the way his chest rose and fell under his pale blue oxford was a turn-on.
And then, somewhere over the Midwest, the captain’s amiable, Texas-twanged voice came over the PA. “Folks, we’re gonna run into a few bumps here. Please stay in your seats and buckle up tight. Trays up, too. It’s gonna be pretty rough. Flight attendants, take a seat.”
I obeyed, making sure Mark was buckled, putting my laptop back in its case. And then, I was being shaken like a rag doll. The plane lurched and shuddered. People screamed as one, myself included. My seat belt cut into my stomach, my hair whooshed up. It was like being bucked off a horse, rough and unpredictable, and a horrible whine pierced the air. The oxygen masks tumbled out, and it was so loud! Mark, abruptly awake, threw his arm out across me, automatically trying to shield me from harm. “What the fuck?” he yelled over the noise.
The plane shuddered again and rolled to the left. I clutched Mark’s arm as we tilted, feeling my laptop slide past my feet. My mind went white with terror. The plane wobbled unevenly, people were screaming and praying, the engines roared and shrieked. Mark’s eyes met mine. Then the plane seemed to drop, cups and trash and purses flew up and hit the ceiling. More screams. I couldn’t seem to speak—I gripped the headrest in front of me with one hand, and with the other, I held Mark’s. The plane shuddered again.
“Folks, Captain Hewitt again. We’re having a little bit o’ difficulty,” the captain called out, sounding as calm as if he were watching corn grow. “Hang on tight.” As he spoke, the plane fell a few more … feet? Yards? God, we were trapped in a hunk of metal and falling from the sky! My mouth opened but no sound came out.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mark muttered.
“Oh God, oh God help us, please Lord Jesus, save us!” the woman in front of me wailed. The plane bucked again, there was another mass scream. We’re going to die, came the small, quiet thought in the part of my brain that wasn’t roaring in panic. Behind me, someone vomited and my own stomach lurched. We’re crashing, oh, God, this is it. Fear electrified my legs, and my eyes, stretched too wide, saw everything … the man across the aisle hunched over, his hands over the back of his head. “Hail Mary, full of grace …” Trash was everywhere. Who knew there was so much trash? There was a little girl two rows ahead on my right sobbing, “Mommy, make it stop, Mommy!”
Someone else threw up, people were sobbing into their cell phones—”Baby, it’s bad, I love you, I love you so much”—but Mark and I just held on to each other as the plane dipped and shivered. Mark pushed my head down—crash position, Jesus God, I was in crash position, who survived a plane crash? I shook violently, my face was wet with tears … Josephine, Bronte, Hester, Freddie, my parents. Who’d take care of Noah? What about Bowie? Would my sweet dog somehow know that I was gone?
The plane bucked again, tilted, righted. And then, amid the chaos and terror, I saw lights down on land. We were getting lower, descending, even as the plane still shuddered. The wings wobbled, then straightened, the sound of the landing gear locking in place was the most reassuring and beautiful sound that had ever reached my ears.
“We’re gonna make it,” Mark said, his voice strained. My hand, clenched in his, had gone numb. “We’re gonna make it. We’re gonna make it.”
When the screech of rubber against tarmac sounded, the plane burst into cheers and sobbing. “Welcome to New Mexico,” came the captain’s voice, shaking now that we were safe. “Sorry for the rough ride.” The white-faced attendants stood, and people flung off their seat belts despite the rules of waiting, desperate to be off the plane, many still crying, still swearing, and all of us miraculously alive.
I turned to Mark, and we looked at each other. Then he kissed me, his hands cupping my tear-streaked face. He was drenched in sweat. “We’re fine,” he said hoarsely. I nodded, my throat still too clamped from terror to allow a word to escape. I’d almost died, but I hadn’t. I was alive. It was so strange. We were falling from the sky, and somehow we made it.
Standing in the aisle, waiting to get out, shaking like a junkie in heroin withdrawal, I found it so bizarre to do those mundane tasks like find my purse and laptop, straighten my shirt. People were already talking on their cell phones, assuring loved ones of their safety, opening the overhead compartments and retrieving their carry-on luggage. I didn’t speak. “Callie, you okay?” Mark asked.
I nodded. Realized I was crying. When we filed past the captain and crew, I hugged each of them, my God, I loved them so much. When I came to the captain, it was clear he was God’s right hand, not some middle-aged blond man with a mustache. “Thank you. Thank you so much,” I wept.
“Well, now, we all made it down safe and sound, no matter what it felt like, right?” He patted my shoulder. “Thanks for flying with us, little lady.”
So, okay, you don’t almost die in a plane crash every day, do you? It’s life-affirming to walk off a plane that had been shuddering and dropping through the sky, to breathe fresh air and feel the ground under your feet again. And you know what else is life-affirming?
Sex.
Mark took my hand once we were off the airplane, and he didn’t let go of it. We didn’t speak, just got into a cab. Held hands. Got to the hotel. Held hands in the lobby as we checked in. Held hands in the elevator. Our rooms were on different floors, but he only pushed nine, which was where his room was. Led me out of the elevator, down the hall, the two of us bumping as we towed our suitcases, our hands still linked. Went right into that generically pleasing, wonderfully safe room, and the second the door closed, Mark pulled me against him and kissed the stuffing out of me, and let me tell you, we put that king-size bed to good use.
And it was wonderful. I’d never been in love—not like this. The shaking of Mark’s hands as he unbuttoned my shirt, his weight on top of me, his mouth on mine, that crooked smile … this was Love. The kind of Love I always knew I’d find, and it was just breathtaking.
The next morning, Mark suggested we blow off the conference, as we only needed to show up for the ceremony, and now that we’d nearly died, we realized how silly all this really was. We strolled through beautiful Santa Fe, admiring the little bungalows adorned with chili pepper wreaths, bought Native American souvenirs for Josephine and Bronte. When the heat got to us, we ducked into a movie theater and made out like teenagers. Had dinner at a tiny restaurant, discovered that green chili sauce was in fact nectar of the gods and wondered how we’d lived without it for so long.
On Thursday night, our poster won the bronze. Not bad, but it seemed so petty in light of everything else. We had each other. We knew what really mattered. That’s what I thought, anyway.
Clearly, this was the beginning of a very meaningful, heading-for-marriage-and-they-lived-happily-ever-after relationship. After all, I had known Mark most of my life. I worked with Mark … I worked for Mark. He wouldn’t sleep with me if it wasn’t serious. And the whole near-death experience … it had made him (finally) aware of me in a life-altering way. Faced with the vision of our deaths, he realized that I was, as the saying goes, The One. Priorities were made clear. Right?
Well … no. Actually, no.
At the end of the conference, Mark told me he’d meet me in the lobby. So I went back to my own room … that was one sign I’d ignored … though I’d slept in his room, I hadn’t been invited to actually share it, so all my showering and getting ready and stuff was done in my own space. Which made sense, of course, since we’d already paid for two rooms. Packing up my stuff, I hummed away. Josephine would make the cutest flower girl ever. Bronte could be a junior bridesmaid. I’d have to ask both parents to give me away to avoid any show of favoritism.
