by Sachi Parker
So I took another step in, waiting for everything to go back to normal—but it just got quieter.
I nervously searched the pub for a friendly face. None to be found. Wait, there was Luke over in the corner with his pals. Surely he’d come over and defuse the situation. “Hey everyone, meet my sheila!”
Luke just stared at me, as outraged as the rest—even more so. His face was impassive, but his eyes glittered with fury. He was not happy.
So I had to face the vortex of hostility alone. I kept walking forward, one meekly defiant step after another. It took forever. Like one of those nightmares in which the door keeps receding farther and farther in the distance. I thought I would never reach it. The tension in the room was growing moment by moment. I was terrified that the men would suddenly rush forward to exact frontier justice upon me, and Luke would be cheering them on. When I finally reached the door and got outside, I realized I hadn’t been breathing all that time. I rushed to the car in the rain and drove away.
That night, I waited nervously for Luke to return home. I knew there might be a scene, especially if he’d kept drinking at his usual pace. I would try to explain the situation to him, and maybe he would understand.
A long time passed between the moment I heard his Jeep pull up and the moment he finally walked in the door. He stood in the hall doorway now and stared at me, his eyes red and belligerent. “What’s wrong with you?” he said with contempt.
“It was raining, I had to get to the car…”
“I’m in there with my mates, and you come stomping in like a fucking elephant, embarrassing me, making me look like a fool…”
“I’m sorry…”
“You’re always sorry. You’re a sorry excuse, that’s what you are.” I smiled at his little joke, which was a mistake. “You think it’s funny?” he said. “It’s not funny.”
“I am stupid,” I hurriedly agreed, trying to calm him. “I should have known better, but…I was tired, I just wanted to go home…”
“You just wanted to go home, huh?” He sneered, and threw a chair at me. “Well, now you’re home. Are you happy? Are you happy?” he yelled.
As he grabbed a glass from the table to hurl at me, I fled from the room.
• • •
I decided to call off our engagement. I didn’t tell Luke; that might have been dangerous. I started planning my escape. I saved up my tip money from the restaurant, and every night, I’d sneak a few more pieces of clothing into a suitcase and hide it in a closet.
My biggest problem was transportation. I needed a getaway car. I had my eye on a used pink Vauxhall in the local lot. It was a worn-out piece of junk, but it moved, and it could get me to Sydney. However, I was short five hundred dollars, and I’d never scrape that together from my waitress tips.
So I called Mom. She was in New York shooting her ballet film, The Turning Point.
“What?” she asked in disbelief. “You want to borrow five hundred dollars from me so you can buy some old clunker? You think I’m made of money?”
“I need it, Mom. It’s my getaway car.”
“What are you doing in Australia, anyway? I wouldn’t follow a man across the street. You’ve gotta stop letting people walk all over you.”
“I’m trying, Mom. I just need five hundred dollars. I’ll pay you back, I promise.”
She thought it over a moment. Parting with money was always a cause for serious contemplation for Mom. “What kind of interest are you offering me?”
I was confused by this question. “You know I’m always interested in you, Mom…”
“Interest, interest!” She sighed, and worked the numbers over in her head. “Ten percent. Compounded annually. For the life of the loan.”
I didn’t understand business talk at all, but it sounded reasonable to me. “Okay. Whatever. You can have twenty!”
So she sent me the money, and I bought the Vauxhall, and one sultry night, while Luke was at the pub, I got out my suitcase and drove away, barreling down the dusty roads at thirty miles an hour. It would take me eight hours to chug into Sydney, but that didn’t matter. I was free.
Chapter 8
Flight
Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services, or QANTAS, is the largest airline in Australia, and the second oldest in the world. With a fleet of jumbo Boeing 747 jets, Qantas in 1976 was the shining face of Australia to the rest of the world, famous for its record of never sustaining an airliner crash in its history. Nicknamed the Flying Kangaroo, it became familiar to Americans through its popular commercial of a crabby tourist-loathing koala bear munching on a eucalyptus leaf and grumbling, “I hate Qantas!”
I felt different—and by the time I arrived in Sydney, I’d formulated a clear, cogent plan for my future life: I was going to be a stewardess for Qantas Airways!
I don’t know how I hatched this idea, but for some reason (and in willful dismissal of all my past history) I was completely confident that I would get the job. After all, I was eminently qualified: I had three languages under my belt—English, Japanese, and French—I was pretty, I had great legs, and I knew how to be cheerfully subservient. It was a no-brainer.
As soon as I got to Sydney, I put in my application. I then underwent a series of interviews and tests to see if I was flight-worthy.
The comprehensive Character-Personality Exam contained one section dealing with empathy. It gauged how much compassion and understanding you were likely to have for the passengers. The questions were all yes/no, and they were worded with such sophistication that you could never suss out exactly what the correct answer was supposed to be. You just had to give your honest answer every time, and hope that it rang positively with the judges.
Well, when the results came back from my empathy test, the inspectors were shocked. They said that it was the highest score in their years of keeping records. My empathy level was totally off the charts.
