Chapter 11
II
If I told Karina what I was doing, she’d try to talk me out of it, and rightly so. It was risky to take advantage of a boss-like figure while his judgment was addled by horse tranquilizer in order to indulge my obsession with planes. In the moment, though, I wanted to fly more than I wanted my job, and anyway, Dave seemed set on doing it. My suggestion had coalesced into a plan that now throbbed with its own life. I trusted the universe wouldn’t lead me astray.
The Uber driver merged onto the 101, and we barreled south toward the airport.
“Oh, Linda,” Dave said. “I’m glad I ran into you tonight. The last year has been so fucking awful.”
“How so?” I asked, though I feared if Dave regained his grip on reality, he might realize an impulsive flight with his subordinate was not in his best interests.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, to my relief. “Tonight is about new beginnings.”
“Flying always lifts my spirits.”
“I love it! Flying to Houston, in the middle of the night, for no reason. Accountable to no one. It turns out there’s an upside to being divorced. That’s what Charlie was trying to tell me.”
I imagined his mental state as a beach ball I had to keep aloft with careful jabs. Divorce seemed too heady a topic to allow him to dwell on. “Do you live in the city?” I asked.
“Belmont. The peninsula. Suburban hell. What about you?”
“I live in a windowless in-law in the Outer Sunset.”
“Jeez, no windows? That can’t be legal.” A sporty car roared past us, darting into the narrow space between our Uber and another car before switching lanes again. Our driver honked. Dave didn’t seem to notice, slumped impassively in his seat.
“It’s not so bad,” I told him. “A view of the sky only leads to trouble.”
“I guess that’s true,” he said, though he couldn’t have understood what I meant. He rubbed his eyes. “God, I’m so glad to get out of that club. It made me feel like a dirtbag. Those kids were closer to my daughter’s age than mine. I should be home asleep right now. Not doing blow at a club with Charlie from Gamma Delta Chi.”
“Who’s Charlie?”
“An old buddy from college, in town on business. He’s a partner at a law firm in New York. And a total maniac. I thought he’d cheer me up, but it was just fucking depressing.”
He was spiraling, the beach ball of his mood crashing to the sand.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Lots of people use drugs recreationally. It’s not a moral failing.”
“I’m forty-seven years old, chasing youth by seeing some shitty DJ with a guy I never even liked. Forty-seven! Can you believe that? I should just fucking die. Do everyone a favor.”
I shushed Dave, embarrassed for the driver to hear his histrionics. We took the SFO exit and approached the departures curb at Terminal 3. Above curved the airport’s signature double-helix awning, beams exposed, like the ribs of a boat. The driver found a free spot of curb to pull against.
“I can’t believe we’re really doing this,” Dave said.
“Fuck it,” I said, echoing his prior sentiment.
“Yeah! Fuck it all!”
We entered Terminal 3 and approached the United counter. The ticket agent regarded us placidly as we rushed toward her.
“We need tickets to Houston, stat!” Dave said.
“We were hoping to get seats on Flight 505,” I said, in an attempt to compensate for my companion’s obvious lack of sobriety.
“Let me check,” the agent said, and began typing. Dave glanced at me, his jaw grinding.
“Our uncle is in the hospital, in Houston,” he told the agent. “He’s very ill, and if we don’t get to him by the morning, it might be too late to say goodbye.”
“Sorry to hear that, sir,” the agent said, without looking away from her screen. “Looks like you’re in luck. I can get you on that flight, but you’ll have to hurry. Boarding begins in ten minutes.”
“Great!” Dave said. “How much?”
“The cost for the two fares is nine hundred and fifty-two dollars, sixty-four cents.”
Dave flinched at this sum. “What time would we get in?” he asked. I cursed him for waffling when we were so close to our goal.
“Five thirty-eight a.m. ”
“That’s perfect,” I said. “Uncle Bob will be so happy to see us one last time.”
Mention of the uncle Dave had invented moments before seemed to spur him to action, if only to save face with the ticket agent. He handed her his American Express card. I held my breath, praying for the card to go through before Dave realized his money would be better spent on other things: mortgage payments, groceries, additional shirts with sailboats on them.
