That Time I Flew to Cincinnati For One Night of Spite

It was the middle of January, which meant New York had become actively hostile to human life, and I had two days off between trips. I was off probation, holding a really crappy schedule, broke enough to consider catered crew meals part of my compensation package, and in possession of flight benefits that allowed me to get almost anywhere in the world for approximately the cost of airport taxes and fingers-crossed optimism. My friend Adrian called and asked if I would come to Cincinnati with her, just for one night.

"What’s in Cincinnati?" I ask.

"My parents." She let the sentence stop completely, leaving me expecting at least a little more detail.

"That doesn’t feel like something you need backup for," I push back a little.

"I need backup for something else."

Okay, now my curiousity is piqued. "What?"

"I’ll tell you when we get there."

There are moments in life when you should ask follow-up questions. You've met me, I'm made of questions. I'm consistently curious on a good day, nosy AF on a bad one. I always ask follow-up questions.

Except for when I don't. Because there are times when your closest flight attendant friend asks you to get on an airplane she knows you can use for free and refuses to explain why. These should also be follow-up-question moments, but I'm 25 and committed to saying "yes" to life as a flight attendant, and having adventures seems to be working out pretty well so far. So, I'm in.

"Sure." I start looking at flight loads for the remaining flights out of JFK and LGA.

My first non-rev first-class upgrade happened on a CRJ to Cincinnati that day. Yay for me for a first class seat! But, let's be real, this is the aviation equivalent of winning a beauty pageant held inside a Walgreens. I know it's not that special, but I was beyond thrilled,

The flight was barely more than two hours, there was no meal, and first class on a regional jet was essentially the same airplane with fewer people and slightly wider seats, but none of that mattered because I had cleared the upgrade list for the first time ever. It felt like a Big Deal. I was in First Class.

I sat down and immediately texted Adrian, who had gotten on an earlier flight.

FIRST CLASS, BITCH.

She responded:

On a CRJ?

I stared at my phone.

DON'T DIM MY LIGHT.

The flight attendant came through with the snack basket after takeoff, the same snack basket we serve on our flights, minus a couple of options. I snagged the M&Ms and the Sunchips and asked for a vodka cranberry. Yes, I'm basic, and I'm loving it.

Adrian's parents lived in a comfortable house in a suburb about fifteen minutes outside Cincinnati that looked exactly like the kind of place someone could come home to in a John Hughes movie. Big trees with no leaves, wide streets, gray skies. A handful of brick steps up to the front door.

"You're Margaret," Adrian's mom had her arms halfway around me already, hugging me tight.

"That's me!" I hugged her back once I worked my arms free. I swear she smelled like vanilla and nutmeg and I didn't want to let go.

"I've heard so much about you!" she holds me by the shoulders, like a mother in a Folgers commercial, looking me up and down.

I looked at Adrian. "Oh no. Well that could go either way."

"It does," Adrian said, laughing, pleased that this intro is so cozy.

I followed her into the bedroom she had apparently occupied throughout high school, although there was surprisingly little evidence that Teenage Adrian had ever existed. I knew we were of an age, born roughly a couple of years apart. But she had cleaned up her space, like I had back home, and now it's just a place to stay sometimes, not her home. There were a few framed photographs on the walls, a bookshelf, a dresser. A wicker chair with a tufted cushion in a faded rose color. No embarrassing posters of Backstreet Boys or Ricky Martin. She shut the door behind us.

I sat on the wicker chair and it creaked under my weight. "I am made of questions. What am I doing here?"

Adrian sat on the bed, fingers twined together nervously. "Okay. You remember the guy I told you about?"

This narrowed nothing down. There had been at least three first dates in the last two months that I was aware of. “Which one?”

“The actor.”

“Oh.” That guy. I knew about him. Not everything, because Adrian was not the kind of person who opened up for an emotional autopsy. She gave information in installments, but after nine months, I knew enough. There had been a guy she was dating before New York, before the crashpad, before I met her in flight attendant training.

