Baggage Claim

David E. Talbert

Cover

Praise for Baggage Claim

“Deftly written, with some of the best phrases in the business,Baggage Claim will make you feel like you’re spending time with old friends. Bravo to Talbert for this entertaining, well crafted first novel.”

—Quarterly Black Review

“Enormously entertaining.”

—GospelCity.com

“[L]oaded with humor and fun. An endearing and lighthearted read filled with charming characters, engaging dialogue and clever writing.”

—Jacquelin Thomas, author of The Prodigal Husband

“[A] hilarious, tell-it-like-it-is tale.”

—Upscale

“[F]un, hilarious, and deeply entertaining…. delightful!”

—Kimberla Lawson Roby, author of A Taste of Reality

“With his flair for comedy, romance and inspiration, Talbert is sure to carve for himself a formidable niche in fiction. I never would have guessed he knows so much about women!”

—Suzanne de Passe

Also by David E. Talbert

Love on the Dotted Line

The People’s Playwright,Volume 1

Copyright

TOUCHSTONE

Rockefeller Center

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Touchstone Edition 2005

TOUCHSTONEand colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows: Talbert, David E.

Baggage claim: a novel/David E. Talbert

p. cm.

1. Flight attendants—Fiction. 2. Women travelers—Fiction. 3. Mate selection—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3620.A53B34 2003

813’.6—dc21 2003054217

ISBN-10: 0-7432-5361-2

ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-5361-1

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Lyn.

I will love you till there are no more words to say

no more notes to play

no more love to give

and no more life to live.

—David

Epigraph

One day all them bags gone get in your way.

—ERYKAHBADU

Prologue

Being a flight attendant for the last thirteen years, and looking for Mr. Right for almost as long, there are two things I know a lot about: men and baggage. Given the amount of time and travel spent with both, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are five kinds of men, like there are five kinds of baggage.

First, there’s the overnight bag kind of man. Great for the pickup-and-go kind of girl. Spontaneous. Alive. Convenient. Never makes a plan because he never has a plan and expects you to drop whatever your plans are at a moment’s notice. Most of the time you do, because you can always count on having a good time (or at the very least, some good sex). Problem is, Overnight Bag Man is not very practical. Eventually you’re going to need more room for the stuff you’ve picked up along the way. You’ll want him to handle more, but he can’t—even if he wants to—because he simply doesn’t have the capacity.

Then there’s the garment bag kind of man. He’s accustomed to the finer things in life. Handsome. Articulate. Well groomed. Went to the best schools, eats at the fanciest restaurants, and drives only European cars. Garment Bag Man often hangs framed pictures, articles, and certificates around his house that highlight his favorite person: himself. When it rains, he runs inside for cover. He sleeps with a scarf, and spends more time in the mirror primping than you do. Though Garment Bag Man is extremely fashionable, he isn’t too sturdy. He can’t cope with the hard knocks, the potholes, or the crash landings that life inevitably brings. At the first sign of wear, or the first rip or tear, Garment Bag Man falls completely apart.

Next is the executive bag kind of man. Briefcase Man. He’s the hard-edged, box-shaped piece of luggage that you could drop from a ten-story building and it wouldn’t break. Structured. Firm. The kind of man that is unwavering. Willing to fight for or even die for what he believes in. The only problem with Briefcase Man is that he can only fit what he can fit. You must conform to him. He cannot and will not conform to you. It’s either his way or the highway, and if it’s the highway you chose, he is more than gentlemanly enough to drop you off at the nearest on-ramp.

There’s also the classic duffel bag kind of man. Loose fitting. Unstructured. Unfocused and usually arrives unannounced. Not part of the original set, but picked up along the way as needed. Willing to do whatever, whenever, and to whomever as long as it leads him to that which he seeks. Duffel Bag Man will always try to fit more into his schedule than is humanly possible. He thinks he has more game than Michael Jordan, Emmitt Smith, and Barry Bonds put together, and that his game can get him anything he wants and take him anywhere he desires. Because he wasn’t part of the original set in the first place, he is easily replaced and quickly forgotten.

