Chapter Sixteen Judy
Chapter Sixteen
Judy
Condensation drips down the glass, the result of the chilly air tens of thousands of feet above the ground and the manufactured warmth of the inside of the cabin. I trace my finger from top to bottom, following what looks like a raindrop. Or a tear.
If it is a tear, I hope it’s a happy one. Mine certainly would be.
On this, the fourth flight I have ever taken in my life, I am seated by a window. Previously, on my New-York-to-London, London-to-Miami flights, I’d been squeezed into a middle seat. A gaseous businessman on one side, a chatty dental student on the other. Even then, in the most claustrophobic situation I’d ever found myself in, the Pan Am stewardesses went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. And they didn’t even know that I was on my way to training to become one of them.
Now, I am luxuriating in first class, this prime window seat generously offered to me by Beverly. We’d flown together from Miami to Mexico City and would be landing soon in San Francisco. Just six weeks ago, I’d barely traveled beyond a small radius around my home in Pennsylvania. And now, I’d crossed the Atlantic Ocean—twice—the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of California, and I am eager beyond words to see the Pacific.
The Pacific Ocean. Just the thought of it brings to mind all sorts of exotic images. Palm trees, hula skirts, islands. It’s a mythical place in my imagination. Granted, that’s not what I will find on the California side. But it is just a matter of time.
I am going to see it all.
Tipping my hat to you, Mr. Sinatra.
My fantastical thoughts are sobered, though, by the headlines that plastered the newspapers today, announcing the tragic death of Marilyn Monroe. I hadn’t thought it was possible for me to be any more appreciative of this opportunity, but now I am. Life is short, as her untimely passing reminds me. I’ve made the right choice in seizing the chance to live it.
I lay my aqua-colored ticket inside a book and slip them into my purse. I’m going to frame this someday.
The stewardess comes by to refill our coffee. Bone-china cups and saucers, quite an upgrade from the Styrofoam ones I’d relied on in college for the caffeine I needed to stay up studying. And served on a crisp linen tablecloth that covers my pullout tray. With a bud vase holding a fresh white rose. All through this flight, I’ve paid attention to the details. From walking to the blue carpet to how the stewardess moves. Or more aptly, how she glides through the aisle. The phrases she uses. The order in which she serves the food. The eagerness to please. I’d learned that her name is Miss Mendoza, and Mexico City is her home base.
But she leans down and tells us to call her Rosamaria. At least while we’re off-duty passengers. I decide that Rosamaria will be the model for how I will carry myself in the job. I’m eager to get started.
Beverly leans over. “Are you going to eat those olives?” She points to my tray. Her breath smells of the spearmint candy that had been served in a little wrapper along with hot, lemon-scented towels at the conclusion of the meal.
“I don’t care for the green ones,” I say. “Have at it.”
Dinner had been a seven-course extravaganza, and I’d eaten every morsel of the filet mignon with peas and roasted potatoes, the chocolate cheesecake with raspberry drizzle, the garden salad with bits of blue cheese, and everything else except for those olives. I was glad that they would not be wasted.
I was relieved that they hadn’t served Camembert. Already the growing geography between Joe and myself was tearing me up, mile by mile, six hundred miles per hour on this 707. And that cheese that I’d served him—incorrectly—in that sliced-up galley during training would have felt like the deepening of a knife wound.
“Good thing we won’t be fed like this every day. I’d never be able to fit into my uniform after a couple of them.” Beverly sits back in the extra-wide cushioned seat and exhales. She runs her thumb along the inside of her skirt’s waistband. “You’re going to have to teach me to grocery shop on a budget, Judy.”
“Poor little ex–rich girl,” I tease with exaggeration. “You know I will. Eggs and bananas. Your reliable and inexpensive doses of protein and potassium.” I sink my head back into the cushioned headrest and place my hands on my belly. I don’t want to think about budgets at a moment like this. “That. Was. Amazing. Easily the best meal I’ve ever had.”
I feel the now familiar shift in the plane that tells me we’re going to prepare for descent and know that the pilots will soon lift the spoilers. I’ve grown used to the thunder of the engine, the red lights at the tips of the wings, the vapor emanating from the air-conditioning. These things no longer frighten me.
“Who would have thought that food as grand as this could be prepared in such a tiny galley?” I ask rhetorically.
“Well, it was from Maxim’s de Paris.”
I turn my head to my right, looking at her with lazy eyes. I feel the same relaxed bliss that she’s exhibiting.
“I know that ,” I say. “But I can’t imagine that it tastes any better in the restaurant than it does here, reheated and all.”
“Mother and I went there once. To Maxim’s. I had the same thing—the filet. So I can say unequivocally that there is no difference.”
