when the weather looks good.” She parked her carry-on to the left of the table and dropped her purse on the chair. “How’s your newest?”
“Fat,” India replied with satisfaction. He was a brown-eyed blond who hailed from Chicago, almost exactly her height at five feet, ten inches and—pardon the cliché—skinny as a rail. In fact, by comparison rails looked a little thick. “Ninety-fifth percentile.”
“Excellent.” India’s new daughter had been born five weeks premature. He and his wife were taking great pride in the infant’s journey from scrawny wrinkled preemie to cheerful blond butterball.
“Do you tell her she should enjoy the fact that it’s only acceptable to be fat until you hit first grade?”
“No, G.B.,” India replied patiently. “I talk to her about the stock market and how I think the economy is going to rebound.”
“Weird.” Then, to Ava: “Cap, this is Becka Miller, who lost a bet with God and must now fly with Northeastern Southwest—”
“We fly everywhere!” everyone else sang, which was terrific.
“It wasn’t a bet with God,” said the team’s newest flight attendant, a redhead whose hair was so vibrant, it was hard to look her in the eyes. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was a teenager. It’s very nice to meet you, Captain Capp.” Becka said this with more intensity than Ava was used to, but she shrugged it off—some people were nervous around captains.
“Back atcha. Don’t mind G.B. He’s exhausting but skilled, so it all works out. Eventually. Probably. Look, nobody wants to do all the paperwork necessary to fire him, so we’re all just dealing.”
“Had to ruin it. Had to tack something on at the end. Just couldn’t help yourself.”
“Nope. Couldn’t.” As she turned away to consult with India, she heard Becka hiss to G.B. “She’s the one who did the belly landing!”
“Hey, I was there, too. I was integral—I had the booze cart.”
“Um, I also heard … I mean, is she the one whose friend got m—”
“Yeah,” he muttered in reply. “But time and place, okay?”
Yes, I’m the one whose friend got m—, Ava thought. Also, why do people think whispering works when I’m only three feet away?
“How about we get started?” One of the nicer things about making captain is that it may have sounded like a request, but everyone in the room understood it wasn’t. “India, you want to take us through the briefing? G.B.?”
“Got it,” G.B. replied, then shooed Becka toward the cabin crew as they filed into their own briefing room. “See you on deck.”
“Will do. So then.” She settled in with a fresh cup of tea. “Where are we going today?”
“If you don’t know, we’re all fucked.”
“Oh, shut up.”
Flight Deck
McCarron International Airport
“Another day in the relatively friendly skies. Not to jinx us.”
“No, don’t do that,” Ava replied, mildly alarmed. “Though it might be too late. Thinking the j word almost always brings on the j word.”
India was finishing entering the specs needed to calculate takeoff speed—weather, runway conditions, weight of bags, fuel, angst, existential crises, etcetera—when Ava heard a bubbling laugh and made the mistake of looking for the source. For the thousandth time, she saw someone who could have been Danielle if she’d survived. Same glossy black hair. Same freckles, dark eyes, infectious giggle. She was one of the last ones on, holding up the boarding to flirt with G.B., who was loving it while politely urging her toward her seat.
She’d be twenty-eight this year.
Irrelevant.
And Dennis would be, too.
Also irrelevant. And speaking of irrelevancies, was that Dennis behind the doppelganger of his dead twin?
Why, yes. Yes it was.
“Excuse me,” she said, rising, and then stepped out of the cockpit. “Dennis?”
He turned at once and his eyes widened. “Ava! Wow! You—” He cut himself off and looked her up and down. “You look great! Captain. You look great, Captain … uh … Capp. Huh.”
“Believe me, colleagues have pointed out the alliteration,” she said dryly. Shake his hand? Hug? What’s the etiquette for running into your secret crush ten years after his sister’s murder?
Ah, she thought as he bent toward her. The A hug. Arms around shoulders, pelvises at least a foot apart, butts sticking out just a bit. Completely awkward and joyless. So, perfect.
“It’s great to see you,” she said, pulling back from their sterile hug. “But time’s not on your side, cutie.”
“Rude.” Oof, that grin. It made Tom Cruise’s look like Donald Trump’s. “Pretty sure it’s not on anyone’s side.”
“So follow your friend’s example”—she nodded at the woman who had preceded him on the plane—“and plant