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Seated all alone in her row, Mary grips the arm rests with all her strength. Her knuckles are entirely white. The same pretty Asian woman shows up with the drink cart. Assisting her is a tall, dark-haired man. Both are dressed in their handsome green, white, and red uniforms. Asian Flight Attendant’s hair is pinned up in back. Her makeup is flawless.
Why doesn’t the turbulence bother the flight attendants? Mary silently asks herself.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Asian Flight Attendant says. “Or two,” she giggles.
Mary finds herself smiling, despite the moderate turbulence.
“You can say that again,” she responds. “Do you think the bumpy ride will be over soon?”
“You can’t fight the weather, I’m afraid,” the flight attendant says with a smile. “Now, what would you like to drink?”
“Jameson,” Mary says. “Lots of it.”
“Good choice.” Asian Flight Attendant pulls two small, two-ounce bottles of the famous Irish whiskey from the cart top along with a plastic cup and sets it on top of a small napkin, places the bottles into Mary’s hand. “The second bottle is on the house,” she adds. “I assume no ice.”
“Straight, no chaser,” Mary says, setting the drinks down onto her tray.
While Asian Flight Attendant moves on to the next row, Mary opens the first bottle, quickly pours all two ounces into her cup and shoots it down in one quick swallow. She immediately experiences the medicinal effects of the liquor going to work on her nerves. By the time she finishes the second bottle, she won’t even mind the turbulence. Pouring the second bottle into her cup, she decides to take her time with this one. Sipping as opposed to chugging. After all, she has a valium inside her. She doesn’t want to enter into dangerous, toxic territory.
She stares up at the ‘Please Fasten Your Seat Belt’ sign. If it were turned off, she’d brave the walk to Sam’s seat and surprise him. Blame it on the liquor, but she has her courage back. However, the plane is still rocking and rolling. Strangely, the turbulence no longer bothers her. In fact, it feels kind of nice. Soothing. Drinking the remainder of her whiskey, she puts her seat back as far as it can go. She pulls down the window shade, then closes her eyes, and drifts off into never-never land like a tired baby inside her crib.
When she wakes, it’s dark. The lights in the cabin have been extinguished. The ‘Please Fasten Your Seat Belt’ sign has been turned off. She pulls her seat back into a semi-upright position.
“You were snoring,” says the voice of a man seated beside her.
Startled, Mary feels a sobering wave of ice water shoot down her spine.
“Excuse me?” she says, her mouth feeling and tasting as if it’s filled with cotton. “I didn’t know anyone was sitting—”
But before she can finish her sentence, the pleasant aroma of Polo cologne assaults her, and as her eyes adjust to an awakened state. She notices a worn black leather coat and the handsome man who’s wearing it.
“Sam,” she says. “When did you find me?”
“I don’t sleep on planes,” he says. “I take little walks, up and down the aisles. It’s sort of my job to be nosy.”
“Your job?”
“Sort of,” he says with a wink.
“Could you be any more cryptic, Mr. Here, There, and Everywhere?” she asks. Then, the back of her hand on her forehead. “Oh, my head. What I wouldn’t do for some aspirin.”
Reaching into his pocket, Sam pulls out a small, narrow travel-sized container of Advil and a two-ounce bottle of vodka.
“Anything?” he says.
“Oh my,” she says. “You’re a life saver.”
“That’s sort of my job, too.” He grins.
Opening the Advil bottle, he pours out three pills into the palm of her hand. She swallows the pills with what’s left of the water she’d brought with her onto the plane. Sam then uncaps the vodka and steals a sip.
“Madame?” he says, offering the vodka to her.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t make any sense to go back on the wagon at this point,” she says, taking hold of the bottle. “How much flight time do we have left anyway?”
Sam engages the video monitor on the seatback before him. He goes to the in-flight tracker.
“Five hours,” he says. “Give or take. We have a decent tailwind, so we’ll land in Rome on time.”
“You might have mentioned you were on my flight when we were back at the airport bar.” She offers a subtle wink of her eye.
“I like to remain the mystery man.”
“Must have something to do with your SEAL training. Where are we exactly anyway?”
“Past Iceland,” he says. “The point of no return.”
“The point of no return?”
She drinks a swig of vodka. It burns, but the burn feels sort of pleasant.
“It’s the point at which, in case of in-flight emergency, the pilots can’t turn around and go back home, since they wouldn’t have enough fuel to make it.” He smiles, pleasantly. “It doesn’t really apply in the modern age while crossing the Atlantic since we always have enough fuel to make it to one destination or another, even if we have to turn around. But it’s kind of a romantic notion, I think. Knowing you can’t go back from where you started, knowing you have no choice but to go forward, move ahead, or die.”
How comforting, she thinks.
She drinks more vodka. It’s doing its magic. The combination of whiskey, valium, and now vodka, along with the drinks she’d had at the bar earlier, and the dinner she certainly missed out on, are not only making her a little drunk, but she feels her heart throbbing for this strange man she hardly even knows. She can’t take her eyes off his round, scruffy face, his almond-shaped brown eyes, his salt and pepper hair, his thick lips, his black leather coat. She finds herself wanting to slip next to his chest and curl up beside his beating heart.
She hands him back the bottle.
“You get the last of it,” she says.
“Oh, good,” he says. “The one with all the spit in it.”
She does something then that is entirely out of character for her. She takes hold of his hand, squeezes it.
“I know another, much more fun way to swap spit,” she offers.
- Writer
