Coffee, Tea or Me? Read Free Page B

goes to Cleveland.”
    “Cleveland?” he shouted with rage. “Cleveland? I don’t want to go to Cleveland. I’m going to Rochester!’
    “We’re sorry, sir, but this is the Cleveland flight.”
    “Preposterous. I want to talk to your manager. Where is he?”
    “Sir, please stand aside until all the passengers have boarded. We’ll get you back to your Rochester flight.”
    “I’ll raise hell with someone about this. You just see.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Everyone finally seated, and our Rochester-bound man back in the terminal demanding the president, we closed the heavy door, looked at each other, and walked to the front of the tourist section, the section always awarded the junior stewardesses. Our senior stew came out of the cockpit and headed to the buffet situated between the tourist and first-class sections. We followed her into the tiny galley. This seemed to annoy her. She pulled the drape across and glared at us.
    “Get out there and check for heavy items in the overhead racks. And check their seat belts. Make sure no one is smoking. Ask that mother if you can do something for her. And get everyone’s name on the chart. And please get off my back. I’m not going to take your hand every step of the way.”
    We twisted around to leave the cramped quarters when she asked, “Which one of you got the razor?”
    “The what?”
    “The razor. The razor for the passengers to use. You’re supposed to get it from operations before coming aboard. I suppose you forgot to sign the briefing book, too. And to get the en route weather. What the deuce have I ended up with today? Six years of flying for this cruddy airline and I end up with inefficient virgins. You’d better get with it, girls. Or you won’t be with it . . . much longer.”
    We went out in the aisle and surveyed the long columns of faces. We walked to the rear section and looked again.
    “I’ve never seen so many occiputs 1 in my life,” I whispered to Rachel.
    The three jet engines in the tail started whining as we went back up the aisle. We looked in everyone’s lap to check seat belts but some passengers had coats in their laps and we couldn’t be sure. It just would have been too personal to peek.
    One man stopped Rachel and admitted his seat belt wasn’t fastened.
    “I don’t know how,” he confessed.
    Rachel leaped at the chance to be of service.
    “Let me show you,” she said. She reached down under his legs to find the ends, found them, and started fumbling with the mechanism. He loved it. She began to realize that any idiot could fasten a seat belt.
    She completed the job. “How’s that, sir?”
    “Beautiful,” he answered. “Thank you, Miss . . . ?”
    “Don’t take that belt off, sir. Have a pleasant flight.”
    I found an attaché case in the overhead rack.
    “Sorry, sir, but you’ll have to take that briefcase down,” I said in a friendly tone.
    “Where will I put it?” he grunted.
    “Under your seat, sir.”
    “It won’t fit.”
    “Oh, I think it will, sir. You just try.”
    “All right. Get it for me.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    It was heavy. I stretched on my toes to reach it and managed to slide it over the lip of the rack. It was soaking wet, and a tiny rivulet of water ran onto the head of a soldier sitting directly beneath.
    “Sorry, sir,” I told the soldier. He enjoyed being called “sir.”
    “Careful of that,” the owner of the briefcase barked.
    “Yes, sir.” The stretching pulled my blouse, supposedly pull-proof, from my skirt, and my bare belly stood an inch from the soldier’s nose. He actually touched his nose to my belly button. It tickled.
    I managed to bring the case down to safety just as the plane began pulling away from the ramp. I lost my balance and dropped the heavy case into its owner’s lap.
    “You idiot,” he snarled. I apologized.
    I apologized to the soldier, too, but he didn’t seem to want one.
    Rachel was beginning to take names on the other side of the cabin, and I took the