In fact, it was so unbelievable that they didn’t believe it, and they made me take the test all over again. All different questions, but the same result. It was official: I was the most empathetic person on the face of the earth.
Now, in the grand scheme of life, I don’t know if you could count this as an asset or a grave liability, but for Qantas it got me the job.
At the age of twenty, I began my stewardess training.
I know many people will scoff at that term, as if training to be a stewardess in the old days—before it evolved into the more respectably titled “flight attendant”—consisted mostly of learning how to dress, walk, and smile in a pretty, vacant, nonthreatening way (the latter need I had already mastered). The three-week training session was intense, though: lots of studying, memorizing, and more studying. There were courses on aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, aircraft maneuvers, first aid, CPR, and the intricacies of childbirth. We had to pass a Red Cross–authorized medical exam, learn to deploy air slides, and be proficient in every aspect of accident training. Serving coffee with a smile was way, way down on the list of priorities.
Most unnerving was the simulated disaster scenario, when you were placed in a mock cabin that was fitted with all kinds of special effects—smoke, flashing lights, pneumatic lifts that would shake you back and forth—and then asked to perform your stewardess duties in this chaotic emergency situation. You had to stay calm under pressure, which wasn’t easy, because even though you knew it wasn’t happening, it was so realistically staged that you’d become convinced you were about to slam into the ocean and break into a million pieces.
Yet I found, to my surprise, that I performed extremely well under these conditions. I actually tended to become more calm as the stakes grew higher. While I knew I had a tendency to get overdramatic in a mini-crisis, it turned out that I could really hold it together when the shit hit the fan.
Stewardess training was rigorous and exacting, but I don’t deny that there was a certain emphasis placed on personal appearance. These were the last days of the glamour era of air travel—people
dressed up to fly, the pilots strutted through the airports like conquering heroes, and stewardesses were still expected to be the stuff of businessmen’s fantasies and Playboy centerfolds. We were taught how to stand, how to pour coffee with an ingratiating smile, how to bend properly in our pert little outfits. We didn’t wear those little hats anymore, but our hair always had to be in an up-do, a bun or a chignon. There was a whole lot of hairspray going around.
Plus, whenever we reported for work, we had to get on the dreaded scale. If you edged one pound over your assigned weight (relative to your height), you were bumped off that flight, and you didn’t get paid. This was supposedly an effort to keep the plane as light as possible, but nobody was fooled. It was, as usual, all about sex. After all, none of the male stewards had to weigh in.
While I was going through my preliminary training, I lived with my friend Margo Tolmer. Margo’s father was Alex Tolmer, the founder of the Australian toy company Toltoys; he had manufactured the first plastic hula hoop, and was consequently a very rich man.
Margo was kind enough to let me stay with her for free while I was training. Soon enough I would be a working stewardess and able to take care of myself, so she didn’t mind putting me up for a few weeks. Margo was a professional chef—we ate very well—but unlike Robert, she didn’t have an artistic temperament. She was a down-to-earth, no-nonsense lady, and you could see she wouldn’t put up with any crap.
This came in handy one day when there was a fateful knock at the door. Margo went to answer it, and then returned to me.
“It’s Luke.”
I instantly felt the old fear and anxiety welling within me. I couldn’t believe he’d found me. What did he want? What kind of mood was he in? Did he have a weapon? I whispered to Margo, “Stay close.”
I went to the door. Luke was standing outside. He wasn’t angry at all. He was apologetic and contrite. He wanted me back. He wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong, but we could discuss it, and he’d never do it again. He’d brought clams on the half shell (my favorite dish) and a bottle of champagne. Could we just talk?
Yes, I wanted to talk. He seemed changed: sincere, respectful, and still gorgeous. Still, from somewhere deep inside, my sense of self-preservation was roused and said no. No, I couldn’t risk being charmed by him and then carried back to a life of misery. I’d seen that movie before.
So I asked him to leave. With Margo looming in the background, protective and warrior-like, he had no choice but to accede. I watched him go with mixed feelings. I hated giving up those clams.
I still don’t know how he found me. It occurs to me now that maybe Miki told him where I was. I’d called them just after the breakup, my heart still freshly wounded, and Dad had consoled me in a light, joking way: “Keep a stiff upper lip, Sach”—something like that. Then Miki got on the phone and gave me her advice: “You should get a glass of wine and listen to all the sad songs you can think of, and cry and cry it all out, and you’ll be fine.” I said thanks, and hung up.
• • •
I was a stewardess for Qantas for over four years. It was a huge chunk of my life, which I basically spent flying back and forth across the world: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Bombay, Singapore.
Because of my languages, I always worked in first class—and in those days, first class was first class. Gourmet meals and free-flowing alcohol were the rule of the day. Service was premium. We would draw a diagram of the first-class seating and write down the names of each passenger, so that, when we served them, we could address them personally. This always gave some of the first-timers a startled shock—“How did she know my name?”
I took my job very seriously, and worked hard to be considered an excellent stewardess—and it paid off: Qantas was constantly getting letters from passengers raving about my service, and suggesting that I should get some kind of award or promotion, or at least a raise. Not that the company paid any attention, but it was gratifying to read those glowing letters in my file. It was a kind of applause.
