Chapter 15
15
I’d hoped I was free of Dave, but on Wednesday night he texted me, asking how my week was going. His message gave me a slimy feeling, as though a tentacle of need were reaching through my phone and wrapping around my wrist.
I was in my cube watching an animation of the crash of Helios Flight 522, which had become a ghost plane after the cabin failed to pressurize. The same type of incident had claimed the life of my fake suitor’s namesake, Payne Stewart, though in Stewart’s case the plane involved was a Learjet 35, a small, pointy-nosed fellow to whom I felt little attraction. The Helios flight involved a 737-300 traveling from Cyprus to Prague, with a stopover in Athens. Due to a simple mistake—the flight crew’s failure to switch the pressurization system to “auto” prior to takeoff—the cabin’s pressure decreased as the plane climbed. The passengers, along with most of the crew, passed out from hypoxia. Still conscious was a flight attendant named Andreas Prodromou, an athletic young man who’d accessed an oxygen supply at the rear of the plane. Prodromou entered the cockpit and assumed the controls, waving to the fighter jets that had been scrambled to investigate the silent plane, but by that point the 737 had flown seventy minutes on autopilot, and his fuel was exhausted. The left engine flamed out, and the plane began his descent. It was possible the passengers were still alive at that point—that, as oxygen returned to their brains, they had regained consciousness, only to experience the last terrifying moments before impact.
To be the sole conscious human on board a ghost plane was my ideal scenario. The video showed an animation of the plane cruising serenely above the Greek islands. Exhaust plumed from his tail cone, his signal lights blinking as though nothing were amiss. He flew on, though no pilot controlled him. I admired any plane who asserted his independence, shirking the airlines’ dictates and forging his own path across the sky.
Through my Helios-induced haze, I heard my phone chime again. I hadn’t responded to his first text, so Dave had followed up with a photo of the salmon filet he’d made for dinner: a rectangle of pink flesh on a white plate, alongside an overcooked clump of leafy greens. It seemed oddly aggressive to send a fish pic to a vegetarian, unless he’d simply forgotten I didn’t eat meat, which was likely. I could practically smell the salmon corpse through my phone. I added a “thumbs-up” reaction to the photo, to be polite, though in my heart I meant it sarcastically. Dinner tomorrow? he added, and I ignored the invitation, hoping he’d take the hint and leave me alone.
I had no interest in spending time with Dave if he wasn’t paying for me to fly, and I also knew it would be wrong to continue flying with him, having manipulated his free will and placed him in mortal peril. Dave was clearly unwell, chasing ghosts from his past, trying to make sense of how his life had arrived at this point. But this compulsion to excavate was part of the problem. It fed into his pathological self-absorption, the root, probably, of why Mike and Michelle had come to despise him. I felt sympathy for Dave, and regretted having placed him on my vision board, which seemed to have eroded the last load-bearing column of dignity within him.
I looked up at my board now and decided to revise it, so the universe would stop pushing Dave in my direction. I peeled off his photo, leaving behind a strip of white residue where the glue refused to part with the paper, and burned it in the sink. The smoke alarm didn’t go off, which was worrisome.
This gesture didn’t seem to work, however. On Friday, while I was watching planes land through the windows of the Marriott lounge—I’d been too embarrassed to return to the Elephant Bar since Jose had rejected me—Dave texted me a photo of himself on board a plane, his head framed by the seatback. Wish you were here, read the text accompanying it, along with a winking smiley face. In spite of my resolve to cut ties with Dave, I was jealous he was flying while I remained grounded. I asked where he was going, and he told me he was spending the weekend in LA with his daughter. Let’s get dinner when I’m back, he wrote, to which I didn’t bother responding. The man was obsessed with dinner.
Saturday night, Karina invited me out for drinks at the Olive Garden with her and Anthony. When I arrived, I found Karina alone at the bar, as Anthony was still finishing his shift at the pizza place. She asked if there’d been any new developments with Stewart, and I told her about the plane selfie he’d sent.
Karina laughed. “What’s his deal? It sounds like he has some kind of plane fetish.”
I sipped my rum and Coke, disguising my hurt feelings. I figured she’d describe my relationship to planes as a fetish, when it was so much more than that—a reciprocal connection with planes, a sacred bond we’d shared since I was born.
“I guess he’s lonely,” I said.
“I thought you ended it.” Karina squeezed a lemon wedge into her cocktail, which was the color of Windex.
“I told him we can’t fly together anymore, but now he keeps asking me to have dinner with him.”
“You should tell him you’re not interested, straight up,” Karina said. “And if he keeps bugging you after that, block him.”
