Stephan and Javier fell soundly asleep in the back row of the plane, but I got up to help the main cabin crew with drinks since I was in uniform, the flight was nearly full, and the people were downright cranky with the delay. As though a sleep wand had been waved over the passengers, they all seemed to fall asleep right after they got their drinks. I was prying empty cups out of the hands of sleeping passengers when I caught the flight attendant I’d been helping studying me with a strange intensity.
I’d never met her before, but she’d seemed friendly enough when she realized that I was going to help her with their service, no strings attached.
She was a very small, very nondescript woman in her early twenties. She was hispanic and had long black hair and eyes so dark they looked black.
We were back in the galley, just the two of us, when she seemed to get up the nerve to ask the question that was obviously on her mind.
“You’re that flight attendant who’s dating James Cavendish, aren’t you?” she asked. Her tone wasn’t hostile, merely curious. In fact it was a little too curious for a complete stranger, something in her voice suggesting that she knew something about him, or even about me. I shouldn’t have been so surprised by it, but it was the first time I had experienced that sort of strange interaction with a co-worker.
I sighed. “Yes, I’m dating him,” I finally said.
She didn’t smile, just gave me that fascinated stare. It was unnerving. “It must not be serious. I’m right, aren’t I? You wouldn’t still be working here if he were serious about you.”
I felt myself getting instantly defensive about my job. “I like my job. What’s wrong with working here?”
She gave me a stare that was way too direct for a stranger talking about my personal life. “Come on.
He must make more money than this just brushing his teeth in the morning. I’m just saying that if he wanted to live with you or marry you or whatever, it would be beyond pointless for you to be spending all of your time making peanuts while he makes billions. If he was serious, he would let you quit.”
I felt myself flush, but tried to maintain my composure. “For your information, we are living together, and I haven’t quit because I like my job. So what if he makes more money than me? I still have to work.
I’m not going to sit around all day and wait for him.” I realized even as I made the argument that that would never be the case, whether I had this job or not.
I didn’t need to worry about waiting around for him all the time because I just wouldn’t do it. And he knew me well enough to know not to expect it from me, either. What would I do if I could do anything I wanted? I wondered, kind of stunned that I was even letting myself think that way.
I remembered that I was in the middle of a conversation with an obnoxious woman who seemed to think she knew something about my life. “And why on earth do you assume that you know anything at all about either of us?”
She had the nerve to give me a conspiratorial smile as she reached into her flight bag. She handed me a rolled up magazine. “I’ve been keeping up with all of the drama,” she said, as though it were an accomplishment.
I cringed as I saw the cover of the gossip mag she’d handed me. It was a picture of me wearing a transparent white slip and standing in my driveway, looking stunned and confused. You could just make out the outline of my nipples in the thin slip. At least it wasn’t obvious that I hadn’t been wearing panties.
James was behind me in the shot, obviously striding towards me, but giving the man taking the shots a positively murderous look. He looked absolutely gorgeous wearing only his boxers, even his hair perfectly disheveled. My own hair looked like it had just been through a wind-tunnel.
When I was done working through my own feelings about the horrible pictures getting out, my mind went to James. He must know about it by now. He probably had people who brought it to his attention. If I was this upset, I knew he would be livid.
“He’s so hot. Do you have any idea how hot he is?” the strange flight attendant was asking me. I really needed to remember her name.
I gave her a very direct stare with lots of eye contact. “As a matter of fact, I know exactly how hot he is. Trust me when I say that you don’t have any idea just how hot he is.”
She made a motion as though she were swooning. “That is awesome,” she said with a sigh, and I realized for the first time that, though she didn’t have any manners at all, she meant no harm. In fact, she didn’t seem to have a malicious bone in her body as she stared at James on the cover of the magazine.
“Good for you, girl. He’s a total dreamboat.”
I threw her a bone, feeling tired but suddenly a little delirious about the fact that I might see James in just a few short hours, depending on if he was at work by the time we got there. “There’s a chance he might be picking me up from the airport. If he is, it will probably be right by the crew van pickup, so you might get a glance at him.”
She grinned at me as though I had just done her a huge favor. “That’s so awesome. He can’t possibly be that beautiful in person, though, so I’ll brace myself for disappointment.”
I had to smile back. “Actually, he’s even more gorgeous. Sometimes I call him Mr. Beautiful.”
She giggled. “You’re very pretty and all, but he can have any woman on the planet. No offense, but how did you manage to land him?”
I gave her my little shrug, strangely no longer offended by her candor. “I really have no idea.”
Our strange little talk was interrupted as the two other members of the main cabin crew came through the curtain. They were less pushy, but both of them gave me strange, probing looks, and I figured they’d heard or seen something about me.
I asked them politely if they needed any more help. When they declined, I ducked back into the cabin and found my seat beside Stephan. I lay my head back and tried my best to get a short nap in.
I awoke with a start as the plane touched down. I was so conditioned to stay awake on red-eyes that I was surprised I’d been able to sleep that long on a plane.