closer until I was standing directly across the counter from the gate agent.
“Can I help you?” She smiled at me expectantly. Her badge read Jalyce Sanders; her face read anything but.
“No,” I said. “I just thought you were somebody I knew.”
CHAPTER 6
Since then I’ve kept the events of that day at Ash’s condo to myself, except I sent an anonymous e-mail to Officer Ned imploring him to please look into the disappearance—and stolen identity—of Jalyce Sanders. I tried to be as detailed as possible without revealing my identity, including the involvement of Kathy Landry and describing Old Cinderblock, his car, and most of his car’s license plate numbers—but I had no idea if he did as I asked. I sincerely hoped so. Aside from Officer Ned, I don’t trust the police, for obvious reasons, and I didn’t want to endanger my mother and other family members—including Flo—by putting them on my radar as I’d done to poor Jalyce. Again, I’d spent the last few weeks in a literal holding pattern, trying to determine my next move. I no longer communicated with my mother via Skype, but rather through e-mail. As long as she knew I was okay, she didn’t push for details. She assumed I was at Ash’s place, and I didn’t correct her.
And my grandparents? Ash had issued a protective order barring them from coming into physical contact with me. It had to do with “not allowing” me to celebrate Easter, a move that was surprisingly effective in the Bible Belt. I kept in contact with them via e-mail as well. I didn’t have to worry about running into Grammy Mae because she worked a regional airline and rarely traveled nonrevenue, and Poppa Max hated to nonrev. He was so content with his vegetable garden that it kind of warmed your heart. I wish things were that simple for me.
My father’s parents were gone. My grandfather Roy, the airline engineer who used to let me help him study for his annual recurrent training, died a year and a half ago when the jack supporting the vintage Ford Rambler he was restoring collapsed and crushed his chest. That was a bad day. I was nuts about him. We used to spend every Sunday afternoon conducting experiments and testing the viability of any number of inventions he’d concocted over the years. He had a large barn at the back of his property, and it was packed with gadgets and motorized pulleys and levers. It was like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in there, only with machines. Talk about a personal paradise. When we got the news, I remember my mother sitting on the couch and crying almost as hard as she did when my dad died.
“He was such a good man,” she sobbed. I sat on the floor crying as well, and rested my head against her knee, patting her calves until we both seemed to feel better.
My father’s mother had passed away when he was a boy, from hypobaropathy (or altitude sickness) while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of fellow flight attendants on a ten-day layover in Tanzania during the late seventies. She and Flo had been best friends, having graduated from the same flight attendant training class in 1967.
I kept a picture of them in my backpack. In it, she and Flo are standing in the massive engine well of a WorldAir jet, each wearing one of those iconic pink-and-orange uniforms designed by Pucci for WorldAir stewardesses back in the day. The uniform consisted of a short tunic over nearly-as-short hot pants, and white patent-leather boots. Their bleached platinum-blond hair is styled in the volumized cascade that was popular then, with a center strand clipped at the crown like Nancy Sinatra on the cover of her
These Boots Were Made for Walkin’
single. Their youth and beauty are absolutely incandescent.
When I looked at their picture, I’d get flooded with a nostalgia I’m not nearly old enough to feel. Wow, I think, it must have been so
insanely amazing
to be a stewardess back then, and my heart swells with pride. I kept the picture pressed in
“Can I help you?” She smiled at me expectantly. Her badge read Jalyce Sanders; her face read anything but.
“No,” I said. “I just thought you were somebody I knew.”
CHAPTER 6
Since then I’ve kept the events of that day at Ash’s condo to myself, except I sent an anonymous e-mail to Officer Ned imploring him to please look into the disappearance—and stolen identity—of Jalyce Sanders. I tried to be as detailed as possible without revealing my identity, including the involvement of Kathy Landry and describing Old Cinderblock, his car, and most of his car’s license plate numbers—but I had no idea if he did as I asked. I sincerely hoped so. Aside from Officer Ned, I don’t trust the police, for obvious reasons, and I didn’t want to endanger my mother and other family members—including Flo—by putting them on my radar as I’d done to poor Jalyce. Again, I’d spent the last few weeks in a literal holding pattern, trying to determine my next move. I no longer communicated with my mother via Skype, but rather through e-mail. As long as she knew I was okay, she didn’t push for details. She assumed I was at Ash’s place, and I didn’t correct her.
And my grandparents? Ash had issued a protective order barring them from coming into physical contact with me. It had to do with “not allowing” me to celebrate Easter, a move that was surprisingly effective in the Bible Belt. I kept in contact with them via e-mail as well. I didn’t have to worry about running into Grammy Mae because she worked a regional airline and rarely traveled nonrevenue, and Poppa Max hated to nonrev. He was so content with his vegetable garden that it kind of warmed your heart. I wish things were that simple for me.
My father’s parents were gone. My grandfather Roy, the airline engineer who used to let me help him study for his annual recurrent training, died a year and a half ago when the jack supporting the vintage Ford Rambler he was restoring collapsed and crushed his chest. That was a bad day. I was nuts about him. We used to spend every Sunday afternoon conducting experiments and testing the viability of any number of inventions he’d concocted over the years. He had a large barn at the back of his property, and it was packed with gadgets and motorized pulleys and levers. It was like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in there, only with machines. Talk about a personal paradise. When we got the news, I remember my mother sitting on the couch and crying almost as hard as she did when my dad died.
“He was such a good man,” she sobbed. I sat on the floor crying as well, and rested my head against her knee, patting her calves until we both seemed to feel better.
My father’s mother had passed away when he was a boy, from hypobaropathy (or altitude sickness) while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with a group of fellow flight attendants on a ten-day layover in Tanzania during the late seventies. She and Flo had been best friends, having graduated from the same flight attendant training class in 1967.
I kept a picture of them in my backpack. In it, she and Flo are standing in the massive engine well of a WorldAir jet, each wearing one of those iconic pink-and-orange uniforms designed by Pucci for WorldAir stewardesses back in the day. The uniform consisted of a short tunic over nearly-as-short hot pants, and white patent-leather boots. Their bleached platinum-blond hair is styled in the volumized cascade that was popular then, with a center strand clipped at the crown like Nancy Sinatra on the cover of her
These Boots Were Made for Walkin’
single. Their youth and beauty are absolutely incandescent.
When I looked at their picture, I’d get flooded with a nostalgia I’m not nearly old enough to feel. Wow, I think, it must have been so
insanely amazing
to be a stewardess back then, and my heart swells with pride. I kept the picture pressed in
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