Chapter 7
7
I felt deflated as I walked from Peet’s back to the BART station. I’d been riding a temporary high, believing the items I’d placed on my vision board were manifesting at an astounding rate, but Simon had brought me back to earth. I wasn’t cut out for the human dating scene. I couldn’t keep up a performance of normalcy long enough to fake my way into a relationship I didn’t want. My confidence in the vision board’s power was shaken. Perhaps it was merely paper glued to thicker paper, after all.
I couldn’t succumb to despair, however, while en route to a flight. My mood lightened the moment I entered SFO. When I visited the airport between flights, I’d stare at the security queue with bitterness, as though it were the velvet-roped line in front of a club to which I was barred entry. I resented those who gained admission, especially because they didn’t appreciate their good fortune. Most people moved through the airport hollowly, as though they’d rather be anywhere else. I’d never understood the complacency with which ordinary people regarded the miracle of flight. They’d somehow dampened their hearts of wonder.
I was drawn through the TSA umbilical into the womb of the secure sector, a utopian realm in which all persons had been screened for weapons and vessels of liquid in excess of 3.4 ounces. I ambled dreamily through Terminal 2, pausing to admire planes stabled at their gates, as though the terminal were my personal red-light district. At D3, an Embraer 175 awaited departure to Palm Springs. He was a fine-looking fellow, but no match for the handsomeness of N108DQ. I moved along.
As I proceeded toward D8, I spotted an uncannily familiar figure standing at the pickup counter of the Peet’s. A slight, dignified gentleman in a tailored suit. I drew closer, and the resemblance sharpened.
Could it be? Had I conjured Guillaume Faury, in the flesh?
Every night since the VBB, I’d gazed upon Faury’s world-weary visage in the moments before I fell asleep. As Faury did in his photos, this man looked rumpled in spite of his perfectly starched ensemble. His eyes were red-rimmed, with bags beneath them that deepened his aura of trustworthiness. He looked tired but filled with grim resolve to execute his duties. I admired his solemnity, commensurate with the responsibility he wielded.
I approached him where he remained tethered to the pickup counter, awaiting his beverage. “Monsieur Faury?” I said.
He turned at the sound of his name, then looked away, perhaps believing he’d been mistaken in hearing it. He probably wasn’t used to being recognized in public, and I’d no doubt butchered his name’s pronunciation. Still, I needed to capitalize on this moment. I might never again have the attention of an aerospace CEO, a man whose early career was marred by tragedy, a helicopter crash in Norway that killed eleven oil workers and two crew members. I wondered if he ever felt nostalgic for his childhood in Cherbourg-Octeville, at the tip of the Cotentin Peninsula. On maps it appears at the top of France like one of the little horns of a goat. I wondered if, as Faury flew into SFO, the peninsula of San Francisco reminded him of his home village.
“I’m a big fan,” I said. He squinted as though attempting to place me. He might have wondered if I’d confused him with another man, a conventional celebrity about whom I cared not at all.
“Thank you,” he said finally, in what I perceived to be a French accent. He retrieved his beverage, on whose paper cup was inscribed the letter G, and retreated toward D10, where a flight to JFK was about to begin boarding.
I remained rooted to the spot, amazed by what I’d just witnessed. I’d placed Faury on my board as a plane-adjacent model of corporate success, an ambition the other women would recognize and validate. I’d never expected to manifest the actual man. I now realized that Simon hadn’t represented a failure of my board. His appearance was in fact the very fulfillment of my board’s vision. I’d included photos of stock models, and so I had gotten what I’d asked for—a man pretending to be a pilot. The universe apparently took things literally, which I would keep in mind when constructing my next board. Unfortunately, I’d have to wait several months to set my revised goals into motion, as Karina had told me the VBB ceremony was essential to the art of manifestation, akin to an official seal on a letter.
At D8, I spotted N108DQ through the window. A punctual fellow, he’d arrived from Vancouver a few minutes early. I blushed as I beheld his handsome face. My eyes locked with his windscreen, in which I detected a hint of recognition. I mouthed a greeting to him, then turned away shyly. My love life consisted of a string of one-night stands. Karina would disapprove were my date with a man rather than a plane. But no man could do for me what a plane could. What man could propel himself to a speed of 150 knots before lifting us to an altitude of 37,000 feet? What man could carry me across continents and seas, all while keeping me warm and oxygenated inside his aluminum torso? No man I’d ever chanced to meet!
An announcement sounded—our flight would begin boarding in six minutes. I rushed to the restroom, where I emptied my bladder, pressing my fists into my abdomen to squeeze out the last drops, so that I wouldn’t be tempted to use N108DQ’s lavatory, degrading us both. After washing my hands and touching up my lipstick, I returned to the gate, where boarding had begun. The first-class passengers filed down the jet bridge. I hung back with my fellow members of the economy class, humble proletarians of the sky. I caught a woman staring at me and realized how odd my attire must seem in this context. I was both underdressed, with respect to the quantity of fabric covering my skin, and overdressed, given the gold dress’s formality. My bare legs were stippled with gooseflesh in the chilly air of the terminal. My feet had blistered from the heels Karina insisted I purchase, and which I couldn’t return, now that I’d stained them with blood.
