A pause was followed by what sounded like the turning of a piece of paper. Was he reading from some manual?
He continued, “Under your seat is a life jacket. Go ahead, put it on, fasten your seatbelt, lean forward, and stick your head between your knees. We’ll be landing shortly.” His phone switched off, then back on, and he muttered, “—fucking shit plane. Flight crew, prepare for a water crash. Let’s see if we can take her down in one piece.”
Frozen, we sat still for a second. Clearly, we weren’t supposed to hear that.
“Did he say water landing or water crash?” Vive sobered.
“Crash!” Blake shouted, springing to his feet. He flipped his seat cushion over and grabbed the bright yellow reflective plastic.
Next to me, Lex peed herself. Maybe over the realization we might die. Or it could be from the two Yoo-Hoos she drank before take-off to help wash down the bitter aftertaste of Xanax.
Lately, our lives as the Fab Four had pretty much carried on rather most unfabulously. Take for example the fact that I was broke, probably not going to attend college, sexually frustrated, and let’s not forget this flight to hell.
Gustave jumped over his seat and into our row. Helping Vive and Lex with their life jackets, he lifted Lex up as if she were a paper doll, which I imagine was pretty hard to do considering she’s rather curvy. After he was finished, I made sure their oxygen masks were over their faces.
My ears popped, and the engines made a loud humming noise. That sorta zinged me back a bit. Putting my vest on, I then banded the yellow plastic cup over my nose and mouth and inhaled. With a glance out the window, I noticed we were headed straight for a small island. The sign in the harbor read, “Welcome to Eden.” I blinked, we were that close to land we could read things.
Shit.
Blake’s movie star face pressed up against the yellow plastic and muttered, “Looks like Magic Kingdom.”
There was a castle on the island. In a flash, we soared right over Eden and headed back out to sea.
We buckled up. Blake shouted for everyone to sit. Jumping over the row, Gustave hunkered down. Fabian reached back for a hand, anyone’s—it didn’t matter whose. Tucking Hedda into the top of her dress, Vive grabbed onto Fabian then reached for Lex’s hand with the other. Lex grabbed my right, and I took Blake with my left. He put his hand on Gustave’s shoulder ahead of him, and Leon held on to Fabian.
Our prayer circle had formed.
“Notre Père—” Leon recited something in French, sounding Catholic.
Reflecting off the water, the sun’s rays made everything appear overexposed and translucent. Hues of pink and bright white filled the cabin. The jet seemed to skim above the ocean almost peacefully.
The plane’s heavy swaying straightened into a precise line. There was a moment of beauty where everyone on board must’ve held their breath because I heard only dead silence and Leon.
“Pardonne-nous nos offences.” His prayer got louder.
“This is it. Lean forward,” Fabian told us.
We put our heads between our legs. Fuck, the oxygen masks weren’t long enough. The cords jerked us back.
“Is this seriously happening?” dazed and still frickin’ confused, Lex asked.
The jet bounced, once, twice over the water like a skipping stone. My seat disconnected from the rest of the row. The impact shocked me. Over the sounds of shattering glass and the crunching of metal, I blurted the first thing that came to mind, “I never thought I’d die a virgin.” I’d hoped to be loved by someone special.
Then we went back up in the air as if God had heard our prayers. The engine roared. The gash in the ceiling quadrupled. It was a flipping convertible. Debris flew everywhere. I could barely see but noticed items being sucked out.
First a roller bag flew out the hole. Smacking the edges, it tore the gap wider.
Then a few extra life vests followed.
Suddenly the aircraft started to make a sharp turn.
“What’s the pilot doing?” I asked Blake, trying to see out the window.
“Landing on the water near the island.”
We climbed higher in the air. People shouted at each other to stay seated.
“Je vous aime, les gars,” Fabian professed his feelings for his buds as if it was the end.
The sun which had been on our left now shined on the right.
