I’m doing procedural things at eleven p.m. in the dim yellow light of the forward galley. It’s not sound-proofed. No carpets. Lots of kitchenware, metal and plastic. In the old days the gals wore heels in here. Clacked around. No longer. Elegance was lost in a world of foam rubber soles.

Tired, getting schitzy and ready to get back to base. It was crazy. My suicidal sister came to mind. Andrea. Annie. Turns out the all-Amerikan girl was a sweet con. A real shrewd homecoming queen. Had her babies before 21 and by forty was hell on wheels, super-pretty super-bitch looking out for numero uno. The new Andrea became Andréa. She put her legs in the air, earning her way up to status and money and then took a guy twenty years younger, someone like a builder, but with the reliable big equipment she craved. Married him. Got a place by the lake, a boat, extra places to live. Conspired profits. Laundered money from bad sources. Escalating fucked-up-ness.

It was all muy extravagante and a bit mafioso. The law came eventually.

Coke became a larger part of it. The lingerie got wilder. She went first-name basis with the handsome local cosmetic surgeon. Then the DA called one evening via detectives at the door. Then a grand jury. She battled until her money and luck ran out, then fled to Ireland and one foggy day said fuck extradition immunity anyway and jumped off a cliff.

I am her younger sis Janey, easy on the eyes as well. You may have run into me at the best places in New York. Or in a cantina in Mexico City. A cafe in Zurich or on the dance floor in Ibiza. Hey, I never hang out in Nowheresville.

OCUPADO sign goes on and off to my left. With the throw of a bolt. My agenda and my heart opens and shuts.

A shiny pot of burned Melita Colombian coarse-grind clicks off, still aromatic. The red light replacing the green. Below there are the usual rattles and flight-noises from the array of warming lockers, a comforting harmonic. The tray ovens are strac and lined up hup-two. They have been empty since the bankruptcy.

A bilingual dictionary is on the small formica counter, wrinkled from use and page-stained.

Lance found a bug in an oven earlier during the first-class cookie bake.  He squealed. He does that. It’s funny to see a uniformed man freak out. We have pills and free mini-bottles to help all types.

Our engines changed pitch. We’re in the pattern. I notice the view changes in the Emer door porthole. I can see buildings, grids and blocks, and vast plains of lights. The view extends farther when the pilot banks, showing off this sentimental sight of Amerika after dark. 

The smell of our cabin air changes from pressurized to real. The permeated odors of coffee and first-class chocolate chip cookies go away, and I begin to imagine I can smell the people. Sort of like canvas sneakers and overworked talc.

I grab the mike for a routine announcement, hesitant to step even two paces outside the warm galley, my Somewheresville.