One
THE LIST
Pre-flight
Don’t mock Ghost Baby
Hot chocolate
“Hey, Ghost Baby.”
“Dammit, Cap Capp!”
Nuts. Need a new list already. Ava tried to pretend the thought of coming up with a new list so early in the day made her sad. “C’mon, Graham,” she said as he fell into step beside her. “It all worked out fine. Nobody died. Nobody was even inconvenienced.”
“Oh, like it was my fault that idiot thought babies needed to be stowed with laptops,” G.B. (known by Graham Benjin until last August, now forever known as Ghost Baby) retorted.
“You’re doing that thing where you respond to a point I didn’t make. And maybe don’t refer to our customers as idiots? Also, lighten up. It was her first flight.” Ava chuckled into her hot chocolate. “Why wouldn’t she think a small snug dark cave above her seat was the perfect place to stow her dozing infant?”
G.B. muttered something under his breath, hands stuffed in his pockets to the wrist. He was a tall, dark-skinned man in wonderful shape who bore more than a passing resemblance to the actor Terry Crews (except with hair). He got jittery and snappish before every flight, which was tolerated as he magically transformed into an efficient and unflappable crew chief once he boarded. (Except when he thought the flight was haunted by a baby ghost. But even then, it had to be said, he kept his cool.)
“You’re just upset because it took you so long to find the poor thing.” This was tactful in the extreme, because when G.B. couldn’t immediately find the baby, he had wondered aloud if he was hearing a ghost and pondered the pros and cons of an in-flight de-haunting.
(“Not an exorcism?” Ava had asked, amused.
“In flight? Ridiculous. Too many variables and we’re fresh out of Bibles.”)
“There are so many things that upset me about that flight. I don’t have the time and you don’t have the patience for me to go into any of it.”
“Sounds about right,” she agreed. “I assume we’re doing a Sorkin walk-and-talk to pre-flight because you’re running my flight crew?”
“Yeah. A bunch of us lost the coin toss.”
“You’re full of shit. I’m a great captain and you love flying with me.”
“First, low bar. Second, love is an exaggeration. Third…” G.B. had slowed, then opened the door to the crew room for her. “Why are you in such a good mood? Is this my cue to make inappropriate guesses about your sex life?”
“Better not.”
“Aw, c’mon, roomie. Spill.”
“I let you camp on my couch for two weeks and that was months ago!” she protested. “That doesn’t mean we’re roommates.”
“And after the Easter thing last year.”
“Well.”
“And we’ve shared hotel rooms too many times to count.”
“Three, G.B. We’ve shared rooms three times, and the fact that you can’t count that high is deeply troubling to me as your captain and your…”
He raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“… occasional roommate.” She sighed, giving in.
“Ha! Also, after you.”
She swept inside and tossed her now-empty cup of hot chocolate into the garbage. “Morning.”
A chorus of “Good morning!” and “Hi, Captain Capp!” greeted her. Her senior first officer, India James, was printing off the flight plan and waved. “Weather looks good, Cap.”
“I love when the weather looks good.” She parked her carry-on to the left of the table and dropped her purse on the chair. “How’s your newest?”
“Fat,” India replied with satisfaction. He was a brown-eyed blond who hailed from Chicago, almost exactly her height at five feet, ten inches and—pardon the cliché—skinny as a rail. In fact, by comparison rails looked a little thick. “Ninety-fifth percentile.”
“Excellent.” India’s new daughter had been born five weeks premature. He and his wife were taking great pride in the infant’s journey from scrawny wrinkled preemie to cheerful blond butterball.
“Do you tell her she should enjoy the fact that it’s only acceptable to be fat until you hit first grade?”
“No, G.B.,” India replied patiently. “I talk to her about the stock market and how I think the economy is going to rebound.”
“Weird.” Then, to Ava: “Cap, this is Becka Miller, who lost a bet with God and must now fly with Northeastern Southwest—”
“We fly everywhere!” everyone else sang, which was terrific.
“It wasn’t a bet with God,” said the team’s newest flight attendant, a redhead whose hair was so vibrant, it was hard to look her in the eyes. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a teenager. It’s very nice to meet you, Captain Capp.” Becka said this with more intensity than Ava was used to, but she shrugged it off—some people were nervous around captains.
“Back atcha. Don’t mind G.B. He’s exhausting but skilled, so it all works out. Eventually. Probably. Look, nobody wants to do all the paperwork necessary to fire him, so we’re all just dealing.”
“Had to ruin it. Had to tack something on at the end. Just couldn’t help yourself.”
“Nope. Couldn’t.” As she turned away to consult with India, she heard Becka hiss to G.B. “She’s the one who did the belly landing!”
“Hey, I was there, too. I was integral—I had the booze cart.”
“Um, I also heard … I mean, is she the one whose friend got m—”
“Yeah,” he muttered in reply. “But time and place, okay?”
Yes, I’m the one whose friend got m—, Ava thought. Also, why do people think whispering works when I’m only three feet away?
“How about we get started?” One of the nicer things about making captain is that it may have sounded like a request, but everyone in the room understood it wasn’t. “India, you want to take us through the briefing? G.B.?”
“Got it,” G.B. replied, then shooed Becka toward the cabin crew as they filed into their own briefing room. “See you on deck.”
“Will do. So then.” She settled in with a fresh cup of tea. “Where are we going today?”
“If you don’t know, we’re all fucked.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Flight DeckMcCarron International Airport
“Another day in the relatively friendly skies. Not to jinx us.”
“No, don’t do that,” Ava replied, mildly alarmed. “Though it might be too late. Thinking the j word almost always brings on the j word.”
India was finishing entering the specs needed to calculate takeoff speed—weather, runway conditions, weight of bags, fuel, angst, existential crises, etcetera—when Ava heard a bubbling laugh and made the mistake of looking for the source. For the thousandth time, she saw someone who could have been Danielle if she’d survived. Same glossy black hair. Same freckles, dark eyes, infectious giggle. She was one of the last ones on, holding up the boarding to flirt with G.B., who was loving it while politely urging her toward her seat.
She’d be twenty-eight this year.
Irrelevant.
And Dennis would be, too.
Also irrelevant. And speaking of irrelevancies, was that Dennis behind the doppelganger of his dead twin?
Why, yes. Yes it was.
“Excuse me,” she said, rising, and then stepped out of the cockpit. “Dennis?”
He turned at once and his eyes widened. “Ava! Wow! You—” He cut himself off and looked her up and down. “You look great! Captain. You look great, Captain … uh … Capp. Huh.”
“Believe me, colleagues have pointed out the alliteration,” she said dryly. Shake his hand? Hug? What’s the etiquette for running into your secret crush ten years after his sister’s murder?
Ah, she thought as he bent toward her. The A hug. Arms around shoulders, pelvises at least a foot apart, butts sticking out just a bit. Completely awkward and joyless. So, perfect.
“It’s great to see you,” she said, pulling back from their sterile hug. “But time’s not on your side, cutie.”
“Rude.” Oof, that grin. It made Tom Cruise’s look like Donald Trump’s. “Pretty sure it’s not on anyone’s side.”
“So follow your friend’s example”—she nodded at the woman who had preceded him on the plane—“and plant your butt in your seat.”
“That’s my cousin, Xenia. But aye-aye, Cap Capp. Consider my butt planted,” he replied, and then—
Copyright © 2020 by MaryJanice Alongi