Throughout our newfound friendship, Beverly had made several references like this, wistful comments about the life she left behind. But she has a way of making such comments with an air of detachment that never makes me feel like my own more limited experiences are any less significant. Or that she has any regrets.
I’d learned something else in this time of knowing her. Despite her father cutting her off—or maybe because of it—Beverly wants to be independent, and her eagerness to learn to live within her means is as enthusiastic as one in my financial state might be if I discovered a winning lottery ticket.
Beverly has schooled me on some of the finer parts of life. And I am prepared to return the favor in San Francisco by teaching her about matinee-movie prices, late-evening bakery purchases for half off, and dented-can discounts at the grocery store.
We will need some seniority before our Pan Am paychecks reflect our glamorous appearances. Although a truly independent woman needs to be smart about her money, no matter what she is paid.
Rosamaria glides toward us again, her feather-like presence catching us by surprise.
“Is there anything else I can do for you before we land?” she asks in a sincere but singsong voice.
“Pour me into a luggage cart and wheel me to our hotel.” Beverly laughs.
Rosamaria grins. “Well, that’s a bit beyond the scope of my abilities, but I think this might help.” She bends her knees so as to not have to lean over the passengers—the famed clipper dip pose—and looks behind her. She hands us a large Pan Am–branded cotton bag. “I put together a few things to make your transition to the Bay Area a little easier. I sincerely hope our paths cross again.”
After she walks away, Beverly peeks in and gasps. She hands it to me, and I’m equally as delighted.
Inside is a new bottle of the Dom Perignon we’d enjoyed at takeoff, four elegantly wrapped chocolate bars, and handfuls of the Hermès soaps and lotions that are available in the first-class lavatories.
I see the corner of something else and pull it out. “It’s a note card,” I say.
I open the envelope and whisper its contents to Beverly.
Welcome to the Pan Am family. It will be the best time of your life.
Beverly crosses herself—forehead, heart, shoulder, shoulder. “Amen to that.”
We have a few days off before we are set to take our inaugural flights, each to Honolulu, but on different schedules. Beverly’s will be round trip, and mine will continue on as a portion of Pan Am’s legendary around-the-world jaunt. As time progresses and we earn seniority, we’ll get to bid on our routes, but at the very beginning, we will be scheduled strategically with more senior staff until we get our air legs. We’d been chosen for this base because our abilities to speak French will come in handy on the Polynesian legs.
The other reason for the planned delay is the myriad of inoculation boosters we are required to get before we can fly, compounding the shots we got during training. Polio, diphtheria, smallpox, tetanus, and pertussis. I’m certain that I’ve already received the combined DPT one when I was nine years old. But all my paperwork is back in Pennsylvania along with everything else I’ve left behind.
And I am not about to call Henry to find it.
So my second day in the Bay Area, in which I’d planned to help Beverly look for an apartment, is spent languishing in our hotel room in San Mateo, woozy from all those chemicals being shot into my body at once.
Depending on the countries we’ll fly to, there might be more shots ahead. I can’t say I’m looking forward to that . Though I think the girls getting the African routes have the most rigorous inoculation schedule.
Beverly was not at all chagrined by my setback, and is, in fact, seeming to thrive in this new circumstance in which she has total independence. This is evidenced by the chicken soup she had delivered from a local Jewish deli and the flowers she’d had the hotel gift shop arrange for me.
I’m going to have to teach her that fresh flowers are an extravagance that she may have to forgo. But how can I dismiss the kindness the gift reveals?
Hours into the afternoon, I’ve watched my fill of The Lucy Show , The Match Game , Benny Hill , and The Jetsons .
I had high hopes for the new Lucy Show , having always been a fan of its predecessor, I Love Lucy , but I find it to be a lacking substitute to her earlier, funnier, married years. She and Desi Arnaz divorced a couple of years ago, and though, as a soon-to-be-divorcée myself, I champion her break for freedom, I can’t help but feel deflated that on screen, she seems to be a shadow of her former, larger-than-life self.
I hope the same fate won’t befall me. I plan to take Beverly’s suggestion and fly south to get my Mexican divorce and never look back on those years with Henry again. Just as soon as there is a break in my schedule to do so.
I can only hope that Pan Am doesn’t find out beforehand.
“Knock, knock!” Beverly chimes as she opens our hotel-room door. And just in time. With the setting of the sun, Alfred Hitchcock Presents is beginning, and I’m not sure I’m up for its dark storyline. I’m tired of the television being my only view.
She breezes in, shopping bags dangling from her arms like the accessories they likely contain, and falls like a board onto her bed, even making the pillows jump. “What a day!” she exclaims.
To her credit, the bags came from a five-and-dime.
I lift myself up on my elbows, which causes me to feel lightheaded. But a quick mental assessment of the rest of me reveals that I am already doing much better than I was this morning.
