camerondiaz – The Mid Life Traveler

After one more failed attempt to find Cameron’s mobile, her assistant and I headed into the lobby to deliver the bad news. As we walked in, the pilots and the coolest actress ever were standing in a line just waiting to hear the news. Even though I knew I did not have her phone, it felt as though I was still guilty of something. You know that feeling when a police car is behind you on the road and even though you are doing nothing wrong, you start to panic, like you did do something??? That was me!! My day went from an epic high being told by Cameron Diaz that I was pretty and super cool to her now thinking I was still that street kid from my past that could clean out a K-mart without them ever knowing they had been robbed.

She was cool about it, kind of annoyed but cool and gave me her assistant’s number to call if it magically appeared. I spent another hour in that plane, searching the same corners over and over and the only thing I found was one of her hair extensions. For whatever reason, I chuckled and tucked it in my pocket. Obviously sleeping that night was rough and first thing the next morning I texted her assistant with trembling hands to find out what had happened. She simply said, ‘Oh we found it’ and that was it.

Since Cali is such a long flight from Florida, the jet company had us wait there a few days to see if they could book a paid charter back home or somewhere else for that matter. Like clockwork I was out every night drinking my face off and trying to find a boy to hang with. And like clockwork, I found one. Mr. Politician was quite young to be serving a term in office but after getting to know each other I soon learned that he was still at the bottom on the barrel trying to work his way up. He wasn’t really my type, which at the time was typically someone with 6 pack abs who was movie star hot and would most likely treat me bad or cheat on me.

Mr. P was just an average guy with an enormous personality who made me laugh hysterically every time we hung out. He had a car too which was like gold to me since in this particular California city, the jet company would always put us up at the airport hotel, a good hour’s drive to anything fun or cool. This meant my one option for excitement was the lobby bar and even though I was making good money, it didn’t seem reasonable to pay a taxi to go anywhere else. And although I didn’t know it at the time, we were about to see each other quite frequently since this city was a major stop for celebrities.

After about 4 days of hanging out and waiting for the call, we finally received our next charter. We were to pick up Tommy Lee Jones in Texas and drop him in Miami. Wow, in the almost 5 months of working on the private jets, we had flown to Europe at least 3 times and this was now my 3^rd or 4^th movie star. Eight months prior, I had never even been out of the Country and movie stars were just those tiny people on TV, like when they shrunk the loud kid in Willy Wonka. This was so exciting!

When he boarded the plane, alone, he sat down, asked for a beer then kind of kicked back and said he just wanted to chill. We had about 3 hours to Miami so I offered him a deck of cards, showed him how to work the TV and mentioned that I would be back in bit to check on him but if he needed anything in the meantime, to let me know. This jet was my favorite because instead of me having to chill on the tiny jump seat behind the pilots that hides in the wall, I had a huge, plush recliner with a tray and my own little TV. About 4 minutes after having settled into my seat, Mr. Jones pops his head in and says, ‘You know, I would like to play some cards…you know how to play poker?’ At this point I was beginning to feel a bit used to seeing these famous people so in a casual tone I responded, ‘Sure, but you’ll probably kick my butt.’ He headed back as I opened two small bags of peanuts to gamble with, poured each one in a small bowl and grabbed him a fresh beer. Here I was, sitting across from Tommy Lee Jones, 4 feet from his face, casually chatting about life and playing five card stud. He loved betting with those peanuts, said it was a clever idea. For about the first 2 hours he never seemed to crack a smile, instead he was very serious, but candid and joked a lot without ever laughing at his own punch lines.

Being the competitive soul that I am, I was determined to make him smile and I like to think that I’m pretty funny. Then it happened, he asked me about my parents. I proceeded to tell him how cool they were and how I learned my hard work ethic from them. Then I said, ‘you remind me a lot of my dad and he’s good looking, so that’s a compliment.’ He was looking down at his cards extremely focused on his next move when all of a sudden he paused, looked up at me with one eye while raising his brow and let out a chuckle with a faint glimpse of a smile!!! Whooooo Hooooo…..was what my brain was yelling but my face remained calm and for the last 40 minutes we continued our card game while laughing and carrying on the whole time. As he left the plane, he shook my hand and thanked me for a wonderful flight.

I barely had time to comprehend what had just happened when the pilots informed me that for our next flight, we would be picking up Lindsay Lohan….

