Chapter 16
16
When my alarm went off the next morning, Karina was gone. I had a hazy memory of her getting up and collecting her things. At Acuity, I found her in good spirits. “Sorry I crashed out like that,” she said at lunch. “Your room is perfect for sleeping. Like a cave.”
I asked when she’d left, and she said around 3:00 a.m. Anthony had been worried, but luckily, he’d still been up playing video games when she got home. I’d assumed Karina would need a break after our first lesson, and indeed when I asked what she was doing that evening, she said she had some things to take care of, with a caginess that reminded me of my former reticence when asked about my plans after work. I wouldn’t pressure her. In fact, I hoped her fear would persist, delaying our practice flight to an unspecified future moment that would never arrive.
But at lunch on Tuesday, she jabbed my shoulder playfully and said, “So what’s our next lesson, coach?”
I suggested we visit the airport. We rode BART there, on my insistence, so Karina wouldn’t have to park her car in the expensive short-term lot, and because I felt that taking public transportation was essential to the magic of the experience. In the final leg, after departing the San Bruno station, we traveled through a tunnel, the train’s wheels making a slicing sound like blades on ice. The train emerged into sunlight, and we were plunged into the airport’s domain, with a view of the runways through the window. Planes emblazoned with the United logo idled at the gates of International Terminal G. One girthy fellow, likely an A350, pulled back from his gate.
I led Karina beyond the BART turnstiles and onto the AirTrain platform. Through the station window, I gestured to the A350 as he ambled around the bend to take his place in the lineup. I was able to glimpse his tail number, N15969, which I inputted into my flight-tracking app.
“That plane is currently bound for Singapore,” I said.
“How long is that flight?”
“Sixteen and a half hours.”
Karina winced. “That’s brutal.”
I showed her N15969’s recent flight schedule. “Looks like he landed from Singapore two hours ago, and now he’s heading back.” I realized I’d slipped up, referring to planes with male pronouns. Though it was correct to do so, given their obvious gender, I feared Karina would find it strange.
But instead, she smiled. “He’s a busy boy,” she said.
The Red Line train pulled up, and we boarded an already crowded car. We stood facing the window, our hands gripping the greasy pole, while I narrated the sights out the window. I could have ridden the Red Line for hours, but after we’d completed only one revolution, Karina said she felt sick from the fumes, and we made our way back to the city.
On Thursday, I brought Karina to the Elephant Bar, in lieu of our usual sushi. I felt apprehensive as we approached the host stand; it was the first time I’d returned since the night Jose had spurned me. He looked up from his screen and smiled when he saw me with Karina. I was no longer waiting for my friend. My friend was here, in the flesh, having existed all along.
“Two?” Jose said.
“Yes,” I said. “A booth by the window, if possible.”
I felt a sense of triumph as Jose led us across the bustling restaurant floor, showing us to a booth with superior runway views. He handed us menus and winked at me before returning to his podium. Through the window, we watched a large plane, perhaps a Triple Seven, descend from the east. The plane was wrapped in the insignia of Eva Air, a Taiwanese airline, his tail painted green. Karina’s eyes widened as he drew close to the water.
“Oh, god,” Karina said. “They’re gonna miss the runway.”
But just when it seemed the plane would skid into the bay, his wheels touched down on the finger of land, throwing up a little puff of dust. Karina exhaled. Another plane, marked with the Air France logo, was already making his descent, in the constant procession of landings into Runway 28R.
“See, Karina?” I said. “Planes take off and land here all day, every day, without incident.” She nodded, her gaze still trained on the runway. As she continued to watch planes touch down, Karina’s posture relaxed, and I observed in her face an expression of awe rather than fear. I was pleased that our coaching sessions seemed to have sanded down the edges of her phobia.
When the server approached, Karina ordered a salad, while I stuck to my usual fries and a Diet Coke. I checked my phone and found a missed call from Dave, along with a text: Hey Linda. Can we talk? He’d messaged me a few times since his return from LA, asking when we could have dinner, but I’d barely noticed, as I’d been focused on coaching Karina. The phone call seemed like a disturbing escalation.
“Everything okay?” Karina said. I looked up to find her watching me.
“Stewart wants to talk.”
She groaned. “Just block him and be done with it.”
“I feel bad for him. He seems desperate.”
“It’s his own fault, for being a freak.”
I longed to tell Karina that Stewart was actually Dave. His behavior was growing increasingly erratic, and I figured she’d know how to defuse the situation. But I’d promised Dave I wouldn’t reveal our secret, and I prided myself on being a person of my word. I returned my phone to my bag, leaving his text unanswered.
When our check came, Karina insisted on paying. “I’m feeling good about this,” she said, as she entered the tip. “Should we take a flight this weekend?”
“If you want to,” I said, with a rush of excitement and foreboding. “Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Let’s do it before I think about it too much. How’s Saturday?”
I told her Saturday was great, attempting to conceal my inner turmoil. It had been easy to coach Karina when our practice flight remained an abstraction, but now I had to contend with what I might be drawing her into without her consent. I knew I should tell her everything, so she could decide if she wanted to risk flying with me, but I didn’t want to introduce a new element of fear that might spoil the progress she’d made. I also worried that if I revealed myself now, she’d deem me a freak, placing me in the same depraved bucket as “Stewart,” and want nothing more to do with me.
