Coffee, Tea or Me? (28 page)

“I just know. I sense it.”

“Maybe she takes in washing on the side.”

“Yeh. Maybe that’s . . . Ouch!” Rachel was reacting to a strong right hand to Batman’s head by the Riddler.

The Sandy in question was Sandy Sims, an attractive girl who also flew for our airline. She did seem to get a great deal from life on her stewardess pay. Sandy always vacationed in Europe, an easy feat for stewardesses with cut-rate travel fares. But Sandy stayed in the most elegant hotels while there, and came back with suitcases full of expensive goods. She lived alone in a high-rent brownstone, wore three-hundred-dollar suits, owned a Triumph, which she housed in a midtown parking garage, and was never without funds.

There are rich girls working as stewardesses. But Sandy Sims wasn’t one of them. People who knew her testified to that. She came from a modest family and wasn’t dating any rich playboy as far as anyone knew. In fact, she wasn’t known to date anyone. She was a loner, but a pleasant one, who was always ready to pitch in on a flight and lend a hand when needed.

Maybe our questioning was based on jealousy. But a lot of the girls talked about Sandy. Some even said, “Maybe she’s hustling on the side.” Then we’d laugh. We couldn’t believe a stewardess would do that. Prostitutes were girls who came from slums and were forced into lives of vice through bad breaks and unsavory people.

We asked George Kelman about it one night.

“Don’t be silly,” he said with honest detestation. “What cheap novels have you been reading? There’s never been a stewardess hooker and there never will be.”

“Yes, sir,” we said, saluting.

“Dirty minds,” he added.

This made us a little angry. “OK, George, where does she get the money?”

This angered him. “What the hell business is it of yours, anyway? Maybe she just doesn’t blow it like you two do. Drop the whole thing. You’re just jealous as hell.”

His words made sense. We forgot about Sandy Sims and her money until two months later when we received a monthly schedule that included her on most of the legs.

We were flying New York-Dallas, with a layover in the Texas city. As usual, Sandy took a room by herself, saying she had a great deal of reading to do. It cost her above her traveling allowance, but that never bothered her.

Rachel and I were in Room 356C. Sandy was in 365C. It was about eight o’clock. I was settling down for the next juicy chapter of a motion picture actress’s best-selling autobiography, while Rachel was doing sitting-up exercises on the floor. The phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” I said. I picked up the receiver and heard, “Is this Sandy?”

“No, it’s not. You have the wrong room.”

“Sorry!” He hung up quickly.

“Who was that?” Rachel queried.

“Some guy for Sandy. What room is she in, anyway?”

“Forget. Hey, maybe it’s some rich oil man and he’s keeping Sandy. Yeh, that’s it.”

“Oh.”

I read further in the book and Rachel turned to push-ups. “It’s good for the breasts, you know,” she grunted from the floor.

“Tell Betty Big Boobs.”

“Up . . . down . . . up . . . down . . .”

The phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Sandy?”

“This isn’t Sandy’s room. You’ve got the wrong one. Check the desk.”

He hung up without another word.

Rachel was now on deep breathing exercises.

“In . . . out . . . in . . . out . . .”

“I’ll get it,” she said when the phone rang again. She picked the receiver up quickly. “Hello . . . No, she’s taking a shower. Who’s calling?”

The man’s voice on the other end hesitated. “Uh, when do you think she’ll be finished?”

“Pretty soon,” Rachel replied, her voice a strange cooing, sexy sound.

“Oh,” the guy said. “Would you tell her Larry called?”

“Sure. But can’t I help you?” I was listening closely now, my book relegated to the floor.

“You help me? . . . Well, . . . I didn’t know if you . . . I don’t think so. Good-bye.”

“He hung up,” Rachel said, still holding the phone to her ear.

“What was that routine?” I asked. “She’s not taking a shower.”

“I know. But I wanted him to talk a little. Who are all these guys calling her?”

“Rachel, you are truly jealous. And a busybody to boot.”

Rachel turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Aren’t you interested, too, Trudy?”

“Yup. Let’s figure out what to say to the next call. OK?”

We plotted our action. Rachel would answer and say Sandy had left for an appointment but asked that Rachel substitute for her. The phone rang ten minutes later and our plan was in effect. Only Rachel, as so often happened when I egged her on, became even bolder than we had planned.

“I’m sure you’d like me,” I heard her saying and couldn’t believe my ears.

“Are you a . . . a stewardess, too?” the man asked.

“Yes, I am. Sandy and I have . . . well, sort of our own private little thing going. Are you coming up?”

“Rachel, you idiot, that’s our room. It’s one thing to find out about Sandy, but not to have the guy come up here.” I wanted to kill her.

“Why not?” Rachel hurried around the apartment picking up clothing and other personal items. “Might be fun. Ever been on call?”

“Of course not.”

“Me either. But I bet we could act like one. I mean two. Now don’t get upset. I don’t mean we’re really going to do what a prostitute does. We can just talk to him and maybe find out more about Sandy.”

“But how are we going to get rid of him?” I wanted to know.

Rachel hadn’t thought about that. She suddenly paled. “Gee, let’s see . . .”

Now it was my turn to improvise. “Suppose we tell him we charge two hundred dollars.”

“You’re a genius,” Rachel assured me. “That’ll do it.”

But the whole thing had me worried. “You know, Rachel, Sandy will find out about this. She’s bound to. He’ll tell her about the high price and all.”

“He will not. He’ll never mention a word. And if he does, we just deny anything. Don’t worry about it.”