I knew she was right, but I was afraid to reject Dave, as I still hoped he’d secure me a raise. Also, I realized that on some level, I liked the attention. I’d never been pursued by another person, and even though I wasn’t interested in dating Dave, I enjoyed holding a measure of power over him.
Karina asked if she could see the photo “Stewart” had sent. “I’m dying to know what this freak looks like,” she said.
I was reaching for my phone when I remembered that I couldn’t show Karina the picture. I’d invested so thoroughly in the lie, I had begun to see Stewart as a separate entity from Dave. I told her I’d already deleted it.
Anthony entered, wearing a black denim jacket over a white T-shirt stained with tomato sauce. He came up behind Karina, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her cheek. She pushed him away, laughing.
“You smell like pizza,” she said. “And weed. Did you smoke in my car? You better have opened a window this time.”
Anthony grinned. “What’s up, Lindy?” he said. He hugged me, and I lingered in his embrace, comforted by the sturdiness of his arms and the clear boundaries of our friendship. His hugs were muscular and fearless, while Dave’s involved only glancing contact, as though he were afraid to commit to the gesture.
“Hey, Mindy,” Anthony said, addressing the bartender. “Can I get a Heineken, please?” I wondered if the bartender’s name was actually Amanda, or something else that Anthony had converted into an affectionate nickname, as he’d done with my name. If so, she didn’t seem to mind, smiling at him in a familiar way. I understood why Karina had questioned Anthony’s faithfulness in the past, as he couldn’t seem to help flirting with everyone.
I asked Anthony how his T-shirt business was going.
“It’s about to blow up,” Anthony said. “That’s just one of my income streams, though. It’s important to diversify. Do you have any investments?” I shook my head. “I know I’ve told you this before, but you gotta get in on crypto. It’s going through the roof.”
I watched Mindy remove glasses from the dishwasher and set them on a towel to dry.
“Did you ask her?” Anthony said to Karina.
“No,” Karina said quickly. “Now’s not a good time.”
Their furtive exchange hinted at a scandalous proposal, and I feared they wanted to ask me to join their lovemaking. While I would have been flattered to be viewed as an object of sexual gratification, I’d have to decline, as the prospect held no pleasure for me, only vast potential for discomfort and humiliation.
“What is it?” I asked, unable to bear the suspense.
Karina turned to me, resting her elbow on the bar. “I told Anthony what we talked about at the mall. How you fly for fun and know all this stuff about planes…” She trailed off, looking at Anthony.
“We were thinking maybe you could help Karina get over her fear,” Anthony said. He pulled out his stool to form a triangle with ours. “Maybe you two could take a practice flight.”
My stomach churned with adrenaline at the prospect of flying with Karina, though I knew I couldn’t allow it to happen. I’d be putting her life at risk, as well as exposing the most private aspects of my life to unwanted scrutiny.
“But only if you want to,” Karina added, perhaps having noticed the stricken look on my face. “I wouldn’t want to pressure you, especially right after some weird guy was making you fly with him.”
“Like a flight coach,” I said, stalling for time. This was a job I’d once considered, going so far as to post a Craigslist ad offering my services. But in the end, I decided it would be unethical, given my proclivities, and no one had responded to my ad anyway aside from some bots advertising penis enlargement pills.
“Exactly,” Anthony said. “A flight coach. I like that. I’ll pay for the tickets, obviously.”
“We wouldn’t have to fly right away,” Karina said, placing a hand on Anthony’s thigh. “We could work up to it.”
“I thought you never wanted to fly again,” I said.
“Well, of course I don’t want to,” Karina said. “But I’m sick of being held back by fear. It would be horrible to miss out on the perfect honeymoon just because I’m so fucked up.” Her eyes filled with tears.
Anthony wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You aren’t fucked up, baby. We just want to show you there’s nothing to be scared of. Right, Lindy?”
“That’s right,” I said, feeling like a fraud. That afternoon, I’d gorged on crash animations until the air of my cube felt charged, hotboxing catastrophe as Anthony had hotboxed Karina’s car with cannabis. I was the last person they should trust when it came to flying. My fate could manifest on any flight, especially with the added boost of my vision board. Still, Karina’s fear was so deeply rooted, it seemed unlikely she’d want to go through with a practice flight. I reasoned there was no harm in teaching her about the joys of flying while we remained safely grounded. “I’m happy to help, if I can,” I said.
“Hell yeah,” Anthony said.
Karina thanked me, though I saw fear in her eyes, and I hoped she wasn’t doing this only because Anthony was pressuring her. She excused herself to the restroom. As Anthony sipped his beer, I observed his hands, which were broader than Dave’s, his fingers stubbier. Dave’s fingers were long and thin, like the rest of him.
