For heart-stoppingly long seconds he held her stare, and then without another word, he moved past her and disappeared into the crowd.
Carnage.
*
Wasn't it true that once a downed aeroplane began burning, you had ninety seconds max to get out, or you burned with it?
Abbey was sure she'd read that somewhere.
‘You’re looking a little pale there, Abs,’ said Milo Stanton as he dropped into the next seat and fiddled with the table in front. ‘This that whole technology thing again? Let me tell you, planes do not drop out of the sky anymore. It’s like one in a bah-zillion flights or something goes down.’
Abbey wedged the picture of her husband into the corner of the locked table, wishing she'd brought some miniatures on board. ‘Jesus, don’t start with the statistics before we're even off the ground!'
‘Just trying to make you feel better. For me, all I have to do is picture that lovely, gleaming, shiny, sparkly new BMW and guess what…’
She raised her eyebrows.
‘It puts a grin right on my face!’
‘Well instead of daydreaming about flash cars why don’t you get your laptop out and go through the proposals? You can kiss the BMW goodbye if we don’t nail this one.’
‘I can’t 'til we’re in the air, that burly homosexual steward will kick off at me.’
‘How do you know he’s gay?’
‘Like I know my cousin is gay,’ he revealed. ‘I just know.’
‘And there was me challenging your sexual integrity.’
‘Nothing wrong with me, girl!’ Milo said defensively. ‘I'm all man.’
She smirked. ‘Relax, Milo, I was being facetious.’
‘Face-what-ious!’ he grumbled. ‘You know I don’t like it when you do that.’
‘Do what?’
‘Use big words. Why do you think I’m trying to extend my vocab?’
‘I know you can’t backchat when you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.’
‘Touché,’ he ceded. ‘Nevertheless, I do have the uncanny ability to talk my way around long words.’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yeah, that is so, Miss Fetus.’
‘Facetious.’
‘Whatever.’
As Milo began to get settled in, she spotted blue-eyed James stowing his bag several rows in front. He caught her looking and waved. Never had she clammed up so badly in front of a man before, not even Edward, her husband. But then she didn’t think she’d ever met a man quite so good looking. Edward was handsome in a rugged, Gerard Butler kind of way.
She went for rugged. Rugged did it for her.
James, though, he was beautiful. It turned out beautiful did it for her too. Was she horny, she wondered? It had turned into a kind of ritual between her and Edward to wash away the weeks of frustration within minutes of her being home. Sadly, home was six thousand miles away.
Slowly the plane began to move along the tarmac as the final few passengers took their seats. For several minutes they taxied, waiting for their turn to take off. Milo had his eyes closed now, headphones plugged into his ears. He looked downright calm.
The plane lurched to a stop. She gripped the armrests tightly. Milo was looking at her now, and she couldn’t tell if he was amused by her fear or concerned. The stewardess who gave the safety demo did a final check on seatbelts. Abbey’s was fastened; she’d checked it religiously since snapping it closed.
Reaching the end of the aisle, the stewardess took a seat and buckled herself in.
Milo leaned over. ‘You ready?’
The Rolls Royce twin engines kicked in and the plane rocketed forwards, tearing down the runway. Teeth grinding, Abbey locked her eyes onto the picture of Edward and his reassuring smile. His confidence that always made her feel safe.
Shaking and vibrating, the plane left the tarmac and soared up into the sky as though it was light as a feather, rather than the thousands of tons of steel and moving parts it actually was. The rumbling grew more dramatic for intolerably long seconds before finally,
Finally…
the plane leveled out. Minutes later, the seatbelt sign vanished.
‘You can loosen up on those armrests now, Abs,’ suggested Milo. ‘Wasn’t so bad, was it?’
She exhaled loudly. ‘Speak for yourself.’
Unsnapping the belt, Milo went back to his iPhone. ‘Good thing I brought this.’
‘Your third arm?’
‘This flight is going to put it to the test. Can Apple entertain me for sixteen hours?’
She closed her eyes. ‘What about the in-flight movies?’
‘What about them?’
‘See if there’s something good showing,’ she suggested.
He began prodding the screen in front. ‘It’s usually a bunch of chick-flicks on these things. I’ve seen Moulin Rouge six times since we left Heathrow.’
‘Well, you could always do what I’m going to do.’
‘Yeah, what’s that?’
‘Sleep.’
‘Since when have I been able to sleep on public transport, woman?’
‘Well then, the proposals it is!’
‘Nah,’ he replied. ‘We’ve already got it sealed tight. Nothing can go wrong.’
‘I can think of one thing.’
She knew Milo was looking at her. ‘Is this where you tell me to shut up so you can sleep?’
Abbey closed her eyes.
‘Point taken.’
‘Good,’ she smirked. ‘Shut your trap and watch Moulin Rouge.’
‘Fine, if it’s like that, I’ll just put my earphones back in and watch…’ he fiddled with the panel again. ‘…Casper, the Friendly Ghost.’
Abbey’s smirk evolved into a giggle. That was funny.
‘No no,’ he said, ‘don’t feel guilty. Me and Casper are going to be just fine.’
‘I don’t feel guilty.’
‘I don’t want you to.’
‘I don’t.’
Finally, Milo quieted down and went back to his headphones.
She suddenly realised how tired she was. So far they’d spent three days in Riviera Maya in Mexico, three in Brasilia, and almost a week in Durban. After Auckland they were home dry. No more proposals, no more hotel rooms with broken air-conditioning. No more flying.
She sat back and