Without warning, Vive removed her mask. Leaning down, she kissed Hedda behind the ears and gave the dog her oxygen. In Vive’s eyes, I didn’t see fear as I expected. She unbuckled her seatbelt and handed Hedda to Lex.
Did Vive want to die?
Lex threw her arms over Vive, trying to get her to buckle up as Vive screamed she wanted to go.
Go where exactly?
“Taddy!” Blake shouted as the wing next to his seat caught fire. The window melted. We were going to burn.
My detached seat gave. The jet continued to climb. “Lex!” Like a vacuum I was sucked out that damn hole.
Someone grabbed my ankle.
That was the last thing I remembered.
Did I die? I must’ve.
Next thing I knew I was back on West 74th St. and Central Park West. I was home with my parents at the San Remo apartment building. Maybe five years old or so. This was a happier time for my family and me. No fighting. No DNA test. Dad didn’t have doubts as to who I was other than his daughter.
Sitting on the floor in the den, I wore a crimson dress, one of my favorites. Mom had made it for me.
Dad and Mom sat across from Lex and me.
Lex and her parents had lived in the apartment building too. So did Donna Karan and Steven Spielberg.
Lex chewed on a piece of gum and studied the board game. She’d been staying with me while her parents filmed a rocker movie in Los Angeles for the last month.
We played a second round of Candy Land.
“Daddy it’s your turn to go.” Pointing to the deck of cards, I realized my speech was childlike but, in my head, I thought as an adult.
Glancing around the oak-paneled room in awe, I’d forgotten how much Mom had decorated the place back then. She’d cared how the place looked. How we’d lived as a family.
We’d often had people over. They’d entertained, celebrated life and living here. My parents had truly loved each other back then. Till all the lies floated to the surface and shattered everything I once knew, including who I was and where I’d come from.
“Alright, Tabitha,” Dad smiled at me warmly. He drew an orange card and moved his gingerbread piece to the corresponding spot.
“My turn,” I said, noticing I was close to the Candy Castle. I pulled a card. “Pink!”
Lex popped her bubblegum and said, “You move to the lollipop forest.” She clapped her hands with excitement.
I pushed my gingerbread figure past the chocolate mountains. The game was all based on chance. There were no puzzles to solve. No player was better than the other. The deck of cards dictated every move.
Looking back on it now, in a way, Candy Land played the players. All we had to do was show up and follow along. If only adult life were this simple.
“Looks like you may win the second round, Tabitha,” my mother encouraged. With a petite nose and high cheekbones, her facial features were striking. That was before Mom’s ugliness showed, before her mental illness and booze took over.
“Anyone can win, Mommy. You’re up next.”
She paused for a minute. “How about for Halloween we make you a Princess Lolly costume?” Mom reached across for a card. “I’ll sew it myself.”
Lex glared at me as if she was being left out. Her mother, a music icon, never had time to play dress-up with us unless it was on stage or for one of her music videos.
“Will you make Lex a Queen Frostine costume? Then we can go together.” I looked out for my bestie even when we were kids.
“I don’t see why not.” Mom glanced over at Lex and asked, “Is that what you want, Alexandra?”
“Y
es, ma’am.”
“Good, then it’s all settled. Tabitha will go as Princess Lolly in red. Alexandra can be Queen Frostine. Oh…I have just the icy blue fabric for it too. We’re going to have one sweet Halloween, girls.”
“Yay!” Lex and I got to our feet and jumped around, cheering to the idea of our new costumes.
The crystal chandelier above us shook.
Any second now I expected Mrs. Yves Bucheron to come up the penthouse elevator in a snit yapping for us to stop making noise. Lex and I were always getting in trouble. This building wasn’t made for kids or any type of excitement.
“I’ll start on the dress patterns tomorrow.” Mom admired us for a minute then moved her piece.
“A queen and a princess,” Dad said. “I love you girls.”
“I love you too, Daddy.”
“Taddy,” a stranger, called out to me from another room, another place. Whoever it was addressed me by my adult name. They clearly weren’t in this study. I didn’t go by Taddy till after I was emancipated.