For a while, she had considered him the one who got away. Then, with the benefit of distance and several conversations in which the rest of our little group had collectively said (repeatedly) wait, he said WHAT?, she had begun reconsidering the historical record. It turns out, once she stopped taking responsibility for every part and assigned him some responsibility, too...he was actually an asshole.

Not like, all men suck but like, actually a jerk. He lied. He diminished things she was proud of. He made little comments about her appearance and intelligence that were subtle enough to make her wonder whether she was being oversensitive. He compared her to other women. He made her feel lucky he was interested in her and then behaved as though her interest in him was vaguely embarrassing. Basically, he had discovered negging without having to go to that pickup artist course (but in reviewing these things, now I'm not totally sure he didn't take some kind of course like that).

The strangest part was that he already had her before he turned into this manipulative person. She liked him, thought it was a real and meaningful relationship. We couldn't figure out why he ran this game on someone who already was into him. Another of our friends had suggested Adrian was "practice" for some future plan, which was horrifyingly plausible.

"I bought tickets." Adrian opened her purse and handed them to me. Two tickets for opening night of a new play. Big letters, OPENING NIGHT under today's date. Just hours from now. I lean forward to take the tickets, wicker creaking madly.

"Front row. Center. Well, slightly off-center," she corrected herself.

I was not yet getting her point, looking at her confused, processing slowly.

"He’s starring in a play. And we are going to go see it. Tonight," she repeats.

I count off these three things on my fingers. "And he’s starring starring?" I ask, stupidly."

"Lead." She smiles, enthusiastic-but-unsure-if-I'm-game.

"Is this his first leading role?" I ask, but I'm not sure why it matters. I lean back into the wicker, relaxing into the sounds my brain interprets as breaking.

It's his first big one." Her eyebrows are raised to the middle of her forehead, which I know isn't saying a lot but I know she's been doing Botox for a decade.

I slowly lowered the tickets. My mouth is open like giiiiiiiiirl and I'm already starting to think about the possibilities.

"So you bought front-row-center seats." She nods. "For opening night." Nods again. I set the tickets on the dresser and lean forward to take both of her hands in mine. "Adrian, you know this is unhinged, right?"

"Yes." She nods, definitively.

"This is also one of the greatest honors of my life." We're standing up, hugging, and then laughing, she's collapsing on the bed, I'm bent over double crying laughing because I've never thought to do something like this, and I may never have the chance again.

The problem was figuring out what, precisely, we were going to do. Because there is petty, and then there is being escorted out of a regional theater in Cincinnati. We wanted to keep it classy.

"What's the plan? Laugh at the wrong parts?" I suggested.

"No," she said.

"Coughing fit during his monologue? I could probably make that believable." I start clearing my throat, trying to find phlegm.

"No," Adrian waves her hands, vetoing my efforts.

"Very slow, bored applause." I clap a couple of times, to demonstrate.

She shook her head again.

"What about opera glasses? Can we find those on short notice?"

Adrian cocks her head at me, perplexed. "From the front row?"

"Especially from the front row." I lay backward across her childhood bed. "That would make it feel really weird. Like we're trying to look up his nose or something. That would unsettle me." We thought some more. Being just disruptive enough to be annoying without actually disrupting anything requires a little more subtlety.

"What if we just make unblinking eye contact?" She offered, speaking to the ceiling.

"Oh, that’s worse. Way worse." I tried to imagine what that would feel like. I imagined it would be like all those faces watching me do the Safety Demonstration, but worse.

"I know. Like, two pairs of eyes following you around the stage, never blinking. Ooh, and we won't smile or frown. Just expressionless."

I sat up again. "This is not a terrible idea. I heard actors can see the audience in the first few rows."

Adrian sat up, "Yes, they can absolutely identify people in the first few rows, especially once their eyes adjust."

"This is diabolical." I shivered with the excitement surging down my spine. My toes are tingling, and not just because of my winter boots being too narrow. "We're not going to ruin his performance. We won't be hecklers, or unwrap hard candies during emotional scenes, or do anything that could be blamed if something goes off-kilter on stage."

"Right. We are just going to sit there. Front row. Center-ish. Staring without blinking. Not smiling."