And last is the trunk kind of man. Rugged. Weather-proof. Well traveled. A self-made man. The kind of man that’s been through a lot and has seen a lot. Carries a lot of stuff, a lot of history: an ex-wife, a dead wife, or a tribe of spoiled and dependent children. Usually older and worn but never tired or torn. An international kind of man. Listens to a lot of jazz. Watches very little television. Always smells good. A self-made man who marches to the beat of his own drum and has little interest in new band members wishing to play a tune of their own.

Now, the perfect man is like the perfect set of luggage—strong, stylish, durable, and dependable. Adjustable, fit to travel, and fit to suit whatever the need at whatever the time. Full of compartments. So many that just when you think you’ve figured him out, and you’ve seen all there is to see, he surprises you with a hidden nook or a forbidden cranny.

Unfortunately, I haven’t quite managed to find the perfect set of luggage or the perfect man. Only individual pieces. And not even matching ones. Just a bunch of random sizes, shapes, colors, and textures. Never the right pieces for the right purposes for the right predicaments. In fact, I’ve accumulated so much baggage from my past relationships, I’m starting to think that it’s not a man that I need, it’s a skycap.

Chapter 1

10:00 A.M. EST
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23RD

History is repeating itself. Here I am once again sitting in the back room of a church, preparing for another wedding, not my own. Five times the bridesmaid, and never once the bride. It’s not like I haven’t been asked. It’s just that the offers seem to come at the most insincere times. Like during sex: “Girl, you gon’ make me marry you!” or, “Ooh girl, I got to have it like this till death do we part.” You know the kind. The open-ended, always-pretended, but never-intended-to-be-a-proposal kind of proposal. Once I was even given a ring. Actually, it was a fax of the appraisal on a ring he was allegedly considering purchasing. I don’t know which faded quicker: the ink from the fax or him.

But to date, no husband, no real proposal, and no actual ring. There was this one time in the third grade during lunch. My next-door neighbor, William, got down on his knees, his upper lip coated with milk, reached deep into his box of Cracker Jack, pulled out a caramel candy–covered plastic ring, and said those four magical words—“Will you marry me?” If I had known then that my proposal drought would last for another twenty years, I would’ve accepted his then.

I used to blame my drought on my astrological sign, which is Libra. They say that Libras can’t get along with anyone but themselves. But then two of my Libra girlfriends—excuse me, ex-girlfriends—went and got married last month, ruining a perfectly good excuse for why I was still single. So, now I’ve got a new excuse: the unusual way I was born. My parents were on a plane flying home to Baltimore from Aunt Sybil’s Seattle wedding when my seven months’ pregnant soon-to-be mother started feeling contractions. Momma said it was the air turbulence that sent her into early labor. Daddy said it was the inordinate amount of mixed nuts that she mixed with club soda and ice cream. Whatever the reason, during the most inappropriate time at nearly 20,000 feet in the air, her belches of indigestion turned into moans of contractions and out came me.

There I was in 14C, lying on a plastic tray table. Naked to the world and the rest of the passengers on our flight. Floating high above the clouds, Utah to the right, Idaho to the left. Since neither was a fitting name for their newborn daughter, my parents settled on Montana. Montana Christina Moore. Which also explains why I became a flight attendant. I’m most comfortable in the clouds. Closer to God. Closer to Heaven. Maybe just closer to God so that He can help me find Heaven, which is, of course, in the arms of a loving husband. Okay, so that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. And no matter how silly the excuse, if you’re a female member of the Moore family, you’d better have at least one of the two: the excuse or the husband.

In my family having a husband is like Math, English, and Social Studies: a requirement. Being happy is the elective. A husband is a symbol of accomplishment. A treasured trophy of honor. At the very least, a human shield with the power to deflect the constant nagging of my four-times-married mother, family matriarch, and self-proclaimed relationship referee.

“You know, eggs don’t last forever,” she would say at holiday get-togethers as the family nervously laughed at what was obviously not meant to be funny. “Even the ones at the grocery store have an expiration date stamped on the side.”