• • •
MY Qantas years were busy and yet, in a curious way, uneventful. Because I was seldom in the same spot for very long, there was never a chance for an emotional drama or a complicated situation to play out. I’d had enough of that for the time being, anyway. I was in my early twenties. I wanted to have fun, I wanted to have adventures, I wanted to learn new things.
And I did.
I learned, for example, that if you want to quiet a crying baby on a long flight, put a little powdered valium in his bottle. The stewardesses, who always carried a personal stash for their own purposes, would approach a harried mother and ask solicitously, “Would you like me to warm up his formula?” Once back in the galley, they’d crush up a valium pill and mix a baby-size amount into the formula. It worked like a charm.
I also learned that one of the largest concentrations of Greeks in the world is in Australia. Melbourne is sometimes called “Greece’s third largest city,” and Sydney isn’t far behind. Every spring, there would be a mass pilgrimage of Greeks back to the homeland to celebrate Easter. Qantas would ferry whole planeloads, all in a festive but reverent mood.
Now, for some reason—and I’m not promoting a cultural stereotype here, but only making an objective observation—Greeks have a tendency to get airsick. It never failed that, about a half hour into our flight, someone would start vomiting into his barf bag. Invariably this would signal a general uprising: once one passenger started, the entire cabin would follow suit. Soon everyone on the plane would be retching, in a chain reaction of mass nausea. A powerful smell of vomit would fill the air, and stay with us all the way to the Mediterranean.
There’s no comic tagline to this story. I’m just offering it as a public service. If you’re traveling during Eastertime, beware of planes bearing Greeks.
Another thing I learned: you know that popular cliché about how airline stewardesses were fast-living good-time girls who loved to party and sleep around? “Coffee, tea, or me?”
Absolutely true.
Why not? It was the late 1970s, post–sexual revolution, pre-AIDS, everyone had Saturday Night Fever, even the president lusted in his heart. You were flying into the most glamorous cities in the world—how many museums could you visit?
The stewardesses would get together in the galley and trade tips on their international boyfriends. “There’s a guy in London who’ll buy you a fur coat,” “There’s a guy in Amsterdam who gives away diamond rings,” and so on and so forth—the unspoken corollary being “all you have to do is sleep with him.”
I wasn’t into that. The idea of having sex with some exotic stranger who just might pay off in silver dollars left me cold. Not that I was a total prude: I just preferred having fun with people I knew. Like the stewards.
There was a presumption in those days that any male flight attendant was likely to be gay. Well, not in Australia. The crews were staffed with rampant heterosexuals, and they were constantly on the prowl. They flirted openly with the prettiest passengers, knew all the hot spots around the world, and hit on every stewardess in their proximity.
This wasn’t difficult. In the close quarters of a plane, you’re always brushing against each other, and it’s inevitable that sometimes a helping hand will land on an unexpected spot, or an aisle-jutting bottom will intersect with a passing crotch. Then, when you all wind up staying in the same hotel in a strange city, it’s a recipe for musical beds. I readily confess, I was right in the thick of it. As an antidote to boredom and loneliness, getting laid couldn’t be beat.
Not that I cared much about the sex; I didn’t even like it. Luke had cured me of that. Yet, the guys were always asking, and I couldn’t say no—my Japanese training again: I didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings. They had their hearts set on screwing me, the little sweeties, and I couldn’t disappoint them.
Let me hasten to add, this was only during the aptly named layovers. When we were actually up in the air, we were total professionals. None of that mile-high
-club stuff for us. We left that to the pilots.
Those big jumbo 747s were like flying mansions, and they had all kinds of amenities, including a huge galley below deck, where the chefs cooked fresh gourmet meals for the first-class passengers. The galley would be empty after dinner, and on long overnight flights, it was very private—the perfect bachelor pad. So the pilots would put the plane on automatic and take a couple of girls downstairs for a personal tour of the facilities. Our job was to scope out the passengers and find the cutest, most-likely-to-be-seduced candidates.
“Hi,” we’d say brightly, doing our patented stewardess bend. “Would you like to meet the captain?” We were like perky pimps—and we seldom came up empty. Airline pilots had an almost mythic stature in those days, and to get one in the sack was part of a female traveler’s rite of passage.
I steered clear of the pilots—it seemed a conflict of interest; besides, I think I had a worshipful naïveté about them that precluded any erotic involvement—and only once did I avail myself of the international boyfriend list. We were flying into Bahrain, and I was told I simply had to call this marvelous sheikh who lived in the capital of Manama. He was obscenely wealthy, and if you were nice to him, he was sure to give you gold. Not a gold ring or a gold trinket, but gold. Pure gold. Lots of gold.
This sounded both fun and profitable, so when we landed, I called him up. The sheikh seemed delighted to hear from me, and sent a car to bring me to his home—his home being an ornate mansion on the outskirts of the capital. It was of the expected opulence: lavish furnishings, servants scurrying in all directions…and look, there was the gold, everywhere!