Karina drove me back to my cube. Fog had gathered over the west side of the city. As we proceeded down Taraval, we moved in and out of denser patches, so that at some points, we could see only a few feet ahead. My phone buzzed with another text from Dave: I’m outside your place. Five minutes. That’s all I ask.
My chest seized with panic. “Maybe we should go to the beach,” I said.
“Now?” Karina said. “It’s freezing.”
It was too late. As we neared my corner, the fog parted, revealing a white Prius parked at the curb. Dave stood at the side door of the garage, into which he’d once seen me flee.
Karina squinted over the wheel. “Is that…Dave Kinney?”
“I wonder what he’s doing here,” I said, with a drowning feeling.
“Let’s find out.”
We emerged from the Honda. Dave’s face lit up when he saw me. Then he noticed Karina, and his expression shifted into uncertainty.
“Oh hey,” he said. “I was looking for a dumpling spot. Do you know of any around here?”
“You could use Yelp,” Karina said, in the cool way one might address a stranger who was in the midst of a mental health crisis.
“There’s one down that way,” I said, gesturing toward the place we had gone to before our flight to Denver, though it was surely closed at this hour.
“Thanks.” He walked to the driver’s side of his car, where he lingered a moment. I feared he was about to say something that would expose us. “Good night, then” was all he said in the end.
We watched his Prius take a left at the next intersection, rather than continuing to the dumpling place he’d claimed to be seeking. “Okay, Linda,” Karina said. “What’s going on?”
“What do you mean?” I said, though I knew it was hopeless.
“You’re telling me it’s a coincidence that Dave was standing in front of your door? He was obviously waiting for you.”
I led Karina into my cube, where I sat on my bed and took a deep breath. “I might have gotten myself into something,” I said.
Karina’s eyes scanned my vision board, with its blank patch where Dave’s picture had been. I watched the pieces click into place in her mind. “Oh my god. There’s no ‘Stewart,’ is there? It was Dave all along! That’s why you took him off your board.”
At last, I told her everything: How we’d run into each other at the club, and in his intoxicated state, Dave agreed to fly to Houston with me. How we’d fooled around on the plane—this part, I took care to phrase with delicacy—and after, he’d said the experience was an erotic high point of his life and invited me to fly with him again. How I’d tried to break it off but was afraid to reject him outright, as I didn’t know how he would react.
“This is crazy,” Karina said, pacing the room. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“We agreed to keep it between us.”
“So he groped you on a plane, then pressured you to keep it secret after. That’s so messed up. I bet you could sue Acuity.”
“I don’t want to do that,” I said, horrified by the prospect of my secrets exposed in the civil court system. “He only came to the club that night because I put him on my vision board.”
“That’s a stretch, Linda.” She paused at the corner of my room. “God, I’m so sick of men like him. They think the world’s their playground. They do whatever they want, no matter who it hurts. Worst of all, they turn it around to make us think it’s our fault. And now he’s harassing you. Stalking you.”
“You’re right,” I said, my own anger rising.
“You want me to call him? I’ll set him straight.”
“No, I just want to move on,” I said. “I’m afraid I’ll lose my job.”
Karina put her hand on my shoulder. “That wouldn’t happen. You’re the victim here.”
“Promise you won’t tell anyone.”
“I won’t. Not if you don’t want me to.”
“Not even Anthony.”
She looked disappointed. “Okay. Although he’d really get a kick out of this.”
It was 11:00 p.m. when Karina went home. I felt keyed up, high off her outrage. I left the garage and walked toward the ocean, salty air filming my arms. I’d forgotten a jacket, but I barely noticed the cold. I called Dave, and he apologized for showing up at my place.
“I was worried about you, since I hadn’t heard back from you all week,” he said.
“You weren’t worried,” I said. “You couldn’t stand being ignored, so you resorted to stalking me.” I passed an elderly man walking a dog, and felt self-conscious about what I’d said while in his earshot.
“That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it?” Dave said. “I needed to talk to you, Linda, and you weren’t answering my texts. I wondered if you were feeling weird about our trip to Denver.”
“You wanted to make sure I kept my mouth shut,” I said.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Well, I hope you’re happy, because now Karina knows everything.”
Dave was quiet for a moment. “You told her?”
“I had to. It was obvious something was going on.”
“Oh well. I suppose it was bound to happen.”
I climbed the crest of vegetation that rose up to the Great Highway. “I should never have put you on my vision board,” I said.
Dave groaned. “I don’t want to hear any more about the fucking vision boards. They’re total nonsense, like astrology or tarot cards. It’s always amazed me how many otherwise intelligent women buy into that crap.”
Not only was he insulting me; he was disparaging the fine women of the VBB. I felt an urge to wound him in return. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend,” I said.
He laughed. “Who said anything about that? I thought we were friends. It’s been nice to have someone to talk to.”
“We’re not friends,” I said. “I was using you for free flights, but it was more trouble than it was worth. Leave me alone or I’ll tell Christa everything.” I couldn’t believe I’d threatened him. I hung up, ashamed, before he could respond.
I mounted the same dune Karina and I had sat on last Sunday. The moon shimmered over the ocean, silvering the black waves. The sky was patched with clouds, and in the clear spots I saw stars and the signal lights of a plane, as though placed there just for me, a message of fortitude. I breathed deeply, reminding myself that better days lay ahead. I was about to take a flight with my best friend, the most intimate act two people could engage in. I watched the red and green lights blink through a clear patch before disappearing behind the clouds. I lay on my back in the scrub, waiting for another plane to appear, but minutes passed, and only the fixed stars remained.