Heather Poole: Cruising Attitude

I’d been flying to Vancouver pretty much every month for a year and a half. I didn’t care that our layover hotel was located an hour away from Vancouver by public bus because there was plenty to do and see in Richmond, British Columbia. A lot of flight attendants who can hold a regular line establish routines at layover hotels frequented often. In Vancouver, mine included a workout at a gym that had allowed me to purchase a half-priced, monthly membership. That’s where I had met the Mongolian guy who looked just like Ricky Martin, except cuter. He worked for a Canadian airline, but on the ground. We went out a few times and things started getting hot and heavy until we decided to go to Whistler for a romantic weekend away. That’s where we realized we had absolutely nothing in common and actually kind of hated each other. I always say if you’re not sure how you feel about someone, go on vacation together. It will make or break a relationship. I didn’t kick the Mongolian down the mountain, no matter how tempting it may have been. Instead we drove back to the airport in silence. Still, the scenery was so beautiful it was worth every miserable minute spent sitting next to him.

When a coworker asked me to trade trips with her, I agreed. Not because I wanted to fly to Seattle, but because she was a friend and she wanted to work with her husband who was also a flight attendant on my crew to Vancouver. Seattle is worth the same amount of hours as Vancouver, so I wouldn’t lose any flight pay. It also departed at the same exact time, the crack of dawn, so it would be an easy trip to work. Morning flights are a piece of cake. Passengers are too tired to stir up any real trouble. Most fall asleep on takeoff and don’t wake up until an hour before landing. Afternoon flights are a little more difficult because passengers bring on board the stress of their day. Dinner flights are the worst because they drink like fish and then spend a good amount of time getting up and down to use the lav. This makes the job more difficult because when the seat belt sign comes on, nobody wants to return to his or her seat. Worse is when we’re in the aisle working and they ask if they can “squeeze by real quick.” Very few people can physically fit between a cart and a row of passengers. Luckily, I’m pretty darn quick when it comes to steadying hot pots of coffee. If I ask passengers to wait a few seconds so I can finish serving a row, they’ll stand right behind me, and I mean right behind me, as in on top of me, so that each time I reach down to take something out of the cart, my butt rubs up against them. After the third time I’ll ask them to take a few steps back. They never look happy at this request.

The first passenger to preboard our flight to Seattle that morning was wearing dark, wraparound, Stevie Wonder glasses. “She’s going to need help getting to her seat,” said the agent standing next to her for support. “She’s blind.”

“Color-blind,” the woman corrected.

I’m not a touchy-feely person, so when I go to help a passenger who needs assistance I’ll grab a bag instead of a baby or an elbow instead of a hand. Something came over me that day, because I placed her Louis Vuitton purse over my shoulder and took five warm wrinkled fingers in mine.

“My name is Heather and I’ll be one of your flight attendants in first class. You’re sitting in 6B. It’s the last row in first class, an aisle seat.”

“I was supposed to fly to Vancouver today but the flight was oversold, so now I’m being rerouted through Seattle,” she told me, giving my hand a good squeeze for someone so frail. I was just about to tell her that I was supposed to be on that flight, too, but then thought better of it. She wouldn’t care. And at the rate we were moving, we wouldn’t get to her seat for another five minutes, so I didn’t want to distract her from the task at hand.

“Only two more rows to go,” I said coaxing her on.

“You’re sensitive. You go out of your way to do what’s right. You’ve surrounded yourself with a good circle of friends. Be careful, darling, you trust too easily. Someone you know will betray you.”

I stumbled on a snag in the carpet, but quickly regained my footing before falling face first and taking my new friend along with me. I made a mental note to write it up later. “Are you some sort of psychic?”

“No, not a psychic, but I do have the gift and I enjoy giving it away.”

At row 6, I placed her designer bag under the seat for her and then moved the seat belts out of the way so she could sit down. “What else can you tell me?”

“Let’s see. You completely changed your life. Ten years ago you were going down one path and then, out of nowhere, you chose a completely different path, a whole other life. You left someone behind, someone you cared for deeply.”

Brent! My on-off (mostly off) college boyfriend. I hadn’t seen him since we got stuck our Costa Rica fiasco. We were traveling on my passes, but the flight was full so we couldn’t get on. I was freaking out because I had flight attendant recurrent training the following morning, so without thinking twice I purchased two last-minute, one-way tickets to Panama for $150 each. There we would have enough time (forty-five minutes) to connect to a flight back to Miami using my passes. I should have known something was up when I spotted the armed military guys following us around the airport terminal in Panama. They even waited outside the chocolate shop for us before trailing behind us to the gate. But it wasn’t until we were safe and sound on U.S. soil going through customs and immigration that I realized someone might be in trouble. Red lights began to blink as a siren went off. An officer yelled, “Up against the wall!” I remember turning around and looking for the guilty party, only to find out that someone was me.

“Me?” I asked just to make sure, because surely it couldn’t be me. I was a flight attendant! I showed him my crew ID to prove it. We were detained while they checked our luggage with a fine-toothed comb. That was three years ago. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t think about him.

The old lady with the Stevie Wonder glasses patted my hand reassuringly. “Oh darling, he wasn’t worth your time. You’re much better off without him.”

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see me—in color. I believed her. “Thank you,” I said, trying to hold back the tears. My mascara wasn’t waterproof and I didn’t want to have to redo my makeup before takeoff.

“You about ready to board?” asked the agent standing between the cockpit and first class.

“Almost!” I called out, wedging myself between the bulkhead wall and the last row of first class and reaching between the seats for the woman’s hand before it was too late. “Tell me more. What about my future? Can you tell me about that?”

“That, my dear, is rather interesting.” Leaning toward me she whispered, “Most people are afraid of the truth. Of what lies ahead. I don’t know why. The truth is all we have.” I could see my distorted reflection in the black frames vigorously nodding back at me. “Now, listen closely. I’ve been fortunate enough to hold the hands of many famous people. The thing that sets them apart from everyone else is their powerful life force. I can honestly say that I feel the same thing when I hold your hand. You’re very creative. You’re going to do great things.” She patted my hand twice. “You have a message. Your name will be well known.”

“I’m going to send them down now!” said the agent, who hadn’t bothered to wait for my reply.

I called back, “Okay!”

Now I was confused. I had no idea what the heck the psychic passenger was talking about. Maybe she really was just a regular old crazy lady dripping in jewels and carrying very expensive luggage. But then it came to me. I could feel my heart beating wildly.