We Will Be Crashing Shortly (23 page)

Thank you, Jacquelyn Mitchard, for refusing to let me give up. And thank you, Grant Henry, Lynn Lamousin, Lary Blodgett, and Michael Benoit, for allowing me to study you as amazing human specimens. And thank you, Polly Biasucci, Kate Hicks, and all the other big, bombastic, lovely senior flight attendants from the nineties who let me live among you all those years. I have never encountered such a strong, hilarious, flexible, seen-everything, surprised-by-nothing, boozy, partying, life-loving, adventurous, capable, accepting, intelligent, incandescent, and independent group of women in my life. You can’t fathom how fortunate I feel to have been allowed to be a part of that era with you.

Copyright © 2015 by Hollis Gillespie.

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by

Merit Press

an imprint of F+W Media, Inc.

10151 Carver Road, Suite 200

Blue Ash, OH 45242. U.S.A.

www.meritpressbooks.com

ISBN 10: 1-4405-6770-0

ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6770-4

eISBN 10: 1-4405-6771-9

eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6771-1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and F+W Media, Inc. was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Cover design by Sylvia McArdle.

Cover images © Pavlo Kovernik/123RF; tshooter/123RF.