Read Online Flying Backwards by Jennifer W Smith - Free Book Online

good East Coast college. Since college, she worked at her father’s favorite country club in Potomac, where she’d lived with her mother until now. Nora felt compelled to tell Bree her story–why she’d left and who she’d left.
    Bree raised her eyebrows when she heard Nora had been engaged, but she was sympathetic. When Nora spoke about feeling obligated to help her family with their business, even though she wanted to pursue other things, Bree understood. Bree confessed she sacrificed what she wanted in order to keep the peace between her parents. The girls talked about the fears they’d face if they didn’t make it through training. They both had so much riding on this opportunity to make a fresh start. They’d become the friend the other could lean on.
    For the first time since high school, Nora had connected with someone outside of her family unit.
    * * *
    The last two weeks of training went by quickly. Sixty-two trainees had gone home by then, about half of the group that started. The most nerve-wracking aspect of the training that came next was working a real flight with real passengers, many of whom leered at her Trainee badge. Nora had been nervous as she boarded and settled passengers and checked equipment. She was social and friendly with the other flight attendants, but she did not share that she’d rushed to the oppressively small washroom and vomited. After her anxiety was flushed down with the blue toilet-bowl solution, she returned with a smile plastered onto her face. Fake it to make it , she told herself.
    Nora was one of the sixty-six graduating trainees. Brittney, who rode on the bus that first day with Nora, went home the second week. Miguel’s roommate Chris went home the third week. Others Nora had befriended were gone. But Bree, Rebecca, Jackie, and Miguel had also made it to this day. Nora was relieved she had survived. She could not think of an alternative possibility if she had not made it. How embarrassing it would be to fail “Barbie boot camp,” as some had joked. She had nothing she wanted to go back to. She was forging her own future, finally ready to leave after the six weeks that had changed her life.
    Bree was still applying makeup for the ceremony while Nora finished packing. Nora watched Bree for a moment, admiring how she looked in her flight attendant uniform. Bree would look good in a paper bag, but the uniform gave her an essence of respect and authority. Nora wondered if she projected that. She smoothed her hand over the polyester dress and double-checked her appearance in the mirror. Smoothing her hair back into a bun at the nape of her neck had quickly become her style, and she wore it that way today. She felt professional and assertive as she tried on her uniform for the first time. She was proud of herself for succeeding when so many had already gone home.
    Nora glanced down at the sheet of paper she held containing departure details. “We should head down soon. They want our luggage in Ballroom B, before the ceremony, which is in Ballroom A.” After the ceremony they’d be handed an envelope with their Meade base assignment. That envelope would determine where she, and everyone else graduating, was going to live. She knew her choices had narrowed down to Philadelphia, Washington, or Boston, as those were Meade’s international bases. She did not want Boston. Phillip would be there, not that she would ever see him. She had not moved to Boston with him before, so it would just be awkward now. Of course, Philadelphia was closest to Nora’s parents. It wasn’t that Nora didn’t want to see her parents and her family; it was that she craved a lifestyle change, and some distance from them would certainly make that happen. Washington, DC, would be a fresh start. It seemed like a hip, metropolitan place to live. Bree’s parents were there, so Bree wanted to be based far away from them as possible. But Nora would miss her new best friend if they were based in different