"Okay, but serious question — what if he's thrilled to see you?" I asked.

"He won't be." she shakes her head, hand smoothing the bedspread.

"But how do you know?"

"Because he told me I'd never understand serious theater. In his words, I just didn't have the emotional capacity to get it," she says, with fingers pronouncing heavy air quotes, rolling her eyes.

"Okay, ew. Opera glasses are back on the table. Just kidding. But not kidding if you know where we can get some quickly."

She laughs at me, and I get it, I'm very funny. Adrian already has her closet door open, pushing the front section of clothes to the left and reaching deep into the right side.

"One more question." I want clarity on just one thing. She turns back to look at me, one eyebrow cocked, a hanger in her hand pulling something long, black, and sequined from the back.

"Are you sure this isn't an elaborate attempt to manufacture a rivals-to-lovers situation?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "NO."

"I'm serious. Because if your plan is secretly for him to see you looking amazing in the front row and suddenly realize he's been in love with you this entire time, I need to know now."

"It is not."

"Good. Because I will support many forms of bad judgment, but I need to go into this with accurate mission parameters."

"I don't want him back. I want him to know I saw him. And maybe I was judging him the way he was always judging me."

"THERE we go." That changed the room. It totally changed my goals for that night. I stopped joking, because this wasn't really about humiliating him. It wasn't even about the play.

For however long they had been together, this man had managed to convince Adrian that his assessment of her was more accurate than her assessment of herself. That she wasn't quite smart enough. Interesting enough. Sophisticated enough. That he occupied some elevated intellectual plane involving experimental theater and Macbeth while she was lucky to have been invited into the lobby.

She didn't need revenge. She needed to look him in the eye and discover that he wasn't actually ten feet tall.

"Okay," I said. "This is perfect. We go. We look incredible. We sit in the front row. We watch the whole thing. We don't sabotage anything. We don't embarrass him.”

"And?"

"And then we judge the shit out of his acting afterward. Over cocktails."

We pinky promised, and then got to work figuring out what to wear.

The theater was way smaller than I expected. I was expecting velvet curtains, and what I got was more of a comedy club feel. The stage was a mere three feet tall, and being in the audience was like sitting in a school auditorium. Which made the front row substantially more front-row-ish than I had imagined.

"Oh," I whispered as we found our seats. Adrian stopped beside me. The stage was right there. Not metaphorically. I could have reached forward and tied someone's shoe.

"Did you know this was the venue? This feels aggressive," I whispered.

"You said that was the point," she whispered back.

"That was before I got here. I didn't understand the geometry."

People filed into the seats behind us and beside us. I took off my coat and helped Adrian out of hers.

If I haven't mentioned Adrian before, she's stunning. Like a Barbie doll in proportion, thanks to an excellent surgeon a few years before, who installed her 'personal flotation devices' that we giggled about in the pool during flight attendant training on ditching day.

She's got long, straight blond hair with dimensional hightlights that are enhanced by, but not entirely created by, a talented stylist. Her smile is a million watts, like a Dallas cheerleader, and she'll be the first to tell you she wore braces three separate times to make her smile what it is today. Big green eyes, the poise of a pageant winner. It amazes me that somehow she was made to believe she wasn't enough when she's what most women would point as as the ideal to aspire to.

So when I say Adrian looked fantastic, I don't mean look what you lost fantastic. That would have suggested we were trying too hard. She looked completely fine. Happy. Composed. Beautiful. Entirely capable of having a life in which this evening was merely something she had decided to do, because she had options.

The lights dimmed. The play started. I will not pretend I understood all of it or even that I was paying attention. There was anguish. There were Important Pauses. Someone spent a surprising amount of time talking at a chair. (I can't pretend I have any idea what's happening sometimes, and this one was weird. There's a reason it was a new play opening in Cincinnati and not, say, Broadway).

Then he walked onstage. I felt Adrian go still beside me. Once I knew who he was, I was laser-focused on his face, the entire time he was on stage. The triangle between his forehead and his eyes was my target.

