Audrey, too. But he’d waited too long, and both situations had gotten out of hand. The plane rolled faster. Next to him, Wilson closed his eyes and dozed, or pretended to doze. The plane nosed up into the sky. Air bubbled beneath the hull, making him momentarily light, and he marveled at the miracle of the Wright brothers, as unlikely as civilization in the presence of barbarians. The engagement ring in his pocket pressed against his thigh. A hard, cold thing. Out the window, the rainy city of Washington got small. They ascended above the black clouds into more black. He couldn’t see anything, even though it was morning.
Suddenly, the plane jittered. He gripped the seat rest hard. The nose smashed against a hot-air front, and dropped. Fast. The overhead baggage compartments rattled open. Reading lights along the rows went dark, and emergency lights flickered throughout the cabin, an hysterical orange. Stowed things speared down the aisles and rained on heads; a red duffel bag, small suitcases with wheels, a Twisted Sister poster, some moron’s pet parakeet in a tiny cage. It was too frightened to chirp. He reached out to rescue it, but by the time his fingers were in the aisle, it was gone.
The plane kept falling. His skin stretched into a plastic grin like he was on a spinning amusement-park cyclone. One hundred miles an hour? Two hundred? The longer they free-fell, the faster they’d go, and there was no sense jumping without a parachute. The force of acceleration slammed the breath from his lungs. With each passing quarter second—who would have imagined time could pass so excruciatingly—he begged the plane to right itself, but it did not.
The matchbox cars and tiny houses got big again, and the plane dove nose first toward land. His mind spun through images in brief thousandths of seconds that did not register in his conscious state: the time he’d stolen twenty dollars off his dad’s dresser and lied about it. The first girl he’d screwed; a hooker named Vanity that his uncle hired as his high-school graduation present. Maginot Lines. If he got out of this, he’d make the best movie he could, and if that didn’t work, he’d make another movie. Because there’s never a good reason to give up what you love when life is this short.
His mind glimpsed still images of all the people in his life. His mother and sisters—who would take care of them? And then, it stopped skipping around, and settled on Audrey Lucas. He realized how lucky he’d been to have found someone to love.
The plane kept falling. Wilson startled awake, and turned to Saraub with an expression of bug-eyed terror. Something warm down below, as Wilson pissed his denim tuxedo. “Wha—” his mouth opened to say as the plane continued to drop.
Wilson’s urine heated the seat, the caged bird tried to fly, and Saraub thought about the note he should have left in Lincoln, just in case what had happened between them on that good night had not been a farewell, but another chance. Come home, the note should have read. You’re the love of my life.
27
Islands Collide
Off to work. Hi-Ho!
The hurricane turned day into night. Wind tore through the canyons between buildings and blew Audrey Lucas along the fissure-riddled concrete sidewalks. Leaking rain and packed commuters in merino suits lent an animal scent to the subway. Slowly, people separated from her like they were the sea, and she was Moses. The floor where she stood was red, and she thought the train was a living thing, bleeding and in pain, then realized it was the soles of her own feet, broken by the hula girl. They dried as the car wormed its way downtown, so that by Times Square, she’d stopped bleeding.
At Union Square, the Valium kicked in. The lithium, too. The people around her did not look or come any closer. She felt a little like the wounded chicken, waiting for the rest of the pack to peck her to death.
By the time she got to the office, the jet lag and pills had hardened her legs like cement. She had to hold the sides of walls as she walked for balance. When she pressed the keypad numbers and opened the door, Bethy jumped out from behind the reception desk and hugged her. “We are SO sad for you!” she said.
The thing in Audrey’s stomach squirmed. It gnawed, chewing her soft tissue with sharp teeth. Pretty Bethy Astor with her rosy