“This means a lot to us, Lindy,” Anthony said. “I offered to take a flight with her, but she said it would be too much pressure. She’ll be more comfortable doing it with you. She looks up to you.”
“She does?” It seemed so improbable that I wondered if he was making fun of me.
“Totally. She’s always saying how funny you are. How you’re so unique, and you don’t care what other people think of you.”
I was surprised to hear this, as I’d always assumed our friendship was imbalanced, Karina’s kindness to me an act of charity. When she returned, we moved on to other subjects. The wedding’s guest list, and whether to invite Ryan, the club promoter, who Karina still thought was a jerk. The house on Kauai, which Anthony showed me pictures of on his phone. A conflict Karina had been having with Judy, who only wanted to see Karina on weeknights; Karina suspected Judy reserved the weekends for her superior college friends. We ordered breadsticks, which were pleasantly aerodynamic, their slick exterior pebbled with parmesan. All the while, I remained uneasy about having agreed to be Karina’s flight coach. I hoped it would turn out to be one of those schemes I’d heard people concocted over drinks, then never followed through with.
The next morning, however, Karina messaged me, asking when we could start. I saw she was serious about overcoming her fear, and it was true that my skill set aligned perfectly with her need. If I were in possession of brawny muscles and a pickup truck, I’d be happy to help a friend move. By the same token, I would gladly tutor Karina in the joys of commercial flight. We arranged for her to come over that afternoon, after her eyebrow appointment. I spent the morning preparing the cube, concealing my most private items at the back of my closet, and clearing my browser history of all the disturbing simulations I’d watched in recent weeks.
I met Karina outside the garage. “The lady overthreaded them,” she said, gesturing to her eyebrows. “Do I look like a freak?”
“Not at all,” I said, though the arches did look a bit thin. I was still nervous about showing Karina my room, so I proposed we start at the beach, where I could give her a tour of the sky. We walked west on Taraval, passing roadwork equipment that lay dormant on the Lord’s day. Many people were out, walking dogs and pushing strollers, and I was proud that for once, I, too, had a companion. We crossed the Great Highway and climbed a sand dune.
“We can sit here,” I said, indicating the scrubby vegetation crowning the dune. Karina was reluctant, as she was wearing white pants. I lay down my denim jacket, and she lowered herself onto it, while I sat directly on the scrub. It was windy, and I shivered without my jacket, but I’d gladly suffer the cold on behalf of Karina’s outfit.
“I always thought Ocean Beach was a dumb name,” Karina said.
“It is a bit redundant,” I said, though I’d always liked the name, which had an honest ring to it. I pointed out the cloud formations above, along with some diffuse spreading contrails that created a plaid-like pattern. After a few minutes, a plane approached from the right, heading south at perhaps six thousand feet.
“That plane must be coming in for a landing at SFO,” I said. I brought out my phone and showed her the icons of planes on my flight-tracking app. Thousands of yellow plane-shaped symbols inched their way across the continent. Karina peered at the map with grudging curiosity.
“There’s so many,” she said.
“A hundred thousand flights a day, every day, worldwide,” I said proudly, though I’d had nothing to do with it.
I zoomed in on our location. “Looks like that plane is a 787-9 Dreamliner, flying in from London.” The Dreamliner passed above us with an air of nonchalance, his engines roaring their greeting. We watched his form diminish as he proceeded down the coastline.
I asked Karina when her fear of flying had started, and she was quiet for a moment, considering.
“It must have started with my mom,” she said. “When I was a kid, we’d fly to S?o Paulo once a year, to spend Christmas with her family. She hated going there. On the way to the airport, she’d say she hoped the plane would crash, to spare her the misery. It freaked me out. It seemed like tempting fate, saying stuff like that.”
“She doesn’t like her family?”
“She felt like a disappointment to them. They paid for her to go to UC Berkeley, hoping she’d become a doctor or a lawyer, and instead she got knocked up within two months.”
“With you.”
Karina nodded. She explained how her parents had met at a house party when they were freshmen. They’d stayed together for a few years after she was born, and then her dad had moved back to Virginia, where he was from. He’d since remarried and had two sons.
“They’re his real family,” she said. “I was just a mistake he made when he was young.”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “You’re not a mistake.”
“Thanks, but I literally was.”
Below us, on the flat part of the sand, a young couple was attempting a picnic. The wind blew up their blanket, and they scrambled to pin down its corners with various objects—beer bottles, the woman’s New Yorker tote. They seemed determined to persist with their romantic excursion, though their hummus and brie were no doubt seasoned with sand.
“Idiots,” Karina said with affection.
“Do you still talk to your dad?” I asked.
