Chapter 76

Allegra is running along a boardwalk in Portugal at sunset, a gentle breeze in her hair.

A handsome African American man runs in front of her, turning often to grin back at her and offer advice and encouragement. His name is Jay. He reminds her to keep her elbows at ninety-degree angles and to enjoy the incredible views.

“I feel like I’m dying, Jay,” puffs Allegra.

“You’re doing awesome,” says Jay. “You’re crushing it!”

She is not really in Portugal at sunset, she is on a treadmill in her parents’ garage in North Ryde, Sydney, Australia, and Jay is her virtual trainer on the monitor, while a fan blows a fake sea breeze in her face. She’s on week two of a Basics of Running series. Jay says they’re going on a “fitness journey.”

“You feel the endorphins yet?” Her dad pops his head around the door separating the garage from the house. This is his third time checking on her. “How is Jay today? I love Jay! Where are you?”

“Go away, Dad!”

“Sorry, sorry!” He lifts up his hands. “Keep it up! Your form is good!” He puts his own elbows at ninety-degree angles.

Her dad is thrilled someone else is using his precious treadmill. The first time she came over to try it out he stood next to her the whole time, watching her run, offering an endless stream of enthusiastic commentary: “Feel how the incline is going up! As if you are running up a hill! Now the speed is increasing, see, you have to run faster! Careful!”

He wants to tell her all about his favorite trainers and the spectacular places he has run around the world. Maybe they can train for a half-marathon together!

“Whoa back, Dad,” said Allegra, while her mother laughed and said she had never seen a drop of sweat on her daughter’s forehead before, which is not an exaggeration. Allegra has never been into fitness or sports. She doesn’t enjoy getting out of breath, has never crossed the threshold of a gym, and has always believed working as a flight attendant gives her all the exercise she needs. She’s on her feet for hours at a time.

She had told her parents a doctor had suggested running for her back. He said it was great for those with a “structurally normal spine,” like Allegra, who need to “improve their core.”

This is true but Allegra isn’t really interested in improving her core; her back is fine now. The reason for her new interest in exercise is her new interest in her mental health, which up until now she always believed to also be “structurally normal” but which she now fears could at any moment catastrophically fail her, just like her back did on that flight.

Anders sent her the shocking video of the poor Tasmanian girl in the car accident and the link to the story about the elderly doctors. He’s obsessed with the psychic and has been sending Allegra daily messages. RUOK? SERIOUSLY, RU?? DO NOT SELF-HARM TODAY! YOU ARE LOVED, DEAR HEART.

Her parents, who inhabit different algorithms, have not seen the car accident video or the article, and of course Allegra has not told them about the deaths. She deeply regrets revealing the prediction to her mother in the first place.

Surely, she keeps telling herself, her particular prediction is easy to avoid: she simply will not self-harm. Every day that goes by is another day where she has refused to allow the lady’s prediction to come true, and it’s not like it’s difficult to resist the temptation to hurt herself. She has never felt a desire to self-harm. There were kids at school who cut themselves and it always baffled her. Why would anyone deliberately choose pain?

She does not have depression. She is fine with her life. It’s a good life. She likes her job. Her apartment. Her friends. Her mood has always been steady. She is calm in a crisis, she handles conflict well. She’s snippy before her period, grumpy if she’s slept poorly, but she rarely, if ever, feels melancholy.

She has always felt herself to be an almost boringly well-balanced person, like a solid little tugboat, able to right itself no matter how choppy the waters.

The last time she can remember feeling properly sad was when her ex-boyfriend broke up with her three years ago. He did it in a restaurant. She had not seen it coming. It was bizarre because there was no winding down of the relationship. It was as though he thought you were legally required to continue behaving as a loving, committed boyfriend—holding her hand as they walked from the car to the restaurant, talking about their plans for the weekend—until the very last moment. Then: BANG. Did he think the element of surprise was crucial for the most effective outcome? They had just placed their orders. They had agreed to share the seafood special. Another woman might have walked out, but she, the boring tugboat, did not make a fuss. She did not cry at the table. She had too much pride. She even ate some of the seafood. She thinks she might have a permanent seafood allergy as a result.

She had been devastated, but she did not miss a day of work and she got over it. She did not suffer from depression. She is not susceptible.

Now it’s possible, although certainly not confirmed, that she has anew boyfriend. First Officer Jonathan Summers seems intent on seducing her even though it’s not necessary—the job’s done, Jonny—but the excellent lattice-topped pie was just the beginning. He is asking her on walks, to the movies, to dinner, and it’s charming, it’s almost irresistible, but she is holding back, keeping a piece of herself in reserve, just like a Bachelor contestant who refuses to give her whole heart, and will therefore not receive a rose, because everyone knows you’ve got to lay it all on the line and humiliate yourself on prime-time television if you want to be the last woman standing on a reality-TV dating show.