Not wanting this moment to end, I ignored the voice and hoped to stay a few minutes longer. I felt as if I floated on a sea of Cotton Candy. “I love Candy Land. Anyone can win. All you have to do is play.” I repeated.
“Taddy, wake up,” the strange voice spoke again.
“Just follow the rules—” Wait. I squinted. The sun, it was burning my skin.
Sitting up, I realized I wasn’t at the San Remo. My parents weren’t in my life. Lex didn’t sit at my side. However, I floated. Just not on a spun-pink web of cotton candy. Nope. More like in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
In horror, I grabbed at my hemline and caught site of the airline’s logo. I sat on a piece of the plane. My flip-flops were long gone.
“Lex!” I shouted. Tears saltier than the water surrounding me swelled from within.
“Blake.” I wiped my eyes. Coughing up sea, I tried to get control of my emotions. Otherwise I’d choke. I shouted my best friend’s names again and again. Inhaling through my nose, I screamed so loud I thought my tonsils would fly out of my throat, “Viveca Farnworth!!!”
No one replied.
The sounds of the waves crashed against the debris.
A rush of dizziness came over me. I licked my lips tasting blood and let out a cry.
“Mademoiselle.” A strained voice murmured behind me. It was the one that had awoken me from my dream.
Sobbing, I looked over my shoulder.
Leon lay a few feet behind me. His shirt was off, displaying his muscular body. Little red cuts covered his arms, hair wet and slicked back, his face sunburned.
Instinctively I touched my cheeks. Irritated and hot, they felt burnt too. My body started to tremble violently, almost as if going into shock over what happened. “How long…have we been…on here?” I glanced up at the sky.
The sun wasn’t up as high as when we’d first taken off.
“Heures,” he said. Leon inched himself closer to me and held out his hand to try and comfort me. “Please don’t cry.”
“I need my friends.”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“No. I don’t think so.” I placed my palm against his. “I feel…disoriented.”
“Did you hit your head?” With his other hand, he touched the back of my neck and examined my scalp. “I do not feel any bumps. What do you see?”
“Your beautiful chest.”
He smirked and asked, “Any white spots?”
Shaking my head in response, I couldn’t believe we’d been on this makeshift raft for hours. “What happened?”
“We crashed.”
“I get that. Where is everyone?”
He didn’t say anything.
Emotions soared inside me. Tell me they landed okay. Everyone is floating up ahead of us. They’ve gone for help. Something. “Leon. Please.”
“I do not know…”
“Then tell me what you do know.” I studied his handsome face. He had a wide forehead, thick eyebrows, and lips that I’m sure, under any circumstance except for today, were kissable.
“The pilot made a sharp turn—back to the island.”
“Didn’t we fall apart in the air?” It was all a blur.
His feelings seemed hidden. Upset. I could tell by those kissable lips of his. They trembled. He cleared his throat and said, “I grabbed onto you. My seatbelt snapped.”
“We got sucked out together?”
“Oui. We ended up in the water with a chunk of the ceiling. I pulled us up on here. You were unconscious.”
“Leon, you saved me?”
He tapped the metal. “This is what saved us.”
“Where is everyone?” I asked him again. I had to know.
Leon’s eyes settled on the water. I followed.
Aquamarine and dark navy waves were all around us. We were in the middle of nowhere. Even the air seemed still. No breeze.
I wanted to get up and run. Run like when I knew the “F” train was on the subway platform back home and I had to catch it. The anxiety coming over me became unbearable. Would there ever be another train to catch? A ride to take us from here to there, wherever here was exactly…I hadn’t a clue.
“My friends didn’t get sucked out like we did.” I thought about Lex, Blake, and Vive. Such a nightmare—how could they be taken away from me?
“The plane turned back for the island. They must be close to Eden.” Leon’s words filled with hope.
“Eden?”
He nodded. “They probably swam to shore.”
“You think so?”
