Beware of Flight Attendant

by Cactus Moloney

  She liked history. She was fascinated to learn where things originated. She looked at Buster stretched out on the floor in front of her. Where had he come from? She had been told they found him in a middle-class Albuquerque suburb. Aunt June imagined he must have come from a nice family home. She wished he could speak English so he could tell her about his past. His disposition was gentle, and patient and he adored children. They must be heartbroken to have lost their friend.

  When they went for walks around the trailer park, she would worry that someone might recognize him and tell his family where he was. She thought about getting a knock at the door by someone wanting to take him away. She found herself closing her curtains when they were home and jumping out of her chair with every knock at the front door.

  A robust redheaded man sitting next to her finished rapidly texting on his phone using both his thick fingers with amazing dexterity.

  “Hi there, are you going to Miami too?” She asked the man.

  He didn’t hear her speaking to him, so she asked again.

  “Uh yea,” he responded quickly looking back to the phone in his hands.

  She watched Buster perk up by the loud zipping sound of the line barrier tape being sucked into its post after a man in an expensive suit stumbled into it after losing his footing. Then Buster became fixated on a small boy passing by, before whipping his head to look at a young woman wearing tall shiny knee-high black boots, who had been ogling him first. Aunt June attempted to smile at the young lady, but the girl only had eyes for Buster.

  8 Margot Melton

  Margot strutted the Las Vegas Airport concourse as if she were performing on the catwalk. Bluetooth concealed earbuds blasted hip-hop; Jay Z giving her an extra bounce to her step. Booming base tickled her insides. Her tall black leather boots clicked against the tile; her red knee-length skirt swished back and forth, feathering against her thighs, sans panties.

  “No panties are my modus operandi,” she would tell the boys with a wink.

  Twenty-one-year-old Margot Melton was rocking her new hairstyle. Shaking her long blown out mane with golden highlights.

  She spied a fit redhead hunk absorbed on his phone. It bothered her that he didn’t seem to notice her.

  “Men are only attracted to girls with long shiny hair,” her mother would tell her. “I will never understand why any sane woman would want to look like a dyke with a short cut.”

  Approaching Gate 14, her almond shaped, brown eyes spotted an imposing silver Pitbull garbed in a red vest. Its long scratchy pink tongue was hanging from its mouth; a two-foot string of saliva dripped from the tip. Margot shivered feeling the tingling sensation shoot across her body.

  “DGT!” Breathing out she attempted to calm the static energy forming from the flood of retrospection.

  Don’t Go There were the words she muttered when she wanted to quickly think of something else.

  Margot’s memories were compartmentalized into three groups: before memories started, Instagram memories, and DGT.

  Margot had zero memories before the age of seven. Just a black hole in the space where others remembered birthday parties, playing dress up with friends, pretending with dolls, swimming in the ocean, and the family vacation to the Grand Canyon. She drew a blank when these events were mentioned, with only picture albums stored in the top of the hall closet as proof of her happy (at least on the surface) childhood. #happykids

  Current memories were encapsulated into Instagram photo opts; #yogapose on the #sunsetbeach, wearing a #skimpy#stylish#bikini, reaching up to the sky under a pounding #waterfall, fine dining with her gorgeous #tan#stylishfriends#makingmemories, wearing a bohemian headscarf, beating on a drum, with a yellow-hued filter #bohemianchick, or napping with her man Brando #boyfriendandgirlfriend.

  He was a powerfully photogenic hot model—the perfect Instagram boyfriend. Brando was a social influencer and showed her how to really increase her own following.

  “If you put #sustainable on all your posts you will get thousands of additional followers,” he said explaining what hash tags work best. “Keep the filters to a minimum, making sure to Photoshop a similar hue to get a more cohesive feel when you look at all the snaps together.”

  Margot hadn’t seen Brando in over two months and was pretty sure he had been cheating on her while she was away in Vegas. She didn’t judge him for that, having not been faithful herself. She was a young lady with an abnormal sexual desire. She frowned. Then looked for a seat nearer the gate that was not facing the dog.