Now that she thinks about it, Jonny Summers is exactly the sort of bachelor producers would love to cast. Allegra watches The Bachelor tofeel superior. If she was watching herself she’d be yelling at the television: “Refuse that guy’s damned rose! Reject him before he rejects you!”

One morning she woke with a clear thought: “the Death Lady” has foreseen that Jonny is going through all this nonsense as part of a strangely elaborate plan to break Allegra’s heart, and this time she will spiral into a depression serious enough to lead her to self-harm.

The next day she woke with another thought: a far more significant tragedy lurks in her future than a breakup. For example, she will be in a car accident with her parents and brother and she will be the only survivor. The subsequent grief will be unbearable. She thinks she’s a tugboat only because life has never tested her.

She looks over at her parents’ car, parked alongside the treadmill, a silver Volvo, bought ten years ago when both Taj and Allegra still lived at home. Naturally her mother did a ceremony to bless and protect the precious new car but they were running late for a family event and Allegra’s dad lost his mind as Taj took forever to smash the coconut on the garage floor (he had a new technique he wanted to try out) and they sprinkled coconut water on all four tires while reciting a special travel safety mantra, put lemons under each tire, and then Allegra’s mother lit a diya and waved incense inside the car, while her dad sat at the steering wheel, nostrils twitching, waving his hands, spluttering, “Prisha, enough, it’s getting in the upholstery !” Allegra or Taj only have to say to each other, “Prisha, enough!” to have them both rolling about laughing.

In addition to her mother’s blessing, her dad, besides being a careful driver, is meticulous about having the car serviced every six months. So, all bases covered, spiritual and earthly.

There will be no car accident and there will be no depression.

A couple of weeks ago, Allegra typed into her search bar: How to prevent depression even as she guessed all the answers that would appear. Regular exercise. Spend time with family and friends. Get outside. Avoid alcohol and drugs. Gratitude.

There is no sure way to prevent depression, the website warned, but Allegra still went ahead and made her own personal Stay Happy This Year plan as per the suggestion of some online psychologist. Why not? She might as well take control of her future happiness. Keep her mood stable. She has never been a huge drinker, but she is drinking even less. She runs on her dad’s treadmill twice a week and catches up with her parents at the same time. Occasionally she remembers to look at a tree and think, Nice.

“Next interval coming up, we’re increasing our speed for just thirty seconds,” warns Jay as the treadmill picks up the pace and Allegra’s legs are forced to run faster. There is always a moment of panic as her brain catches up with the rest of her body: Why are we running so fast? What’s the emergency? But then she settles into it.

Did her grandmother need a treadmill? It’s impossible to imagine Allegra’s dignified grandmother on a treadmill, but could that have saved her? She never seemed sad at all! Was she hiding her true feelings, or did the sadness creep up behind her one day like a monster and wrap her in its malevolent arms?

Allegra’s phone, on the treadmill console, rings and flashes the name: Trina Tanaka.

Trina is her crew manager. Allegra doesn’t know her well, but the little interaction they’ve had has been pleasant and professional. Trina is responsible for a team of more than fifty crew members and Allegraonly occasionally sees her face-to-face. It’s one of the things Allegra appreciates about not being in a corporate environment: there is no possibility of a terrible boss having a daily impact on her life.

Allegra tugs the safety key free to stop the treadmill and grabs the phone.

“How are you, Trina?” she gasps.

As soon as she speaks, she realizes she should have let the call go to voicemail. For one thing, she needs to catch her breath, and more important, she knows why Trina is calling. Allegra should have called Trina first, got ahead of this situation as soon as the stories began appearing on the internet.

“Hi, Allegra. Listen, you were cabin manager on a Hobart-Sydney flight back in April where a passenger supposedly made predictions…about deaths of passengers, correct?” says Trina. “I assume you know what I’m talking about. The media is picking up on it. We’re getting calls.”

“Yes.” Allegra steadies her breathing. Come on, Miss Supposedly So Calm in a Crisis. “Sorry. I was on the treadmill.”

“That’s okay, take your time.”

Something about the tone and the words “take your time” reminds Allegra of a detective interviewing a suspect.

“It really didn’t seem that big a deal.” Allegra hears herself sounding defensive.

“Please just take me through it, Allegra.”

Allegra blinks away a droplet of sweat that has run into her eye as she reads the error message on the treadmill monitor: Uh-oh, looks like your treadmill has stopped.

Uh-oh indeed.