A Dish Served Cold

The airplane left Texas behind and soared southward.

Nelly looked through the Woman’s Day magazine she had found in the seat pocket. It was from last year, March 1970. She flipped past “Bright, New Spring Fashions.” Then an article caught her eye: “Should a Woman Make a Will?”

A stewardess, carrying a notepad, approached. “Tequila, please. On the rocks,” Nelly told her.

Suddenly Nelly remembered a story from one of her brother’s old western magazines. A Texan had killed his wife and fled on horseback to Mexico, grabbing what he thought was a jug of water but turned out to be tequila. After several days running from the law, he finally reached the border, sunburned and starving, and fell down dead. Funny that she should recall that story now.

Everything would be fine once she got to Mexico City, Nelly told herself. Pete would meet her at the airport. Just another hour. In her lap, her fingers twisted the hem of her shirt.

Some motion at the front of the plane caught her eye. A dark-haired man, wearing a plaid shirt tucked into blue jeans, was walking toward the cockpit. As Nelly watched, he reached out his hand and opened the door. His other hand held a pistol. The door closed, hardly making a sound.

Nelly’s jaw dropped. She looked around, but no one else seemed to have noticed. The woman next to her was asleep, the man across the aisle was smoking and reading a newspaper, and the stewardess had her back to Nelly as she continued taking drink orders.

She could hear voices, raised, muffled behind the cockpit door. She felt the airplane slowly tilt as it banked left, then leveled out. It was turning eastward.

Eastward? But Mexico City was pretty much due south of San Antonio. There would be no reason to turn east except… Suddenly, Nelly knew exactly what was happening. The newspapers had reported similar events almost weekly for the past three years.

Nelly retrieved her large, heavy bag, groping around inside it until her hand found and grasped the cool metal handle. She pulled out the cast-iron frying pan and set it on her lap.

She’d be damned if she was going to Cuba. Not today.

The man with the cigarette stared at her. Taking a deep breath, Nelly stood and walked up the aisle, holding the skillet at her side.

The cockpit was noisy with the high-pitched roar of the engines, drowning out the soft click as she carefully opened the door. She could see the back of the plaid-shirted man’s head as he stood, aiming his pistol at the pilots. He stared out the window as the airplane flew past the Mexican coastline and over the open ocean.

She raised her right hand. The skillet felt firm, substantial, familiar.

Bizarrely, Nelly recalled long-ago instruction from school gym teachers. Keep your eye on the ball. She had one shot. She focused on the man’s black hair. And she swung.

The man went down hard and heavy. The pilots shouted in surprise, turning. Their mouths fell open as they looked down at the man, then up at Nelly.

She was vaguely aware that others had rushed into the cockpit behind her. She stood, panting, watching the Cuban man, who lay unmoving.

Later, newspapers would relate the stewardesses’ accounts of the woman who clobbered the hijacker with a skillet that she somehow had in her carry-on luggage. Uninterested in accolades, she had met a man at the gate in Mexico City and hurried away.

Passenger records revealed her name, Nell Franklin. Reporters looked up what information they could find about the mysterious heroine. She had been recently widowed when her husband had been killed by a home intruder. The cause of death was a blow to the head. The murder weapon was never recovered.

A few years later, Mexico and the United States signed their first extradition treaty. Cold cases were not a priority.

Sitting outside her villa, Nelly bounced her infant son on her knee and waved to a neighbor. Teresa waved back, smiling, then cried out as her husband emerged from the house and smacked her on the head. He shouted at her in rapid Spanish.

Nelly’s eyes narrowed. She would ask Pete to have a word with Jorge. He’d better shape up and start treating Teresa better. And if not… she smiled. He could be dealt with.



Writing Prompts:

• Object: a cast-iron skillet
• Setting: an airplane