  Don’t Go There thoughts started the day her memories began.

  Skipping ahead…she started flashing boys indiscriminately in the eighth grade. She would expose her nipple, or slowly spread her legs to flash the boys, like the scene with Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, except Margot was in schoolgirl uniform. #schoolgirlskirt

  Trying to keep her thoughts on more neutral ground, after noticing the giant dog, she reminisced back to her junior high school crush on a shaggy, brown haired boy, Sam. She sent him mixed messages for weeks before inviting him home with her. He arrived at her house with a confident swagger. His jeans hung low off his hips to show the elastic of his American Eagle brand underwear. They were both performing an act, pretending to have done it all before. Joining them that day was his friend Ashley, a big boy on the lacrosse team; he would have been her backup crush if Sam hadn’t worked out. They stood next to the peanut-shaped pool of her Coral Gables home. Fuchsia bougainvillea climbed the yellow stucco walls; the vines spreading over the trellised porch, leading out to the Spanish tiled patio. Palm trees gently swayed in the salty breeze.

  “Do you guys wanna take a dip?” Margot asked, kicking off her leather strappy sandals. “My mom and stepdad aren’t around...they hardly ever are.”

  She turned on the Bose surround sound, connecting it to her iPhone; gangster rap bumped the energy up a notch. Margot sang the chorus, moving her small bony hips to the beat, grinding them against the air.

  “Can you feel it? Uh-huh uhh, uh huh,”

  “I didn’t bring my swim trunks,” Ashley said. “You should have told me this was a pool party.”

  “Nobody ever said you had to wear trunks…or anything at all,” Margot bantered back.

  He took off his shirt revealing his athletic physique, stripping down to his boxers and kicking off his jeans; they flew into the air landing on a yellow cushioned lounge chair.

  “Banzai, motherfuckers!” Ashley hooted as he cannonballed into the pool.

  Water drenched Margot and Sam, cooling them instantly in the thick Miami heat.

  “My feet are burning!” She said hopping back and forth on the hot terra cotta tile.

  She slipped off her blouse, with her distressed jean shorts dropping to the ground, she danced around in her white lace bra and panties, before running and jumping into the peanut-shaped pool. Sam was already diving in behind her. He lurched up and grabbed her from behind. Flirtatiously they started splashing one another wildly, moving towards the diving board. Ashley began swimming lengths of the pool, beneath the water, holding his breath. Under the rectangle shade of the board Sam started to kiss her, apprehensively reaching his hand out to caress her small breast. She could feel his bulge rubbing against her own throbbing space and wanted it so bad; pulling her hips to him, she wrapped her legs around his waist. His soft wet lips covered her mouth.

  They heard the door slam shut and immediately pulled away from each other. Her mother walked onto the patio, wearing skintight white designer Juicy Couture jeans, with a gold belt, tangerine silk tank top, with sizable gold-hooped earrings, accentuated against her long brown hair. #juicycougar #sustainable

  “Do you mind if I join you?” Her mother asked the teens, standing at the edge of the pool. “Who are your friends, Margot?”

  Margot introduced the boys to her mother, before Alison followed by the family dog, an impressive pit named Hugo, went to change into her bikini. Sam smiled causing his cute freckles to dance across his nose.


  “Is your mom okay with us being here?” He splashed her and grinned flirtatiously, “Are you being a bad girl?”

  “Alison is cool, as long as you aren’t a woman married to a wealthy man. Alison is a man-grabber. She’ll snatch a husband and blow a family’s house down before you say B.I.T.C.H.”

  The dog returned following her mother. Choosing to plop his heavy body down in the shade of the covered patio. Hugo let out a deep breath of resignation and closed his eyes to the sun. Her mother began setting up her chair with a thick yellow terry cloth towel, iced beverage, her designer sunglasses, romance novel, cover up shirt, the entire time gabbing to Ashley about what was happening to so and so at the club.