My group number was called. I scanned my ticket and strolled down the jet bridge, pausing at the threshold of my lover’s body. The line of passengers stalled, as people ahead of me navigated the narrow aisle and negotiated overhead bin space, giving me a chance to bask in the moment. I tapped my fingers, flirtatiously, along the edge of his door. I placed my palm against his outer shell, which would soon be exposed to the thin upper atmosphere, with a temperature of negative sixty degrees. As I entered him, I glanced into his cockpit, which always felt obscenely intimate, like seeing the pink meat of an exposed brain on Karina’s monitor as I passed her terminal. The captain and first officer reviewed items on a checklist. Before them lay the instrument panel, aglow with amber lights.
I made my way down the aisle, drinking in every inch of N108DQ. His lighting panels highlighted the curve of his back, giving it the look of a chapel’s vaulted ceiling. I was in a sacred place indeed. I reached my seat, 23F. As usual, I’d chosen a window seat on the starboard side, in a row positioned above the wing, so that I could observe the movements of N108DQ’s comely slats, flaps, and ailerons. My row companions, a heterosexual couple in their thirties, were already present in 23D and E. They’d probably elbowed their way to the front of our boarding group line; though the average air passenger claims to abhor flying, they’re nonetheless always impatient to board. This couple seemed annoyed to dislodge themselves to allow my passage. That was fine. I preferred to dislike my row companions, considering the activities I was about to engage in beside them.
Once we’d settled into our seats, I inspected the couple again, assessing the threat they would pose. The man was clean-shaven, wearing a Giants cap and a gray sweater. He was immersed in his tablet, his right hand placed upon the woman’s left thigh. The woman’s face was flushed and dewy, framed by wavy auburn hair. She clutched her leather tote on her lap until the flight attendant asked her to stow it beneath the seat in front of her. What an amateur! They both seemed determined to ignore me, for which I was grateful. There was nothing worse than chatty rowmates.
I draped my jean jacket across my lap and fastened my seatbelt over it. Beneath the jacket’s cover, I tucked the chunk of 737 into my underwear. I pressed my right side against N108DQ’s wall. I slipped my feet from the sandals and stamped them to the flameproof carpet, maximizing our points of skin-on-skin contact. The doors were closed, and the ventilation system switched from external to internal, marked by a poof of air from the vent above me. With a whirring sound, N108DQ’s flaps extended to their takeoff position. The flight attendants performed their safety demonstration. My breath grew shallow, my crotch pulsing with anticipation. I relished every moment of foreplay, but I was impatient to get to the main event.
At last, we pushed back from the gate. N108DQ ambled along the taxiway, making several leisurely turns, his CFM engines groaning with pent-up energy. He lined up on the runway. Any moment now, his engines would fire. Beside me, the woman’s eyes were closed, her face tense with fear, and I felt a grudging affection for her. I’d often wondered if flying alongside an aerophobe might provide the final ingredient in the stew of destiny. Like me, fearful flyers invested great stores of psychic energy into flight, commensurate with its grandeur and peril. I felt a kinship with them, and with everyone I flew beside, considering us spiritual siblings, our fates intertwined. There is no greater intimacy than to be fellow passengers of a doomed flight.
N108DQ’s engines powered up in a ferocious roar, like a beast drawing air into his lungs. We surged forward in our takeoff roll, gathering speed that pinned me to my seat. His fuselage shook with the velocity, the cabin rattling until, at the moment it felt we would shatter apart, his nose lifted, and we rose into the sky. Our ascent was deliciously rocky, giving me hope that N108DQ had recognized me and sought to claim me. Each jolt issued a ribbon of pleasure through my body. I wedged my right hand under my thighs and pushed the chunk of 737 inside me. I didn’t require much additional stimulation while in flight. N108DQ brought me to the edge, and I pushed myself over. As we carved through rough air, I came silently, again and again.
The bell chimed twice, indicating we’d reached ten thousand feet and releasing the flight crew from the sterile cockpit rule. I collapsed against my seat, feeling wrung out and sated. I brushed my lips against N108DQ’s window rim in gratitude. The air smoothed, and N108DQ continued a steady climb to his cruising altitude. The woman beside me rested her head on her companion’s shoulder. Flight attendants started down the aisle with the galley cart. I closed my eyes, pretending to be asleep, so I wouldn’t be disturbed. I imagined I was alone with N108DQ. No pilots in the cockpit. Transponder switched off. Lovers on the run. We’d fly into the night until his fuel was spent.