Chapter 16

Allegra shrieks, “ No! ”

Not the appropriate service language.

Ground School never covered this and Ground School was intense.

She extinguished real fires. She shouted, “ Brace, Brace, Brace! ” over and over, while imagining her workplace plummeting to the earth. She set up a life raft in a swimming pool while sprinklers poured heavy rain and fake lightning flashed overhead. She swam the length of a pool fully dressed, dragging the dead weight of Anders, who went full Method playing the role of an injured passenger, groaning and crying, and didn’t help her out by kicking even a little bit.

She can resuscitate, placate, and charm. She is word perfect on every drill, every procedure. She is ready and willing to save her passengers’ lives: even the whiny, grabby ones. She is not, however, prepared for a small child to projectile-vomit on her like she’s channeling the kid in The Exorcist. It’s the volume. The velocity. The epic revoltingness. It’s all over her skirt. It’s in her shoes. It’s seeping through her stockings. It’s between her toes.

The distraught mother has an expression of such horror you would think Allegra had been knifed by her child and is bleeding out in front of her, and that is the appropriate expression.

Now the mother is pulling wet wipes from somewhere on her person, like a magician producing a stream of colored scarves, and she is shoving them at Allegra. “Sorry. Sorry. Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not a problem.” Allegra tries not to retch as she dabs at her clothes, recalling that she did not bring a spare uniform today because she didn’t want to be bothered carrying her bigger bag. “It’s really not a problem.”

The lady is talking now to the elderly retired doctors, both thankfully still alive. They are nodding and smiling respectfully, seemingly unbothered by whatever she is saying. Perhaps their former professions and their ages mean they are not afraid to face their own mortality, or perhaps they can’t actually hear a word she’s saying and they’re just nodding along, pretending to hear.

She bends forward and tectonic plates shift in her back.

It’s my birthday, she thinks pathetically as her eyes fill with tears of pain and she attempts to smile at the glassy-eyed little girl now slumped back in her seat, with a relieved, stunned expression on her face and her thumb in her mouth.

“You okay, sweetie?” She deserves an Oscar for her caring tender tone.

“I’m so sorry,” says the kid’s mother again. “I was distracted by that awful lady.”

“Please don’t worry,” says Allegra. “It happens.” Her decision to remain childless is now set in stone.

The lady progresses down the plane as steadily and efficiently as a conscientious crew member distributing snacks.