As the suited man and the reporters approached the plane, they saw a raven-haired woman with a café-au-lait skin wearing a sort of uniform standing at the top of the stairs. When they reached the bottom, the suited man waved the two up the stairs. As they ascended, he called out; “Have a nice flight!”
At the top of the stairs, the woman said; “Welcome aboard, I’m Jan, your flight attendant.”
The two entered the cabin, glancing to the left to see the two pilots doing nothing apparently waiting for them. The cabin was furnished luxuriously and tall enough for the two of them to walk erect. Just past the cabin door were two tables on each side of the center aisle with two large facing seats on each side. Jan beckoned them to sit in the two forward-facing seats: Claire took the right hand side; Leslie took the left. Both ran their hands over the creamy blond leather.
Jan said; “Please fasten your seat belts.” The two complied, and when they had, Jan asked; “Are you ready to go?”
Startled, the two looked at each other: they’d never been asked that before; then nodded.
Jan went to the cockpit door, said something to the pilots, closed it, then pressed a button which began the retraction of the stairs, and when that was completed, she closed the external cabin door. She latched the closed door, sat in her back-facing seat, cross-buckled herself in, and then knocked on the cockpit door. The engine noise increased as the plane began taxiing away from the apron to the taxiway alongside the runway, then down the taxiway to the end of the runway. It pulled onto the runway, turned to face its end, paused, began the take-off roll then took off.
When the plane leveled off and the engine noise diminished, a bell sounded, Jan unbuckled herself, walked to the galley at the rear of the cabin, then shortly emerged with two large wooden bowels heaped with a fruit salad, two sterling silver forks and cloth napkins. She gave a bowel, a fork and a napkin to each woman saying; “This was raised on where you are going. Enjoy.”
The two sampled the salads, then, almost in chorus said; “Delicious!”
Jan asked; Anything to drink?”
Leslie answered; “Can I have a diet Coke?”
Jan nodded
Claire said; “Me too.”
Jan served them the drinks they requested in large-stemmed glass snifters, not plastic tumblers. The two began to quietly eat and drink. When Leslie had finished most of her salad, she beckoned to Jan; “Are we going directly to the resort?
Jan replied; “No, we’re stopping at Atlanta to pick up some other passengers.”
“Hartsdale-Jackson?” said Leslie with a smirk trying to show her travel erudition.
“No. DeKalb-Peachtree.”
Claire asked; “What’s that?”
Jan replied; “The private airport serving the Atlanta area.”
Leslie tried to cover up her gaff by asking Claire; “Tell me about yourself.”
“No”
“C’mon!”
“Well, I was born in Willamette Illinois a suburb just on the north edge of Chicago, then I went to New Trier high school, a local high school, and then to Northwestern University. A real local girl.”
“How did you like Northwestern?”
“It’s a big ten school; lots of fraternities and sororities; and partying. . .”
“What was your major?
“Communications.”
“How did you get involved in broadcasting?”
“Northwestern had college radio and television facilities, mostly for its Engineering students, like some of my boyfriends, so I got involved but I went to the talent side. It produced shows broadcast locally on PBS. I worked on it, subscribed to Broadcasting, and then a few months ago I got the job at the MSNBC station in New York.”
“What do you do, mostly?”
“The station wanted, it still wants, to build up a Long Island audience, so, as a suburbanite I’ve been one of their Long Island suburban reporters, doing a lot of what I did on the Northwestern station—light local color stuff, but occasionally some fires and accidents.”
Jan interrupted to ask; “May I refresh your drinks?”
Both nodded
Claire took Jan’s interruption to say; “To paraphrase a line from lots of pictures, ‘Enough about me, what about you?’”
Leslie replied; “Touché. I was born and raised in Fredericksburg Virginia, a small city between Washington and Richmond. Like you, I went to a local high school, and then to a local college—Mary Washington, which was basically an all-girl’s school that had basically two kinds of girls—one that treated the place as a finishing school, and the others, like me, who didn’t want to go to a coed school.”
“Why?”
“The local boys were pigs; all they wanted to do was get into your pants. . .”
“Isn’t that what most of them want to do?”
“Yeah but I didn’t want a repeat of that in college. It was really nice being with just girls. I met some very interesting ones there.”
“What was your major?”
“Split Marketing and English.”
“What did you want to do with that?”
“I thought I wanted to get into retail clothing marketing.”
Jan returned with a Diet Coke bottle and filled their glasses.
Claire resumed, asking; “Then how did you get into broadcasting?”
Leslie answered; “Daddy owned a radio and television store which, in a small city like ours, also sold commercial broadcasting equipment. One of his best customers was the local clear channel radio station.”
“I never came across that term before. What’s clear channel?”
“Lots of people who work for big stations don’t know what it is. It broadcasts locally during the day, but has to shut down at night for bigger through stations.”
“Why?”
“Some stupid FCC regulations I have no idea which.”
“Sorry for the interruption: How did your father’s customer get you into broadcasting?”
“The Station Manager, who had become Daddy’s good friend, told Daddy he was looking for an assistant scriptwriter, really a proofreader of advertising copy, so Daddy suggested me. I got hired.”
“Then?”
“I began proofing copy, including reporters,’ and then began seeing what I thought was reporters’ deficiencies. One day I screwed up my courage and told the Station Manager what I thought of the copy.”
“What happened then?”
“Thank God he was Daddy’s friend. He said if I thought I could do a better job he’d make me a Junior Reporter. So I took the job.”
“And then?”
“A few months ago Fox bought the station, and I got moved to ‘The Mother Ship.’”
“What do you do now?”
“Like you, mainly light stuff, and, because of my Mary Washington background, gentile manners stories, as well as light fashion pieces.”
Just then, the engine noise diminished as the plane began a descent. Jan came by, collected the glasses, bowls, silverware and napkins as she said;