Coffee, Tea or Me? (35 page)

“Sure, Trudy.” He rang at that moment.

Rachel trotted off and was back a few minutes later.

“Trudy, did you know that one out of every ten girls will accept a direct pitch from a guy? Did you know that a magazine article suggested that a man simply stand on a street corner and say to the first ten girls who pass, ‘How about going to bed with me?’ The magazine says one out of the ten will accept. How about that?”

“I never heard of such a thing. It’s ridiculous.”

Rachel looked me squarely in the eye. She squinted a little and kept looking at me. Finally, she cleared her throat and said, “Well, Trudy, old friend and confidant, you’ll be pleased to know that you’re number ten.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shackwood back there. His theory. He told me all about it, and said he tried it on you. And he’s bragging it worked. Tell me, did you accept a date with him tonight in San Fran? Did you agree to go to bed with him? Just like that?”

“Rachel, he’s out of his nasty mind. I never agreed to any such thing.”

“Did he pinch you?”

“He tapped me on the rear end.”

“He tried with me, too. But they don’t call me ol’ swivel hips for nothing. Come on, Trudy, let’s have it. What did you tell him?”

“Rachel, stop it. You know I never accepted anything from that . . . that cretin.”

“Save your breath. It’s him you’d better convince.”

I avoided Shackwood as much as possible. Rachel took over that side of the airplane. He sat there leering at me, his tongue going back and forth over his lips. He hissed at me a couple of times and tried to motion me over to him with his head. I looked the other way and served my passengers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we now proudly present a feature-length motion picture for your enjoyment.” Rachel was reading the standard announcement for show time on the 707. She went through the instructions about dialing the volume, tuning the music channels, and using the headphones. Everyone settled back to enjoy second drinks and the film. It was a brand-new Hollywood release, a grade-B thriller with go-go girls, good guys and bad guys, a sinister plot to steal sinister secret papers, wild chases in automobiles over sheer mountain cliffs, through sleepy little peasant towns and in airplanes that seemed to crash every twenty frames. All this frantic action completely captured the passengers, and I used the short lull to freshen up in one of the two vacant lavatories.

I latched the door behind me, drew a deep breath, and took a long look at myself in the mirror. I smiled at myself and myself smiled back. The smile took an effort. “Come out of it, girl,” I scolded. “What’s happened to the old Trudy?” I was reaching for the door latch when I heard knocking on the wall. It came from the next lavatory. I put my ear to the wall.

“Hi there,” I heard faintly through the partition. It was Shackwood. “Clever, clever,” he said. “Great way to be able to talk to me without anyone else listening. You’re a clever one, sweetie pie. A-OK in my book. A-OK.”

I should have pulled my ear away but I listened from sheer outrage.

“You know what, pumpkin? You’ve got great pectorals.”

Suddenly I was back in Amarillo, and standing behind that wall in the next lavatory was Henry, my premed boyfriend with the Braille approach to necking. Two years of escape and this is how I ended up. I almost started to cry.

Shackwood laughed a deep, dirty laugh.

“Tits. Boobs. You’ve got great ones.”

I opened the door and stepped out into the aisle. So did he. I tried to walk past him but he managed to say “Meet me in the one you just left in twenty minutes. A little quickie, huh?” He sat down with an air of conquest.

I debated whether to tell the captain. It hardly seemed worth the trouble. I was a veteran stewardess, not a green kid fresh out of school. I could handle an overbearing nut like Shackwood myself.

People were just finishing their molded kumquat dessert with whipped cream and almonds, the bad guy was about to run an ice pick through the head of the good guy, and Shackwood was dozing off when it happened.

POP! EEEEEAAAAAAAH!!! ZIP! ZIP! ZAP! S-T-T-T-T-T

Everyone leaped out of his seat at once. The dissonant, screeching sounds had rushed through all the earphones into everyone’s inner ear. Passengers frantically tore the phones from their heads. The picture went black. And smoke started seeping from the entertainment control panel at the front of the aircraft.

