33. Taylor
Thirty-Three
Taylor
I understand his reasons, but they still don’t make it any less hurtful, any less of a lie. We all do shitty things, but it’s how we respond to them that makes us who we are. Acceptance and forgiveness are interesting, but they never go hand in hand—at least not in my world.
I’m sitting on my couch, a glass of vodka in my hand, the bottle on my coffee table while I try to process Jake’s words and figure out where I go from here. I want to forgive him. I want to forget this whole mess ever happened because I miss him. But that’s no reason to just willingly let someone back in.
I’m inside my own head when my phone rings, and a part of me secretly hopes it’s Jake. But when I pick up my phone, it’s a number I don’t recognize. I’m not in the mood to deal with someone trying to sell me something, so I send it to voicemail and resume my replaying of today.
It felt good to have Jake helping me with the girls and seeing his support of what I do, but it also scares the shit out of me to jump in headfirst and trust him again. He lingered after the class was over, but obviously not wanting to push things too far, he said his goodbyes and left, leaving the ball in my court.
Again, my phone chimes out, interrupting my obsessing and letting me know I have a voicemail. I let it play and for a split second I don’t even know how to respond.
The voice of a woman plays in my ear, her words filled with excitement and promise, and I don’t even hesitate in calling her back.
The line trills just once before the woman who left me the voicemail answers.
“Hello?”
“Is this Emily Bishop?” I ask, hardly stopping to greet her properly.
“Is this Taylor Patterson?” she responds.
“It is, and I got your message.”
“I’m sorry to call you, but I got your number from Dean Clynes. We went to school together, and I’m a pilot for Hawaii Air. It’s no Crescent Airways, but you know,” she rambles, a nervous excitement to her voice. “I heard what you’re trying to do and I want to help.”
It’s a horrible thing when my mind immediately wants to question someone’s motives, but that’s where mine goes the second this conversation starts. What could this woman possibly want from me? I have nothing left to give. I fight on my own because my trust in people is broken, and there are few left in the world that I will put my faith in. But when she mentioned Dean’s name, I will admit she piqued my interest.
“Okay,” I reply cautiously. “What has he told you?”
“That you’re hoping to bring awareness to the pay gap between male and female pilots. That you want pay equality.”
I love that this woman has reached out to me because the more of us we have, the more likely we are to incite change. But she’s fighting for something she doesn’t fully understand, which is the trouble with bringing in others. They need to know what they are asking for or in this case, what we’re more or less demanding.
I can’t continue to make idle threats and then keep showing up, doing my job as if women all over the world aren’t being fucked over. I have to be prepared to walk away should this not all play out the way it should. And since this woman has reached out to me, she needs to understand what it is we, as women, are fighting for.
“Have you reached out to anyone else?” I ask, wondering how far we could conceivably take this. This is not just a Crescent Airways issue; it’s an issue affecting women in almost all jobs.
“There’s only two of us at Hawaii Air, so she knows, but I know there’s Facebook groups and things like that where we could reach out to more female pilots.”
“I had no idea it would reach this far,” I reply, wondering what I’m getting myself into and if I’m really ready to take on something this huge.
“Well, we weren’t thinking that you would take this on for everyone, but if other airlines see that Crescent Airways has made changes to the way they pay their pilots, then we can hope that other smaller ones follow suit. We’d be there to support you.”
“Okay, I hear what you’re saying. But we need to talk about what I’m looking for and if it’s something that you’re interested in.”
“Okay.”
“So you said ‘I want pay equality’ when we first started talking. That’s not what I want, and I understand why you would say that. Most people use that term and equity interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. I’m not necessarily looking for pay equality because that basically means that everyone should be paid the same for the same job.”
“But isn’t that what you’re looking for? To be paid the same as the guy sitting next to you or the guy who’s a captain too?” she questions, and I hear the confusion in her voice.
I’ve never gone into something without knowing all the information because when you’re trying to make a change, people look to knock you down. They look to find what you don’t know or what you may be ignorant about. Even worse there will be men who think they’re smarter and will try to use their power to manipulate a situation. You will always have to know more and be one step ahead to make your voice heard.
“That would mean that all first officers, for example, would be paid sixty thousand a year, and all captains would be paid eighty. No one would be given credit for evaluations or work experience, and everyone would get a small cost of living increase. There would be no benefit to doing your job well or company loyalty.”
“Okay, I get what you’re saying. We don’t want communist Russia,” she jokes, and we both laugh.
“We want pay equity. We want to be paid the same as the guy sitting next to us if he or she has the same experience, the same degree, the same evaluation score. All bonuses, profit-sharing and additional pay would be dished out this way too. It’s more complicated, but it’s also more reasonable. We also want to hold the airline accountable for pay parity.”
“Well, however you see this playing out, we want to be a part of it. I’ll start doing some research, and hopefully, we can help each other.”
“Sounds good and I’ll be in touch. Thanks for calling, Emily.”
As I hang up the phone, I realize this has gone beyond just my small little world and I can only hope I’m able to push to make some changes. There will be men at Crescent Airways that have no interest in helping, but not only that, they probably don’t care either. I really just need enough of them that our voices are louder.
My phone chimes out again, but this time it’s a text from Carrie.