“Once in a while. I used to go visit them in Virginia, but it was always super awkward. Like I was a guest they had to be polite around. So I stopped bothering, around eight years ago. That was the last time I flew, actually.”
Karina lay back on my jacket, propping her elbows behind her. Another wide-body plane passed above us, this one heading north, his underbelly lit golden by the setting sun. “Did you fly much as a kid?” she asked me, once the plane had passed.
“Not as much as I’d have liked,” I said. And then, perhaps because she’d told me about her dad, I recounted going plane-spotting with mine. “We would make up stories about the planes and their adventures,” I said.
“That’s cute,” Karina said. “You were close with him, then?”
I nodded.
“It must have been hard to lose him.” I was touched she remembered. I’d mentioned my dad’s death during one of our first happy hours, though I hadn’t told her the details. A knot of grief formed in my throat, which surprised me. I normally tried not to think about the hospice room in which he’d spent his last days, a building in a corporate park, through whose windows I’d scan the sky. I took comfort from the planes I saw flying over the row of buildings across the highway, coming in for landings at John Wayne.
“It’s just one of those things, I guess,” I told Karina now. I wasn’t sure what I meant by this, but Karina murmured as if I’d said something profound. On the sand below us, the couple gave up, putting their food back into the basket. The clouds had thickened, obscuring the sun. The wind grew sharper, and Karina zipped up her jacket, while my own jacket remained imprisoned beneath her shapely hips. I suggested we head back to the garage, where I could make us a dinner of ramen.
As we approached my corner, I told her we’d have to keep it low-key. “My landlords don’t like me having guests. If we run into them, let’s say we’re doing a work project.”
Karina laughed. “It’ll be like when I used to have to sneak into Celia’s basement.”
I cracked the side door of the garage to confirm Mrs. Chen wasn’t doing laundry before ushering Karina to my cube. She surveyed the space, her lips pressed together.
“It’s cozy,” she said. She pulled back the mirrored door of my closet and inspected its contents. I was glad I’d prepared the cube for her visit, anticipating her nosiness. “You’re such a minimalist. My crap would fill this whole room.”
“Do you want a Rockstar lemonade?” I said, opening the door of the mini-fridge and exhibiting its wares. “Or a string cheese?”
“No thanks.” She paused. “Did you steal those Rockstars from the break room?”
“I always take my cut after Christa makes her snack run.”
“Good for you. Fuck that place.”
We sat on the narrow strip of floor not occupied by my bed. I heated water in my electric kettle and poured it into two ramen cylinders from 7-Eleven. I turned on the SAD lamp Karina had given me and turned off the overhead light, so that it felt like we were eating beside a violently bright campfire. Karina inspected my wall. “What’s the map about?”
“It shows all the routes I’ve flown since I moved here,” I said.
“You really do fly a lot.”
Her gaze drifted to my vision board. “It looks different from when you showed it to us.” She kneeled on my bed, training the beam of her phone’s flashlight on the board. “What’s missing here?” she said, running her fingers over the blank patch. “Wait, I remember. It was Dave Kinney!”
I had to think quickly. “You said he was a loser, so I figured I shouldn’t keep him on my board.”
Karina chuckled. “That’s true. He’s such a loser.” She climbed down from my bed. “You can’t change your vision mid-quarter, though. Once you do the ceremony, it’s baked in.”
I wasn’t sure where she was getting these rules from, but I promised to be more careful next time. When we’d finished eating, I showed her my piece of 737, which I’d washed thoroughly in anticipation of its unveiling to my guest.
“This object is said to be part of a 737’s fuselage,” I said, placing the chunk on the floor between us. “I bought it on eBay a few years back. I carry it with me everywhere. Sort of like a good luck charm.”
Karina held the chunk in her palm. She ran her thumb along its edges, which I’d worn down over years of rubbing. “It’s so smooth,” she said. I felt a twinge of pleasure, as though the shard were an extension of my body.
“Do you mind if I lie down for a minute?” she said, setting the chunk back on the floor. “I’m bloated from all that sodium.”
“Of course.”
I cleaned up our dinner, pouring the remnants of broth down the sink drain. When I returned to the room, Karina’s eyes were closed. I nudged her shoulder gently.
“Just a few more minutes,” she murmured.
I’d promised Mrs. Chen I wouldn’t have an overnight guest, but I reasoned that, if my transgression were discovered, I could say we’d accidentally fallen asleep while working on a project, which was true enough. I turned off the SAD lamp and groped my way into bed. I wouldn’t dare to dislodge Karina’s head from the only pillow I owned, so I balled up my jacket and propped it under my head, stretching my body alongside hers. At one point in the night, I woke to find Karina’s arm thrown across my torso, as though I were her stuffed animal.