I turned to face a crisp white dress shirt, stretched over the fit chest of an exceptionally tall, exceptionally attractive black man. He was behind me in line, loading his plastic bin with a heavy platinum watch, a black eel-skin wallet and a carefully folded suit bag. Though dressed like a casual businessman, he had an easy smile that made him look more like a movie star.
“How do you know where I’m going?” I asked. I dropped my S.E.C.R.E.T. bracelet in my bin with a clang. I had thought of leaving it behind, but now that I had a couple of charms dangling off it, I enjoyed wearing it.
“I guessed.” He had a British accent, Cockney maybe. “Actually, it’s on your ticket. And it’s the first flight out this morning.”
If the gods were truly on my side, they’d give me this man to lean on during turbulence.
“Is that where you’re going too?” I asked, and yes, eyelashes were batted.
Before he could answer, a brusque security officer motioned me through the full-body X-ray. I stepped into the chamber, threw my hands in the air and spun, and then was reunited with my belongings. By the time I turned around to continue my conversation, the man was being ushered ahead of everyone in line, flanked by two men in uniform. He must have been someone important. He was definitely well dressed. Being in the fashion business, I noticed good buttons and well-chosen cufflinks and how a shirt that’s been properly tailored hangs spectacularly down a man’s V-shaped back as he walks away from you—turning back once, as this one did, to glance at you over his shoulder.
From the moment I sat down in my aisle seat in First Class, the cool blond flight attendant seemed specifically assigned to me.
“I’m Eileen. We were told this was your first time,” she said. “You let me know how I can make this less stressful for you.”
She brought me a hot towel, a small footrest and a stack of celebrity magazines, each time placing a reassuring hand on my forearm. During the taxi, she addressed her safety demonstration directly to me. And when the plane sucked me back into the seat on takeoff, a most shocking and intoxicating feeling, Eileen winked at me from her saddle seat. I almost burst into tears at her kindness, let alone at the thoughtfulness of Matilda to let them know of my first-timer status. Still, it wasn’t until we leveled off that I loosened the grip on my armrests, my fingers numb from clasping so tightly.
The seat-belt light went off, but I had no interest in unbuckling. In fact, my plan was to pass on every beverage, lest I had to pee while flying thirty thousand feet over Peru. I decided if I sat very, very still, I could get through this ordeal, a few hundred miles a minute, never leaving my seat, never looking out the window, even though the seat beside me was empty.
An hour and a half into the flight, we were all still alive, and I began to move my legs a little, tilting my seat back to settle in for the night flight. People began to close their windows, and Eileen dimmed the cabin lights before passing out extra blankets. When she kneeled in front of me, I thought for a moment that she was literally going to tuck me in. Instead, she deposited a folded blanket on my lap and leaned in to whisper, “Miss Mason, the captain would be happy to honor your request to visit the cockpit while the plane’s on autopilot.”
I burst out laughing. Never had anyone so seriously mistaken me for someone else.
“Oh, I didn’t ask for any such thing. I would never—”
Before I could finish my sentence, Eileen gently removed an envelope from the folds of my blanket and left it on my lap. “I’m sure we’re not mistaken,” she said, eyeing me steadily. “I’ll return in a few minutes to escort you.”
The envelope was unmarked, but I recognized the paper’s creamy color. My heart started to race. Was I facing Step Three at thirty-five-thousand feet in the air? My hand was shaky as I ripped open the envelope. Sure enough, Step Three scrolled on one side of the heavy card stock and just one simple word was on the other: Trust. But who was doing the trusting—me, or every one of the passengers on this plane who wouldn’t care to know how I was about to distract the pilot? I slipped the Step card into my purse and shook out a half-dozen Tic Tacs, which I barely had time to finish before the flight attendant returned.
“Are you ready, Miss Mason?”
I swallowed the remaining candy shards. “Um. Yes. I think so,” I said, trying to disguise the terror in my voice.
“An old friend of mine once said that a fear uncovered is no longer a fear. It’s an opportunity for a decision. Once you see how a plane operates, once you get an intimate look at all the buttons and levers, you can decide to end your fear of flying. Captain Nathan will be all too happy to help you.”
She was quoting Matilda! Eileen was one of us. She gave me her hand, and practically had to pull me to my feet because my legs were rigid with terror.
“There. See? That wasn’t so bad.”
We made it down the short aisle. Standing in front of the cockpit door, she gave three quick knocks. A second later, a sandy-haired young man with thick glasses and a space between his front teeth poked his head out. Oh dear. I hated to admit that my shallow Southern heart sank, though I politely pulled my grin a little wider, reminding myself what the C in S.E.C.R.E.T. stood for. If my fantasy man wasn’t … compelling, I didn’t have to go through with the fantasy.
“Is this our lovely visitor?” he asked with a lisp. Oh dear.
“Yes,” the flight attendant said. “Miss Dauphine Mason, this is our multitalented First Officer Friar. Miss Mason is kee
n to see what goes on in here. It might help her with her fear of flying.”
“Ah, yes. Dispel the mystery and the fear disperses. That’s Captain Nathan’s specialty. He can show you around while I stretch my legs. Three’s a crowd in here! Good luck!”
After enunciating all those s’s, First Officer Friar made a beeline to the back of the plane. Out the window in front was a dark sky; below, nothing but black water. The high whine of the engines masked the screams in my own head as my legs now turned to cement. Eileen nudged me through the narrow doorway.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” she said, looking at her watch. “Enjoy your flying lesson.”
She shut the door behind her.
The pilot sat silhouetted in the window. The only thing I could see above the seat was the back of his head. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, only his white shirt, the muscles on his arms apparent beneath his sleeves as he flicked a number of switches from left to right on a panel in front of him. Thankfully, the white noise drowned out my pounding heart.
“Be with you in a moment, Dauphine. I just want to make sure autopilot’s running smoothly. A robot takes over for most of the flight from now on. A very smart one.”