“Whisky,” Landon said, his teeth so tight the headache was already coming on. “And Coke.” The plane tilted to the right and Landon flinched, heart racing.
“It’s okay,” the flight attendant said. “We wouldn’t be out here in the aisle serving drinks if it wasn’t.”
As if on cue, the intercom crinkled with a curt “Flight attendants, please be seated.”
The flight attendant made a face at him. “That’s just so drinks don’t go flying.” Landon found that he didn’t have the mental fortitude to respond.
“You might consider slipping him a second whisky, just incase we’re going down,” said the man in the middle seat next to Landon. The flight attendant tsked at him, then slid two little bottles of Jack Daniel’s into Landon’s seat pocket. The lights flickered, and she heaved the metal cart down the aisle and out of sight, cans of juice and soda clanking.
“You don’t fly much?” asked the man.
“More than you might think,” Landon forced through gritted teeth. He turned his head slightly, enough to catch the man’s eye. “I really hate to ask this, but do you mind—” He nodded toward the empty plastic cup the flight attendant had placed on his tray table. Landon hoped it was implied that he would pour his own drink if he could, if only his traitorous hands would stop shaking.
“Jack and Coke, coming right up.” He poured in a shooter and a half and added what he could of the Coke. Landon held it with both hands and sipped carefully. “Name’s Dave,” the man said, raising his cup of red wine. “Tell me to shove it at any point, but you seem like a man in need of a distraction.” He whistled a tune that did very little to put Landon at ease.
The plane tipped left and sticky Coke spilled onto Landon’s dark sweatpants. “Landon,” he said, choking down the last of his drink before he was forced to sit in the puddle for the remainder of the flight. “And yes. Yes, please.”
“You know, I think the pilot’s just trying to make up for that delay by flying straight through this storm. Could have added close to an hour to go around it. And I hear lightning never strikes the same plane twice.”
Landon gripped the armrest tighter. “Not helping.” Lightning flashed outside.
Dave chuckled. “This is the kind of thing the forgetting pill was made for.”
It wasn’t, really, but on a list of things Landon wanted to argue about, it was vying for last place with plane crashes due to thunderstorms. “Yeah,” he said, hoping his unenthusiastic agreement could do the heavy lifting of refocusing the conversation.
“Start a new life, free from the fear of flying.” Dave waved his hands like a man hawking goods on a late-night infomercial. “Unless you’ve already taken it, of course. If it hasn’t worked once, it probably won’t again. That would be terrible luck, to have an other who was also afraid of flying.”
“No,” Landon said.
“No, you haven’t taken it, or no, it hasn’t worked?”
“No, I haven’t taken it.”
“But have you thought about it?” Dave leaned in closer, conspiratorially. “My wife said she almost didn’t believe it when that Italian billionaire got on TV talking about it. What was her name? I remember it reminded me of an allergy pill.”
“Allegra Visconti,” said Landon, annoyed he never forgot a detail.
“Hah!” Dave clapped his leg. “Yes! First to come out publicly and say she felt hope again about the future, and boy, was she fucking on to something.” Landon shouldn’t have been surprised their conversation had taken this deliberate turn. As soon as the forgetting pill had invaded public consciousness, it was on the tip of everyone’s tongue, the first thing anybody wanted to talk about once even basic contact between strangers had been established. Doctors wouldn’t prescribe it, but if you could find a clinic, you could pay in cash. That was just about all it took. “Have you thought about taking it?” Dave asked.
“Yes.” The plane lurched, but the whisky had started to do its job. Landon felt calm enough that his stomach didn’t quite dropto the floor but lingered somewhere around his groin. He closed his eyes. “What was it like?” Landon asked. “When you took it?” He was making an assumption, but only in the loosest sense. The man sitting next to him spoke like he was receiving commission on every pill swallowed.
Dave leaned back in his seat. “My wife told me I set myself up real good. Waited until it had been on the market long enough I’d have heard by then if it wasn’t safe. Wrote a long letter to myself of all the things I didn’t want to forget, you know, kids, wife, that sort of thing. And God, when I tell you it is even better than they all say. I feel like nothing can touch me, like I’m invincible or something. I feel like I could do anything.” Dave practically trilled the wordanything.
“That is what they say.” The fasten seat belt sign flashed and Landon wondered whether, in addition to the biblical weather, the plane was malfunctioning mechanically.
“So I’m always a little curious,” Dave said, “when people say they’ve thought about it, but haven’t taken it yet. What’s stopping you?”
He didn’t owe this man anything, Landon knew that. But if he truly believed the plane was going down—and in that moment, he truly did—then what on earth did he have to lose? “A girl,” he said. The thought of her made him feel brave, until the plane lurched again.
The fasten seat belt sign flickered as the clouds swelled behind the thick plexiglass windows. Dave whistled, a habit Landon was beginning to find vexing. “Some girl,” he said.
“Yeah,” Landon agreed.
The intercom buzzed, and the captain’s muffled voice filled the cabin. “Sorry about that, folks. That patch of weather was rougherthan we’d been told by air traffic control. Things should start to smooth out in the next few minutes, and we’ll resume our food and drink service. Flight attendants, please remain seated.”
Landon blew a sharp breath out through his teeth. It seemed he would live.
“You leave her at home, then?” Dave asked. “The girl?”