Even though it was.

IRENE SURVEYED THE SIGHT IN FRONT OF US and shook her head.

“Being a flight attendant used to be so much fun.” She sighed.

It was the kind of bittersweet lament reserved for things that were loved and lost to the past. Like the first days of a new romance or the last days of blissful childhood, the airline business as we knew it had vanished. It was never coming back.

The two of us stood at the head of the concourse, staring at the OrangeAir security checkpoint. It was morning rush hour in Pittsburgh, so the operation had the frantic quality of an earthquake response. Everyone talked at once, trying to be heard over the whine of the machinery. The X-ray belts cycled constantly. The magnetometers went off regularly, each alarm adding to the number of bored/angry/confused passengers that waited like an army of scarecrows for an individual wand search.

“Thank God we’re in uniform,” was all I could say as we cut to the front of the line and flashed our airline IDs. I waited for Irene to pick her queue and then jumped into one that was guaranteed to take longer.

As expected, she triggered the alarm as she passed through the metal detector. Airports all over the country had dialed up the sensitivity on the magnetometers, and we never failed to trip them. It was the multitude of buttons on our uniforms, which meant every OrangeAir employee all over the United States made them go off every time he or she passed through. It seemed needlessly inefficient to me, but then, I was no longer in charge of an airport operation. I was no longer in charge of much of anything.

To my relief, Irene slipped through with only a quick pass of the wand. She was cleared before I had even begun digging out my laptop and my cell phone. When it appeared she was intent on waiting for me, I dropped my phone and kicked it under the X-ray machine. Down on my hands and knees to retrieve it, I motioned to Irene across the great divide. “You should go on. I’ll be here a while.”

“Okay. I’ll see you onboard.”

When she was well out of sight, I pulled the camera equipment from my bag and sent it through on the belt. The agent monitoring the X ray called over a supervisor, who took one look at the gear in my bucket and let out a weary sigh.

“What is this for, ma’am?”

“I’m a photography buff.”

He hoisted the long lens and studied it. Then he studied me. “What do you need this for?”

“Close-ups. I’m a bird watcher.”

“Uh-huh.” He tipped his head back and looked down at me through narrowed eyes, and I knew I was one more irritation on a shift that didn’t need any more. “Step over here if you will, please.”

It would have been so much easier if I could have just checked the equipment through, but that would have been a guaranteed way to blow my cover. Real flight attendants never checked baggage when they worked. Any flight attendant would tell you a good one can circle the globe twice on the items that could fit into the space of a single carry-on bag, and still have room for souvenirs. But then, as I was demonstrating almost daily, I wasn’t a very good flight attendant.

I was through the gauntlet and headed down the concourse when I heard the sound of my name.

“Alexaaaandra.”

Tristan’s voice rang out over the communal airport mumble. I turned to find him. He was easy to spot since he was traveling, as he often did, at the center of a rolling circus. Today, as always, he was the ringmaster, the obvious instigator, and the lone male, leading a posse of women who were many sizes, shapes, and colors but had one thing in common: they liked to laugh. Riotously.

I waved and stepped outside the swiftly moving current of travelers to wait for him. There were half hugs and air kisses all around as he parted from the group. The women headed down a separate concourse. Tristan trundled my way, dragging his bag behind him. Tristan was so elegant he even trundled gracefully.

“Where were you last night?” He greeted me with my very own smooch on the lips, and we rejoined the march toward the departure gates. We were working the same trip home. “Reenie and I looked all over for you. We were worried.”

His concern was genuine. During my assignment, I’d flown with an overwhelming majority of women, but it turned out that Tristan McNabb, a gay man, was the person with whom I had bonded most quickly. That also made him the person I had to lie to most often.

“I unplugged the phone and went to bed early.”

“Then why do you look so tired?” He turned to look at me more closely, doing a quick inspection of my face as we moved. “Getting overtired is not good for your skin. I’ve told you that. You need a facial.”

“I can’t afford facials. I’ve told you that.”

“That’s like saying you can’t afford food. Where’s Reenie? Have you seen her yet this morning?”

“She’s already onboard.”

“Not likely.” Just as he did, I caught sight of the steady stream of passengers coming off our aircraft, which had obviously arrived late. Irene had to be in the departure lounge somewhere. I spotted the back of her head. “Over there.” We threaded our way through the arriving and departing passengers to join her at a far grouping of seats by the window.

“Hello, Reenie, dear.” Tristan had to lean over to give Irene her good morning kiss. She had settled into one of the seats in the lounge to work on a knitting project. Tristan reached down to get a closer look. “Please don’t tell me this is more dog attire. Knitting is so terribly banal to begin with, but knitting for a dog-”

“Do not make fun of my babies. They require a lot of attention. Even more than you.” Her tone conveyed just what an incredible concept that was.

Irene was a rescuer of basset hounds, someone who took in lost and battered pooches. She also ate brown rice, wore leather sandals as big as snowshoes, and wouldn’t buy self-adhering stamps because it was bad for the environment. When she wasn’t working, she favored baggy shorts and T-shirts with meaningful logos, an amusing contrast to her work self, where she was one of the more proper wearers of the uniform. It reminded me of how little we know of each other just from what we can see.

“Reenie, what is the name of that Indonesian restaurant we always go to on Saint Martin? I was trying to recommend it the other day, and I couldnot think of the name.”

“I never remember stuff like that,” she said. “I just go where you take me.”

“Yes, you do remember. I know you do.” Tristan settled into the seat next to his friend.

While they chatted, I stood back against the window and scanned the terminal, a habit I had acquired when I had managed my own operation. Back then, I had been looking for anything out of the ordinary, any problem about to emerge that could disrupt the day’s smooth exchange of aircraft in and aircraft out. I had a different purpose now. I was looking for any of the targets of my investigation, but most especially the tall blonde with the fulsome physique and the predator’s eyes. I knew she would be here somewhere. She was on a layover, just as we had been.

“Reenie, it’s the place where we sit outside on the screened-in porch. They serve the dinner in courses on those little plates that look like soap dishes.”

“I know the one you’re talking about, T. I just don’t remember the name.”

She was four gates down. I spotted her with two other women: Sally, the blonde she had been with in the limo the night before, and Sylvie Nguyet, a French-Vietnamese woman-girl, really-whose picture I also had in my hooker files at home. Taller by a head, Angel stood next to them like a great marble statue, a Venus de Milo with arms and a bombshell silhouette that made her two pals look downright wispy.

“Tristan, come here.”