The Flight Attendant(76)

But he did have a Russian last name. He had Russian interests. Russian cologne and books and alcohol.

A passenger, a slender young woman in leopard tights that were disturbingly reminiscent of those luxurious bathrobes at the Royal Phoenician, smiled down at her, and Cassie assumed that she was about to slide into the lavatory beside her. Her hair was long and dark and parted in the middle. Her eyes looked a little sleepy. But she didn’t enter the bathroom. Instead she leaned against the handle beside the exterior door—the one that was attached to the interior of the fuselage and that Cassie was supposed to hold on to in the event of an evacuation so she wouldn’t be pushed from the plane in the desperate scrum to get out.

“The bathrooms are free,” Cassie said to her.

The woman nodded, but didn’t go in. “I just needed to stretch my legs,” she murmured. Then: “What’s happening in the world?”

“Nothing at the moment. Thank God. Mostly it’s just the midterm election madness.”

“I like a slow news day. It means some corner of the planet hasn’t blown up. A hospital wasn’t shelled in the Middle East. A school wasn’t attacked by some crazy person with a gun in Kentucky.”

“I grew up in Kentucky,” said Cassie.

“I’ve never been there. I hear it’s very pretty.”

“It is.”

“I’m Missy.”

“Hi. Ellie.”

“Can I ask you something”—and she paused before saying her name—“Ellie?”

Cassie waited. Usually when a passenger asked her a question in the middle of a flight this tranquil, it was an innocuous question about her job. They couldn’t sleep and wanted to talk, and sometimes the utter marvel of aviation—of flying—became real for them at moments like this.

“Of course.”

“When you refilled my wine during dinner…”

“Go ahead. Ask.”

“Your hands were trembling. And just now, well, you look kind of like you just want to cry.”

“And the question is?”

“Why are you torturing yourself and reading what’s out there? I write a style blog for Enticement, which isn’t exactly hard news, but I still see my share of crap on the web. Maybe I see even more. Crazy fat shaming. Slut shaming. Fashion shaming. I know who you are, and I know what’s out there about you. I was probably just reading the same articles and reactions you were. That stuff is absolutely toxic. So why don’t you just, I don’t know, download a novel and read that instead?”

“I actually have a paperback with me,” she said. She had responded automatically.

Missy nodded. “Good. I think you should do yourself a favor and stay off-line for a while.”

Cassie couldn’t decide whether this was kindness or invasiveness smirking behind kindness. But Missy’s gaze was gentle.

“My parents are both shrinks,” she went on. “And so I know what a total disaster these well-intentioned little chats can be. So, I’m sorry if this isn’t helpful advice at all. But you just looked so…so forlorn that I had to say something.”

“It’s fine,” Cassie said, and she felt her eyes welling up. “It’s good.”

“Do you know people cry on airplanes more than anywhere else?”

“I didn’t know it was a fact,” she answered, “but I might have suspected as much from my years up here.”

“Yeah, you’d probably know better than me. But on a plane, you’re often alone. Or you’re stressed. Or you’ve just had some meaningful experience. Movies and books will really get to you at thirty-five thousand feet.”

“You’re right.” She squirted Purell onto her fingers, rubbed it in, and then wiped the tears off her cheeks.

“Have you shut down your Tinder?”

“Not yet.”

“Do it. Just shut it down. Shut down Tinder, Facebook, Instagram. Twitter. God, especially Twitter. Whatever you have. Just hit pause.”

She sniffled. “That’s good advice. I will, thank you.”

Missy smiled. It was a beautiful smile. Cassie stood and hugged her, wondering why she didn’t have more friends like this younger woman—friends whose interactions with her weren’t about either drinking or the fallout from drinking—and wishing she could stay in her arms for the rest of the flight.



* * *



? ?

After Missy had retaken her seat, Cassie took her advice and hit pause. She didn’t merely deactivate most of her accounts on the social networks, she deleted the apps from her phone.

Then she finished the Tolstoy novella she had started days ago but put aside. Much to her surprise, “Happy Ever After” was not an ironic title at all. She wept at the ending. Masha, she thought. Masha. Such a beautiful name.



* * *



? ?

Many of the flights from the United States landed at Fiumicino in the same window: midmorning. The crush at passport control was not all American, not by a long shot, but in a provincial sort of way it felt like it was. Cassie heard accents in the throng from the South and from New England and from New York.

But the flight crews had their own line and passed through more quickly than the passengers.