Page 11 of Here One Moment

“Oh, no,” says Sue. “That’s bad luck.” She pats his arm. Forgets the attraction and goes full-on grandma. She’s had him all wrong. He’s not Mr. Important Man, he’s a stressed young dad. “How old is she?”

Before he can answer, a troubled youthful voice rises over the plane’s hum. “Wait, you expect what?”

“Okay, so I think we definitely need to—” begins Sue, but Max and Leo are already reaching for their call bells.

Chapter 7

Look, I can answer my own question. I don’t need to ask the bearded man.

You should always apologize for your actions. Whether you believe in free will or not.

Manners matter.

A sincere apology has the power to save a friendship, a marriage, even a life.

Just say sorry. That’s all you need to do.

—

I am sorry. Profoundly sorry.

I could not, in fact, be sorrier.

Chapter 8

The cabin manager, Allegra Patel, is in the lavatory when the call buttons first commence their peevish melody. So that’s Murphy’s Law. Or Allegra’s Law, more like it. Her period has turned up a week early, and she is rummaging through her bag for a tampon and each time she thinks she has found one it turns out to be the same tube of lip balm, which is making her laugh softly and kind of demonically.

Today is her twenty-eighth birthday and she hadn’t been expecting champagne and rainbows, but she had assumed it would be a pleasantly neutral Friday, not one of those days where everything consistently goes just a tiny bit wrong, where that scratchy sandpapery feeling starts to build up behind your eyes.

“Give me a break,” she mutters as she feels the first cruel clench of a cramp. Her cramps are always worse when she flies.

She digs farther into the corner crevices of her bag.

Euphoric relief: one solitary, beautiful tampon. Thank you, universe.

She’d been pleased when she got the roster for her birthday: Sydney-Hobart, Hobart-Sydney. Home in time for dinner with her parents and brother. She likes this leg. The flight length is not too long but also not so short that you’re rushed off your feet trying to get everything done. It had been a bonus when her friend Anders, who she’s known since they trained together, was rostered on the same crew. He arrived at the preflight briefing with doughnuts and a metallic heart-shaped helium balloon.

Sadly, it was all downhill from there.

“Not these two tossers together,” moaned Anders, when their two pilots swaggered into the crew room like movie stars. “There won’t be enough room for their inflated egos in the cockpit.”

Captain Victor “Vic” Levine addressed them with his usual brusque brevity. Unremarkable weather. Full flights. He’s not rude. He just doesn’t fully register anyone’s existence unless they’re a fellow pilot. To him, all cabin crew members are interchangeable. They’re not quite real to him. They’re like holograms.

“Birthday, eh?” said First Officer Jonathan “Jonny” Summers, instead of saying, “Happy birthday, Allegra,” like an actual human. He accepted a doughnut, took a minuscule bite, scrunched up his offensively handsome face as if he’d eaten a lemon, and then dropped it in the garbage can in full view of everyone.

“I’ll never love anyone as much as I hate that guy,” Anders had whispered in Allegra’s ear. He was especially distressed by the disrespectful treatment of the doughnut because he’s currently undergoing an aggressive intermittent fasting regimen. He has a wedding next weekend where he’ll come face-to-face with an ex he hasn’t seen in five years. Allegra will be glad when this wedding is finally done.

The other two members of Allegra’s crew today are fine: just mildly exasperating.

Kim is a placid, padded woman who has been with the airline since the eighties and ambles about the cabin as if she’s hosting a backyard barbecue, leaning one elbow on the back of seats for long chummy chats with passengers. A quick service is a good service, but it’s never going to be a quick service if you’ve got Kim on the other side of your cart. Ellie is at the opposite end of the spectrum, young and fizzy. She’s only just got her wings, so is brimming with new knowledge, eager to impress and do every PA announcement.

On the first leg Ellie informed Allegra that Anders had taken a bag of pretzels from the food cart, which Ellie understood was “technically stealing.” Why are new flight attendants always such snitches?

“I was feeling faint!” said Anders, who was more ashamed that he’d broken his fast with half a pretzel than that he’d broken the rules.

“Eat the rest of them, you look like a corpse!” Allegra hissed, wondering if his stupid diet was turning into an actual safety issue she needed to address.

And then: the delay.

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