Fear and Love

I closed my eyes for a moment and took several deep breaths. I grabbed my Zune out of my purse and turned it on quickly, and soon the sounds of Barcelona’s It’s About Time were flowing into my cerebellum., causing an immediate calming effect on me. I was about to board the plane, and I was “freaking the fuck out”, to borrow one of Aimee’s favorite phrases, for lack of my own fitting description for the panic that was welling up inside of me. I glanced down to the ticket clutched in my hand, thankful that I had been bumped up to business class, rather than coach. I preferred to have a little space when the panic attacks set on, not to mention having someone freaking out next to you on a 14-hour flight probably isn’t the best feeling. I liked to spare other people’s feelings where I could. You could say it was the humanitarian in me.

Seeing movement out of the corner of my eye, I looked up and noticed the people around me getting up from their seats, and a queue forming by the gate. I gathered my purse and my carry-on and walked to join them, concentrating carefully on taking long, deep breaths.

“Please have your tickets and passports ready!” an attendant called out.

I silently cursed myself as I dug around in my monster of a purse looking for the pink leather Liz Claiborne passport holder I had gotten as a going away present from my mom. Finally seeing it tucked in a pocket I didn’t know my purse had, I fished it out, just in time to reach the front of the line and hand it to the tall attendant to look over.

“Ticket, please?” he bristled.

“Oh, right. Sorry.” I handed over a slightly damp and crinkled ticket.

He chuckled and turned to the flight attendant behind him who was ushering passengers through the walkway to the plane. “Keep an eye on this one, Jenn. She’s terrified.”

I gave a weak smile as he handed me my passport and ticket stub back.

A few minutes later, after settling into my large comfy seat, which was sadly situated kitty-corner from another large seat, I pulled out my laptop, and pulled down a table so that I could get some reviews done. It was going to be a long flight, after all, and it couldn’t hurt to get some work done since I was too jittery to sleep.

I popped in a CD that had arrived in the mail before I left, and gazed out on the runway while the songs ripped onto my computer. We hadn’t detached from the hallway yet, so I assumed there were some passengers to load still. I was terrified for the clunks and bounces that came with detaching and the subsequent taxiing down the way and oh yeah… lifting off into the air in a giant, heavy, metal deathtrap that was going to fly over a very deep, very cold, very large, iceberg ridden ocean. I hear d the chime that let me know my CD had finished ripping, and also reminded me I needed to plug in my earphones.

As I reached in my bag to detach them from my Zune and plug them into the computer, a tall gentleman stowed a bag in the overhead compartment, then sat down in the seat that I had hoped would remain empty throughout the flight. He pulled a familiar-looking book from a messenger bag and flipped open to a dog-eared page. In any other circumstance I would have gone back to what I was doing, but something about the stranger caught my eye. Like me, he looked much too young to be travelling business class with all the older, stuffy office-types that usually inhabited these chairs. He could have gotten upgraded like me, I countered with myself. But I also noticed how disheveled he looked. Like someone you would see with a large backpack train hopping from one city to the next, much like the travelers in Europe I had seen during my brief visit. I watched as he folded the cover and already read pages of his book behind the back cover and I noticed how easily he grasped the book in just one of his large hands. He had a hitchhiker’s thumb, I liked that. I smiled at my observation as it seemed to fit so perfectly with my vision of him as a rugged backpacker. He ran his free hand through his hair. It looked as though it hadn’t been washed in days, sticking off his head in crazy, jagged pieces. I had seen guys with hair like this; hair that was too calculated, like they had spent hours trying to make their hair look like they had spent merely seconds. However, something told me that this guy really didn’t care much about his hair. I smiled again as I realized he had total sex hair.

The plane suddenly lurched forward, leaving my stomach back where we had started. My thoughts turned instantly to panic, and I knew I was going to end up white-knuckling it until we at least got in the air and there wasn’t any bumping. As soon as that happened, the shade would be shut, and I would pretend to be in a very large train. That flew.

Flight Attendant Jenn, as I called her in my mind, came by the backpacking stranger and I on her way to buckle in for takeoff. She stopped short, however, and leaning towards me, handed me two small, clear, plastic bottles.

“Here,” she said, grinning. “These will help take the edge off; down one now, before we take off and the other after we are in the air. By the time we hit the Atlantic, you’ll be good to go.” She patted my hand before making her way to her seat.

Looking down at what she had handed me, I realized they were the little bottles of vodka they used to make Bloody Marys and whatnot on flights. I guess the passport dude wasn’t kidding when he told Jenn to take care of me. This must happen to them all of the time. Hell, if I was an attendant, I would pacify the crazies, too. Doing as she said, I unscrewed the top of one of the bottles, bringing it to my lips, I scrunched my eyes closed and downed the ‘shot’ in one go. I shook my head a bit as I swallowed. Vodka, especially straight, had never been my cup of tea. I was more of a rum girl. I grimaced as the plane lurched forward again, picking up speed as we approached the straightaway that would take us into the air.