Everyone started yelling at us at once.

“Something’s wrong with the sound, miss.”

“I was listening to a beautiful thing by Ravel when it happened. Terrible. Simply terrible.”

“Man, they was just gettin’ inta somethin’ when everything like went to a minor chord.”

“Boooooooooo,” someone yelled from the couch section.

Rachel did a quick PA as I went forward to inform the captain of the problem. The flight engineer came back and opened the control panel. He touched a wire and sparks started flying.

“Goddamn it,” he drawled, “I always said movies don’t have any place on an airplane.” He pulled a couple of wires loose and the smoke stopped.

“That’s all I can do ’til we arrive. Better tell ’em they’ll have to go to their local theater to see the end of the movie.”

Rachel apologized on the PA and I started up the aisle to flash a stewardess smile at the disgruntled folks. I hadn’t taken three steps when what never happens, happened. All together, in unison, all the oxygen masks dropped from their storage compartments above each seat. Down they came, orange face masks on white plastic tethers. They bobbed up and down in everyone’s face. Most of the faces turned white. No one listens when the stewardess goes through the oxygen mask procedure prior to each flight. It’s silly to worry about that. You’ll never need them.

People started grabbing masks. Some, aware of the stated procedure, clamped them to their faces and started breathing quickly into them. Some yanked them right out of the ceiling slots. Five or six stood up, masks in hand, and yelled at Rachel and me for help. We showed them what to do. Then we grabbed our masks and started breathing.

It took us a few minutes before we began wondering why one of the cockpit crew hadn’t come back to check on things. It was also strange we hadn’t begun descending to a lower altitude. We continued to sit there breathing into the masks. Finally, the cockpit door opened and the first officer stepped into the passenger cabin. He looked around at the emergency scene, looked at us, and looked back again at the passengers.

“What the hell’s going on here?” he asked Rachel.

She gingerly took the mask from her face and told him about the emergency situation in the cabin. “The masks dropped and that means cabin pressure has changed. You know that . . . sir.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the pressure in this plane.”

“So why’d the masks drop . . . sir?”

“How do I know? Tell these people to get those damn masks off their faces. There’s nothing wrong.”

“Yes, sir.”

We did a PA in which we said the problem had been corrected and that all was well. A few didn’t believe us and kept on breathing into their masks. We almost had to pry the mask away from the woman who loved Ravel.

We walked up the aisle checking each passenger. No one seemed any worse for the experience, except Mr. Shackwood. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten about him and made the mistake of checking his side of the cabin.

He was sitting limply in his seat, his collar open, face white and wet. He rolled his eyes up at me and groaned.

“Are we going to die?” he asked weakly.

I couldn’t resist it. “Yup.”

His eyes really rolled now, and his lips quivered.

“Miss,” he pleaded.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For saying those things to you.”

“You should be.”

“If there was a priest here, I’d tell him that, too.”

“I didn’t know you were a religious man, Mr. Shackwood.”

“Oh, yes. Eight kids, too. Forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven. Go in peace.”

He looked relieved.

After much cockpit speculation about what had caused the masks to pop, it was decided that the short circuit in the entertainment system had also shorted out another circuit that controlled the masks.

“Do you know that more people are killed riding bicycles every year than on commercial airplanes, Trudy?” Rachel asked as we cleaned up the galley.

“I’ve been told.”

“And that more people are killed at railroad crossings, too?”

“Those statistics must have come out before in-flight entertainment. I have the feeling this multimillion-dollar bird is about to fall out from under us.”

“Let’s not worry about it, Trudy. You’re just generally jumpy anyway. You’ve been like a caged cat the past few weeks.”

I tried not to worry anymore. I didn’t have long not to worry because we had another mishap in five minutes. This time it was nothing as complicated as short circuits in the movies. It wasn’t even as dramatic as the oxygen masks dropping by mistake. All it involved was Number Three engine quitting. You couldn’t even see it, an obvious advantage a jet has over the easily observed prop engine. We didn’t know it until our captain told us.

