Ann Martin: Dawn On The Coast

I think Mom was just nervous. I noticed that as she drove, her fingers kept kneading the steering wheel.

When we got to the airport, Mom found a spot in short-term parking. Then we went in, checked my suitcase, got me a seat (No Smoking/Window), and went to wait at the gate. I started to feel as choked up as Mom looked. I glanced at her, and she gave a half smile, and then her eyes welled up and over.

"Are you going to be okay, Mom?" I asked. Now I was beginning to cry.

"Oh, Dawn," she said. "I'm all right. I'm fine. You'd think I was sending you to Egypt or something."

When it came time for me to board, Mom walked me to the door and gave me a big hug.

"See you soon," I said.

She kissed my cheek. "Right," she said, awfully quickly.

I got on the plane and distracted myself with settling in. I wanted to make sure to get myself a pillow and a blanket. I wanted to check out the magazines that were on board — Forbes, Business Week . . . nothing for me. I guess I was starting to feel a little better because when the Kewpie doll stewardess gave her safety demonstration, I even found myself giggling. But when the plane started to taxi down the runway, I suddenly thought of Mom. I pictured her back in the parking lot trying to remember where she had parked the car.

"Row C," I thought, trying to send her the message. "Row C."

The plane took off and tears spilled down my cheeks. I was going to California. And Mom was going to be all alone.

Well, if it weren't for that stewardess, I might've cried the whole way out. I certainly

wouldn't have had half as much to think about. See, this stewardess was a real strange one. First of all, she looked strange. Something about her hair ... or her makeup. Her cheeks had a cakey look, and when she had put on her lipstick, she had drawn it above the natural line of her lips. Also, she painted on her eyelashes. You know, dark little lines painted on her eyelids. The whole effect was pretty weird. Even when you get a makeover at the Washington Mall, you don't come out looking that strange.

But worst of all, she was a total spacehead. Now most of the stewardesses I've met have been pretty down-to-earth. If you want a Coke, they give you a Coke. But this one I had to practically flag down anytime I wanted anything. The main trouble was, sitting next to me, in the aisle seat, was a very attractive guy. He was sandy-haired, good-looking, and had on a crisp white oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Well, this stewardess practically drooled every time she walked by him.

"Can I get you anything, sir?" she asked.

When they came around with the beverage cart, he got an orange juice, and then she wheeled the cart right on! What about me?

"Excuse me," I said. "Excuse me."

"Excuse me," the man said. "This young girl didn't get a beverage."

"Oh, she didn't?" said the stewardess. She would've been blinking her eyelashes, only she couldn't. They were painted on.

"Tomato juice, please," I said. That was that.

Then she came around selling headsets for the music channels and the movie. Once again, the stewardess sold one to Mr. Handsome and ignored me. Once again, Mr. Handsome came to my rescue. When I finally got my headset, he winked at me.

"Now you know why I always get an aisle seat," he said.

Mr. Handsome's name was actually Tom and he turned out to be not a bad seatmate at all. He was a theater director, he said, and he was flying out to California to audition some actors. Wow! I thought. A theater director! I couldn't wait to tell Stacey. He and I had a little conversation about Paris Magic (which I hadn't even seen, just heard about from Stacey), and he wrote down the names of some other shows he thought I might enjoy.

"Gee, thanks," I said.

I tucked the slip of paper into the pocket of my cotton traveling jacket.

Well, Mr. Handsome (I mean Tom) had some scripts with him that he had to read, so I listened to the music on the headphones and paged through my book and magazines. But I was getting much too excited to do any real reading.

When it was time for lunch, Tom turned to me and said, "Do you think we'll have to go to battle for you again?" But lunch, I figured, would be no problem. I had ordered a vegetarian lunch ahead of time. You can do that on airlines if you don't want to eat the regular food they give you. I'm not a strict vegetarian, but the vegetarian meals on the planes are always much better.

Anyway, our stewardess had about half the plane to serve before she got to our row.

"Here you go," she smiled at Tom.

"And for the young lady?" he said.

"I get a vegetarian meal," I said.

"No you don't," she said flatly.

"Yes," I said. "I ordered it when I got my ticket."

"Name?" she asked briskly.

"Dawn Schafer."

The stewardess disappeared to the back of the plane and came back with a computer printout. She ran her finger down a list.

"Schafer, Schafer, Schafer . . . ," she said. "Oh. Here you are. Oh, dear."

"Is there a problem?" asked Tom.

"Well," said the stewardess. "I did have a meal for you, but I gave it away. To that gentleman three rows up. He asked for one and I thought it was his."

She handed me a tray with a regular meal. No apology. No question about whether or not I was a strict vegetarian. What if I couldn't eat meat?

"Oh, well," she said. "There's certainly no way we can get another meal in flight."

Tom was looking faintly amused. I peeled back the tinfoil of my airplane lunch. Ew! It looked like the Friday lunch at Stoneybrook Middle School. There was some kind of meat with some kind of sauce on it. Mystery meat, I thought, and there was some soppy cole slaw and this disgusting rubbery Jell-O with globby things inside. There was also a salad (okay, I could eat that). And there was a piece of cornbread that did look more edible than the rest. What a lunch — cornbread and salad. I turned the meat over with my fork and thought about how Kristy would react if this were really a cafeteria lunch.

"Ew," she'd probably say. "Fried monkey

brains." (Or something even grosser.)

Tom offered me his cornbread to help fill me up.

The rest of the flight was, well . . . long. Think of it — how often do you have to sit in a cramped seat for six hours straight? The movie was a shoot-'em-up, which filled the time, but not much else.

The stewardess, though, had one last opportunity to bungle things. After lunch, when she came around with coffee and tea, I asked if I could have a little real milk to put in my tea. (All she had on the tray was packets of that white chemical stuff.)

"Sure thing," she smiled, with that too-red smile of hers.

Minutes passed, many minutes, and again I had to flag her down.

"My milk, please?" I said.

"Oh, right."

She disappeared, came back, and tossed two of the chemical packets on my tray.

"There you go," she said, and she was gone.

"Do you get the feeling we're characters in some play?" Tom smiled. "A comedy?"

But, really, what did I care about "coffee whitener" or mystery meat or even irritating stewardesses? When the flight was over, I'd never see her again. When the flight was over,

I'd be landing in my favorite place in the whole, world . . . California! ~"""'"*·«-""'

The pilot's voice came over the intercom.

"We're preparing to land at the John Wayne/ Orange County Airport," he said. (That's really what the airport's called. Honest.)

The wheels of the plane hit the runway, I felt the power of the plane pulling back, and there I was!

When I walked off the plane and into the waiting room, my heart was pounding. There were Dad and Jeff on the other side of the guide rope, waiting and waving, both of them with big, gigundo smiles. Behind Jeff another face squeezed through. Sunny! When I got through the crowd, Jeff took my carry-on, and Dad grabbed me up and swung me around.