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  For my boys—my heroes always

  Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it.

  —Katherine Anne Porter

  1

  June 17, 2016

  Rebecca Williamson picked up a smooth, rust-colored clay bowl for the fifth time in as many minutes. She ran her hand along the sloping curve from the base to the rim, and then bounced it lightly in her arms for heft. It was two pounds, she decided. Maybe two and a half once they wrapped it for the plane. She put it down again and stepped back to look at the rest of the artist’s display, dusting her hands together.

  “Oh, just buy it already!” Valerie said from a few feet away. “I’ve gotten married after shorter courtships than you’re having with that bowl.”

  “I don’t need it,” Rebecca said.

  “It would look nice on your kitchen table. You never buy anything, Becky.” Valerie had been calling her “Becky” since she joined the airline three years before. For the first several months, Rebecca had corrected her. Now she just accepted it.

  “What would I do with it?” Rebecca said. “I mean, you can’t serve food in it, not that I ever cook anyway. I don’t have anything to store in it. And I’m never home to look at how my apartment is decorated. How is a red clay bowl necessary?”

  Valerie rolled her eyes and patted Rebecca’s shoulder with a veined hand. “Life needs beauty, doll. Every girl should have something beautiful and useless in her life. Like my first husband, for example. That man was pure eye candy; the poor idiot couldn’t change a lightbulb.”

  Rebecca laughed. She had never asked outright how many husbands Valerie had been through, but her current guess was four, and at least two of them had been pilots. Valerie was in her late sixties, ancient by flight attendant standards, and a legend among all the younger women they worked with. Rebecca had been paired with her during the first week of training and they had flown together more often than not since then. At first, Rebecca had resisted becoming Valerie’s protégé, but through sheer force of will and nonstop chatter, Valerie had become Rebecca’s only real friend at work. Tonight, they were in an artists’ co-op in New Mexico, killing time during an overnight layover.

  “Are you ready to go to the bar?” Rebecca asked her.

  “What’s your hurry?” Valerie said. “You never take anything home from there, either.”

  “Don’t start with that.”

  “What? Come on, you know I’m right. And don’t use me for an excuse, either. I may be an old lady but I know how to make myself scarce when I see a brassiere on the doorknob.”

  An aproned woman behind the counter looked up, smirking.

  “Shh…,” Rebecca hushed. But even she could not help but smile at the way Valerie said “brassiere on the doorknob” in her New York accent. Rebecca herself had never used this signal, but it had been a frequent sight in her sorority house at the University of Georgia. She tried to imagine finding one of Valerie’s big beige contraptions hanging on their hotel room door.

  “Ready to go?” she asked again.

  “Oh, all right,” Valerie said. “Just let me add this to my collection.” She held up a blue-glazed mug that had been formed to look like the squished-down face of an old man.

  Several of Rebecca’s coworkers kept little collections from places they visited—postcards, spoons, shot glasses, snow globes, you name it. There was a sort of unspoken code that it was only acceptable to collect items from cities you had truly visited, meaning you had to leave the airport for more than a couple of hours. Even so, Rebecca could not understand this tradition. Yes, it was cute in the moment, but they went so many places. What did you do with all that crap? Put it in a box so you could relive your glory days of passing out peanuts? Have it gather dust on the shelves while other people pretended to be interested at parties?

  Once or twice, something had caught Rebecca’s eye, particularly when they flew to exotic locations. A tiny but exquisite crystal vase from Waterford in Ireland. Hand-carved candlesticks painted black and inlaid with gold in Toledo, Spain. A set of Russian dolls in Moscow. Each time, she had stood paralyzed in the gift shop, debating why she needed this thing and where she would put it and how often she would really look at it. Then she would sigh, and, to the dismay of each patient shop owner, return the item to the shelf, and walk out. Except for an irresistible silk scarf from Milan and an emergency T-shirt she’d been forced to buy in New York, Rebecca had not bought souvenirs anywhere. Once in a while she regretted this, but never for long. She would deposit the amount of the foregone purchase into her savings account with satisfaction and move on. Always move on.

  A short cab ride later, they found the rest of the flight crew exactly where they expected: gathered in the small bar off the hotel lobby, all in their civilian clothing. The two pilots, both middle-aged family men, sat nursing beers at the bar, watching the broadcast of a local rodeo on the TV overhead and chatting with the bartender. Shanna and Lizzie, the other two attendants, were playing darts in a corner with some guys still wearing name tags from a convention. They waved when Valerie and Rebecca walked in. A couple of the conventioneers smiled hopefully at Rebecca.

  “I think I’m just going to go up to bed,” she said.

  “What?” Valerie said. “No. If I can stay for a pint of beer and some darts, so can you. Maybe we can even hustle them for a few bucks.”

  “I’m terrible at darts,” Rebecca complained.

  “Perfect,” said Valerie, hoisting up the support hose she still wore from the flight, beneath her elastic-waist jeans and bright-white tennis shoes. “That will make it more believable. Then I swoop in and kick their asses.”