“Number Three quit,” he said flatly.

“Figures,” I mumbled.

“Huh?”

“I said it’s good we have three more.”

“Let’s hope they don’t quit.”

“Could they?”

“Never know.”

I smiled. “Two years is too long.”

“What, Trudy?” The captain was in no mood for games.

“I said two years is too long. To be a stew. Don’t you agree?”

“Oh, sure. Too long.”

“That’s what I said.”

No one in the passenger cabin knew anything else had happened to the jet. And we weren’t about to tell them, even though regulations state that passengers should be alerted to any malfunction that might possibly cause injury, no matter how remote the possibility. The loss of one engine was in no way a major threat to anyone’s safety. But, if we went by the book, we’d tell them. We decided the book was for reading, not necessarily aloud. We skipped any announcement.

We started our letdown for the San Francisco approach when the cockpit signaled we were wanted up front.

“Small problem, girls.”

My heart came up in my throat and stuck there. I swallowed it back down to where it belonged and listened as the captain explained the next foul-up in an already less-than-perfect trip.

“That little light says the gear won’t go down. Doesn’t mean it won’t. But then again, you hate to turn your back on that little light. If it’s right, no wheels. If it’s wrong, wheels. That simple. Just like they told you in school.” He laughed.

“We didn’t tell them about the engine. We’d better tell them about this. What’s procedure?”

“The usual. Crash position for everybody. Make sure they realize it might be just a foul-up in the bulb. But maybe not. You two have been around enough time. You know what to say.”

“Two years.”

“Oh yeh. I remember. Happy anniversary.”

Rachel did the PA. I gave no sign of fear, although my heart was galloping. Shackwood flailed his arms around in the air for me to come.

“What’s it feel like?” he asked with trembling lips.

“What’s what feel like?”

“When you hit. You know, when you . . . hit. What’s it like?”

“I haven’t any idea. Don’t worry. You’ll be OK.” I’d forgiven him. You can’t bear a grudge in a plane with one engine out and maybe no landing gear.

A pass over the airport showed the wheels down in proper position. But that was no assurance they were locked in place. We dumped all excess fuel, had all passengers take the emergency position of head down between the knees, pillow on lap, eyeglasses off, high heels under seats, and seat belts securely fastened. We braced ourselves along with them as the big jet settled down onto the concrete ribbon at San Francisco. The wheels touched the ground, lost contact for a moment, touched again, and stayed there, firmly and securely locked under everyone.

I had just gotten out my deep sigh of very sincere relief when the captain’s voice came over the PA. He had applied reverse thrust on the engines, the three of them that were functioning, and the plane was slowing down for the turnoff onto a taxi strip.

“Ah, ladies and gentlemen, a light in the flight deck indicates a fire condition somewhere on the aircraft. Please make ready for emergency evacuation through the emergency exits as marked. Please wait for your stewardesses to lead the way on the inflated chutes. This is purely a precaution in case fire is present.”

Click. Off went his voice and a few shrieks came from the cabin. Rachel grabbed my arm and we blew out the emergency exits and popped the long, limp emergency chutes that dangled from the doorways to the concrete below. Fire vehicles were racing across the field, their sirens screaming loudly.

The chutes were supposed to inflate, providing a smooth trough for each passenger to slide down to the safety of the ground. But these chutes are famous for not fully inflating. Ours were no exception. They stiffened up halfway and quit.

Rachel helped the first passenger out the door, and we watched her bounce down, make it almost to the ground, and then roll off the edge. She landed with a resounding thud on the concrete. Rachel, realizing she should be down there to help clear the bottom, went next. She landed hard on her rear end, her skirt sliding up around her hips.

One little kid enjoyed the ride down. The Ravel lover refused at first. Then, after I insisted, she made the plunge. She went off the side almost immediately and landed on her shoulder, obviously hurt. Two ambulance attendants worked over her.

The cabin emptied out fast. Finally, only two people remained: Shackwood and me.