues talking as he hands out thick binders row by row. They’re the size of a New York phone book and they make a thump as they hit the desks. I think he’s doing it intentionally.
“My associates will be lecturing you on the finer points of customer service throughout our time together. But there is another side to training that is more technical. You will be expected to learn how airplanes operate. What terms like aft and starboard and thrust and turbine and yaw mean. For all you Scrabble fans, yes, y-a-w is a legitimate word and will get you a good score if you can get that Y or W on a bonus square.”
He looks up as he takes a breath, and I stifle a yawn. I’m not sure a Scrabble reference was the most in-touch point he could have made, but I’ll give him some of those bonus points for trying.
“Keep your passports and vaccinations up to date,” he drones. “You will need to understand weather and its impact on flights and turbulence. You will need to be skilled in first aid and emergency situations and how to perform in those situations without breaking a sweat. You will need to memorize the three-letter codes of all the airports to which Pan American flies, which are, I warn you, substantial. Plus the routes between them, the alternative landing sites, and the types of aircraft we employ to each of them.”
He stops again, maybe for effect, and he gives the faintest of smiles. “Have I frightened anyone yet?”
I look around the room. These girls are pros. Not a flicker in their eyelids or any telltale signs of regret, but I guarantee you that they are each thinking the same thing I am.
What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?
Sister Mary Clare at Marymount wouldn’t approve of such language, but Sister Mary Clare didn’t hear all that I just heard. And it seems like even her most arduous tests would be left in the dust by all we are expected to learn here.
No one admits out loud to Mr. Clayton that she feels completely overwhelmed, so he nods in satisfaction and returns to the front of the classroom.
“Brains and beauty. That’s what a Pan American stewardess is, in that order. You have to be clever. Resourceful. Knowledgeable. Friendly. Classy. And perhaps most importantly, calm under pressure. Because while our goal is that every Pan American flight is flawless, I can tell you that not one of them is.”
The room is still as the girls all sit at attention.
“But there is one thing to remember above all else.” His tone grows serious, and I feel in my stomach the gravity of whatever he is about to say. “We’re not too many years off the days when this country fought battles across either ocean that we sit between. Some of you lost fathers and uncles, and you will be flying with the daughters of people who were considered enemies at that time. This makes you part of the future. Part of the mission of permanent peace. This blending of cultures makes Pan American more effective than any United Nations gathering. And you will be on the mission’s front lines.”
His words reverberate with importance. I can see the other girls flush with pride. Of all the things that he’s said, this more than most gives a hint at that purpose that I’ve been hungry for.
I don’t look down at the manual he’s placed on my desk, but my fingers slide along its edge, and the scope of what lies ahead of us daunts me. Not for the first time, I wonder if I can do this.
But I’ve never fallen short of anything I’ve gone after, and I’m not going to start now.
I’m going to make my words to my father come true.