  It was hard not to smile at Valerie, and even harder to argue with her. Rebecca followed her to the booth by the dartboard. She pulled a packet of wipes from her purse and wiped the table and vinyl seat before sliding in. She managed a tired smile as the perplexed-looking convention guys introduced themselves. I should try to learn their names, she thought. But even that was more effort than she wanted to invest tonight.

  Two hours later, Shanna and Lizzie had allowed themselves to be led away by a pair of the more attractive conventioneers, and Valerie grinned as she collected more than fifty dollars from three sheepish others, tucking it victoriously in her “brassiere.” Rebecca leaned her head back against the wall of the booth and stirred a watery rum and Coke, wondering at exactly what point it would be okay to insist that Val come up to the room with her so they could sleep for a few hours before tomorrow’s flight to San Francisco.

  One of the dart players sat down next to her. He had dark skin, neatly trimmed black hair, and wore a light-blue Oxford shirt open at the collar. Rebecca was not good at identifying ethnicity: Indian, maybe? Or Hispanic? His speech was smooth and without accent. “So, you’re leaving tomorrow, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s too bad. I would have liked to have seen more of you,” he purred. He
placed a hand on her arm.

  Rebecca sighed. She was too tired to be flattered. “Um, that would be a ‘no thank you.’”

  His grin slowly faded. “Hey, I was just trying to be nice, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not your sweetheart, sweetheart.”

  Something flashed across his eyes and he slid out of the booth. “Okay, then, goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” she said, with a flick of the wrist and her best airline smile.

  He muttered something to his companions and they looked at her appraisingly. Then one of them shrugged, and they nodded at Valerie as they made their way back to the bar.

  “What the hell was that?” Valerie asked, sliding in across from her. “He was a nice-looking kid. You don’t like foreign guys?”

  “That’s not it,” Rebecca said.

  “Well, I had that one primed for you. Such a waste.”

  “Thanks, Val, but I don’t need you to find guys for me. And I’m sure he won’t go to waste. Look, he’s talking to that girl at the bar already.”

  “I didn’t mean him,” Val said. “I meant you. You’re such a beautiful girl: educated, nice nose, and that pretty brown hair is your real color as far as I can tell. We’ve flown together three years and I never hear about you dating anyone.”

  “Well, maybe I—”

  Valerie leaned across the table with a loud whisper. “Are you a lesbian?”

  “What? No!”

  “Because I’m okay with it, really. I’m very hip about this stuff. I even have a lesbian niece. Very attractive, if she would just let her hair grow out. Of course, she’s younger than you, but—”

  “Valerie!” Rebecca said too loudly. Then softer, “I am not a lesbian. I used to date men all the time. I just haven’t lately.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. The hours?”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Come on, Val. Why the sudden interest in my love life? Can we talk about something else?”

  “No.”

  Rebecca knew from experience Valerie had no intention of letting up. She took a sip of her drink, which was not terribly helpful since it was mostly melted ice. A long sigh under Valerie’s unwavering stare. “I guess you could say I got my heart broken a few years ago, and I just haven’t gotten over it yet.”

  “Really? Who was this? How come I haven’t heard about him?”

  Rebecca sighed. In for a penny … “You have heard of him. It was my friend Jake.”

  “Jake?” Valerie furrowed her brow. “You mean … your friend, the girl with the blog, what’s her name—Marci? That Jake?”

  “Yes. That Jake.”

  Valerie whistled. “So how long ago was this?”

  “How long ago was what? They got married four years ago. And they have Bonnie now.”

  “Yeah, but when did you stop…” Valerie trailed off.

  Rebecca shook her head. “I don’t think I have stopped. I know that’s ridiculous, but I—I loved him for so long. It’s like I don’t know any other way to be.”

  Val looked down at the table for a minute, and slid the rest of her neat Scotch across to Rebecca. “Here, kid. I think you need this a hell of a lot more than I do.”

  2

  The next night, another layover—this one in San Francisco after a full day going up and down the West Coast. By the time their shift ended, and they were once more on a shuttle to an airport hotel, Rebecca was exhausted. There were times when she enjoyed the many locations to which her job carried her, and times when the city didn’t matter at all. This could be San Francisco or Boise; tonight she didn’t care. Maybe because tomorrow she would finish up on the South Carolina coast, where a beach weekend with her girlfriends awaited her.

  Here in San Francisco, however, it was still light out, and the rest of the flight attendants were intent on going out again. There was some “bead shop” they had been talking about all day, and Rebecca had gathered that “bead shop” was a euphemism. Apparently what the shop mainly sold was adult novelties and drug paraphernalia.

  “Coming to the Purple Feather with us, Rebecca?” asked Shanna. She had been smug all day because her overnight experience with the guy from the convention had proved far more satisfactory than Lizzie’s. Rebecca did not know or need the details.

  “I don’t think so, thanks.”

  “Oh, come on … you of all people should take advantage while we’re here. It’s a classy place. Very clean.”

  Rebecca wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure it is.” No matter how many women or solicitous boyfriends tried to convince her to go to sex toy shops, Rebecca found the idea repulsive. She could only imagine low lighting and oily surfaces, with nasty booths along the wall for men to watch porn behind curtains.