He delivered his first line. Then his eyes moved across the audience. And found her. I held my breath. Nothing happened, which was both extraordinary and extra frustrating. His face didn't change (I expected a cringe). His voice didn't break (I was hoping). He didn't even forget the next line (ugh, rude). He did great, I guess, at being a professional actor.

But there was a fraction of a second when — I swear to sweet baby Jesus — his brain visibly had to process information that had not existed during rehearsal. Adrian is sitting in the front row. Then his eyes moved away from her. And found me. I gave him absolutely nothing. Not a smile. I didn't glare. I didn't even raise an eyebrow. I kept the pleasant, neutral expression I used while standing in an airplane galley listening to a passenger explain why the FAA's rules regarding electronic devices should not apply to him personally. I am proud of myself for not rolling my eyes.

The show went on. We laughed when the audience laughed. There were some really funny lines (mostly the female lead's lines). We were quiet when the audience was quiet. We applauded at the appropriate times, just without as much enthusiasm, perhaps, as other attendees.

At intermission, Adrian looked at me. "Well?"

I wrinkled my nose like I smelled something gross. "I hate to say this, but he might actually be doing pretty good."

"Fuck you," she said, but she was laughing so I know she didn't mean it like that.

And that was the moment I knew she was going to be fine. Not because he was bad, because he wasn't, it definitely would have been easier if he had sucked. Then she could have rewritten the whole relationship around the comforting idea that he was a mediocre asshole who had somehow convinced her he was brilliant.

Instead, he was at least moderately talented. But he had still treated her badly, and that meant he was an asshole. By the end of the show, the audience stood to clap for the actors. The curtain went down, then up, then down again. He looked toward us, once, and Adrian met his eyes, without smiling or glaring. Just looked at him as the curtain went down the final time.

"You ready?" I asked.

She was, so we left. Sadly, I don't have a bonkers confrontation story where we encounter him, dramatically, in the lobby. No declaration of love, saying that seeing her had changed everything (yes, I watched too many 90's romcoms, I can't help but expect the happily ever after).

After the show, we went to Skyline Chili. This was apparently mandatory for your first visit to Cincinnati. It was late, I was starving, and I let Adrian order for me because I was overwhelmed by the menu options. When my food arrived, I stared at it.

"This is chili?" nods

"On spaghetti." yup

"With what feels like an irresponsible amount of cheese." mmhmm

It was delicious. It hit the spot in the weirdest possible way, and I loved it. Would I have made it myself? Absolutely not. But it was better than it had a right to be. We ate for a while before I asked the question I had been saving.

"Do you feel better?"

She considered the question, and what I was really asking. "Yeah. I do."

"Because you saw him?"

"Because I saw him, and I didn't feel anything."

I waited, expecting more. I kept taking small bites of my chili-cheese-smothered spaghetti.

"I was nervous when he came out. And then…" She shrugged. "He was just a guy on a stage. In a weird, experimental play."

He had occupied too much space in her head, for far too long, and tonight she had finally seen him at his actual size. Just a guy on a stage. When the world opens up further than the city you grew up in — no matter how big the city — there's no way you'll let other people keep you small ever again.

"Okay, so we're definitely not plotting a rivals-to-lovers reunion."

"Margaret."

"I'm just checking." I took a perfectly balanced bite of noodles, cheese and chili.

We slept at her parents' house for approximately seven hours, sharing the queen-sized bed in her childhood bedroom. In the morning, her mother fed us enough breakfast to suggest she believed New York City did not contain food (or maybe she knew we couldn't afford it), then drove us back to the airport.

By eleven, we were airborne. By the early afternoon I was in my crashpad again, sitting in the exact same spot where, twenty-four hours earlier, I had been sitting when Adrian asked me if I could fly to Cincinnati.

In the last twenty-four hours, I had received my first first-class upgrade (1o out of 10, would do again), eaten my first Skyline Chili (7 out of 10, would eat again, but would not seek out regularly), attended opening night of a play for the sole purpose of psychologically haunting one of the actors (11 out of 10, highly recommend), and helped my best friend discover that the man she had spent years thinking of as the one who got away was, in fact, just some guy in Cincinnati.

Flight benefits are incredible.