The transaction completed. The agent handed us our tickets, still warm from the printer. We hurried to the security line, sparsely occupied at this late hour.
“This is wild,” Dave said as we placed our items on the belt—Dave’s keys and wallet, my gold clutch. “My ex would flip if she knew I was doing this. She won’t even fly anymore. Carbon footprint, yadda yadda. Once a year back to Connecticut to see her folks. She’s a real pain in the ass!” I shushed him, afraid his spirited commentary would alarm the TSA workers. The airport was no place to display an excess of personality. Luckily, these agents, being night-shift workers, didn’t seem to notice or care. We passed into the secure sector of the terminal, and the knot of stress I’d been holding released, flooding my body with endorphins. Nothing could stop me now. Dave could change his mind and turn back, and I would still board the flight.
He chattered on as we walked to our gate, but I could hardly hear him, his voice fading in and out like a distant radio frequency. Through the window of our gate, F7, I beheld the plane, upon whose flank was inscribed the name N14249. I hadn’t had a chance to check my flight records, but I was fairly sure I’d never been with this plane before, and I was embarrassed to meet him while tethered to Dave. I tried to mentally convey to the plane that this man meant nothing to me. He was merely an appendage to his American Express card.
N14249 was a big boy, a 777-200ER, colloquially termed the Triple Seven. He was the world’s largest twinjet, capable of traversing 5,240 nautical miles. He was more plane than I could handle, and I felt shy in his presence. N14249 had an embarrassed look about him, too, the jet bridge’s canopy suckling his temple like a leech. Soon, I would propel myself down the bridge and into his body. I would fill him up. Together, we’d rise.
Dave stood beside me, mimicking my reverence.
“Planes are kind of beautiful, aren’t they?” he said. This comment piqued my interest, but from the neutral expression on Dave’s face, I knew he wasn’t like me. He possessed only the typical masculine admiration of large vessels and feats of engineering. I recalled my dad’s casual interest in aviation, along with his ardent, but as far as I could tell non-sexual, passion for his boat. While I agreed planes were beautiful, among countless other descriptors, I feared Dave would keep up his commentary throughout the flight, ruining my date with N14249.
“Do you think once we board, we could be quiet?” I said.
“That’s a great idea. Like meditating.”
“Exactly.”
The first groups were already boarding. We hung back, watching them file onto the jet bridge. My phone buzzed in my clutch. What??? Karina had written. I switched it to airplane mode. I was off the clock, as far as friendship went.
“Before we do this, Linda, I just want to be clear that I’m not in the position to date anyone, especially someone I work with,” Dave said with sudden lucidity.
“I figured,” I said. “I’m not interested in dating people, anyway.” I’d never admitted this to anyone, but I felt like I could say anything to Dave in this moment, and it would bounce right off him.
“So you’re asexual?” he said, smiling.
“I’m into planes.”
He laughed. “Me, too. We’re a couple of plane-sexuals.”
I allowed him to believe I was joking.
N14249 was an immense plane indeed, with rows ten seats across in the economy cabin. I felt we were in the belly of a whale. Lights ran along the ceiling between the baggage compartments and his girthy central spine. This was the only club I cared to patronize.
We were seated near the back of the economy section, being latecomers to the flight manifest. Row 47, seats K and L, a window and middle seat on the starboard side. As we proceeded down the aisle, I saw passengers were settling in for sleep, with eye masks and headphones and neck pillows. I abhorred such accessories of airborne slumber; I couldn’t imagine wasting my precious time on board a plane by sleeping through it. However, I did prefer that my fellow fliers succumb to unconsciousness, affording me and the plane greater privacy. I hoped the concentration of intoxicants in Dave’s system was waning, so he’d sleep, too.
Near the rear of the plane, the passengers thinned. The row ahead of ours was empty, and I suggested we sit separately. “We can stretch out,” I said.
“Nah, sit with me,” Dave said. “I’m scared to fly.” From his cheeky tone, I knew this was a lie. He wasn’t afraid, but he should have been, with me at his side.