  Ashley was relaxed, with his arms crossed over the pool ledge, while Alison quizzed him, “Who are your parents Ashley…do I know them...what does your father do for a living?”

  Sam swam closer to Margot and started to poke her with his big toe. Margot grabbed the digit, and rubbed it against her cunt, through the bathing suit. Sam’s face showed building excitement, she took it a step further, and moved the suit to the side. He pushed against the edge of the pool to leverage himself, penetrating her with the big digit. They both took a deep breath and she started to move up and down—while her mother droned on about the club.

  “What are you guys doing over there?” Ashley turned to look towards the diving board and address the horny hush.

  “Just playing footsie,” Sam smirked. #toesucking #sustainable

  Today Margot was returning to Miami to see her mother. Las Vegas hadn’t been as good to her as she had expected.

  She had tried to find work that paid a decent salary and didn’t make her want to barf. Margot was offered work as the receptionist at a tanning bed salon at a strip mall. The job paid $8.50 an hour for her to wipe sweaty skin, mixed with greasy lotion, off warm beds. Then she started a second part-time job selling jewelry at Dillard’s department store in a suburban shopping mall. Working both jobs, she could barely cover the rent, much less afford to go clubbing, the main reason she had moved to Vegas. The best DJs played the Vegas Strip—these nightclubs charged a $40 cover—she was too poor to dance, unless she got a job stripping at the Palomino Club.

  A few days ago, her mother had called to inform Margot that she was embattled in her third divorce and needed to move out of the house with the peanut-shaped pool to a condo on the beach. Margot knew this was her way out.

  “I’m coming home to help, mom,” she told Alison over the phone.

  “Margot don’t worry about it,” her mom quickly interjected. “I’m already dating the next contender. This new man has twice the money.”

  Margot knew she had better claim her spot at the beach condo before her mom married again.

  Her mother lived by her own rules, professing, “If you want to be happy for the rest of your life—don’t marry for love—don’t marry for looks—marry for money.”

  “I’ll get the first ticket to Miami,” Margot had told her mom. #beachcondo #sustainable

  Margot sat with her long legs crossed, tapping one black-heeled boot impatiently against the other bootleg, waiting for the dead battery on her iPhone to charge in the port under the seat. She sat observing people near the boarding area, waiting for the fourth group to be called, on account her assigned seat was in front of the economy section.

  Two well dressed, middle-aged men, walked up to the first-class pre-boarding line; a tan attractive woman, seemingly irritated, followed behind pulling two pieces carry-on of luggage. The man in the designer suit stumbled over the metal pole barrier, and then a loud zipping sound emitted from the line separation tape, as it disconnected from the post he had knocked. Nobody seemed to regard the drunken first-class passengers. #drunkoldmen #sustainable

  Those waiting to board remained engrossed on their iPhones and computer screens. She redirected her attention to a woman with long brown hair worn in a braid over her shoulder; she was holding a small baby, loaded down with baggage, she looked the part of a Nepalese Sherpa, while attempting to guide a loose toddler along the pre-boarding path.

  A knot formed in Margot’s throat, like she had swallowed a fly, when she again spotted the big silver dog, calmly waiting on the other side of the partitioned off boarding groups. His amber eyes were fixated on the man in the suit who had made the loud noise. It held its gaze on the man until he disappeared down the corridor. A little boy went skipping past, and like a squirrel running up a tree, dragged the big dog’s attention away. The boy slowed down and started to reach out for the animal, before his mother said something to stop him, guiding him towards the waiting agent. The silver dog continued to watch the child intently. Absorbed with small boy’s animated movements, as he rolled on the ground, before handing over his ticket to the gate agent.

  Then, for no apparent reason, the dog snapped its neck to face her; locking his unwavering yellow eyes with Margot’s almond shaped ones. The dog knew she had been watching it. The hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. Goose pimples popped from her skin, like the sudden onset of the measles. She felt sick.