“Oui.” For a second, I thought I noticed tears in his hazel eyes. Blinking a few times, they disappeared.
“How do you know they’re alive?”
“Stop.”
“No. You don’t know. Do you?”
“Arrête!”
“They’re dead.” I cupped my mouth. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“My heart would tell me if they were gone.”
“Your heart?” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.
“If your friends had died, do you not think you would feel their loss, deep-down inside, even without anyone telling you?”
Hmmm. I didn’t want to go there.
Move Over Brooke Shields
On a floating piece of the aircraft, we sat in silence.
Leon glared at me. I searched inside myself for an answer to his question about whether or not I thought my friends were…dead or alive.
My mind recounted the time my parents had dropped me off at Avon Porter. When their sedan had pulled away, I knew in my thirteen-year-old heart that I’d never see them again. And I didn’t, not until years later in family court.
Today, sitting here on this piece of floating shrapnel next to a man I hardly knew, did I sense that same despair about my friends? The only thing I felt was anger. Pure rage boiled within me. If I’d taken my besties money, and not this silly job, none of this would’ve happened. Boarding Air Carribea was all for me, my wants and needs. Not my friends. Therefore this crash weighed on my shoulders.
“Well?” He made his impatience evident. “What does your heart say?”
“I’m not sure. I try never to get my hopes up about anything. I usually…expect bad things.”
“Do bad things usually happen to you, Mademoiselle?”
“Look at us.” My arms flailed around, mocking his question. “Yes, Leon, I seem to get the worst in return.” Crap, I heard myself and that didn’t sound good. I couldn’t lie. My life sucked.
People assume because I came from the Brillford legacy and hung out with rich people, my future was perfect. They were wrong.
“Mademoiselle, you are saying you are pathetic and hopeless.”
“I guess…I am.”
“No,” Leon snapped, in his thick French accent. “I expect Fab is worried, and Gus is looking for us.”
I sucked in a breath, gaping at him. I suppose a crash like this could bring out the soul search
ing in anyone. This was the most Leon had talked to me all week. And to think that it took a plane crash, and us being isolated, to make it happen.
“I believe you.”
“You do?” His forehead wrinkled in surprise.
“If I don’t have faith that they’re safe, I’ll stop breathing. Right here, I’ll die.”
“Me too,” he said, and rubbed my shoulder. My skin felt sticky to his warm touch.
“My friends mean everything to me.”
“Oui. I noticed.” He hit a sore spot on my back, pressed in firmly, and worked the knot.
“How?”
“No model comes with a clique of friends for a photo shoot. Maybe a manager or a stylist but you have a crew.”
“Hey, that was Lex’s idea. I’m only eighteen. We didn’t know what you guys would be like to work with. I wasn’t going to come alone.”
“The four of you have a—how do you say in English? A bond.”
“Yes, we certainly do.” Feeling vulnerable, I crossed my arms over the life jacket and pulled my knees up.
“It is endearing to watch. Have you known your friends long?”
Before answering, I realized he’d made observations about me during our time in Miami. I don’t know why that made me uncomfortable. Maybe it was because I’d assumed that Leon hadn’t paid me any attention. Seems I was wrong. “Lex, Blake, and Vive are all I know. They’re all I’ve ever known. My life revolves around them. I wouldn’t have gotten through my childhood without them.”
“Same with Fab and Gus. We do everything together.” Darkness shadowed his face when our eyes met. For a brief second, I sensed he thought about the chance that we might be the only survivors. He’d be in denial if he didn’t at least consider it. “What do you think your friends are doing right this minute?”
I shrugged.
“Picture them in your mind. What do you see?”
Death.
“I can’t. I don’t have much of an imagination.”
“Try, for me, s'il vous plaît.”
“Alright,” I closed my eyes and said, “Lex’s dad is in Japan doing a concert. Her mom is in rehab. Other than her new boyfriend, Ford, who is an NYPD cop, she doesn’t have anyone to call.”