Coffee, Tea or Me? Read Online Free Page A

returned to reading his copy of Forbes, a magazine I’d never looked into but one that undoubtedly had something to do with money.
    I asked Rachel if we could date passengers.
    “You bet, honey,” she replied. “It’s called a fringe benefit.”
    Names taken, seat belts fastened, and mother-with-four-children relatively settled down and quiet, our captain swung the 727 onto the runway, gave it full-throttle, and we started gaining speed for take-off. Rachel and I sat together in our jump seats, tightly belted in, and thought of Maxwell Solomon and his philosophy on flying in today’s weather. The more the 727 shuddered as it gained momentum, the more we thought of Maxwell Solomon, now safely in his cab headed for Coney Island with a more receptive fare. And then we felt the slight sensation of being away from the concrete runway, free from the friction of rubber on that runway, and free of that maximum moment of strain before becoming airborne. Outside, a marshmallow blanket of gray, colorless and without substance, seemed to buoy up the mass of airplane.
    The captain was making his first climbing turn when our senior stew, Miss Lewis, unbuckled her seat belt and motioned for us to follow her into the galley. We stepped inside, grabbing onto anything to maintain our balance in the turbulent turns. Miss Lewis again pulled the drape across the galley entrance.
    “OK, let’s get moving. I ought to let you fall on your faces all alone. But I’m responsible for the flight and I don’t want to see you screw up the back end.” She looked at Rachel. “You . . . get back there and take drink orders. They pay in the rear, you know. We’ve only got to Cleveland to serve all the meals and booze. You’re squared away on meal service X-17-B, aren’t you?”
    “Sure,” we said. What meal service was X-17-B?
    “OK. Get those drink orders, put their trays in place, and hustle.”
    “Right,” Rachel answered and departed the galley.
    “Help me get this food set up.” Miss Lewis was a stern girl, I decided. In fact, she terrified me, especially when I realized I didn’t remember a thing about airplanes, passengers, food, drinks, or being a stewardess in general. I watched closely and followed her every movement, taking the fruit cups from the cold storage compartments, placing the little plastic bag of salt, pepper, knives, and forks on the trays after finding them in the same cold storage compartments, taking the Salisbury steak from the hot storage compartments and the rolls from the same place.
    Rachel came back with the drink orders written on a small slip of paper. “I’d better get the drinks out there fast, before dinner, huh?” she asked Miss Lewis.
    “Are you kidding?” Miss Lewis snapped as she slapped a piece of butter on each roll plate. “Give them the whole mess at once—booze, food, dessert, and coffee. Put the booze bottles on the tray and get them to the right people. Come on, get with it.”
    “Why don’t they just serve sandwiches on these short flights?” I asked.
    “Ooooooh, what did I do to deserve this?” wailed Miss Lewis.
    We grabbed trays and headed up the aisle, no further questions asked.
    “I ordered bourbon,” said the man with the attaché case under his seat.
    “Where’s the soda for my Scotch?” drawled the soldier.
    “Could I have a rare one, please?”
    “I didn’t get a napkin.”
    “The plane sounds funny. Are we all right?” This came from the little old lady.
    “How high are we?”
    “How fast are we going?”
    “Say, tiger, what are we flying over now?”
    “It’s stuffy in here. Can we open a window?”
    “Where are those free packages of cigarettes?”
    “Would you feed the two children in back of me,” said our flying mother of four, her voice more a command than a question.
    It was bedlam. Total. We eventually matched the right people with the right drinks, managed to shovel a few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into the kids’ mouths, turned down at