According to my mother’s loose interpretation of the Bible, it was unholy, unhealthy, and downright blasphemous for a woman to be over the age of twenty-five and not married. She’d quote Galatians, Ephesians, Thessalonians, and any other book of the Bible ending in “ians” as she’d bellow, “You’re not a lady until you’re married and you’re not a woman until you’ve had at least two children.” By the time we were old enough to realize there was no such passage in Galatians, Ephesians, or Thessalonians, it was too late. The psychological damage had already been done. We had bought into it. And for that reason alone, no woman in my family dared go into her twenty-fifth birthday without a husband.

My sister Sharon, two years my junior, after three visits to the obgyn married her gynecologist, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “sampling the goods.” She seemed happy. Though I can’t really tell. We weren’t that close to begin with and then she and her husband moved to Ohio.

My sister Sarah, five years my junior, married the good Reverend Mark or Mike or Marty…I kind of forget. They met during a revival. He was old-fashioned, extra-Saved, thirty-nine years old going on sixty, and looking for a bride. Sarah, on the other hand, was naïve, inexperienced, twenty-three going on six, and looking for a free ride. Both saw in each other what they wanted, quickly married, and relocated to some small town down south. She never forgave my mother for remarrying after Daddy died so we don’t see her very often.

My cousin Clarissa, on the night before she turned twenty-five, met a complete stranger in a nightclub and married him before the clock struck twelve. Of course, the next day they divorced, which was okay, since there was no shame in divorce. In divorce there was compassion. Sympathy. Being divorced was like joining a sorority where you could sit around during holidays eating potluck, sharing pain, and sipping on a never-ending supply of bitter aid.

But for some strange reason, which I have yet to discover, I dared to be single. I chose to be the sole Moore family rebel. To go against the grain. To challenge the family and their ridiculous rules. As a result, I have the unheralded dishonor of being the only woman in the family over twenty-five who has never taken the coveted stroll down the aisle. My maiden status is the favored conversation at reunions, birthdays, baptisms, and funerals. I’ve become my mother’s sole whipping girl. And with a decade of putdowns, setbacks, and near-marriage misses, I have more stripes on my back than the entire cast of Roots.

The only unmarried sibling left is my baby sister Sheree. My favorite sister, Sheree. She’s twenty-one and heavily into her studies at Temple. She wants to be a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, or something professional that will require at least ten years of internships, research, and residencies. She doesn’t even have a boyfriend. And if she did, she has absolutely no intention of getting married anytime soon. How could she and still become a doctor, lawyer, dentist, or something professional that will require at least ten years of internships, research, and residencies? Did I tell you how much I love Sheree?

So, whispered ever so gently, I’m thirty-five and single with no kids. And not because of any physical deformities. I’m attractive, shapely, with a jamoca honey nut almond color. Well, really, I’m medium brown, but jamoca honey nut almond just sounds more exotic. A size eight, though I always make the salesperson bring me a size six to try on first just so I can act shocked that it doesn’t fit. I’ve got long, layered black hair and light brown eyes. My legs are sleeker than the lines on a 747, my skin smoother than a brother from the Nation. My teeth are floodlight bright, lashes naturally long, and there’s just enough junk in my trunk to look like Janet, Miss Jackson if you’re nasty. I’m smart, educated, pledged Delta at Morgan State University. Not because I wasn’t fine enough to be an AKA, or smart enough to be a Zeta, but the Deltas on campus were cool and I was dating this foine brother who was the president of the Delta sweethearts and it just didn’t seem like a good political move to cross party lines. Come to think of it, why am I still single?

A knock on the door pulled me out of my usual daze. It was Sharon’s son, my five-year-old nephew Cedric, all dressed up.

“Auntie Montana,” he said, beaming, “a man just brought you a letter.” He handed me a FedEx envelope.

“Thank you, Cedric.”

“You welcome.”

“Cedric, can I have a kiss?”

“Uh Uh!!” He frowned and ran out of the room like I just asked him to eat a helping of okra and green peas.

