‘We’re going to die!’
The man in front of me turned in his chair and gave me a filthy, twisted look.
Oh shit, did I say that out loud?
I smiled weakly; okay, so he wasn’t overly worried about take-off. Turning in my own seat, I looked around, desperately seeking out another terrified soul, but there was no one. Everyone seemed unfazed, save for one young Korean couple who were trying to shove an oversized carry-on into the overhead compartment. Yeah, that’s not going to fit.
‘Excuse me, ma’am, can you please pull your blind up? We’re preparing for take-off.’
I blinked, looking up at the Amazonian flight attendant with the high-wattage smile. Make no mistake, if I didn’t comply she would not hesitate to have me tasered and escorted off the plane in a heartbeat – I read it in her eyes. My eyes shifted to the window, then I slowly slid the blind upwards to reveal my worst nightmare: the plane’s wing.
Why was it that I always got sat on the wing, ensuring I would be the first to see it burst into flames and snap off? At least I wasn’t in the emergency aisle – truth be known, in the event of an evacuation I would be throwing women and children over my shoulder and hurdling over seats like an Olympic champion.
How had I let Ziggy talk me into this?
I knew it was all too good to be true: escape the tabloids, the drama, start afresh, expand my career in a way I never could at home, especially since Danielle Kendall had become Australia’s latest darling. And now I was going to die in a blaze of twisting metal and melted flesh. I didn’t know which was worse: thinking about what I was leaving behind, or the very real terror I was suffering in the present moment.
I studied the emergency-landing guide intently, while simultaneously watching every single gesture and instruction from the flight attendants. My attention only wavered when I craned my neck to see if the people in the emergency aisles were paying attention.
A woman was switching off her phone, a man in his mid-twenties had his headphones on – headphones! – and a solid, bald man gave the hostess a glance or two; still, come crash-time I was sure he’d be able to pry open the door like the jaws of life. Follow the lights on the floor, and follow the bald man – good plan.
Now, don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t my first flight. I had been on planes lots of times, but it never got easier. In fact, as Cassie, I had almost perished in a simulated plane crash on Ship to Sea, which, as you can imagine, only heightened my fear, though my acting was superb. The thought of being in the air for thirteen hours had me looking for the sick bag.
‘It’s going to be alright,’ the lady next to me said comfortingly; apparently my nervous energy was rather obvious. I wondered if placing the sick bag in reach was the giveaway. ‘There’s nothing worse than a phobia of flying,’ she said.
‘Yeah, it’s not fun,’ I admitted, hoping that she might confess that she too suffered, that we could bond over it. But looking at her serene disposition, I realised this would not be the case, and I kind of hated her, as well as everyone else on this plane who wasn’t paralysed by fear. Damn them all, lazily flipping through their inflight magazines, yawning, and adjusting their seat belts without a care in the world.
Oh. So. Smug.
‘Look, this might help.’ The lady next to me looked over her glasses and tapped on her screen. She looked just like my mum did when I was showing her how to log in to her Facebook account. Luckily there were no passwords this time. After a few mistakes and a lot of backtracking, the lady seemed rather pleased with herself. ‘There, this will tell you exactly where the plane is, and how long until we reach our destination.’
My brows lowered at the flight path, a tiny little plane over a vast, expansive ocean to LAX.
‘Oh, hell, no, I cannot look at that,’ I said, recoiling in my seat and wishing to God I could erase the image from my brain.
The woman looked taken aback. ‘Oh, my dear, is it really that bad?’
I simply nodded, not daring to look left to the wing, right to the flight path, or straight ahead to where the sick bag poked out of the pocket. There was no place to go and no way to fight this feeling. I could feel the tears well in my eyes, as my shaky hands tightened my seatbelt for the hundredth time.
The woman patted me on the shoulder; at first, I thought it was a means to comfort the basket case she had been lumped next to, but as she handed me a foil packet I realised she’d been trying to gain my attention. My brows lowered as she placed it in my hand.
Were we doing a drug deal?
‘W-what’s that?’
‘Valium; the doctor prescribed them to me when my husband passed away at Christmas; they take the edge off your worries. I’m afraid there’s only one foil sheet left, but that should help you get to where you’re going.’
I read the back of the packet: Diazepam. I had seen it often enough in Caroline Quinn’s dressing room to know that it would do the trick. I had a moment of hesitation: could this sweet old lady be planning to drug me and sell me as a sex-slave? But LAX had insane security and, even if the woman was successful in spiriting me away, I had no doubt that Ziggy would hunt me down and rescue me, singlehandedly. Besides, I didn’t know how I’d survive the flight without medication. I pierced the foil packet and popped two tiny pills into my palm.
‘Now you might only want to take one …’
Her words fell away as I flicked the tablets into my mouth and slammed them down with a gulp of water. Oops.
‘Okay, well, they’re only 5 mg, so they won’t put you in a coma or anything.’
I almost spat my next mouthful of water into the back of the cranky man in front.
‘I hope not; been there, done that,’ I laughed.
The lady looked worried, possibly concerned that she had just aided a drug addict. I took in a deep breath and sat back in my chair, clasping my hands over my belly and closing my eyes as I willed the drugs to kick in.
Come on, you little white beasties swimming around in my belly, get to work.
And as the plane lifted off and no oxygen masks dropped from above, I smiled to myself, feeling quite at peace with the world. Long forgotten was the anxiety of leaving everything I had ever known. My family, my friends, my so-called dream job working with Scott-no-brains. I drifted off, my last murmured words slurred into my inflatable neck pillow.
‘Hooray for Hollywood.’