I resigned myself to orgasming beside this obnoxious man. It was fine. I’d pleasured myself next to hundreds of strangers without detection. I took the window seat, and Dave sat in the middle. I draped my camel coat over my lap, then brought out my chunk of 737 and kissed it discreetly, though for once I didn’t tuck it inside myself, fearing Dave would notice. My anticipation mounted as the safety announcement played. I breathed deeply, focusing on N14249’s subtle vibrations. As we pulled back from the gate, Dave said, “Do you think…,” and I cut him off, placing a finger over my lips, reminding him of our agreement to be silent.
N14249 lined up. His engines fired, and his former gentleness on the taxiway was revealed as a predatory ruse. His enormous white body raced down the runway, 250 tons of aluminum and fuel and luggage and human bodies. We gathered speed, N14249 working himself into a frenzy, his turbofan engines generating more than a hundred thousand pounds of thrust, until at last, he lifted into the sky. A groan escaped my throat, the sound concealed by his engines. The ground receded, revealing the bay and, across it, the hills of Oakland. I felt Dave leaning toward me, looking out the window. “The San Mateo Bridge,” he said, then clamped his hand over his mouth theatrically.
I resented Dave’s presence, and yet, as we continued our climb, my anger was mixed with arousal, an itchy, confusing sensation. N14249 made a sharp turn, his left wing dipping, diverting us from the northwesterly direction we’d taken off in. My window faced the enormity of space, and I willed N14249 to keep turning, surrendering his tenuous grip upon the sky. Impulsively, I grabbed Dave’s hand and plunged it under my coat, guiding it to my crotch. His hand remained still for a moment. I squirmed against his shoulder. Slowly, he obliged, rubbing my genitals through the hole in my leggings, then probing his fingers under the hem of the leggings and into my underwear. I was already lubricated thanks to N14249, and I guided two of Dave’s fingers inside me. He leaned closer to me, getting into it now, and proceeded to thrust his fingers into me while I rubbed myself until I bucked against his hand, imagining the hand belonged not to him but to N14249, a part of the plane transformed into human flesh, so as not to injure me.
We broke apart, moments before the man in the row across the aisle wakened and switched on his reading light. N14249 leveled and continued a shallower climb to his cruising altitude. As my breathing slowed, my excitement ceded to horror at what I’d just done. I had forced Dave to finger me, against his will. Never before had I drawn another person directly into my communion with a plane, and worse, he was someone I worked with. I felt desperate to smooth things over.
“I changed my mind,” I said, turning to Dave. “I want to talk.”
“Thank god,” Dave said. He grasped my hand. “Are you okay, Linda? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I wanted you to,” I said. His hand was clammy, his fingers still coated in the secretions of my body. This repulsed me, if only because I feared it would repulse him. But presumably, Dave had made love to women before. He’d probably been inserting his fingers into vaginas since middle school, or at least wishing he could. I remembered he had mentioned a daughter, which meant his ex-wife had excreted an entire baby from her body, probably with Dave by her side. I admired his lack of squeamishness and the depth of his life experience.
“I just feel like we crossed the line,” he said. “I hope you don’t think I’m some sleazy guy. I wasn’t planning on anything like that happening.”
I told him to calm down. N14249 glided along, untroubled by Dave’s outburst. A moment later, the bell chimed, and the pilot came on the intercom with a summary of our flight path. It was expected to be mostly smooth, but we should obey the fasten seatbelt sign when it was illuminated. He’d get us there a few minutes ahead of schedule. I felt lulled by his husky, nonchalant voice. I imagined his hands manipulating the controls of N14249, his eyes gazing out the eyes of the plane, a parasite nestled in the plane’s skull.
The flight attendant arrived at our row with the beverage cart. Dave took a cup of water, while I requested a Diet Coke, reasoning I’d need caffeine for the layover. The Houston airport, also known as George Bush Intercontinental, was vast, and I hoped to make the most of my visit, as an international airport was my version of a speed-dating event. It was an opportunity to mingle with many attractive planes, any one of whom might prove to be my soulmate.
Dave sipped his water and chuckled. “That was crazy,” he said. “I always wanted to join the mile high club.”
“That’s not what we did.” I’d always loathed that term, which diminished the plane to an exotic backdrop for human rutting.