I wasn’t expecting any mail, especially not today. Who would be sending me a package…Graham? Oh my God, it’s from Graham, the man that I have been dating now for five months, twenty-three days, ten hours, and nineteen seconds! Graham was my latest and my greatest. This year’s most eligible candidate for the position of lifetime co-pilot. Graham was my deep-voiced, Billy Dee look-alike minus the mustache. My first class man, an executive bag/carry on. Kind and thoughtful. A gentleman. His signature was a long-stemmed red rose that greeted me on holidays, special days, and just-because-of days.

“You want my arm to fall off?”

Those were the first words that came out of his mouth as he stood gazing romantically into my eyes. On second thought, it was more like, “Excuse me, my arm is about to fall off!” As he stood there with a piercingly painful look as a tear fell from his eye. I had accidentally closed his arm in the door as he was exiting the plane. Oops. Disastrous for some but destiny for us. It was the spark that led to our further conversation.

Graham is a very successful commercial real estate broker who lives in a suburb outside Chicago. He’s got a huge house, three fireplaces, and a German Shepherd named Duke…at least, that’s how I imagine him to live. Since he’s almost always on the road, I haven’t had the pleasure of spending time with him at his home, which I guess would mean he has duffel bag tendencies. But at least he’s a Prada duffel bag. Not that it’s affected us much. Over time we’ve managed to develop a pretty healthy long-distance and occasional short-instance relationship. And nowadays, with cell phones, emails, and two-way pagers, we’ve been able to develop a promising relationship knowing that he’s never more than an electronic device away.

I quickly tore open the envelope. Several rose petals and a handwritten note inscribed on the finest cut of linen parchment dropped from the package. Inhaling its fragrance, I began to read.

Dearest Montana,

I hope all is well. Though you are absent in body, you are present in mind.

Mmmph. Graham is not only fine, but he’s poetic too. You go, Graham.

I’ve had a change of business plans and I’ll be spending Thanksgiving at home this year. I know it’s short notice, but I would love for you to join me for an evening you won’t soon forget.

Love,

Graham.

Swiftly rummaging through the envelope, I noticed another surprise—a round-trip plane ticket to Chicago. Not that I needed it to travel, but the gentlemanly gesture speaks volumes to the kind of man Graham is.

Thanksgiving?! Chicago?! Graham?! Wow. God really does love me. Swooning with joy, I almost fell from my chair in disbelief. Graham has just invited me to Chicago for Thanksgiving weekend. Surely he realizes the implications. I mean, when a man just wants to kick it, he invites you to spend Labor Day, Groundhog Day, or maybe even Valentine’s day. But Thanksgiving? No…he knows exactly what Thanksgiving means. Thanksgiving carries the aroma of love, the scent of commitment…the fragrance of family. A Thanksgiving with Graham means a weekend filled with fine dining, stimulating conversation, and a healthy serving of stank naked sex. Like Burger King, Graham could have me his way. Like a turkey, I want to be basted, buttered, slapped, and stuffed, legs spread till the juices ooze from within, filling the air with the aroma of hot roasted turkey, and what’s left of my hot toasted coo—

“Auntie Montana, my momma said you should have your makeup on by now.” It was my little nephew again, no doubt sent to make sure I was getting ready.

“Okay,” I replied, looking guilty.

Watching him turn and leave, I kissed the letter, tucked it safely away, and attempted to focus on what I was here for. My mother. It was her wedding day and in one hour she’d be a November bride. Having already been an April bride, a May bride, a June bride, and a July bride, she’d run out of summer months and had now moved on to the holiday months. She loved being married, and hated being alone. By now she’s had enough rice thrown at her to feed the entire continent of Asia. But I’ve gotta give it to her; she has no problem finding a husband and no problem skipping down the aisle as if it were her first time. Shameless is her middle name. Catherine Shameless Moore. She’s always kept her first married name, though, not wanting her girls to grow up without an identity. But ever since my daddy died, it seems as if there’s been a never-ending revolving door of replacement dads, shuffling around like little jokers in a game of spades, all vowing to fill the space. All trying to take our daddy’s place.

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