impossible. He watches me like a hawk. Claude, darling,” I winked at him, “why don’t you order four dozen oysters?”
My martini arrived, and I paid no further attention to the usual French crisis about what was fit to eat.
“Oh, dear,” Baba mourned, “everything looks so delicious, and I simply must lose weight.”
“Where?” Claude protested, as though someone had accused him of spitting on the marble floor.
“Everywhere,” she directed him, just in case he had overlooked one inch of her perfection. “I have to stay below a certain weight to keep flying.”
“That’s right, you’re a stewardess, aren’t you?”
“Airline hostess,” she corrected me. My, my, who would have thought we’d hit it off so well?
“Gee whiz, it must be hard work, waitressing up there with everyone throwing up and crashing and everything.”
“Harriet!” I heard a distant masculine command.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask a stewardess, I hope you won’t mind my asking you, but you’re the first stewardess that I’ve met socially. Maybe I’ve flown with you, even been served by you, but who looks that closely at the Rockettes? Tell me, do you believe that stewardesses and nurses are pathologically promiscuous as a result of their occupations constantly confronting them with death?”
I have an uncanny knack for drawing out new acquaintances by making them feel importantly informed.
“Well, I really don’t know.” She played with her smoked salmon. “Next time you land in a hospital, why don’t you ask one of your nurses?”
How the French pigs laughed at her witticism.
“Last week,” she droned on, rotten with power, “Charlton Heston was on Flight 602 to Rome with a private nurse.”
“I bet you meet lots of famous people,” Claude said, admiring her, as you might admire Mrs. Martin Luther King.
“Gangs,” she agreed. “Once I had Dr. De Bakey on Flight 809, coming out of Dallas. It made me shudder to look at him. I think transplants are so against human nature, like a dreadful science-fiction movie come true, and all the terrible questions about whether the person is legally or physically dead. I don’t approve of it,” the blonde philosopher declared.
I recall strongly advocating transplants. “The heart is a machine, a pump, a mindless, soulless, gutless pump. What difference does it make whose pump is pumping you? Do you really give a damn what pumps you, Barbara?”
I held Claude’s eyes in snakelike communion.
Charles came out of his nod. “The smoked salmon is atrociously salty.”
“I had Edward G. Robinson on Flight 706, out of Africa, immediately after his heart attack,” said the heart authority, “and I know, from the way he spoke and acted, that he didn’t want any heart but the one he was born with.”
“Where are you from originally? You have such a charming accent.” My lover steadied his head by cupping it in his hand.
“You won’t have heard of it. Webland, Nebraska,” she said, with the hideous vanity of hicks.
“That’s silly, of course Claude’s heard of Nebraska, haven’t you, sweetheart?”
Baba did an imitation of Claude, cupping her chin in her palm and giving me her undivided attention.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Barbra Streisand?”
“No.”
“I once had her on Flight 47, coming out of Vegas, and really, you’re the spitting image.”
“I’m a foot taller than she is, and my nose is a foot shorter.”
“Not so much her actual looks…”
“I’m not Jewish, if that’s what you’re insinuating. But Lauren Bacall, Rex Harrison, Piper Laurie, Claudette Colbert, Natalie Wood, Charles Boyer, Tony Curtis, Dinah Shore, Sammy Davis, Paulette Goddard, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey are.” I had a list of Jews as long as your arm.
“Not Rex Harrison,” she wailed. The rest I was welcome to.
“I had him on Flight 912, coming out of Heathrow, and he bought champagne for all of
My martini arrived, and I paid no further attention to the usual French crisis about what was fit to eat.
“Oh, dear,” Baba mourned, “everything looks so delicious, and I simply must lose weight.”
“Where?” Claude protested, as though someone had accused him of spitting on the marble floor.
“Everywhere,” she directed him, just in case he had overlooked one inch of her perfection. “I have to stay below a certain weight to keep flying.”
“That’s right, you’re a stewardess, aren’t you?”
“Airline hostess,” she corrected me. My, my, who would have thought we’d hit it off so well?
“Gee whiz, it must be hard work, waitressing up there with everyone throwing up and crashing and everything.”
“Harriet!” I heard a distant masculine command.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask a stewardess, I hope you won’t mind my asking you, but you’re the first stewardess that I’ve met socially. Maybe I’ve flown with you, even been served by you, but who looks that closely at the Rockettes? Tell me, do you believe that stewardesses and nurses are pathologically promiscuous as a result of their occupations constantly confronting them with death?”
I have an uncanny knack for drawing out new acquaintances by making them feel importantly informed.
“Well, I really don’t know.” She played with her smoked salmon. “Next time you land in a hospital, why don’t you ask one of your nurses?”
How the French pigs laughed at her witticism.
“Last week,” she droned on, rotten with power, “Charlton Heston was on Flight 602 to Rome with a private nurse.”
“I bet you meet lots of famous people,” Claude said, admiring her, as you might admire Mrs. Martin Luther King.
“Gangs,” she agreed. “Once I had Dr. De Bakey on Flight 809, coming out of Dallas. It made me shudder to look at him. I think transplants are so against human nature, like a dreadful science-fiction movie come true, and all the terrible questions about whether the person is legally or physically dead. I don’t approve of it,” the blonde philosopher declared.
I recall strongly advocating transplants. “The heart is a machine, a pump, a mindless, soulless, gutless pump. What difference does it make whose pump is pumping you? Do you really give a damn what pumps you, Barbara?”
I held Claude’s eyes in snakelike communion.
Charles came out of his nod. “The smoked salmon is atrociously salty.”
“I had Edward G. Robinson on Flight 706, out of Africa, immediately after his heart attack,” said the heart authority, “and I know, from the way he spoke and acted, that he didn’t want any heart but the one he was born with.”
“Where are you from originally? You have such a charming accent.” My lover steadied his head by cupping it in his hand.
“You won’t have heard of it. Webland, Nebraska,” she said, with the hideous vanity of hicks.
“That’s silly, of course Claude’s heard of Nebraska, haven’t you, sweetheart?”
Baba did an imitation of Claude, cupping her chin in her palm and giving me her undivided attention.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look just like Barbra Streisand?”
“No.”
“I once had her on Flight 47, coming out of Vegas, and really, you’re the spitting image.”
“I’m a foot taller than she is, and my nose is a foot shorter.”
“Not so much her actual looks…”
“I’m not Jewish, if that’s what you’re insinuating. But Lauren Bacall, Rex Harrison, Piper Laurie, Claudette Colbert, Natalie Wood, Charles Boyer, Tony Curtis, Dinah Shore, Sammy Davis, Paulette Goddard, Kirk Douglas, Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey are.” I had a list of Jews as long as your arm.
“Not Rex Harrison,” she wailed. The rest I was welcome to.
“I had him on Flight 912, coming out of Heathrow, and he bought champagne for all of
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