cuts him off again. So walloping sweaty fingers off the keys, I hit on the next voice message, hissing aloud, ‘What emergency? What the feck happened?’
‘Holly, me again,’ he says, over a whole load of background noise. Sirens? Ambulances?
‘I sure can’t begin to apologize for not getting to meet you tonight,’ he says, raising his voice to be heard over all the background fracas. ‘But here’s the thing. We were just about two hours out of Atlanta when we had a mid-air incident with a passenger who …’
Bloody well cut off again. A passenger who what? Caused a fight? An air-rage incident because they were pissed out of their head on duty-free? What?
I’m just about to turn on the telly, in case the story’s made it onto Sky News or BBC 24, but next thing there’s a ping down my phone and I realize there’s an email that’s been waiting for me all this time. And sure enough, it’s him again.
From: Guy_in_the_Sky
Holly. It’s me. I’ve been calling and calling you, but your phone just keeps clicking straight onto voicemail.
I totally get it if you never want to see or hear from me again after my letting you down so badly last night. But I also hope you know there’s just no way in hell I’d ever do a thing like that without real good cause. And boy, did I have good cause last night.
Trouble started when we were just under two hours out of Atlanta, headed north-east over the Atlantic. Next thing, my senior flight steward came into the cockpit to say a passenger had suddenly been taken ill. Course, I immediately asked if there was a doctor on board and not one, but two, came forward to examine this passenger.
So my co-pilot took over while I discussed what was happening with the medics. Both quickly agreed that the passenger, a middle-aged guy who was travelling alone, had most likely suffered a cardiac arrest and needed to be rushed to hospital ASAP.
Now we got all sorts of procedures in place for when incidents like this happen, so I got on the radio immediately and requested an emergency landing at the nearest international airport. Which given that we were headed east over the Atlantic happened to be right here at St John’s, Newfoundland. Anyway, we touched down within thirty minutes of my putting out the emergency call and they had ambulances already waiting right on the tarmac to rush our patient to hospital just as fast as they could.
It was dramatic; it sure as hell was traumatic and it genuinely killed me not to be able to make our date last night, but I hope this goes some small way towards explaining the downside of a life in the sky.
I’ll try calling you at a more respectable time and if you don’t want to speak with me, then I’ll totally get it.
I’m being rerouted back home now. Like I always say, gotta fly.
Andy.
I go online and do a quick Google of the international news in this morning’s online papers. I scroll down through countless pages and links and, lo and behold, there it is.
Buried up at the top of page seven in the Chronicle; a tiny breaking news feature about a Delta flight that had to be rerouted back to Newfoundland when a passenger unexpectedly took ill. Not only that, but it’s on both the Sky News app and the BBC app too.
Which means he was telling the truth then, the whole truth and nothing but.
So I climb back into bed, mind racing. And deep down, I think, almost a bit relieved. After all, as excuses go, this one’s a doozy.
Not long after, I fall into a fitful, troubled sleep and keep flashing back to when this all first began.
Exactly three weeks ago.
Welcome to the Two’s Company Dating Website!
Username: lady_reporter
Never easy to describe yourself, but here goes. Tall, slim, blue-eyed brunette. Loves eating out and staying in and mountaineering and skydiving, and I know everyone says they’ve got the best job in the world on these sites, but I really, genuinely think I have.
I’m also a major foodie who adores cooking for friends/ baking/ all of the above. And with apologies in advance if I come over as a boasty boaster, but my friends do reckon my chocolate cherry cupcakes, something of a house speciality round here, are worthy of The Great British Bake Off.
So, anyone out there? Anyone at all?
I posted it out there and, as you do, resolved not to check back in again for at least a good hour or so. But it was a quiet night, with shag all to speak of on telly, so after exactly seventeen minutes I cracked. And there it was, just waiting for me.
8.07 p.m.
*New Message*
Hi, lady_reporter, you have 1 new response!
From: Guy_in_the_Sky
Hey there Lady Reporter,
Like your profile. Mountaineering? Skydiving? Wow. And you’re a foodie too? Snap. Message me back soon – if you’re not halfway up Mount Kilimanjaro or about to do a parachute jump at two thousand feet, that is.
Now, as we all know in man-language, ‘message me back soon’ can mean anything from two hours to two weeks. However, all my time served at the online dating coalface had taught me that there’s almost an Alice in Wonderland/upside-down environment at play here, where the dating rules that apply in real life are totally inverted. On sites like this one, the longer you play games and wait to respond to a guy who shows initial interest, the higher the likelihood he’ll have moved onto someone else by then.
So I struck while the iron was hot.
Username: lady_reporter
Lovely to hear from you, but may I point out that’s only one personal fact about you whereas I told you loads.
Come on, fair is fair!
From: Guy_in_the_Sky
Hi again, and please excuse me, I’m kinda new to this whole online dating thing. OK, so a few more nuggets about me.
Fact two is that I’m loving the fact that you’re tall. I’m on the six foot side myself as it happens, and way back in my college dating days, I inevitably found myself going for ladies who I at least could share eye contact with.
And another bit of personal info? Gotta say, I find this whole online dating thing pretty tough to get a handle on. Guess I’m old-fashioned, but if you ask me, personal contact trumps online messaging any day.
So what do you think, Lady Reporter?
Personal contact?
