Chapter 8

The cabin manager, Allegra Patel, is in the lavatory when the call buttons first commence their peevish melody. So that’s Murphy’s Law. Or Allegra’s Law, more like it. Her period has turned up a week early, and she is rummaging through her bag for a tampon and each time she thinks she has found one it turns out to be the same tube of lip balm, which is making her laugh softly and kind of demonically.

Today is her twenty-eighth birthday and she hadn’t been expecting champagne and rainbows, but she had assumed it would be a pleasantly neutral Friday, not one of those days where everything consistently goes just a tiny bit wrong, where that scratchy sandpapery feeling starts to build up behind your eyes.

“Give me a break,” she mutters as she feels the first cruel clench of a cramp. Her cramps are always worse when she flies.

She digs farther into the corner crevices of her bag.

Euphoric relief: one solitary, beautiful tampon. Thank you, universe.

She’d been pleased when she got the roster for her birthday: Sydney-Hobart, Hobart-Sydney. Home in time for dinner with her parents and brother. She likes this leg. The flight length is not too long but also not so short that you’re rushed off your feet trying to get everything done. It had been a bonus when her friend Anders, who she’s known since they trained together, was rostered on the same crew. He arrived at the preflight briefing with doughnuts and a metallic heart-shaped helium balloon.

Sadly, it was all downhill from there.

“Not these two tossers together, ” moaned Anders, when their two pilots swaggered into the crew room like movie stars. “There won’t be enough room for their inflated egos in the cockpit.”

Captain Victor “Vic” Levine addressed them with his usual brusque brevity. Unremarkable weather. Full flights. He’s not rude. He just doesn’t fully register anyone’s existence unless they’re a fellow pilot. To him, all cabin crew members are interchangeable. They’re not quite real to him. They’re like holograms.

“Birthday, eh?” said First Officer Jonathan “Jonny” Summers, instead of saying, “Happy birthday, Allegra,” like an actual human. He accepted a doughnut, took a minuscule bite, scrunched up his offensively handsome face as if he’d eaten a lemon, and then dropped it in the garbage can in full view of everyone.

“I’ll never love anyone as much as I hate that guy,” Anders had whispered in Allegra’s ear. He was especially distressed by the disrespectful treatment of the doughnut because he’s currently undergoing an aggressive intermittent fasting regimen. He has a wedding next weekend where he’ll come face-to-face with an ex he hasn’t seen in five years. Allegra will be glad when this wedding is finally done.

The other two members of Allegra’s crew today are fine: just mildly exasperating.

Kim is a placid, padded woman who has been with the airline since the eighties and ambles about the cabin as if she’s hosting a backyard barbecue, leaning one elbow on the back of seats for long chummy chats with passengers. A quick service is a good service, but it’s never going to be a quick service if you’ve got Kim on the other side of your cart. Ellie is at the opposite end of the spectrum, young and fizzy. She’s only just got her wings, so is brimming with new knowledge, eager to impress and do every PA announcement.

On the first leg Ellie informed Allegra that Anders had taken a bag of pretzels from the food cart, which Ellie understood was “technically stealing.” Why are new flight attendants always such snitches?

“I was feeling faint!” said Anders, who was more ashamed that he’d broken his fast with half a pretzel than that he’d broken the rules.

“Eat the rest of them, you look like a corpse!” Allegra hissed, wondering if his stupid diet was turning into an actual safety issue she needed to address.

And then: the delay.

It would have been polite for the flight deck to keep her in the loop, seeing as she was the one responsible for keeping control of an increasingly agitated cabin, but she heard nothing for ages, while the baby screamed like a broken car alarm and tempers simmered, bubbled, and boiled over.

The reason was finally revealed to be a broken seat belt in the cockpit. They had to wait for someone to fly in from Sydney because Hobart has no engineer on-site. If the passengers had learned that, they would have been offering to fix it themselves. No doubt the square-jawed guy Anders dubbed “Superhero” could have fixed it with his eyes closed.

“He’ll trek through the mountains to save us before we turn to cannibalism,” he’d whispered as they both watched the guy march down the aisle. Allegra elbowed Anders. He didn’t actually use the words “plane crash,” but he sure did imply them.

Allegra could have fixed the belt. She’s handy. Sadly, that’s not the way safety protocols work. She was once on a flight where they had to wait an hour for an engineer to fix a broken overhead bin, which he did with a strip of masking tape. Took him three seconds, tearing it off with his teeth while asking her out for a drink.

She washes her hands and studies her face in the mirror, then gets that disconcerting but not unpleasant out-of-body feeling she’s been experiencing since she was seven. She would look at herself in the bathroom mirror and float free of her body for a few seconds. “I left my body!” she told her mother. “Did you, beta?” said her mother. “That’s nice.”

“Do you know how insanely beautiful you are?” said the most recent man with whom she’d had sex (two weeks ago now, and never again, absolutely not, done with that) as he ran a fingertip back and forth across her collarbone.

“You’re done with him, Allegra,” she whispers to her reflection. “ Done. ”

He’s like a junk food addiction: delicious at first, then regrettable.

Insanely beautiful.

I mean, that’s a nice compliment.

