stopped and turned, obviously unhappy to see her. He probably thought she was going to chew him out for that landing.
“Did I hear you right?” she asked. “Were you telling Stephanie you’d support them in a strike?”
He shrugged. “They’re talking about a strike vote next month…or the month after.”
“Bob, have you lost your mind? A strike now could be a death knell for this company!”
“That’s what they’d like you to think. The flight attendants haven’t had a raise in four years.”
“Aries lost more than a hundred million dollars last quarter! Where do you think they’re going to get the money for a raise?”
“That’s what they’d like you to think,” he repeated. “It’s all smoke and mirrors—they’re indinuated with money.”
That took her a second. Inundated? Indinuated? “You sure about that?” she finally asked. “Do you read Business Week and Aviation Week? It’s a pretty bleak world for airlines, Bob. All of them. Since 9/11 and the war, the industry has lost three times what it earned since Wilbur and Orville took off.”
He looked at her as though he was very tired of her idiocy. “Look, the employees made pay concessions with 9/11, the government has given the company millions of dollars, and it’s time the management of this company got the message that they’ll have to cut costs somewhere else—their big fat paychecks, perhaps? Or deal with the consequences.”
“Bob…”
“Not all airlines are losing money, which tells me that the Aries management should take a look at profitable companies and learn from them.”
“Bob, two airlines didn’t lose money. One is a low-fare carrier that has a legislative monopoly out of Texas, and the other is a start-up that hasn’t made a single airplane lease payment yet.”
He sighed heavily. “Drastic measures for drastic times.”
No matter how many times she heard this rhetoric, Nikki couldn’t believe it. “Look, I’m not saying management is right or the union is right, but there is a basic tenet of logic that it just doesn’t make sense to draw a line in the sand now, when the entire industry is struggling. Why not just hunker down and wait until there are signs of a recovery, and then turn the screws? That’s when getting tough has a chance of actually paying off. A strike now could shut the company down.”
“Exactly!” he said, as though finally getting through to her. “With that kind of threat, you think the company would let us stay out long?”
“Oh, man. You could end up in the unemployment line.”
He smiled at her, turned and started walking again. “I’ve already got my résumé out there floating around. There are lots of possibilities.”
“That’s just it, Bob, there aren’t,” she said to his back. “Everyone is still trying to get their furloughed employees back. Some airlines are laying off even more.”
He turned and spoke while taking a few steps backward. “I’m not worried. I have a ton of hours and lots of experience. I think I’m pretty competitive.”
Nikki just stared at him in wonder. “Not if they see you land.”
Four
When Nikki got to Dixie’s, she walked in on an impressive pity party. Carlisle and Dixie were drinking mai tais with black rum floating on top, eating cheesecake and sorting through a big pile of men’s and women’s clothing that was heaped on the sofa.
“Oh, you are going to hate yourselves in the morning,” she predicted.
“Want one, Nick? We can call you a cab….”
“How about a small glass of wine and an explanation.”
Both were served up quickly. Dixie had whacked Branch in the head with the hotel door, and even though she’d done so unintentionally, she hadn’t made any attempt to help him. She’d heard him moan and stumble away, and at least briefly hoped he was dead.
Nikki sank onto a kitchen stool and leaned her head on her hand, listening.
“I think I might’ve had fifty boyfriends,” Dixie said. “Or a hundred. Do ya’ll know I have eleven tennis bracelets? Plus a good many necklaces, earrings and miscellaneous jewelry. And look at this here,” she said, going to the huge mound of clothes on the sofa. She lifted a fistful of sheer and lacy lingerie. Red, black, silver, gold, white, yellow—leopard? “Negligees, teddies and peekaboos—some I’ve fetched for myself, some given to me. All so that I can look sexy for whichever guy I pinned my hopes on.”
“What are you going to do with all that stuff?”
“Putting it out on the curb for giveaway. I’m getting Bali bras and Jockey For Her briefs from now on, and I’m going to start sleeping in a T-shirt like the rest of the female human race. And the next guy who gives me a teddy is going to be strangled with it.”
Nikki took a sip of her wine. Not only had she never been given a teddy, she had never bought one for herself. She’d worn cotton undies for ten years at least. And if she was honest, she didn’t really need a bra.
“The homeless are going to look très chic,” Carlisle said, slurring just slightly.
“I’ve heard you swear off men before…” Nikki began.
“Oh, no, this time I’m through. I hate all men.”
“That is s-o-o-o unkind,” Carlisle whined.
“Not all men, precious,” she said. “I still love all gay men. Well, not all,” she amended.
“You’re both shit-faced,” Nikki told them.
“It might seem so to you, Nicole,” Carlisle said, “but we have been so badly bruised by love.”
She looked at him seriously for a moment before she burst into laughter, and with the slightest lisp, said, “Carlisle, you get s-o-o-o gay when you’re drunk.”
“Thanks, Butch,” he shot back, taking another pull on his mai tai.
“So what’s your story?” she asked. “What’s driven you to drink? And are you giving up your sexy underwear, too?”
“It’s just Robert, the bastard. He’s chronically unfaithful and nasty to me. And I don’t wear underwear.” Then he began to sing “Alone Again, Naturally.” By the end of the first stanza they were on the floor in uncontrollable laughter.
Nikki indulged herself with another half glass of wine, just because her friends were so hysterically funny in their misery. “As much as I’d love to stay until you two get sick, I really do have to go,” she said at last. “I have two kids, a cranky father and a dead ex-husband to tend to.” But she made a pass by the sofa full of clothes. The men’s had belonged to Branch Darnell, but the sexy girlie stuff was all Dixie’s. She lifted a black shortie nightie that was totally transparent. “I have never owned anything like this,”
