Vicki and Jean had forty minutes’ work to do before the passengers came aboard. They had many things to check—it would be just too bad if, once aloft, they discovered there was not enough water for making coffee, or found the ventilation or heating system wasn’t functioning perfectly. Hurrying up and down the long cabin aisle, they took pride in their handsome Electra. Wide reclining chairs were upholstered in blue, in beige, and a few in pumpkin color; the silver-beige walls and curtains and coral-colored carpet harmonized. Vicki took special satisfaction in the semicircular observation lounge with its wide windows in the rear of the plane.
While Jean checked their service kit, all emergency equipment, cabin and lavatory lights, seat belts, and a dozen or more other items, Vicki was busy in the buffet area amidship. The two tall, wide, metal buffets, facing each other, held drawers and compartments for everything she and Jean would need to store, heat, and serve sixty-eight dinners, and to brew gallons of fresh coffee. Vicki found it a big job to check every item. Next, the caterer brought aboard precooked dinners on individual trays, water, bags of coffee, and Vicki checked all items off on her report form. She called through the open service door to the commissary men on the ground:
“We’re short one dinner.” She saw the fueling crew hosing kerosene for the plane’s four jet engines into the storage tanks inside the wings. Daylight was fading; the first of their passengers were gathering behind the wire gate, looking on.
Captain Jordan came aboard and went into the cockpit. In a minute or two his copilot and navigator followed. The cockpit door stood open until departure time; Vicki could see the complex instrument panel, and the three airmen at work with their air maps and weather charts. She turned on the music—a little early, but they all were keyed up about this flight, and it helped to have lilting music fill the cabin.
Twenty minutes later Vicki and Jean were breathless but ready. They repowdered their faces, and smiled expectantly at each other. Jean said:
“I must say you look poised and calm.”
“Calm? Who, me? Well, here’s wishing us good luck.”
Jean said a fervent amen, and then pressed down on the switch which released a folding staircase from the plane to the ground. Slowly the stairs for the passengers’ use dropped down into place. Then Jean took up her post just inside the main entrance door, to greet their passengers. Vicki stood smiling in the aft cabin to greet them and assist them in getting seated.
Mothers with babies and small children straggled aboard first. Vicki directed them to window seats in the quieter locations.
“Miss, will you be able to heat my baby’s bottle?” one mother asked her.