Within minutes, we had our hotel room looking good enough to rival anything Sadie Thompson could have dreamed up on such short notice. One light illuminated the room. The drapes were drawn. We wore our bathrobes (with Bermuda shorts and sweaters underneath). We were beginning to feel the part, and that was a little frightening. We waited for what seemed an eternity before there came a feeble knock on the door.

“Go ahead,” I whispered to Rachel.

“You,” she countered.

“You started it,” I retorted.

“I’m scared,” she quavered.

I ran over to her. He knocked again. “Evens,” I said. “OK. Odds for me.”

“Once, twice, three . . . shoot.” I put out one finger and she put out two. Rachel would answer the door. He was knocking louder now.

She slowly opened it and there stood our caller—our first customer. He looked awful.

“Howdy,” he said with a broad grin. “Here I am.”

“Hi,” Rachel managed to say, her voice having obvious trouble getting past her Adam’s apple.

“Can I come in? This is the place, isn’t it.”

Rachel hesitated for a moment. “Sure. Come in.”

He walked through the door and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me.

“Two of you?”

“Yup.”

“I’ll be damned. Didn’t know there was two of you.”

“Yup. Two of us,” I said, trying to appear at home with the situation.

He rocked back and forth, from one foot to another, as he made up his mind what to say next. He seemed as nervous as we were.

“Sit down,” I said to break the silence.

“Name’s Bert. What’s yours?”

“Roberta,” I said, not knowing why that name came into my head.

“I’m Zelda,” Rachel threw in.

“Zelda?”

“Zelda.”

“Nice name.”

“Thanks.”

He fidgeted in his chair. He twirled his tie in his fingers and kept blowing his cheeks out.

“Well,” he finally managed to say, “I guess we’d better iron things out right now. I mean, about the two of you and all. I mean, about the money. You know?”

Rachel took the initiative. “Sure. The money. We can get to that in a minute. Uh, why don’t you take off your shoes. That’s a good idea. And loosen your tie.”

I was afraid she was overdoing it. Fortunately he didn’t want to take his shoes off. He did loosen his tie.

“You from Dallas?” I asked.

“Yup.”

“Where’d you meet Sandy?”

“Never did meet her. Another fella told me ’bout her. Didn’t know there were others.”

“Other what?”

“Well, you know what I mean. Gals like yourselves making a little extra in your spare time.”

We evidently looked hurt, or shocked, because he came right back with, “Not that I blame you. Guess you don’t make that much workin’ for the airline. And guess you figure there’s nothin’ wrong with it ’cause you’re gonna do it anyway. Am I right?”

“Well, yes.”

“How’d you get started?” he asked, leaning forward to indicate sincere and deep interest in the subject. This was crazy. He wasn’t supposed to interview us.

“Well, it’s a long story.”

He looked at his watch. “Look, I gotta get home. What do I do. Choose?”

“I guess so,” I answered.

“Well, no hard feelings I hope. I’ll take you.” He pointed directly at me.

For once I was speechless, all my Texas bravado fled. What now?

“You got another room up here?” he asked.

“No. No other room. Just this one.”

His eyes began to light up. “Boy, you gonna watch?” he asked Rachel.

“Guess so.”

Bert got up and came over to me. He put his arm around me and kissed me on the neck.

“Wait a minute,” I said in a panic, pushing him away at the same time.

“Oh, yeh. About that money. My friend said it was thirty-five. OK by me.”

Rachel jumped into the discussion. “Thirty-five? You must be kidding.”

“Well, that’s what he told me. How much is it?”

“Two hundred.”

“Two hundred?”

“Sure. We’re clean, nice girls. Not like the others who do this. Two hundred.”

“Boy, he sure was wrong.”

“Sorry. You’d better leave. There are others waiting.”

Bert walked out under a cloud of gloom. We’d never talked about what we’d do if our customer became violent, or if he had the two hundred. Lucky for us, Bert was just sad and poor.

“Well, how about Miss Sandy Sims?” Rachel said with pride that she’d uncovered the plot.

“We know where she gets the money but so what? What do you think we’re supposed to do about it?”

“Nothing. I just feel better now that my curiosity can be put to rest.”

We decided the evening had been fun. But what a strange feeling to be talking to that strange man about going to bed with him, especially when the money question came up.

“What did you do last night?” we asked Sandy the next morning on the plane.

“Not much. Had a good night’s sleep. Say, by the way, the desk clerk had our room numbers mixed up. I got a couple of calls from friends of mine who said they got your room instead. At least I think it was your room. Thanks for setting them straight. I have a lot of relatives in Dallas and it was good to hear from them. You didn’t get any other calls for me, did you?”

“No, no, Sandy. Not a one.”

“Good. I hate to miss a phone call.”

Sandy Sims is the only stewardess we’ve ever met who made extra money this way. There are a few others we’ve heard about. But we’ve never met them. We understand they try to work the charter flights that take a group of men to a convention. That seems sensible to us.

We talked a little earlier about how a stewardess learns to recognize a married man from the moment he walks on board the aircraft. This developed perception, coupled with the aid of a tell-tale, pale imprint of a hastily removed wedding band, proves extremely valuable in a very practical sense.

But sizing up a male passenger’s marital status isn’t all we do when things are slow. We also play the game of guessing where he’s from and what he does. As stewardesses on the receiving end of perhaps more direct passes than any other group of working girls, we’ve been able to compare notes on the pitches different men make and how these pitches relate to their nationality and profession. After long and careful study of countless stories by our fellow stewardesses, together with a normal amount of firsthand experiences, we’ve been able to come up with our own handbook on the subject. If a given profession or nationality isn’t listed, we can only offer the probability that men in that category don’t fly, or don’t like girls, or both.