Flying Backwards

by Jennifer W Smith

  As the instructor covered personal hygiene, she remarked that the perhaps obvious statements had to be made, like wearing deodorant and maintaining dental care. Nora turned to a fellow trainee, and they silently raised their eyebrows at each other.

  Then hair color and length were discussed. Only natural hair colors were permitted, and hair hanging past their shoulders had to be tied up. Nora thought about her own lack of hairstyle and pondered what she could do with her hair. She had always worn it straight and long.

  The next topics were nails, shoes, stockings, and tasteful makeup application. Nora owned very little makeup and often didn’t wear any. She would definitely need to get tips. A picture of Bree flashed before her eyes; Bree wore makeup that enhanced her luminous eyes and shimmered on her slightly pouty lips. Nora made a mental note to take a crash course in beauty from Bree. The instructor then informed them that due to budget cuts they would not be getting personal makeovers as specified in their packets. Later Nora heard some girls were disappointed about that. Makeovers were usually a highlight of “Barbie boot camp.”

  Nora earned an 85 percent on her first exam. She felt relieved, but it was too close to the 80 percent threshold. The exam on policies the next day was easier. Nora quickly got into a routine; she took detailed notes during the morning sessions and looked them over during lunch.

  Instructors educated the group about checking online for flights in the crew rooms at every airport. They covered bag storage for the crew on board the aircraft, checking cabin supplies, cabin inspections, and other details. A trainee needed to learn about in-flight equipment and evacuation procedures for each of Meade’s aircraft. They would essentially be qualified then to work on that type of plane.

  On Wednesday, boarding, approach, and arrival procedures were explained. Both Nora and Bree were now scoring higher on the exams. Thursday afternoon was the first day they went into the warehouse area that housed the mock aircraft where their aircraft qualifications would begin. Partial planes were cut open in sections for training purposes. Nora breezed through the physical requirements and the service training without problems.

  Nora learned that twenty-three of the one hundred and twenty-eight trainees had gone home by Friday. Whether they failed exams or left on their own she didn’t know. Stress began to settle in on the whole group. If someone did not pass the makeup exam that was given the following morning, that person was immediately taken back to the hotel to pack and driven directly to the airport. He or she was simply gone when the rest of the group made it back to the hotel. No good-byes. It was unsettling.

  One week down. Five more to go.

  Nora was allowed to dress casually for Saturday’s first-aid training. She became certified in CPR and learned how to use an AED, a.k.a. automated external defibrillator. Nora and Miguel were paired during the morning exercises. During Nora’s first impression of Miguel, he’d seemed standoffish. But during the exercises she finally got a chance to talk with him, and although he was quiet at first, he started to open up. He confided that he was trying to overcome his painful shyness. He was proud that within a week’s time he was starting to break out of his shell. He told Nora he was making an effort to be friendly and had made some friends. She realized that most of the people there were overcoming something based on the stories she’d heard so far. The training, and its potential for a new career, was the ultimate fresh start.

  To celebrate the completion of their first week, Nora, Bree, Rebecca, Jackie, Miguel, and Chris, Miguel’s roommate, walked about half a mile to the nearest shopping plaza, to a Chinese restaurant. The night was beautiful, clear but cold.

  The friends sat around a circular table and ordered fancy umbrella drinks. They chatted about how intense the training had been and how strict the compliance rules were. Rebecca commented that she was going to get her hair cut shorter, because it was too long by airline standards to leave down; it just touched her shoulders.

  “I noticed a salon in this strip mall,” Jackie offered.

  “Yes, I saw it too.” Rebecca fiddled with a loose bobby pin. “I’m thinking I’ll walk back tomorrow for a cut.”

  Nora chimed in. “I want to do something new with my hair too. I’ll walk over with you.” Nora liked Rebecca’s southern charm. As she looked around the table at her new friends, she was amazed that these strangers from different states were now gathered together and bonding, forming friendships.

  The next day, Sunday, the stylist at the salon told them they were only open on Sundays when Meade held flight attendant training, which apparently drummed up substantial business. Rebecca looked great with her new bob cut. Nora had six inches cut off her hair, which was still long enough to touch the middle of her back, and the stylist added long layers, which gave it some fullness. It was still too long by airline standards to wear down, so she experimented with a coiled bun at the nape of her neck. She blushed that afternoon when Bree admiringly said the new classic look suited her.

  Nora quickly discovered that Sunday was laundry day. Everyone had waited to do laundry; there were only two machines in the building! It was an important lesson learned. Nora and Bree decided to do their wash during the week around dinnertime, when the trainees were off in search of food. On their weekly laundry night they ordered takeout salads from the local pizza place.

  Sundays, their only days off, soon became Nora’s weekly call-home day. She chose the time when the family generally got together. Her mom had sent a care package to the hotel, and the homemade goodies made her miss her mom even more. She wondered how she and Victoria were getting along without her help, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask. It was their business, she reminded herself.

  * * *

  The first part of the second week covered first class and coach services. The trainees practiced manipulating carts and drinks in the mock cabins. In first class, Nora would also be responsible for getting the pilots their drinks and dinners, as well as the passengers. In the coach cabin, she discovered pushing and locking those heavy carts was trickier than it looked.