“No, I guess that would mean going at it in the lavatory. I never understood how people managed in such a tight space.” He laughed again. “Sorry, Linda. I’m loopy. How long is this flight?”
“Three hours and forty-five minutes.”
“Jesus.”
“You could take a nap.”
“No way. I’m fucking wired.”
I regretted allowing Dave to speak. I now had to keep him occupied for the rest of the flight.
“You have a daughter?” I said, grasping for one of the few facts I knew about him.
“Yeah. Gabi, with an i .” Dave’s voice was solemn. “She’s fifteen. She lives in LA with her mom.”
This was a bleaker situation than I’d anticipated, and I worried it had been an unwise topic to broach. “Do you see her often?” I asked.
“Every other weekend, I go down there. I rent a one-bedroom in Koreatown. It’s a dump.”
I sipped my Diet Coke, which tasted pleasantly of chemicals. “I always had fun in LA as a kid.”
“That’s right. I forgot you’re from SoCal.”
He leaned his head back against the seat. “I used to like LA, too. But now it’s just a reminder of failure.”
“What sort of failure?”
“Well, my marriage, for one.”
I waited for him to say more. We were wrapped in the hum of the plane’s engines. The man across the aisle turned off his light and reclined his seat. Around us, the cabin slept.
“She left me for someone else,” Dave said. “This guy Peter. An old flame from college.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“That was just the final blow,” Dave continued. “We’d drifted apart for years, especially after Gabi was born. My business was tanking. I was under a lot of stress.”
N14249 rumbled, his broad airframe shaking. I held on to my armrests, praying for more. The fasten seatbelt sign chimed on. I closed my eyes.
“I can’t blame Michelle for cheating,” Dave continued, oblivious. “I wasn’t meeting her needs. The funny thing is, I was always curious about polyamory. Especially when we came out to SF and met people who were in that scene. We went to Burning Man a few times. I even proposed we try an open marriage, and she shot me down, hard.”
“And then she got with Peter,” I said, my eyes still closed.
“They reconnected online,” Dave said. “She was so sneaky about the whole thing. That’s what really bothered me. The deceit.”
“My dad cheated on my mom,” I said. I was surprised I’d told him this, as though the turbulence had jostled loose a confession.
“Oh yeah?” Dave said. “Did it last? The new relationship.”
“Only two weeks. He said it was an act of temporary insanity, but my mom wouldn’t take him back.” I suspected my mom had been waiting for an excuse to divorce him, as she’d grown tired of my dad’s antics. The boat, which required constant, expensive upkeep. Poker nights with his Navy buddies, who had a habit of putting out cigarettes on our lawn and stealing the silverware. Though he’d worked as an actuary, calculating risk on behalf of corporate entities, my dad indulged in risky behavior in his own life, and he was famously bad with money.
“Was it hard on you? The divorce,” Dave said.
“Not really,” I said. “It was better than my parents fighting all the time.” By that point, I wasn’t paying much attention to my family, anyway. I’d been busy stalking N92823 and plotting our reunion.
“That’s good to hear, I guess,” Dave said. “I feel so bad for Gabi. But she seems to like Peter more than me now, so go figure.”
I realized that Dave cared about my personal story only for the insight into his own it could provide him, which was fine with me. I’d already betrayed too much of myself, though he didn’t understand what he’d witnessed. He must have thought I’d been seized with horniness for his bony, sun-spotted hand.
The turbulence abated. N14249 flew on into the night. The window was a black oval, without stars visible. I felt disappointed, as arousal had begun to build in my body again. I turned back to Dave, seeking distraction.
“So what’s Peter’s deal?” I asked.
Dave made a sound of disgust. “He’s a hipster douchebag. An adjunct English professor, which means he’s broke. He makes his own kimchi and plays drums in a band. You know the type.”
I didn’t, really.
“But Michelle seems happy with him. They’re having a great time, living off my money. Peter must feel like he hit the jackpot.”
The flight attendant came by with a garbage bag. We tossed our cups in and raised our tray tables. Dave seemed subdued now, his former mania quelled, and I hoped the drugs had finally worn off.