“How did it go?” I ask.
“Splendid. Just splendid.” She rolls over onto her side to face me and curls her legs up to her chest.
“Okay,” she continues, “so here’s what I learned. I telephoned the local chapter of World Wings, which is a group of former Pan Am stewardesses who now get together monthly for lunch, gossip, and philanthropy. I read about them in the in-flight magazine, and sure enough, they have a chapter here. Lucky thing for us. Rentals are at a premium right now, but they’re like one big, happy sorority, and they gave me an in.”
Relief washes over my exhausted body. I’d looked up rentals in the classifieds, and it wasn’t pretty. When we got this assignment, I had not given any thought to the difference in cost of living between Red Lion and, well, just about anywhere in the world that Pan Am might station me.
The rents here are shocking—two hundred sixty dollars for a two-bedroom downtown! A fortune compared to the eighty-dollar mortgage that I know Henry paid every month.
Some girls resort to renting the same bed and changing sheets between their flights. I hope we won’t have to do that.
“Put me out of my misery,” I plead. “The classifieds made me want to cry. What did you find?”
Beverly sits straight up. She is clearly bursting with news, and her smile spans ear to ear. “Here’s the scoop. There’s a four-bedroom stew zoo house just one town over in Burlingame that is regularly rented to rotating Pan Am stewardesses. It’s owned by one of the World Wings members. It’s a win-win! She gets steady, responsible tenants and the girls get a great property for a fantastic price. One of the girls just got transferred to Miami, so a room came up.”
I know the phrase stew zoo , a term for housing rented by multiple stewardesses to save money. But it was one other comment that makes me take notice.
“Only one room?” I feel the bitterness of panic rise in my throat at the possibility that she might have already taken it for herself and I will have to keep looking.
I’m ready for independence too. But ironically, I don’t want to do it alone.
Beverly leans over and rubs my knee before holding up two fingers. “One room. Two beds. You don’t think I would leave you high and dry, do you?”
I shake my head, ashamed that the thought had crossed my mind at all.
“Anyway, I took it. I’m sorry I didn’t wait to discuss it with you. She already had other calls from interested girls, but I was the only one with the pluck to hang up the phone and scurry right up to their luncheon at the Presidio Officers’ Club in San Francisco to introduce myself as they mingled. I hope you don’t mind.”
I leap out of my bed, suddenly full of energy, and throw my arms around her. Beverly laughs and puts her hands on my arms, gently pushing me back.
“Hold your horses, Zorro. It’s not as if I just announced the cure for cancer.”
I walk over to the desk chair and plop down on it, grateful to not be prone for the first time today. I stretch my arms over my head and my legs out in front of me. Such a simple thing, yet so effective.
“I’m sorry. I’ve had nothing to do but watch television and worry today. That sounds great. And I appreciate it, Beverly. I really do.”
She waves a hand. “Worrying will give you wrinkles. It was nothing, really. All those years of tricking the nuns at Marymount got me into the habit of thinking up all sorts of schemes.”
“Habit? Nuns? I see what you did there.”
It takes her a second to catch it, and then she crosses her arms over her stomach and folds down in laughter. “You do beat all, Judy Goodman. Nice to have you back in the land of the living.”
“Nice to be back. But, Bev—”
“Hmm?” She’s already preoccupied taking her purchases out of their wrapping. Chewing gum, cigarettes, and a beach towel. Nothing extravagant. Good for her.
“This place is in Burlingame? Not in San Francisco?”
“Righto. And that’s the other scoop.” She folds her arms across her chest. “Even though it would be very exciting to live up in the city, the ladies warned me that the traffic can be terrible getting to the airport since it’s so much farther down the peninsula. And we both know if we’re late for a flight, we’re canned. No questions asked. Especially during our probation. In Burlingame, we’ll practically be close enough to walk.”
I nod, mulling over this disappointment. I’d been so excited to leave the semirural town of Red Lion, and the prospect of living in a big city is more important to me than I’d realized.
And it seems like it would be much harder for Henry to find me if I’m in the heart of a metropolis. But maybe that’s just fear taking over.
“You’re right. That sounds much smarter. How much is it?”
“I’m glad you asked.” She grins. “It’s the final cherry on an already delicious sundae. It will only be forty dollars a month for each of us.”
“Forty dollars?” My heart almost stops in astonishment. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah! Four bedrooms, eighty dollars per bedroom. Three hundred sixty per month. But we’re splitting a room. So—forty dollars. Plus our share of the utilities.”
“That will leave us enough to buy a few pineapples in Honolulu.”
Beverly giggles. I love her in this mood. “We can save up for a whole plantation of pineapples, my friend.”