  Later in the second week, the exams became more difficult, including memorizing the six terms for turbulence and their definitions, which seemed too similar to Nora to distinguish. Even trickier were the classes on transporting medical goods and their various labels. The instructor informed them they might receive coolers containing contents like eyeballs. Like kids in the fourth grade, the trainees made faces in response.

  Nora’s scores ranged from 85s to 95s. Stress continued to expand among the trainees. Fourteen more people went home.

  After two weeks together, Bree and Nora were getting along amazingly well. They never stopped chatting to one another about their days. Because they were not in the same classrooms, there was always gossip to catch up on.

  On the second Saturday night, Bree and Nora went out for a night on the town with new friends to let off some steam. One of the trainees lived in a nearby town and drove his sports utility vehicle to training. The plan was for everyone to pile in and drive to the nearest city. Bree helped Nora apply makeup from her vast collection of products. Nora took extra time blowing out her new hairstyle and curling the ends. Bree lent Nora a low-cut black shirt.

  “Wow, I wish I could fill it out like that.” Bree feigned jealousy and looked down at her reed-thin frame.

  “I don’t know… It’s kind of tight…‌and revealing.” Nora eyed herself in the mirror. She looked quite slim. She felt good and healthy. She had much more energy. But she had a hard time admitting to herself how sexy she looked.

  Nora got a glimpse of the wild side of some of the trainees at the club. Several guys hit on her, but she attributed it to being in Bree’s company. Bree, after all, was a head-turner. Nora did find one guy attractive, but she wasn’t ready for that kind of attention yet. Nora noticed actions that night that later led to hookups.

  * * *

  In the third week, the exams covered airport codes and US and internatio
nal geography. They briefly reviewed time zones and the twenty-four-hour clock convention. In the physical training session, Nora learned how to put out a fire with an extinguisher. She opened an aircraft window for evacuation purposes and loudly chanted instructions for how to climb through and slide off the wing. She evacuated several different styles of aircraft using a deployed slide. They practiced with some trainees wearing signs around their neck: Blind Person, Holding an Infant, and others to prepare the trainees for all possible situations. The instructors taught them the evacuation procedures and successfully instilled the significance of how critical their job might be. Flight attendants did not just serve drinks and hand out pillows; they could save lives. Nora felt empowered.

  During one evacuation drill, it was Nora’s turn to be in the mock flight attendant jump seat. Other trainees sat in the passenger seats and stared at her. At the right moment, she would be responsible for leading the passengers during an emergency. Nora inhaled deeply and rehearsed her memorized commands. The trainer turned off all the overhead lights, leaving only the emergency lights illuminated, which gave off an eerie glow. The instructor began to speak in the silent cabin. “You have prepped the cabin for an impending emergency landing. It is night. You have instructed your passengers to cross their arms in front of them and lean forward in the brace position. The captain gives the signal and you chant, “Brace for landing!” Once you recover from a jarring crash landing, what do you do? What if the emergency lights have malfunctioned and flicked off? What if you are in total darkness? You are in charge–what do you do next?” Nora and the other trainees felt the gravity of the scene the trainer had established. After a moment of stunned silence, Nora started calling out the next sequence of commands. The drills were repeated several more times.

  The next day–running hijacking drills–was emotionally difficult. The shadow of airplane terrorism in 2001, only a few years before, lingered in everyone’s mind.

  * * *

  The fourth week covered trip scheduling, which functioned on a seniority-based system. The trainers warned that the senior flight attendants always picked the best trips, and new employees got what was left–if there were any trips left. If you were junior and didn’t get a trip, then you were on call in case a senior attendant cancelled a trip for some reason.

  On Saturday the group trained at the facility’s Olympic-sized pool. Nora brought a conservative swimsuit and wore a T-shirt over it, as many women did. A few trainees claimed they couldn’t swim, as swimming was not a requirement, so they wouldn’t have to get their hair wet. Nora had to jump into the pool, don a life vest, and manually inflate it. Next, trainees worked together to inflate a raft in the pool, climb inside (Nora needed a hoist from a couple guys to slip over the jumbo edge), and set up its built-in tent cover. She’d had no idea she would learn survival techniques to become a flight attendant. She felt pumped that she’d overcome so many obstacles in such a short period of time. She could not be happier that this was her new life.

  On Sunday morning, Bree came out of the bathroom after her shower. Her hair was wrapped in a towel turban on her head. She was smearing lotion up and down her arms when she saw tears in Nora’s eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” Bree joined her friend and sat on the bed.

  Nora smiled at her friend’s genuine concern. “Nothing’s wrong. I just hung up with my sister, Victoria. She told me I’m going to be an auntie.” Nora’s eyes glassed over again. “She’s been trying for so long to get pregnant. I’m truly happy for her. She’s wanted to be a mom since we were kids.” Nora sniffed at the memory of her sister hogging the baby dolls. “It’s funny. I thought my big sister seemed to have the perfect life. In high school Victoria was captain of the varsity cheerleading squad, and she dated Perry Reynolds, the glory-boy football quarterback. Of course the dream couple reigned as homecoming king and queen. They got married the summer after Victoria graduated from the Pennsylvania School of Culinary Arts. They had a big wedding at the country club and honeymooned in the Poconos–” Nora’s pause was reflective. “But she couldn’t seem to get the one thing she’s always wanted–a baby. And now…”

  “Aww, that’s so nice. I don’t have any siblings. I envy you.”