“It’s been a dark time for me,” he went on. “I’m a lot better now than I was six months ago, but I still have bad days.” He paused. “I guess tonight, with Charlie, I was trying to take a risk, mix things up, feel young again. Charlie kept telling me there’s an upside to getting divorced. Total freedom to do drugs and get laid, no one checking up on me. But it was a joke. Those women at the club seemed like children. What would we say to each other? I can tell when women pity me, or when they’re only talking to me to find out if I have real money, an amount of money so obscene it automatically makes someone interesting. But I’m just a middle-management schmuck. And Charlie’s a drug addict.”
Dave had been staring into the seatback in front of him, but now, he turned to me with an urgent expression. “Let’s face it, Linda. Total freedom is overrated, especially when you get to a certain age. If you aren’t tied down to anything, you’re a loser, you’re fucked. You drift out to sea.”
I didn’t know how to respond to this. Before tonight, I hadn’t realized Dave’s life held such despair. His mental state sounded like how I felt after my monthly flight—a barren zone, stripped of dopamine. I looked out the window. The sky seemed to have lightened a few shades, as we flew east toward the sunrise. Beyond our wing, perhaps a mile away, another plane’s signal lights blinked, heading west. It was a sight imbued with longing, two planes passing in the hour before dawn, unable to touch each other as they might have liked to.
“I’m sorry for dumping all this on you,” Dave said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m happy to listen.”
“I want to hear more about your life.”
I’d dreaded this pivot. “My life isn’t very interesting,” I said.
“I feel terrible that you have to do that job,” he said with sudden vitriol. “I couldn’t say that at the office, obviously, but I want you to know.”
I was surprised he’d say this. “I like my job,” I said.
He scoffed. “No, you don’t. How could anyone?”
“Someone has to do it,” I said, annoyed.
“Well, soon the software will be good enough that we won’t need human moderators. Have you given thought to what you want to do next?”
I was tired of having to lie about what I wanted from life. “I want to earn more money,” I said. “Do you think I’ll get that raise, after all?”
“I’m trying. The budget is pretty tight.”
“That’s okay,” I said, though I was disappointed.
“What about other dreams? Do you want to get married? Start a family?”
Just as I’d thought, Dave hadn’t taken me seriously when I’d said I was only attracted to planes. “I might be willing to marry a pilot,” I said.
Dave laughed. “That’s very specific. I bet we can find you one.”
We were quiet for the rest of the flight. Dave finally dozed off, his head resting on my shoulder.
—
N14249 touched down. His engines reversed thrust, his wheel brakes deploying, spoilers rising from his wings, until his massive body slowed from its fevered landing speed, and he proceeded down the runway in a civilized manner, back to his gentle, grounded persona. It was for the best that N14249 hadn’t chosen me, as Dave would surely have sullied our final moments with trite exclamations of terror. I toggled my phone off airplane mode as we taxied to our gate. A text from Karina popped up, likely having been sent hours before.
Status update requested, she’d written. Please confirm you’re alive .
I’m fine! I wrote back. Still with the guy. Sorry I’ve been out of touch.
I didn’t expect Karina to write back, as it was 3:30 a.m. in California, but to my dismay, the three dots popped up, indicating she was typing, followed by a string of rapid-fire messages:
OK well it’s fucked up you just left like that without saying anything
I never thought you were the kind of bitch who ditches her friends at a moment’s notice for some dude
I needed your support tonight and you just bounced for some cheap dick?
like you said I’m your best friend??
really Linda you seem fake af to me now
I was dumbfounded by the aggression of these texts, revealing a side of Karina I’d never witnessed firsthand, though I’d guessed at it from her accounts of fights she’d had with Anthony. The dots appeared again and lingered, indicating Karina was composing a long, devastating final message. I replied quickly, hoping to stem her rage.
You’re right, I wrote. I’m sorry, Karina. I’ll make it up to you.
N14249 pulled up to the gate. The fasten seatbelt sign dinged off, and Dave and I shuffled into the aisle. Have a good night, Karina wrote, which I found more chilling than her prior onslaught.
I couldn’t worry about Karina now, as the problem of Dave was more pressing. He grew impatient as we waited to exit the plane, sighing as the line stalled, blocked by people gathering their belongings from the overhead bins. In the gate area, he collapsed into a seat.