Carrie: You’re killing me here. What did Jake say? Or are you already shacking back up with him and that’s why I haven’t heard from you?
Me: Not shacking up with him, but damn it did he look good or what?
Carrie: Then you should be shacking up with him. Wanna drink a bunch of wine and fill me in on what happened?
Me: Yeah sure. Your house or mine?
Carrie: I’ll come to you. It’s almost bedtime and that’ll give me an excuse to not have to help.
Me: I’ve got the wine.
When Carrie arrives, I’m on my third glass of vodka and far drunker than I planned on getting, but as someone who unhealthily uses alcohol to cope with problems, I don’t think I’m doing too badly tonight.
“Self-medicating with your best friend vodka, I see,” Carrie states as she walks in the door, but there’s no judgment in her voice. She knows me well enough to know this is what I do and when I come out of it, I’m a little more broken but with a little thicker skin. “So what did he say?” Carrie prompts, opening a bottle of pinot noir and pouring us both a glass.
“He was in a bad place and got married on a whim. The marriage meant nothing, which is why he didn’t tell me.” I shrug my shoulders, contemplating my words and his, but still not grasping the entirety of the situation. I have no idea how to proceed.
“So that’s it? I really wanted him to come in big and this…” Carrie pauses, her nose wrinkled up. “Jake is losing.” Her head falls into her hands dramatically, and I laugh a little. “I had such high hopes for him.”
“You seem even more devastated by this than I am. Do you want me to play “Love is a Battlefield” and start singing into a serving spoon to help you get over this?” I ask, teasing Carrie and her dramatics.
“No, I want you to get back together with him because he’s perfect for you. I know you don’t feel like that now, but think about how much he supported your life, how much he rooted for you. And I don’t want you to be sad,” she adds, tossing back the last of her wine and generously refilling her glass.
“I’m not sad. I’m disappointed and angry, and sometimes I really start to hate myself, but like always, I’ll get through it.”
“What’s worse, the fact that he lied or that he’s married?”
I take a second to think about Carrie’s question because at this point, I’m not even certain why I’m still angry.
“I think it’s both and the fact that I just don’t know if what he says is true. Is his marriage really over or is it just what people tell the other woman? I can’t ever be that girl because once I was the wife who was cheated on. There’s nothing worse.”
“I think I’m a pretty good judge of character, and I don’t think Jake just goes around sleeping with women and lying to them about being married. I think his marriage is over,” Carrie states, her words slurring a little as she empties the last of the wine into her glass.
“I think you’re a little bit drunk.”
Carrie rolls her eyes and laughs a little, motioning to the glass and the bottle of vodka still on my counter.
“What did she look like?” Carrie asks, seemingly out of nowhere. “We should look her up.”
I chew on my lip a bit, knowing I’ve thought of doing this exact thing for a while now, but feeling like that shows weakness. And not just that, I worry about what I might find.
“She’ll be easy to find,” I say, playing it off like I don’t really care. “She works for the Department of Defense.”
“Then I’m totally looking her up.”
Giving it only a moment’s hesitation, because I’ve had far too much to drink and because it doesn’t feel as pathetic with someone else participating, Carrie and I begin drunkenly searching the Internet for Jake’s wife.
It only takes us about fifteen minutes to find an email address for Margaret Hendricks with a picture of her on a stark white background.
“That’s her,” I say, pointing to the picture in front of us. A staged professional headshot that is obviously required as part of her inclusion on the DoD’s website.
“She’s pretty,” Carrie says, and immediately slaps her hand over her mouth. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“She is pretty,” I admit, a lump forming in my throat as I try not to let my thoughts run rampant.
“We should email her and ask her if she and Jake are really getting divorced. That would totally ease your mind. And if they’re not, then she’ll say it and then you can move on, and you won’t have to deal with this anymore,” Carrie rambles, her words all running together.
“No way. That is a terrible idea.” I’m shaking my head, my hands flying wildly around, but Carrie doesn’t seem to give a shit, shooting off an email before I even have a chance to see what she’s typed out.
“Carrie, I’m seriously going to kill you,” I say but still secretly curious about how this is going to go down. “What did you say to her?”
“I asked her if her marriage to Jake is over and I told her you wanted to talk to her. I gave her your phone number.”
“No, you didn’t, did you?” My heart is suddenly racing, a nervous anxiety filling the room as I chug my glass of wine.
“I did, because what’s the worst that can happen?” She gives me a questioning look, her shoulders shrugging. “She says she’s still married and he’s her husband? So what, you already think that, so that would just confirm things and you can move on. If she says they’re getting divorced and she never loved him, then it’s a win-win. You can go running back to Jake and have awesome make-up sex.”
Carrie holds her hand up for a high five, waiting on me to celebrate with her, but just as I’m about to come around to her side, my phone rings out.
“Holy shit!” I yell, Carrie screaming out loud as if someone has just scared her to death. I grab for my phone, but when I see it’s an unknown number, it only takes me a second to realize it’s probably Maggie. “I’m not answering that!” The phone continues ringing in my hand and I toss it on the table, grabbing a dishcloth and throwing it over it.
This whole thing is really getting ridiculous. Drunk me and sober me are two different people and right now I hate drunk me, because as the phone lights up under the dishtowel, I can’t handle it.
And I find myself answering it.