I was reassuring myself that flight was safe when the extremely noisy engine suddenly got quiet. Engine failure. I knew that right off. I’d seen it happen in a movie once. But I didn’t say anything. I just looked around the cabin and observed that everyone else was watching a movie, reading a book, or had their eyes closed and were relaxing. It was only me that seem all bits and pieces of frazzled.
I realized then that I’d been gripping Timothy’s hand, holding on as if he could save me in case something went wrong. I suppose he could, but that was something else I didn’t want to think about. I released him, said, “sorry,” and started inspecting the pocket in front of my seat. I pulled out the magazine the attendant had mentioned, then flipped through the pages. There were things to buy, a drink page, and a picture of our flight path. I stared at that the longest. In fact, I was concentrating on it so hard, I wasn’t ready when a stewardess came by to ask what I’d like to drink.
“She wants a bottle of water,” Timothy said and asked for one for himself.
When I flipped back to drinks, I saw exotic things like cranberry juice. I’d never had that. I guess Timothy saw my wistfulness. He called the lady back and said, “I was wrong, my fiancé wants something else in addition to the water.”
I think the stewardess was about to say something about having a lot of passengers to tend, but she didn’t. One look at Timothy’s smile, and she melted.
“What would you like, ma’am?” she asked me.
Ma’am? That was a first. I hadn’t really decided, but I chose the cranberry juice. It sounded interesting. The woman poured it into a little plastic glass. The juice was an absolutely gorgeous color, exactly like the rug in Timothy’s living room. I started to thank the stewardess, but she’d already moved on, handing out drinks and snacks right and left.