“Christ, I’m dehydrated,” he said.
“I’ll get you some water,” I said, and trotted off to the nearest Hudson News, where I purchased a bottle of water and a protein bar. Dave accepted these items without thanking me. No trace of his buoyant mood at takeoff remained. He was grumpy, as though his in-flight nap had restored his brain to its factory settings.
“I need to take my contacts out,” he said. “They’re dailies. My eyes are so dry they’re stuck to my corneas.”
He made a show of tilting his head back and attempting to pour water from the bottle directly into his eyes. It splashed on his forehead. He cursed and wiped his head with the hem of his sailboat shirt.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Drink the water. It’ll moisten you from the inside.”
“I need my meds. Fuck. This was such a stupid idea.”
He buried his face in his hands. I sat next to him and patted his back, bony and warm beneath his thin shirt. I felt sorry for him. I hated to see any creature suffer. But the little Karina I’d installed in my mind flipped her hair and reminded me that Dave was a grown man, and I wasn’t his mother.
“Don’t you want to explore Houston?” I said. I hoped he’d go off on a touristic adventure, allowing me to enjoy a few hours in the airport.
“Are you kidding? Fuck Houston. I just want to lie in my own bed and die.”
His lack of energy was promising. I could permit myself an hour of wandering, and he’d remain where I’d left him. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
I walked away, and he didn’t protest. At C4, I gazed upon a 757-300 awaiting departure to Raleigh-Durham. I bid that fine gentleman good morning, and continued toward a central passageway, past a Sunglass Hut and a restaurant called Pick Up Stix, both shuttered at this early hour. C3 lay empty, so I proceeded to C1, where a 737-800 named N16709 was set to depart to Guadalajara in a few hours. N16709 looked familiar, and I consulted my flight records to discover I’d flown on him during my flight binge. My notes revealed he’d been a generous lover, pleasuring me with patches of turbulence all the way from Newark Liberty to Cleveland Hopkins. He was nineteen years old, the same age as N92823. I teared up, imagining N92823 lying dormant in a boneyard alongside other condemned planes, white angels arrayed in the desert like the lines of cocaine Dave had done with his friend.
As I continued toward the D gates, which serviced international flights, I contemplated the appearance of Dave at the club, and his willingness to fly with me on a whim. It was the clearest demonstration yet of the vision board’s power. If not for Karina, I would never have gone to the club, which meant the universe was using her as a puppet, too. The thought of Karina pained me. She’d brought me to the show for emotional support, and then, when she’d most needed me, I had disappeared. I hoped our friendship would recover from my betrayal.
I realized I should check on Dave before surrendering to the pleasures of TerminalD. I turned back, intercepting him as he rushed down the corridor, holding a Starbucks cup. I noted he hadn’t bought me a coffee, which seemed rude after I’d bought him the water and protein bar.
“Where were you?” he said, grasping my elbow with his free hand and steering me to an escalator. “I had to walk all over to find you.”
This claim seemed dubious, as I hadn’t traveled far from our arrival gate. I saw he was mad at me. His attitude reminded me of my dad’s when I failed to take out the trash or left the cap off his Subaru’s gas tank after sneaking into the garage to sniff at it.
Dave led us up the escalator to the platform for the Skyway, the AirTrain’s Houston cousin. I asked where we were going.
“Back to SF, obviously,” he said. “They’re boarding now. I almost had to leave you here.”
A train pulled up and we climbed aboard. “The tickets cost a fortune,” he said as the doors closed.
“I can pay you back,” I said, and was relieved when he dismissed my insincere offer. He really did feel like my dad—not my real dad, but a counterfeit version who paid for things and bossed me around.
Our return flight was serviced by a 737-900, an alluring stranger named N66831. It was a full flight, and this time, Dave took the window, without asking which seat I preferred. As we pulled back from the gate, he lowered the shade and turned to me.
“Listen, Linda,” he said. “Last night was fun, but I hope it goes without saying that we should keep it between us.”
“Of course,” I said. “I won’t tell a soul.” Dave seemed reassured by this. He leaned his head against the seatback and closed his eyes, allowing me to make love to N66831 without distraction.