Now that I had met another new best friend, I wanted to be single. But poor Dan had just spent $8000 on a stunning engagement ring, even though we had only known each other for 6 weeks. The many things about him that bothered me were now even more annoying, but he was so sweet, what was I to do? The fights kept coming, all provoked by me. All of a sudden I was questioning him about what he did while I was out of town and why he didn’t answer his cell phone when I was around. To be honest, I was legitimately jealous and couldn’t believe it. I had thought the past was behind me, that maybe it was possible for me to date without being crazy jealous. There was no way this man would have cheated on me and I see that now, but in 2003, at 31, I was still insecure. My body wasn’t terrible and I was a cute girl, fun, outgoing and obviously brave having picked up and moved from Indiana all the way to Florida, so why did I still think every man was cheating on me?

One night, as we were eating take out, I started arguing with him over something dumb I’m sure. Somehow I managed to make him think it was his fault, when in reality, it was me, I was manipulative and evil and I knew it, but I wanted out and didn’t have the heart to tell him. So I stormed out of his place leaving the ring on the kitchen counter and headed out to go party. He couldn’t believe his eyes and to this day, I still feel a bit guilty for what happened!!

My new friend Cathy lived just around the corner but was out of town so I headed straight to the coolest spot around. Shooters was this huge restaurant/bar on the water with plenty of slips for boats to dock and they did, tons of them. This place was always packed with heavy hitters hanging out at the bar and on Sunday’s they typically held a bikini contest by their pool. This was the perfect spot to go, one because I wanted to meet boys, but also because it was so crowded I figured maybe no one would notice I was alone. At this point I had only been flying for a couple of months and while on the road, most nights, was still clinging on to the pilots to hang out with. I did venture out once in a while alone but once I walked into this place, it felt like everyone knew I had no friends.

There was no way anyone could have known I was by myself but my insecurities had the best of me so off to the bathroom I went to figure out my next move. As always, I was chatting with the bathroom attendant lady spilling my troubles to her about leaving my fiancé and feeling weird about being alone when the most magnificent girl came busting out of the stall and in my direction. She overheard my conversation, was also there solo and wanted to know if we could hang together??? My savior Farah was blonde, fit, super fun, brave and loved boating. She grabbed my arm and off we went, like balls of fire through that crowd. My goal was to hang at the bar but not Farah, she was determined to get us on one of those yachts…and she did!!

Within minutes, we were drinking for free and mingling with the elite on an 80 foot boat. I had never been on one before and was just in awe of how beautiful it was. After a few hours Dan had been erased from my memory, I was the happiest single girl in Ft. Lauderdale and now had new bestie number two! To this day, her and Cathy are two of only a few friends that I’ve met in the 15 years of living in South Florida who are real, honest and genuine.

Life could not have been better!! I lived in a huge house on the water for dirt cheap, was making $300 a day flying around the world, single and had two girlfriends that loved to go out and party…and that we did, anytime I was in town, until my flight with Cameron Diaz almost ruined everything. We picked her and 5 other people up in Miami and were taking them to California, about a 5 hour flight. She had just finished filming a movie so the plane was overflowing with luggage from their long stay. What was so cool about her was that she had no entourage, no body guards and seemed to have driven herself there in a regular car, not a limo or a chauffeured vehicle. When Cameron boarded the plane, the first thing she did was run right over to me and asked if Carrie Grant was really my name? She thought that was the coolest thing and then proceeded to tell me how pretty I was and that I reminded her of a good friend, which was a compliment because her friend was awesome.

In my head, blasting loudly were the words OMG, OMG, OMG but on the outside I was cool as a cucumber while pouring everyone champagne. She was the most normal celebrity, fame had not ruined her or made her feel as though she was better than anyone else and at that point, it was the coolest day of my life. There was one boy with the group, not a body guard or someone famous, just a friend and as everyone was falling asleep, asked if I wanted to play cards to pass the time. I was so happy because with nothing to do since they were all passed out would mean that I would have had to sit in the cockpit on the most uncomfortable and smallest seat ever. It was located just behind the pilots, pulled out of the wall and was definitely not made for comfort or long distance flights.

Once landing, Cameron and her friends all hugged me as if we had know each other all of our lives. Since there were so many bags, the crew and I helped to take everything inside and then loaded them up in her SUV, which once again, she drove herself. The pilots were busy making our hotel reservation at the front desk and I was heading back to the plane to get it cleaned up when all of a sudden we heard Cameron yell, ‘I can’t find my cell phone’!!! ‘No problem, I’ll go and search the jet’. About 20 minutes in, there was no phone to be found anywhere on that plane and I began to panic. Her assistant was now searching with me and in so many words managed to get across that I was the only person in that fuselage the whole flight that they didn’t know, which meant they thought I stole it. To make things worse, she knew my name, and if Cameron wanted to, she could smear my reputation across Hollywood….