“Not much of a flyer, eh?” an accented voice questioned me.

My eyes were still closed trying to concentrate more on the sensation of the alcohol making its way down my esophagus, than the bouncing the plane’s tires made against the tarmac below us. As I heard the voice, my eyes flew open, and I quickly turned to the sex-haired backpacker. He was looking up at me curiously, his book still in hand, though resting on his knee.

“Is it really that obvious?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“Well, generally the stewards don’t hand out the alcohol until after we get in the air,” he replied, a smile playing at his lips.

The stranger was quite handsome, and I found myself not only blushing for being found out as a scaredy-cat, but also because I was found out by a good-looking Brit; my first of the trip. (I had planned to encounter many. I mean, let’s be real here, I didn’t just choose England for the pretty buildings.)

Not really knowing how to react, I just laughed

“I’m pathetic, aren’t I?”

He grinned, “You’re not too bad. I’ve seen worse… my mum is absolutely terrified of planes. We have to knock her out just to get her on.”

“Oh, well if I become too much of a nuisance, at least you know how to deal with me.” I teased.

“Well, since there is a possibility of me knocking you out during the trip, can I at least get your name so I know what to do with you when we land?” he joked back.

“The name’s Molly. Once we land, just look for the guy with the big ‘Molly Mitchell’ sign. He’ll know what to do I’m sure.”

“I’m Pat.” He leaned forward to shake my hand. “It’s nice to meet you Molly, and I dearly hope that it won’t come to that. I avoid violence at all costs.”

“Well that is very reassuring.” I laughed.

My laugh died short as I felt the plane picking up tremendous speed. Glancing to my right, out the window, sure enough the runway was speeding by, engines roaring. I felt the color drain from my face, and I shifted in my seat so my back was to the window, and I was facing the interior of the plane. I looked over at Pat, who was looking at me.

“Are you going to be OK? This isn’t your first time flying, is it?”

I gulped. “No, I’ve flown before.”

“Oh,” he said quietly.

He was quiet for a moment, and I could feel him watching me. Then a look of realization came over his face. “This is your first transatlantic flight, right?” he smiled.

“Uhm, actually, no. I’ve done that before, too. I went to Europe after I graduated high school, so I've got two transatlantic flights under my belt.” I stared down at my lap.

He looked totally perplexed. I had that effect on people, I was not surprised. I felt the need to explain so I looked up at Backpack Pat, and he was gazing at me intently, his eyes full of concern. His expression totally caught me off guard and I felt my breath catch in my chest, though this time not because of the plane. I felt heat rise into my cheeks, and decided to explain myself before I got any more flustered in front of the beautiful stranger.

“I just, uh, have a really irrational fear of flying. It’s mostly the takeoff and landing though. I can handle the in the air part pretty well. Well, the whole flying over a frigid ocean part freaks me out, but if I close the shade after we takeoff and pretend I’m on a train, it should be fine.” I tried to muster up a smile, but I had a feeling I failed.

He grinned and a small chuckle escaped his mouth. Oh my, he had a gorgeous smile.

“Well, now that we are safely in the air, I guess it is time for you to start pretending.”

“What? No, I mean, we can’t be at an angle when I close it. That will freak me out and I just-"

I looked out and sure enough we were flying smoothly, parallel to the ground thousands of feet below us. I shuddered at the thought. I was completely shocked at my behavior. I had been so absorbed by his blue-grey eyes, and their concern for my well being, that I was totally ignorant to the most terrifying thing going on around me. Tearing my gaze from the window, I looked back at Pat.

“Oh, you’re right.” I smiled meekly over at him.

“So do you think it helped?”

“What, the vodka?" I crinkled my nose. "No, it hasn’t even really hit me yet.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Well, that too, I suppose. But I meant the conversation. I was talking to you the whole time we were climbing, and you never noticed.”

“Oh, you’re right! Again! Oh wow. I really hadn’t noticed. Well… wow. Thank you.” I couldn't really get the words out right. Why was I so flustered?

“Anytime,” he gave me a charming smile.

For at least the next hour we chatted about a lot of different things. Why I was going to London, favorite music (prompted my Zune that was still sitting in my lap), we made fun of the in-flight movies, and so many other random things. Eventually, Jenn came by to ask us whether we preferred chicken or beef for our in flight meal.

“I feel bad for talking your ear off and keeping you from your work,” Pat said, motioning to my laptop.

“Oh no, not at all. I should feel bad. You looked like you were pretty into that book earlier.”

He scoffed and picked it up off the floor where it had fallen sometime during our conversation.

“This? Hardly… it’s more for research purposes.” He smiled wryly.

I eyed the cover, and realized why it had looked familiar to me.