  “Yeah.” Nora paused before she confessed, “I just wish I could be there.” Nora realized she was missing out, and she had only herself to blame. She was the one who left to pursue her dreams.

  “I’m sure your sister understands.”

  Nora shrugged.

  In four weeks Nora and Bree’s friendship had blossomed. Nora learned so much about Bree in that short time. Bree thought of herself as a pawn for her divorced parents. She went to private schools and spent many summers in England with family friends. Bree played tennis and rode horses. Her favorite pastime was shopping. Bree had gone to a good East Coast college. Since college, she worked at her father’s favorite country club in Potomac, where she’d lived with her mother until now. Nora felt compelled to tell Bree her story–why she’d left and who she’d left.

  Bree raised her eyebrows when she heard Nora had been engaged, but she was sympathetic. When Nora spoke about feeling obligated to help her family with their business, even though she wanted to pursue other things, Bree understood. Bree confessed she sacrificed what she wanted in order to keep the peace between her parents. The girls talked about the fears they’d face if they didn’t make it through training. They both had so much riding on this opportunity to make a fresh start. They’d become the friend the other could lean on.

  For the first time since high school, Nora had connected with someone outside of her family unit.

  * * *

  The last two weeks of training went by quickly. Sixty-two trainees had gone home by then, about half of the group that started. The most nerve-wracking aspect of the training that came next was working a real flight with real passengers, many of whom leered at her Trainee badge. Nora had been nervous as she boarded and settled passengers and checked equipment. She was social and friendly with the other flight attendants, but she did not share that she’d rushed to the oppressively small washroom and vomited. After her anxiety was flushed down with the blue toilet-bowl solution, she returned with a smile plastered onto her face. Fake it to make it, she told herself.

  Nora was one of the sixty-six graduating trainees. Brittney, who rode on the bus that first day with Nora, went home the second week. Miguel’s roommate Chris went home the third week. Others Nora had befriended were gone. But Bree, Rebecca, Jackie, and Miguel had also made it to this day. Nora was relieved she had survived. She could not think of an alternative possibility if she had not made it. How embarrassing it would be to fail “Barbie boot camp,” as some had joked. She had nothing she wanted to go back to. She was forging her own future, finally ready to leave after the six weeks that had changed her life.

  Bree was still applying makeup for the ceremony while Nora finished packing. Nora watched Bree for a moment, admiring how she looked in her flight attendant uniform. Bree would look good in a paper bag, but the uniform gave her an essence of respect and authority. Nora wondered if she projected that. She smoothed her hand over the polyester dress and double-checked her appearance in the mirror. Smoothing her hair back into a bun at the nape of her neck had quickly become her style, and she wore it that way today. She felt professional and assertive as she tried on her uniform for the first time. She was proud of herself for succeeding when so many had already gone home.

  Nora glanced down at the sheet of paper she held containing departure details. “We should head down soon. They want our luggage in Ballroom B, before the ceremony, which is in Ballroom A.” After the ceremony they’d be handed an envelope with their Meade base assignment. That envelope would determine where she, and everyone else graduating, was going to live. She knew her choices had narrowed down to Philadelphia, Washington, or Boston, as those were Meade’s international bases. She did not want Boston. Phillip would be there, not that she would ever
see him. She had not moved to Boston with him before, so it would just be awkward now. Of course, Philadelphia was closest to Nora’s parents. It wasn’t that Nora didn’t want to see her parents and her family; it was that she craved a lifestyle change, and some distance from them would certainly make that happen. Washington, DC, would be a fresh start. It seemed like a hip, metropolitan place to live. Bree’s parents were there, so Bree wanted to be based far away from them as possible. But Nora would miss her new best friend if they were based in different cities.

  “I’m ready,” Bree declared. She had twice the number of suitcases as Nora. Luckily for her, Meade had said they were allowed unlimited bags on the flight home.

  “I can’t believe we are done. Do you think we’ll end up in the same city?”

  “I hope so! Then we can get a place together.” Bree surveyed her pile of luggage. “I think we need a bellhop.”

  The ceremony went swiftly. The wings they would wear during all future flights were pinned to their uniforms. Afterwards everyone ran around to find out who was assigned to which base. Nora and Bree both got Philadelphia and hugged enthusiastically.

  Meade had given the new employees one week to get their affairs in order; they needed to be on base and on call after that.

  “I’m calling Mr. Royce right now so he can get us set up in Philly.” Bree dug out her cell phone. She had made it through flight attendant training all on her own. It was okay if Mr. Royce helped with one last thing now.

  Rebecca ran over, waving her orders. “I got Philly. What did you get?” It turned out that the majority of new flight attendants would be based in Philadelphia, due to added flights there. Even Jackie and Miguel were joining them in the City of Brotherly Love.