Nope. Stop it.

People comment on her beauty often enough that it would be disingenuous not to believe she’s attractive, but high school burns forever. Only tall, skinny blond girls were considered beautiful back then, the girls who, ironically, came back from summer holidays with tans that were exclaimed over and complimented, tans that made their skin nearly as dark as Allegra’s, but her brown was not the right brown. Even Allegra’s own mother would say, “Don’t go out in the sun, Allegra, you’ll get too dark.” Her mum wouldn’t say that now. She’s evolved, like everyone.

She thinks of Sara Perkins in Year 8, saying, “Imagine how beautiful Allegra would be if she wasn’t, you know…” Meaningful jerk of her head. She said this in front of Allegra. She thought it was a compliment, or at least not an insult. Allegra wonders if Sara Perkins ever wakes up in a cold sweat thinking, “Oh, God, did I really say that?” You really did, Sara Perkins, you really did.

Allegra finds Panadol in her bag, palms two tablets into her mouth, swallows them without water (life skill), and reapplies her lipstick. She only wears makeup at work. She is “required” to wear a “minimum” of foundation, eye shadow, and lipstick. Male flight attendants like Anders must only be clean-shaven with their hair cut above the collar, which is ironic because Anders taught Allegra everything she knows about makeup. He gave tutorials when they trained together in Melbourne. Allegra laughs each time she remembers him, makeup brush poised, shaking his head sorrowfully and saying, “I can’t believe you girls don’t know how to contour.”

She will never forget the pure exhilaration she felt the day she got her wings. Her dream job. Not her mother’s dream job for her. She’d always wanted Allegra to be a dentist, a strangely specific career choice, seemingly based only on Allegra’s excellent toothbrushing as a child. Allegra’s dad is happy for her—he loves the perk of free standby flights for family members. Thankfully, her brother got the medical degree, so they can show off about Taj to the grandparents, while Allegra makes them seem “interesting.” She was flying the day after she completed Ground School. Walking through the airport that first morning she’d felt glamorous and alive. All these years later she still feels lucky and secretly sorry for her friends in nine-to-five office jobs. No one expects them to have interesting anecdotes about their work (and they sure don’t), but people love to hear about Allegra’s work as a flight attendant.

People always want to know if she’s had the oxygen masks drop, and Allegra enjoys telling them about the one time she was working when they lost cabin pressure and the masks dropped, and she saw the horrified realization hit her passengers that maybe they should have listened during all the safety demonstrations they’d been ignoring. She also once had a pregnant woman’s water break. Who knew there was that much amniotic fluid sloshing around in every “baby bump”?! Allegra had carefully studied the obstetrician’s letter that today’s hugely pregnant passenger handed over as she boarded. “I’m only twenty-five weeks,” the woman sighed, “I just look gigantic.”

Kim once had two passengers get into a brawl over the reclining of a seat—fists flying, yelling, police, viral video—but Anders trumps them all because he had a passenger die last year. It might even have been on this same leg. The man’s poor wife was sitting right next to him. Thought he was napping. Anders said the man was old, but not, you know, Dumbledore old. Allegra has been keeping a careful eye on the ancient couple on this flight. They’re retired doctors, don’t require wheelchairs, their only walking aids are walking sticks, and they’re both wearing fancy Apple Watches, which is endearing. She wants them delivered to Sydney alive and well.

She straightens her back, smacks her lipsticked lips together, and watches her face in the mirror go into work mode: professional, polite, do not fuck with me.

Please, universe, don’t let these pinging call buttons mean a death or a brawl or a baby. I’m too crampy. Also, it’s fun telling horror work stories after the fact, not so much when they’re actually happening.

As soon as she leaves the lavatory, she checks the Flight Attendant Panel: a computerized screen showing her the exact location of the active call buttons. Three in the first two rows of economy. Another one pings as she watches. Something is going on. She knows Anders is packing up the back galley, but why isn’t eager-beaver Ellie dealing with these? As Ellie would well know, they’re meant to monitor the cabin and answer call buttons as fast as possible.

Kim is busy cosseting the business-class passengers with salted caramel chocolate balls and extravagant compliments about someone’s earrings.

“Anything I should know about?” Allegra asks her. The curtain is drawn, so they can’t see what’s going on in economy.

“What should I know about?” Kim is oblivious. Of course she is.

A passenger holds up a wineglass. “Kim, could I trouble you for a top-up?”

“No problem, Mrs. Lee!” Kim beams. “Back in a flash.”

Allegra grits her teeth, leaves business class to Kim. She pulls back the curtain and surveys the main cabin. She can’t immediately see anything untoward. People are up in the aisle as you would expect at this time: heading to the lavatory, opening overhead bins. There is, however, a subtle change in the atmosphere. Nothing dramatic, but something. A low hum of voices. Not agitated as such, but more conversation going on than you would normally expect.

Right. Start at the front with the chatty husband and wife who told Allegra all about their Tasmanian holiday in maybe a little more detail than she needed during the delay. She knows their names because they introduced themselves so enthusiastically, as if they expected they’d all be staying in touch after this day: Sue and Max O’Sullivan.

