The Woman in 3B - Eliza Lentzski Page 0,4

recommendation, not the end all, be all.

My apartment wasn’t much, but I didn’t spend too much time at home anyway. At least I actually had a home though. I knew some people who had crashpads around the country instead of renting a proper apartment. Crashpads could be a house or an apartment with bunkbeds in each room. For a couple hundred bucks a month you could have a place to stay if you weren’t keen on the commuting life.

I had lucked out that the city in which I lived—Romulus—was a central hub for my airline. Despite its name, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport was actually located in Romulus, Michigan—a small city about twenty miles west of downtown Detroit. The airport was the busiest in the state and one of the largest airports in the country. My own airline operated over one hundred gates in two different terminals.

I knew a few others whose home airport was also Detroit Metro, but they commuted to a different city in a different state to go home. They always seemed overtired and overstressed. Commuting took a lot of planning and your schedule could be ruined with a simple weather delay.

Even without commuting, our work hours were long. In a month, I typically spent between 65 to 90 hours in the air with another 50 hours of preparing planes for flight, completing reports, and other grounded tasks.

I dropped off the bags on the short countertop island that functioned as both a food prep area and my dining table. I left the bags on the counter for the moment.

“You hungry, Honey?”

I didn’t expect a verbal response, but my pet turtle enthusiastically splashed in her tank. I’d had Honey—a red-eared slider—for close to a decade. My job kept me from owning more traditional pets unless I paid to have them kenneled or hired a pet sitter. That was money I didn’t have. Honey was the perfect compromise. She didn’t require much maintenance beyond occasional feedings and cleaning her aquarium. Plus, she had loads more personality than a fish.

I dropped a handful of floating food pellets into her tank and watched her hunt down each piece of food with erratic precision. She was clumsy—smashing her open mouth against the clear glass walls—but persistent. No piece of food went undevoured.

“How was your day?” I asked. I leaned close to the aquarium glass and watched her zip across the water’s surface. I tapped lightly against the glass, but she was in hunting mode and paid little attention to me. “Get some good sunbathing done today? Take a dip in your pool? Must be nice; I was in recycled air all day while you’re on a permanent vacation.”

With Honey fed, I started the task of feeding myself. I didn’t have occasion for eating at home too often. The airline paid for most of my food since I was on the clock during most meal times. I cooked a little though; my life would have turned into too much of a sad cliché if I relied on frozen microwavable dinners and cereal.

My conversation with Gemma had inspired me to make Italian that night—homemade meatballs on top of thick-noodled spaghetti, swimming in a rich marinara sauce. I’d just settled down at the kitchen island to tuck into my meal and a glass of red wine, when my phone rang and my sister’s name and number popped up on the screen.

My sister Dawn was a few years older than me. While I hadn’t made it through college and had boomeranged back into my parents’ basement, Dawn had achieved practically everything she had set out to do. I was a single, gay, college dropout who lived in an 700-square foot apartment in Romulus, Michigan while she was married with kids and lived in a big house in the affluent Detroit suburbs.

“Are you coming to Peter’s swim meet on Saturday?” she asked when I answered the phone.

“I’m on call on Saturday,” I shared, “so probably not.”

Although we had days off that scheduling couldn’t touch—called Golden Days—on some off days of the week we had to be flexible. An on-call day might eventually turn into an actual day off, but if someone called in sick or had a last-minute personal emergency, we had to make ourselves available and get to our home base airport to fill in.

“But you missed his last swim meet, too!” she protested.

“He’s five,” I deadpanned. “How much of a competition is it really?”

“That’s not the point and you know it,” she sternly chastised. “You’re