  9 Buster

  “Are you enjoying people watching Buster?” Aunt June asked me.

  My eyes looked up at her sitting in the extra-wide handicap seat in the waiting area of the airport. I was resting on the floor with my heavy head between my paws, my back legs stretched out straight behind me. I was very much enjoying watching people.

  I had been surprised when a woman smelling of jasmine flowers ran over my paws with her suitcase, while busy connecting with a man smiling back at her wearing a matching uniform. She hadn’t seen me as she hurried along, with my fur matching the short dark gray carpet. She jumped back startled. I stood up quickly in response, even though it didn’t hurt in the slightest.

  I was happy when the lady spoke to me with concern in her voice afterwards.

  “I’m sorry buddy.”

  Raising her pitch to complement me, she said, “I love your cactus collar handsome boy. Are you from the desert?”

  I panted with a giant grin. My eyebrows raised; my interest peaked.

  “He’s the friendliest dog in the world,” Aunt June informed her.

  The sweet-scented woman patted my bolder-sized head.

  My attention kept getting dragged from one interesting sight to another, human smells converging with each other. The zipping sound of the rope being retracted after a man in a dark suit bumped it fascinated me. I could smell the alcohol seeping from under his suit, permeating off his skin. And the tall jovial man accompanying him smelled equally of intoxication and newly purchased clothing.

  Out of nowhere, a child began to reach out to touch me, I could hardly contain my excitement. My bottom end began zigzagging out of control while I held my place waiting for his sticky fingers to caress me. Oh boy!

  “Blake don’t touch that dog,” his mother demanded him.

  Like a balloon I was deflated, my bum wiggled to a stop as I watched him run down the corridor.

  I felt the purr of human energy directed at me and turned my head to locate the vibration. A young woman was staring at me. I took her in, watching as she tapped her black leather boots together with a deep-seated agitation. She reminded of me of a cat woman—the boots her sharp claws. I sniffed at the air and smelled her leather boots.

  Aunt June resituated herself. She began to gather her belongings; with exaggerated effort pulling her fuzzy peach sweater over her flowery dress and placing her plastic water bottle into her purse. Her preparation made me aware that it was about time to board the airplane.

  I thought about my training to be a Service Dog with Cindy.

  “We will be testing his alertness in each of the following situations: in a person’s home, in a person’s yard, including a vehicle, in a store, office building, mall, airport, or in an outdoor location, such as a park,” she explained to Aunt June. “Or, anywhere that is unfamiliar to the dog. Noisy distractions will include people talking, run
ning, people in uniforms, cars, animals, loud machinery, sirens and hidden food.”

  Having accomplished all the obstacles with flying colors I realized I had never been on an airplane. This was unfamiliar territory. I repositioned myself back on the floor fully attentive. I was feeling excited, I wondered what the plane would smell like. Oh boy!

  I noticed a redheaded man sitting two seats over from Aunt June flexing his bicep muscles, then twitching his chest muscles, back and forth, right to left. I wondered if I could twitch my muscles and stood back up to sit on my behind.

  I began to flex my chest. The muscles quivered.

  A woman reeking of pharmaceuticals and oozing depression ambled by us. Her long stringy hair made a mop down her back. I saw Aunt June try and shoot her a smile. It was ignored.

  I flexed my muscles.

  YOU LUCKY DOG

  10 Barberella Johnson

  She used to sit in first class with her husband before the divorce. Now she was assigned 13F—a window seat in the economy section—alone as usual. She heaved her shiny purple, carry-on luggage, into the above compartment. Awkwardly squeezing her two-hundred-pound body into the far seat.

  “I hope I don’t have to pee,” she had suffered from incontinence, following the birth of her youngest, Ryan.

  “After Ryan was born, I could never jump on a trampoline again,” she used to tell her mom friends at the playgroups.