“He sounds amazing.”
“He was. I mean, he is. I used to be jealous of the hospital and his patients. He spent a lot more time with them than he did with me. I knew my nannies better than I did my own father. And the sad part is, I didn’t really start to appreciate him until my early twenties, right before he got sick.”
“I can’t imagine what you must have gone through when he got his diagnosis. How’s your mom handling it?”
She narrows her eyes. “You don’t know about my mom?”
“No.”
“She died when I was two. Cancer. I don’t even remember her.”
“Oh, shit. I get it now.”
“What do you get exactly?”
“Your abandonment issues. First you were given up for adoption, then your mom dies. That’s rough.”
She motions for another drink. “Ya think?”
“I never knew my dad. He was basically a sperm donor.”
“Your mom went to a sperm bank?”
I laugh. “If only. No, my illustrious mother found some rando who resembled Gavin McBride and paid him to knock her up. Then she tried to pass me off as Gavin’s kid. They were married at the time, but he had filed for divorce and it was her last-ditch effort to hang on to him.”
“Oh my god.”
“Yeah.” I raise my glass. “So, cheers.”
“And you never wanted to meet him?”
“Meet the gigolo who fucked my mom for money? I’d rather crawl through a field of cow shit.”
“I guess we have one thing in common, then. Neither of us knows our biological father.”
“I’d say we have more than one thing in common.” I give her a heated stare.
She raises her glass. “To shit-for-brains fathers and reeeeeeally good sex.”
I laugh. The alcohol is obviously getting to her. “Two things that should never be toasted together, but okay.” I drink. “You think I’m that good, huh?”
“I think I’m that good, cowboy.”
Our flight gets called, and Amber quickly orders another drink. She downs it in ten seconds flat, then stands. I steady her with my arm. “Easy. You just got the boot. You don’t want to fall.”
I pull my carry-on with my left hand, keeping my right hand ready to help her if she needs it.
We’re the first ones boarded. “Pick your seat—aisle or window?”
“You’re kidding, right? Unless you want mimosas splattered all over your lap, you better let me sit in the aisle. If I never have to look out another window from the sky again, it’ll be too soon.”
I slide into my seat and close the window shade.
She settles into hers. “Wow, these are huge. Please be sure to thank whoever it was that got us these seats. I guess being a pilot has its benefits.”
“You’ve never flown first class before? Hard to believe knowing your dad’s a heart surgeon.”
“He’s always worked for public hospitals. Even gave away his time on pro-bono cases fixing holes in hearts of children from low-income families. It’s a condition called VSD. Easily treatable, but expensive if you don’t have insurance.” She elbows me. “Sorry to disappoint you if the only reason you’re doing this is because you thought I was some trust fund kid.”
I choke. “God, no.”
“Good. I know a lot of them—trust fund kids. Calloway Creek is a very affluent suburb of New York City. They’re all a bunch of stuck-up snobs.”
I snicker. “Is that so?”
“Can you imagine people like that doing what you do? Climbing on roofs to fix shingles or shoveling manure? To be fair, they’re not all that way, but a good bit of them.”
The flight attendant interrupts us, handing us each a cool towel. “Can I offer you a drink before takeoff?”
“You can offer us two,” Amber says. “Mimosas, please.”
“Right away.”
“Wait,” Amber says, calling her back. “Skip the orange juice in mine.” The man across the aisle from Amber chuckles. She turns to him. “We were in a helicopter crash last week.” She taps her boot. “It’s how I got this.” She stares down the flight attendant, who seems speechless. “So, the drinks?”
“Two champagnes and two mimosas coming up.”
“Just orange juice for me,” I say. “And one is fine.”
“Yes, sir.”
The flight attendant returns a minute later, politely asking us not to mention the helicopter crash again, as she doesn’t want to incite any panic.
“I get it,” Amber says to her in a slurred whisper. “You don’t want anyone to know it’s not as safe on a plane as in a helicopter if the engines fail.”
The woman’s eyes go wide as she checks to see if anyone around us was listening. She leans close. “Airplanes have impeccable safety records, especially this one. I wouldn’t worry about it. Please try to relax and enjoy your flight.”
Amber raises one of her glasses. “As if.”
“Stop it,” I say. “You’ll give the poor woman a heart attack.”
When we back away from the gate and are given the safety briefing, Amber downs the rest of her champagne. Then she waves her empty glass at the flight attendant, who tries to ignore her as she demonstrates how to prepare for a water landing.
Amber turns to me. “Water landing. Yeah, that’d be the cherry to top off my perfect fucking week. How long do you think it will be before she brings me another?”
“We have to take off and reach a certain altitude first.”
The pilot’s voice comes over the intercom. “Flight attendants, prepare for takeoff.”
Amber closes her eyes and blows out a long breath. When the engines rev loudly and the plane accelerates down the runway, she grabs my hand and squeezes. “Say something,” she says. “Anything to get my mind off the fact that I could be about to die.”
“You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Her eyes flash open, and she rolls them at me. “Seriously? You’re going with that? We could be about to explode in a tin can full of jet fuel and you go for false flattery?”
I look down at her hand. She has a death grip on mine. And I think of how much I want her to keep it there. Even after the fear is gone. Even after we land. I don’t ever want her to take it away. What the fuck is happening to me?
“We’re not going to explode,” I say. “But if we do, I promise the last words I said to you wouldn’t be a lie.”
The plane takes off. She squeezes harder. Her eyes close again, and she breathes in and out, quickly at first, then slowing as we reach altitude. “Are we up yet?”
“We’re up. You can relax now.”
“Hardly. What if the engines go out?”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Said the pilot who lost his engine.”
“It was a fluke. A faulty part made a decade ago in China caused a rare chain reaction that led to complete engine failure.”
“Yeah, well, flukes happen all the time.”
“Lightning doesn’t strike twice,” I say. “You’re good.”