Lynne Heitman - First Class Killing

What a complicated question that was, made more so given who was asking. There was just enough arch in Tristan’s tone to remind me he had an investment in my answer.

“I’m not ashamed to be a flight attendant. Great people do this job and love this job, including you, and so many people do it so much better than I do. It’s not that. It’s the going backward part. I used to run a big airport operation with hundreds of people reporting to me. I had responsibility and authority that I worked hard to get. Now I don’t. He’ll think I gave up, that I got scared and threw in the towel, because…because that’s how he thinks. Jamie is very driven. You gave up a management job. You know what that’s like. Some people don’t get it.”

“I always preferred to think of it as making a better choice for myself.”

Okay, here was the further complication. Jamie would think I had lost my mind if I told him the real choice I had made. It might be hard to convince him otherwise, since I spent the first five minutes of every day trying to convince myself that I hadn’t.

“I don’t know if Jamie would accept my choice.”

“Does it matter?”

“What?”

“He’s your brother, not your husband. It would be a shame if he didn’t support you, but he’s got his life, and you’ve got yours, right? At some point, even families end up going their separate ways.”

“I guess so.” We were in a lineup on the taxiway, so every once in a while, we would inch forward and stop. Mostly we were idling in one spot. “It’s just…he’s my only real family now.”

“Yet you’re not speaking. Isn’t that interesting? What’s it about, anyway?”

There was no point in trying to resist him. He would be relentless until he pried it out of me. “Jamie and his wife invited me to come down for Christmas dinner last year, and I didn’t make it, and he got angry, and I got angry, and we never really made up.”

“That’s it?”

“It seemed big at the time.” I stared down at the worn rubber floor covering, where a thousand flight attendants before me had rested their feet. “It has to do with my father.”

“Doesn’t it always? Go on.”

“We hadn’t had anything close to a family holiday gathering in ages. I’ve worked in airports forever. You know what that’s like. Christmas at the airport.”

“Or at thirty-five thousand feet.”

“Right. But I didn’t have a job last year, so I was excited. I bought gifts for the kids and for Jamie and Gina. I got them this really neat…anyway, I ended up sending the gifts.”

“Why didn’t you go? This doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“Because after I accepted their invitation, he invited my father.”

“You said it was a family dinner. What am I missing?”

“I can’t stand my father.” The sharp pain in my heart was now a stabbing pain in my gut. “I can’t remember the last time I was in the same room with him.”

“My goodness, you have a lot of estrangement in your life. Are you sure you’re not gay? Who in your familyare you speaking with? Your mother?”

“My mother is dead.”

“She is? Oh, dear. I’m sorry.” He reached for my hand in my lap, gave it a quick squeeze, and let go. He always seemed to know just the right grace note to hit.

“It was a long time ago.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen.”

“And that made Jamie how old?”

I always had to think about it. For some reason, instead of just subtracting five from my own age, I always did it by taking the year she died and subtracting the year he was born. “Nine. He was nine.”

“So you’re his mom-sister. Complicated. Did he beat you?”

“Jamie?”

“Your father, ninny. Is that why you hate him? Or maybe he molested you.”

“No. Nothing like that. My dad’s a bully. He’s intellectually abusive. He loves to club you in the head with his massive intellect. He convinced Jamie he was stupid.”

“How stupid can he be if he’s a big cheese in a Wall Street firm?”

“He’s not at all stupid. He has a learning disability, and before it was diagnosed, he had a hard time in school. Really hard. My father used to make fun of him, of how hard he tried. Called him lazy, stuff like that.”

“Sounds as if Daddy is the one who was fucked up.”

“Once Jamie was diagnosed, he learned how to compensate. He might even overcompensate.”

“Thus the whiz kid stuff.”

“Yeah. But back then, he was just this little kid with no friends and no mother and a miserable, self-loathing prick for a father who got his kicks by picking on him. My stomach is seething right now just talking about it.” Which was exactly why I hated rehashing the stuff.

“Why would Jamie invite his prick of a father over for Christmas?”

“I have no idea. Honestly, I don’t know why he invited him.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“I got pissed off, and then he got pissed that I was pissed, and we had a big fight and hung up and never called each other back. This is the first time I’ve seen him since.”

I felt the aircraft turn. We were in the pause between taxiing and blasting down the runway. The captain hit the gas, the aircraft surged, and the g-forces pushed us forward against our harnesses. I didn’t much like flying backward. The two of us sat quietly as the aircraft lifted off and settled into a steady climb.

“I have the solution,” he said finally.

“What?”

“Apologize.”

“No way. I didn’t do anything. I mean, I did, but…” That all came out much too fast, and I started feeling how I probably sounded-like a ten-year-old. “I know I need to, but I can’t right now. It will turn into a big thing. Everything is a big deal between us these past few years. It takes so much time and energy and-”

“And he’s not worth it.”

“I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is I can’t deal with it right now.”

“Then when?”

“It’s on my list.” I said it quietly. Maybe I really didn’t want him to hear it.

He shook his head. “You’re an idiot. Truthfully, Alexandra, I’m not trying to be mean, but who else do you have in your life? I know I’m wonderful, and Reenie is, too, and we love you, but shouldn’t you have some connection to some member of your family? It’s cold out there without them. Take it from someone who knows.”

The aircraft was banking left, making a grand, sweeping turn west. It would be time to go to work soon.

“What,” he asked, “did you end up doing for Christmas, anyway?”

“I ate a frozen pizza and half a pint of ice cream and went to the movies by myself.”

“I rest my case.”

TRISTAN WAS IN THE GALLEY, WORKING FROM the seating chart to prepare the drinks. I stared over his shoulder, bounced on the balls of my feet until my calves ached, and did nothing useful. “Do you have any celery? Jamie likes celery in his tomato juice.”

“He didn’t ask for it, but I’ll check.” He found a stalk, dropped it in, and placed the glass in the last empty spot on the tray. I stared at the drinks for half a second, then picked up Jamie’s and left the rest. “I’ll be back for those. Let me do this first.”

I tried a couple of smiles, all of which felt forced and painful. I picked the one that felt the least cheesy. When I pulled up next to Jamie’s seat wearing my forced and frozen smile, he didn’t even raise his head.

“Jamie.”

He glanced up and didn’t quite register who it was leaning over him to deliver his drink. He reached for it with a polite smile that turned to stunned surprise.

He blinked at me, then looked up toward the galley, as if it would help his understanding to see precisely where I had just come from.