Chapter Nine. Kathleen, 1962
CHAPTER NINE
Only one in thirty girls who applied to United Airlines’ six-week stewardess training course in Chicago were invited to attend the rigorous classes on how to serve meals, do hair and makeup, and learn the classiest way to smoke a cigarette.
Kathleen was overjoyed when she learned she’d been accepted.
Stewardesses—or air hostesses, as they were sometimes called—were required to be between twenty and twenty-seven years old, between five-two and five-nine with a slender, well-proportioned figure, unmarried, have a pleasing, unblemished face, and to retire at the age of twenty-seven.
Kathleen knew her chances were good when one of the interviewers had nodded approvingly as she’d walked into the room, commenting, “When hard-working businessmen get on our planes, they’re going to like being served by this girl.”
Uniforms were carefully tailored to each girl’s body, and caps and gloves had to remain snowy white. Weekly weigh-ins were mandatory, as were girdles.
Infractions were dealt with severely. A scrape on a leg meant a girl might not fly that day. A few extra pounds meant she might not ever fly again.
Kathleen had spent six months working as a waitress and saving every penny for a bus ticket from her hometown in Minnesota to Chicago for the interview.
She knew it was the best investment she could make in her future.
She’d see the country, meet interesting people, and most important, leave the dead-end town where her mother had slept with so many men she wasn’t sure which one was Kathleen’s father.
Kathleen might not have gone to college or come from money, but she had a sense about people and could accurately read their intentions.
She knew the red-headed stewardess who always went into the cockpit to serve a certain captain would have her heart broken, and she was proven right when the captain showed up one day with a gold wedding ring glinting on his finger while the stewardess cried in the lavatory.
She could tell the businessman in seat 1A was a complainer, so after she spread a linen cloth over his serving table she complimented him on his smart suit and made sure his whiskey glass was always full.
She turned down the group of girls she’d met at training who suggested they all rent a place together near their base of Chicago, knowing the apartment would be too rowdy and too many men would be coming and going, tainting all the girls’ reputations.
She wanted to be the opposite of her mother in every way possible.
The flying life was as spectacular as she’d dreamed.
Kathleen had been instructed to greet passengers like dear friends who’d come to visit, and passengers were always well-dressed and in festive moods, excited for the glamorous experience.
Kathleen was given a Polaroid camera to snap pictures of first-timers so they could cherish the memory.
She served gourmet meals, topped off champagne glasses, and charmed children.
Above the clouds, hurtling toward a different city nearly every day of the week, Kathleen felt a sense of freedom so vast and exhilarating it sometimes stole away her breath.
Then one day, Ronald stepped onto her plane, and her heart stuttered. He was traveling to California with his mother, father, and younger sister for an oceanfront vacation.
Their family didn’t just look perfect; they were perfect.
The gracious mother in heels and tasteful jewelry; the father who listened attentively as she spoke instead of spreading a newspaper in front of his face; the younger sister who smiled easily and remembered Kathleen’s name when she requested a ginger ale.
And Ronald, who, as she lit cherries jubilee for their dessert, stared at her face, illuminated by the burst of fire, as if she were the true object of wonder.
“You’ve taken such wonderful care of us,” Ronald’s mother said as she bid them goodbye.
“Come back and see us soon, Mrs. Moore!” Kathleen replied.
She shook hands with each of them, feeling Ronald’s strong fingers close around hers, then he disappeared.
Kathleen was walking through the terminal with her neat rolling bag when Ronald reappeared.
He was out of breath, like he’d been running to find her.
“I would love to take you to dinner tonight,” he said as she stared up at him, so handsome in his dark suit and crisp white shirt. “Please say yes.”
“But your family … don’t you have plans?”
“They’ll understand.”
She agreed to meet him, and was grateful for every minute of her training when he took her to a French restaurant where he tasted the wine before approving it and her place was set with four forks. She knew how to walk across the room with poise, cross her legs elegantly, and converse gaily.
Six months later, they were engaged. She left her job, as was required once a ring was on her finger, and moved to Virginia so Ronald could attend law school at Marquis University.
That brief chapter of her life was forever closed, though she kept a Polaroid photo another stewardess had taken of her on her first flight and looked at it sometimes to reminisce.
It felt bittersweet, like most endings. She’d have liked to have flown another year or two, but then there would be no Ronald. And their golden life together was just beginning.