My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

She seems to serve every drink, offer each bag of peanuts, and answer any question as if she were starring in a film based on her life. I would love to be that confident. That steady. In my college days, I was. It’s only been a few months since I left campus life, but something’s happened to me. It’s as if I can’t adjust to the world outside school. I’m no longer the jester in the theater department (with law school out of my means, I opted to use my oratory skills on the stage) but the loser in the life department. I miss the security of university life. I miss my old friends. And most confusing of all, I miss my father.

“What’s the matter, Harry?” Amity and Jacqueline are standing over me in the aisle, the drink cart between them. I’m not full-on crying, with sobs or anything, but the tears are flowing steadily down my face. I look up, don’t answer, because the lump in my throat feels like a new tennis ball. Amity abandons the cart and sits beside me. “What is it?”

I swallow the fuzzy ball. “I was just thinking about my dad,” I tell her. “He passed away recently.”

“Jackie,” Amity says, looking up at Jacqueline, “you’re going to have to drive that thing by yourself. I need to talk to Harry.”

“Nu-uh,” Jacqueline protests, “you’re not doing this to me again. Nu-uh.”

“Jackie. “

“No, Amity, forget it.” Jacqueline then looks at me. “She’s

always doing this. She stops and talks to guys all the time and leaves me serving the drinks. Forget it.”

“Come on,” I say, wiping my eyes, prodding Amity to stand and step into the aisle. I follow her and squeeze between the beverage cart and the seats to replace Jacqueline. “We’ll take over,” I offer.

“Cool.” Jacqueline takes off her wings and hands them to me, then disappears to the back galley.

I pin the wings on my street clothes. Amity and I look at each other, then turn to our respective passengers. “Would you like something to drink?” Then back to each other. “He was a surgeon,” I tell her, using tongs to put ice into the plastic cup. I accidentally spill a couple of cubes.

“Just dip a cup into the ice bucket, darling’,” Amity instructs, “and use it to fill the other cup. We only use those fancy-ass tongs when airline management is on board.”

I disregard what I learned in training and do as she says; it’s infinitely easier. I can’t believe I’ve been struggling with those stupid tongs for three months. “My dad was an orthopedic surgeon who smoked two packs a day. He was actually shocked when he was diagnosed.” I pour ginger ale into the cup and hand it to the passenger. “He thought his tax bracket excluded him from cancer.”

Her face is kind, sympathetic. “Are you doing any kind of therapy?”

“I write poetry,” I tell her. “That’s my therapy.”

“I’d love to have you read it to me sometime. Were you and your dad close?”

“When I was young, yes, very close. He was a great dad. A control freak, but I didn’t mind because he gave me more attention than other kids got from their dads.”

“Coca-Cola, please,” a man in a fedora hat requests. “Is Pepsi OK?” I ask him. “Yes, sir,” he answers.

Amity tells me in an unsubtle stage whisper, “Midwesterners

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and Texans are polite, Harry. They don’t care what you give them. It’s the New Yorkers and Californians who expect you to wipe their butts over the difference between a Coke and a Pepsi.”

I hand the man his Pepsi and then look around, expecting people to be shocked by her words, but the locals seem to smile and nod in agreement while reading their newspapers and magazines. “My father’s work schedule had a way of sucking up his life, but when ever he had time, he was right there. Tennis, golf, horseback riding whatever I was involved in, he’d help me, make me better. When he got cancer, I wanted to do the same for him make him better. But he wouldn’t let me.”

“Sometimes doctors make the worst patients, huh?” Amity says sympathetically, handing peanuts and drinks to her passengers.

I picture my father sitting in the garage, his Cadillac running while he floats away in the carbon monoxide. “He went quickly,” I say.

Amity is focused on me rather than the teenage boy with the baby face who is focused on her while I focus on him. Another unrealized triangle. “Would you like something to drink?” she asks him, still looking at me.

“I’d like a rum and soda with a lime,” I answer, then look at the boy. “How about you?”

“Sounds good,” the teenage kid says.

Amity puts ice in the cup, empties the little rum bottle, adds soda, and places a speared lime into the drink. “How old are you?” I ask him. “Sixteen.”

Amity hands him the cocktail. “Don’t tell your momma or your daddy,” she whispers. He nods OK. She winks at him, and he blushes, making himself even cuter.

I was warned in training that attendants can be fired for serving alcohol to minors, but Amity doesn’t seem concerned. I look across to

the two passengers on my side of the aisle who obviously disapprove of our actions. I wait for them to order. They don’t. “Would you like something to drink?” They request a black coffee and a diet drink. I pour the coffee, continue. “My dad was smoking even more the past year because he was stressed-out about a malpractice suit. Some guy lost his foot in a car accident and my dad had to reattach it, and he put it on sideways or something like that.”

Amity hands a glass of Pepsi to a businessman who seems to be engrossed in our conversation. “G’yaw,” she replies.

“It’s more complicated than that, but basically he screwed up.” I hand out the diet cola and the coffee. These people, so quiet before, are quick to remind me about the peanuts.