The Remarkable Romez

Chapter Three: New York, New York

Even though I held a serious grudge against my parents, I did what they told me to. I behaved for the rest of the month. Low and behold, my parents announced to the family that they’d come up with enough money for NYC (hmm, I wonder how!). As we packed, I tried to stuff as many outfits and costumes into my ‘Dora the Hoarder’ backpack as I could. You can tell that I was pretty excited. I planned to suck in all of the fashions of New York to inspire me, and perhaps even get New York to be inspired by me. My parents packed their suitcase and Acacia’s suitcase as well, and we were off to the airport. We caught our flight at six o’clock in the morning—yawn!—because the flight was approximately five hours and thirty-nine minutes from California, so we’d be in New York around twelve o’clock in the afternoon. Well, twelve o’clock for us in San Francisco, around three o’clock for New York City. But hey, that’s pretty good.

As we boarded our plane, and of course, being a baby and all, Acacia fell asleep. But me, oh snap, I was bouncing off the plane walls. My parents told me to calm down as I went about the plane vexing everyone. My dad grabbed me by the shoulder steadfastly and told me that my parents give me ten lashes with a wet noodle if I didn’t sit down and behave. I had no clue what that meant, but it scared me, so I sat down very efficiently. Into about fifteen minutes of behaving, the overhead speakers spoke from the voice of the captain. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen.” I heard. “Welcome to CA Airlines. My name is Captain Nelson Longfellow.  The plane will take flight to New York City in just a few moments. I’d like to remind all passengers to take a seat, then buckle and fasten your seatbelts. Please do not unbuckle or stand up while the plane is in motion until we let everyone know it’s OK. Drinks, snacks, and restrooms will be available when you can stand up. Thanks for choosing CA Airlines, have a good flight!” We heard a soft ‘ding’ indicating that his speaker was off and the plane was about to take flight.

The flight, oh, the flight, it can be most easily described in three words: hor-ri-ble. The foul smells, the sour sounds, and it didn’t all look too pretty, either. A cup of orange juice was spilled on my daddy’s head, my mom started to pick a fight with the orange juice guy from the seat behind us, all of this turned to yelling which woke up Acacia and made her cry, and I had to be in the middle of all the tears and loud sound-waves of yelling and cussing. To survive, I covered both of my ears with my hands, elbows out, completely unnecessarily exaggerated. ‘They might notice me and stop,’ I thought. They didn’t. Everyone just went on until a flight attendant stopped them all with merely the tap of her foot—I loved her for that—and she told everyone to stay seated or they’d be reported to the authorities after the plane landed. She was blonde and beautiful, and the nametag she had pinned on her suit said, ‘Betty Buttercup’. Everyone did what she demanded, sitting down peacefully. Betty walked to the head of the airplane, where all the flight attendants and the captain and co-captain were. Everything was silent for a few seconds, then the overhead speaker turned on. But we didn’t hear direct voices talking to us from the speaker, we were all listening to a conversation.

“Ugh, I just ran into a pish-posh of ragamuffins!” said a voice as Betty’s. I could tell she talked really old-school. “I can’t believe you talked me into being one of your flight attendants!” Betty complained to someone.

Then another voice was heard. “I told you I needed help, you’re here to help!” It was Captain Nelson’s voice.

“Oh, but you know that doing this doesn’t make me love you any less, Nelly! I could help you with a lot more than flight attending…”

“I told you, I’ve got a wife and I’m very happy with her, you tramp!” My little five-year-old brain tuned out much before all of this. “Oh lord—the speaker’s on!” Nelson realized in disgust. “Hehe, sorry folks!” The soft ‘ding’ sounded and the conversation was over.

When the plane finally landed—thank God—I was asleep, not like I’d promised myself. Luckily, the ‘ding’ steadily woke me up. I jumped up and helped to get our suitcases. We got out of the plane, then we got out of the airport and there it was—New York City. It was everything I had dreamed of it being. Bright and shiny lights, flashing billboards of my favorite celebs starring on Broadway, busy people and busy cars. The longer we stayed that day, the better it was as the sky became darker. It can be most easily described in four words: in-cred-i-ble. The whole trip was long and worthwhile. As I hoped, it inspired me. I found out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: become a supermodel.