  “Well, I think you ought to go, doll,” Valerie said.

  “Are you coming, Val?” Shanna asked. “Because that would be awesome!”

  “Sure, why not?” Valerie said. “I don’t get embarrassed.”

  Rebecca had to admit, she did feel more like a fuddy-duddy now that she was the only one not going. But she’d already said no, and she was tired. “I’ll go next time, okay?” she said.

  “I’m going to get the Tickler 2000 this time,” Shanna said. “I got the petite version last time, but it’s sort of lost its appeal.”

  “Oh, I don’t like those big bulky things,” Lizzie said. “I’m getting the little portable one that goes in your panties. You know, with the remote control?”

  “Who are you going to give the remote to?” Shanna asked.

  “Just me,” Lizzie said. “It’s tiny. You can hold it in your hand, and get a little, er, pick me up in the middle of the day and no one would be the wiser.”

  “Next time you seem a little too happy to be at work, we’ll all know why,” Rebecca said.

  “Yeah, that could make turbulence a lot more enjoyable,” Shanna said.

  Valerie smiled and shook her head. “You girls have no idea how lucky you are. It’s so nice people talk about these things now. When I was young, sex was so taboo. People just didn’t talk about it, except for all the free-love people. You know, I think one of those vibrator machines might have saved my first marriage.”

  “I thought your first husband couldn’t change a lightbulb?” Rebecca asked.

  “That’s right. But maybe I could have looked past that if he knew where to find my cookies!” She said this loudly enough that some businessmen turned to look, and they all four dissolved in laughter.

  At the hotel, Rebecca wasted no time showering and getting into her pajamas, hoping to avoid more invitations to the Purple Feather. She had to leave earlier than everyone else—she was splitting off from the group to work the flight to Cincinnati tomorrow, while they were heading for New York. She had traded routes with another girl so she could end up working the evening flight from Atlanta to Charleston. It meant having to do gate duties in South Carolina after the flight instead of getting to go straight to the beach house, but she got paid for the trip and didn’t have to do standby. A good trade.

  Rebecca watched, bemused, as Valerie put back on her grandma jeans—over the stockings, naturally—white tennis shoes, and a shade too much red lipstick. She resprayed her large helmet of sandy-gray hair, buttoned her white blouse, and was out the door. Rebecca smiled to think of the reception Valerie would get at the sex shop, and whether Shanna and Lizzie would stay with her or leave her to her own devices. Is this even Valerie’s first time going? She certainly never seemed shy about new experiences when Rebecca was around. How did I end up with these people for friends?

  When the door had clicked closed behind Val, Rebecca called her friend Suzanne to confirm the plans for the weekend and to make sure someone could come pick her up at the airport in Charleston tomorrow night.

  “Yes, darling, someone will pick you up. The four of us are all driving out in the morning. Are you completely sure you can’t join us?”

  “Completely. I’m in San Francisco and they need m
e tomorrow.” She saw no need to mention that she had chosen to fly in with work, rather than endure a five-hour car ride with four women, all of whom were rather disgustingly happy.

  “All right, sweetie. It’s going to be supercasual, okay? Just girls hanging out at the beach.”

  “You got it.”

  “For heaven’s sake, don’t let them put some kind of hideous fake veil on me.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I’m counting on you. I know you hate that tacky stuff as much as I do.”

  Rebecca smiled. At one point in her life, she would have given her right arm for Suzanne to include her in this sisterly confidence, to see them as being the same. Rebecca had since given up, at least partially, on this idea. You couldn’t replicate Suzanne. She simply had a charmed life. “Don’t worry, Suze. I’ve got your back.”

  Next, Rebecca called to check in with Kendall Brighton-Higsby at the Junior League, to review the minutes from last week’s gala committee meeting. After years of trying to break out of provisional status and move past duty at the league’s thrift store, Rebecca was finally on the committee to plan the Christmas Gala. It was the year’s biggest fund-raiser and supported about twenty children’s charities. Rebecca suspected Suzanne had pulled some strings to get her on the committee, and it was a bit of a challenge with her flight schedule, but she was too happy to care.

  With her calls made, Rebecca pressed her uniform and left it hanging in the bathroom so she could dress and leave in the morning without waking Valerie. She packed and repacked everything else three times: spare uniform, bathing suit, towel, flat sandals, and a sundress that would work for the beach and dinners out over the long weekend. Two tank tops, one pair of wrinkle-resistant white shorts, one pair of jeans, makeup kit, cotton robe, and underwear. Everything perfectly organized, and four pounds under the carry-on weight limit in case she brought something home from the beach.

  She left her suitcase half-zipped on the little closet trestle so she could put in her pajamas and toiletries without needing the light. Settled on the bed, she flipped through the channels on the hotel TV twice, and then snapped it off. Her phone was resting on the nightstand, on top of a dog-eared book she’d picked up in an airport bookstore: Calm Your Mind, Live Your Life. She knew she should read some affirmations and get a good night’s sleep, but she picked up her phone instead.