She smiles as she leans over to turn off Max’s call light. “What can I do for you, Mr. O’Sullivan?”

“There’s a lady we think might be upsetting people.” Sue answers on her husband’s behalf. She points backward over her shoulder, as though discreetly pointing out someone behind her at a party. “Not us! We’re not upset. We’re perfectly fine.”

“She’s predicting deaths,” explains Max.

“Deaths? She’s threatening people?” Allegra blanches.

“No, no, love, more like a clairvoyant, thinks she’s a fortune teller or whatever.” He twirls a finger next to his ear. “Harmless.”

Allegra’s view of the back of the plane is blocked by a passenger in a sequined caftan top who is attempting to push her bulging carry-on bag back into the overhead bin.

The well-dressed anxious man in the aisle seat next to Sue says, “She’s sitting across from me.” He indicates the empty seat across the aisle from him. Four-Delta.

“Okay.” Allegra tries to visualize the passenger. She switches off his call light too. “Thanks so much for letting me know.”

A man’s voice rises up from about three rows back. “ What did you just say to me?”

Allegra feels her heart rate pick up. You’ve got this, she tells herself. Kim handled a brawl; you can handle one wacky fortune teller.

“Excuse me,” she says to the caftan woman. “Could I get by?”

“Oh, sure, but could you help me here?” The woman dumps the bag back on the floor. Flight attendants are not technically meant tohelp passengers lift bags. You packed it, you stack it. But in practice, Allegra is always helping people.

“Wheels first is best,” says Allegra. She goes to lift the bag, assuming the woman will continue to bear some of the weight, but she releases her hands and stands back, watching with a frown, as though Allegra is a bellboy charged with the welfare of her precious bag: apparently packed with bricks.

Allegra, who changed into flats once they were in the air, is right on the airline’s minimum-height requirement. She feels like she might have shrunk since she first did that terrifying “reach test” at the Assessment Day. It was the very first hurdle two hundred hopeful applicants faced at the door of the auditorium. They had to take off their shoes and touch a strip of tape with their fingertips. “Reach for your dreams, honey!” Anders had said in Allegra’s ear, before she knew his name. Later he said he was worried she’d dislocated her shoulder.

“Ooof.” She feels a distinct twang in her lower back as she stretches on tippy-toes to wedge the bag into place.

“I think that might be over the weight limit for carry-on luggage, ma’am.” She slams shut the bin.

“Shoes,” replies the caftan lady. “Us girls need our shoes.”

“Check it next time,” says Allegra, with her most charming smile, while she imagines pushing her thumbs into the stupid entitled woman’s eye sockets the way she was taught in school self-defense classes.

The woman sits down, huffy rather than grateful. Allegra now has a clear view of the aisle.

A small gray-haired lady is midway down the plane, pointing at passengers on both sides of the aisle one by one, as if she’s assigning tasks. It’s clear she is leaving ripples of mild consternation in her wake. Virtually every single head turns to watch her progress.

Allegra walks rapidly down the aisle. Two more call buttons light up, but she doesn’t stop. The lady is maybe seven rows ahead, still pointing, still making pronouncements. Allegra is gaining ground. A man wearing a Hawaiian-style shirt shoots up his hand like a student with the right answer. “Miss?”

“I’ll be with you in just a moment, sir.” She keeps walking, but once again she’s suddenly blocked. This time it’s the astonishingly pregnant woman, feet sturdily planted apart like a cowboy walking into a bar, hands on holsters, except hers grip the seats on either side of her.

“Just discovered I won’t make forty, which is bad luck for me,” she tells Allegra without preamble, as if they’re old friends. The giant firm balloon of her belly pushes into Allegra’s hip. Allegra thinks queasily of the gallons of water sloshing around in there. “That lady seems to think she’s some kind of oracle.”

“Yes, I’m so sorry,” says Allegra, trying to see past her. “I’m trying to stop her.”

“It’s okay. I just laughed. Prefer that to the horror birth stories people think I need to hear.” The pregnant woman chuckles. “Or the ones who say, ‘No getting off that roller coaster now! Sleep while you still can! You look like you’re about to pop any minute!’?”

“You’re welcome to use the business-class toilet.” Allegra steps sideways and indicates the front of the plane.

“Oh, that’s okay, no special treatment required!” The woman taps her fingers against her belly like she’s playing an accordion.

Farther down the plane a woman calls out, “Jesus is the only true prophet, my dear!”

“Please.” Allegra wedges herself in front of someone’s knees to let the pregnant woman pass to the front of the plane unimpeded.

The owner of the knees takes this as an opportunity. “There’s a lady—”

“Yes.” Allegra doesn’t look at the passenger. “I know about the lady.”

Two more call buttons chime. A voice rises in consternation. The baby begins to cry again. Ellie and Anders are both still missing in action.

“Gosh.” The pregnant woman frowns. “I wonder if some people are taking her seriously.”

“Yep, I’m actually trying to—”

“Ah! You should have said!”

The pregnant woman shifts herself and her enormous belly out of the way and Allegra is once more walking down the aisle as fast as she dares without giving the impression that this is an actual emergency, although she’s starting to wonder if it might qualify.