My Best Man by Andy Schell (top 10 novels TXT) 📕

her. If I lost a Mercedes, a condo, and a Western art collection, I wouldn’t want to talk about it either. It’s a miracle she still has her job. Actually,” she says, “that’s not true. Steal a milk carton off the plane and you’re fired. Do a bag of blow before you fly, and as long as you turn yourself in, they pity your ass and pay for your rehab. Then they give you one of those brown noser awards at the annual jack-off ceremony. The system’s fucked.”

What is she saying? How much is true? I need to stop flying and land somewhere, but it will be a couple more hours before I can lower my gear and slow down enough to think.

“It’s a good thing she found you,” Julie continues. “First of all, because you’re sweet. And I’ll bet you can keep her off the coke and on the straight and narrow. She’s so much fun. Everybody loves her, but from a distance because she’s always on the edge, and to be honest, she’s running out of edges and domiciles. She transferred to New York after the last rehab thing, but then I heard she was based in Chicago for a while too. So when she came back to Dallas, everybody figured she’d burned through most of the route system. I guess she hoped she might have a few friends left here, but Jacqueline Deen is the only one who really seems to be there for her which is totally incredible since Jacqueline was burned by Amity almost worse than anybody. And now that it’s turned out like this, you and her, everybody is just rolling their eyes. It’s amazing how she makes things happen. She said, after Arlen, that when she married again, it would be for permanent financial security and that she wouldn’t fuck it up next time. And there she was, last week, at some party at a pilot’s house, telling everyone you’re inheriting land worth eighteen million and stocks worth twenty or whatever it was and oil wells worth another ten million. I’ll say this for her she always seems to land on her feet just before she lands on her ass. A word of warning.”

“Right.” I smile. I calmly hold the slot machine’s handle for support, stare at the last draw: two jokers and a lemon. Are the gods laughing at me? Does Amity have a secret past? Has she only been interested in permanent financial security all along? Never, never have I given her numbers. And though I haven’t looked at the will since I tucked it away with my important papers, Julie is close to being right on. Which means Amity is right on. How does she know? God, I’d gladly give her half of everything as long as she loves me and doesn’t expect it. I’m not an instrument. I don’t want to be played. “She and I are in this together,” I tell Julie as much as I tell myself. “We’re on the level with each other.” No matter what I say, I can’t fool myself the way I’m fooling Julie.

“You’re pretty cool, Harry,” Julie tells me. “Amity may have finally found the one person who can help her put it all together.”

She finishes her drink, turns to set it down, and falls off her stool. I jump down to help her. “Julie!”

She’s laughing so hard I can’t scrape her off the carpet. “I guess I’ve reached my limit,” she says into the carpet fibers.

“Me too,” I answer. “Me too.”

As I work the next day, I try to put the pieces together in my head. Randy said the lawsuit with the college professor yielded her a hundred thousand dollars. And Julie said she took away half a million dollars from the marriage to Arlen. I try to comfort myself by remembering that Amity told me all about these relationships, sparing no details. But the truth is, she told me about the professor and Arlen after I confronted her about them. And she falsely claimed that Arlen left her penniless. The financial numbers of my inheritance keep floating through my head. Amity must have gone through my private things while I was out flying and found my father’s will. Oh God, I can’t stomach the thought that she may be taking me for a ride, that perhaps she’s interested in my money more than she is me. I fall into the lavatory and throw up.

We lay over that afternoon in Los Angeles. At the pool, Julie,

myself, the other flight attendant, and the captain, a halfway cool guy from Cuba, soak in the sun, sipping mimosas. My body is slack, slightly wrecked from last night’s excess, and the champagne and orange juice take the edge off. We start chatting with a group of seven hard-core Eastern Airlines flight attendants. They order up more cheap champagne and orange juice. And soon we’re all soaked in mimosas as well as the sun.

I’m beginning to find out why Eastern’s crews are legendary radicals within the industry. These girls are rough. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to run into one in a dark aircraft aisle. At the moment, they’re trashing a bunch of Delta flight attendants across the pool, who shared the van ride from the airport to the hotel. After educating us about “those uppity bitches from Delta,” who never acknowledged the Eastern attendants during the ride, the Eastern women are fully worked up. They take their revenge.

“Hey, honey!” a hard Eastern stew with blond hair and black roots yells to a lily white Delta gal. “You’re going to blind us all!”

“Yeah,” her friend joins in, “you better lie under your towel!”

The Delta belle squirms in her chaise, flips a page in her magazine, pretends not to hear.

“Better yet, Snow White,” another Eastern gal yells, “why don’t you go choke on a poison apple!”

The Delta gal remains silent, but makes a sarcastic face, as if to say, very funny.

The toughest Eastern stew of