Nina had succeeded in getting her cup of weak, milky tea changed for a double espresso. The tea tasted wrong here, but the coffee was strong and the caffeine hit welcome. Or at least it had been at the time. Now she watched the other passengers beginning to nod off within minutes of being assigned their seats on the plane, and she envied them. She was now alert, her nerves jangled, and her body tense. Sticking to a single espresso might have been a better idea, she thought.
The North Las Vegas Airport stretched beyond the windows toward the distant mountains. It hardly seemed worth loading everyone on the Boeing 737 SX–VIP for such a short journey, though Nina could imagine that she would feel otherwise if faced with the prospect of traveling the whole way by coach — and she could not deny that there was a certain decadent delight in taking such a brief flight in such a fancy aircraft. She stretched out in the spacious seat, luxuriously upholstered in soft white leather, and spread a cashmere blanket the color of butterscotch across her lap. Even in the cool breeze of the cabin's air conditioning, it was nowhere near chilly enough to warrant a blanket, but it seemed a pity not to make use of it.
This is crazy, she thought, as she settled her head on the small white pillow. I'm not one of these people. They're rich, successful, and used to stuff like this. And I'm… not. I'm an under-employed, underpaid academic — well, ex-academic, I suppose — and before I met Purdue I'd never experienced anything like this. Damn it! I have got to get used to calling him Dave. It's been a month now; it's ridiculous still to be thinking of him as Purdue when we're—
Her train of thought was abruptly derailed by Purdue's sudden appearance beside her. He had been looking around the plane and was enthusing about it, babbling happily about its technical specifications and the ways in which it could be modified to incorporate all sorts of new software. Every single word of it went over Nina's head. "I thought your professional field was software and technology, not engineering?" she said.
"Oh, yes," Purdue nodded. "That's my primary area of expertise. Aviation is merely a hobby! But it is a fascinating one. I can't say that I've ever flown in this particular model before, but the pilot has kindly agreed to talk to me about his experiences."
"Let me guess — you're spending the flight in the cockpit? Again?"
Purdue dropped a kiss on the top of Nina's head. "You'll have company this time," he assured her. "I took care of it."
Before she could ask any questions or raise any objections, Purdue strode up the gangway and disappeared into the area marked "Cabin Crew Only." Nina hardly had time to register her annoyance before a flight attendant materialized to show another passenger to the seat beside her. She didn't even need to look up.
"Hello, Sam."
Damn you, Dave Purdue. Damn your stupid, twisted sense of humor. Nina was torn between laughing and swearing under her breath as Sam slumped into the seat next to hers. She noticed that he looked around first to see whether any of the other seats were free, but he was the last person to board and there was no chance of his being reseated.
"Where's Purdue?" Sam asked eventually, when it became clear that the cabin crew was not going to tell him there had been a mistake and ask him to swap seats. "I'd have thought he'd be sitting here."
Nina shook her head, carefully keeping her face neutral. "He's in the cockpit."
She watched with increasing amusement as Sam tried to find the right way to phrase the questions he clearly wanted to ask. At length he gave up his search for something tactful, subtle, or original. "I thought that you and he were… er… that you were, you know… together? Was I wrong about that?"
"Oh, no!" She smiled sweetly, unwrapping a mint and offering one to Sam as the plane began its path along the runway. "We're here together. I wouldn't be attending this shindig if he hadn't invited me. As for whether we're together in the sense of, you know, together… I have no idea."
"Has it been going on for long?" Judging by the tone of Sam's voice, he was equally curious and reluctant to know the answer.
Nina sighed. "For fuck's sake, Sam, you know it hasn't. When's the last time we saw each other? March? April? And you knew I wasn't seeing anyone then. I actually didn't cross paths with him again until July, if that's what's troubling you. If you want the details, I was teaching at summer school, he was giving a talk at some STEM event, we were both at the same drinks reception, and he asked me out. I said yes. And here we are."
"Look, I'm not judging," Sam's tone was, to Nina's ears at least, a little defensive. "What you do is entirely your business. I'm just trying to make sense of it, that's all."
"Christ, you and me both."
In a display of unusual tact, Sam did not question Nina further. She felt a little bit bad. That response had been snappier than she had intended it to be, and she was irritated with herself — partly for sounding like a teenager trying to be enigmatic and partly for letting Purdue's little joke get to her. The last thing she had expected was to run into Sam in Las Vegas, and the prospect of spending the next couple of weeks in close proximity to him, with Purdue engineering opportunities to leave them alone together just to see how they would react, did not make her happy.
I don't know why he thinks it's so bloody interesting anyway, she thought. It's not as if anything really happened between me and Sam. One kiss, that's all. I didn't think anyone was even paying that much attention. But then, Purdue never seems to miss a damn thing.
With a muffled roar, the plane glided smoothly from tarmac to air. Nina's fingers closed around the arms of her chair and dug in deep. Her mind with images of screaming passengers, of flashing lights, of the white hot fireball that the plane would surely become when it inevitably crashed. She had not always been such a terrible flyer. For a long time she had been able to keep her claustrophobia under control when traveling by air, but it had taken a turn for the worse after her experiences in the submarine during the Wolfenstein expedition, followed by a turbulent flight home from Ushuaia and then the disastrous confinement of Deep Sea One. She had not flown again until this trip to America. In retrospect, I should have done some short flights first, she thought, and got my hand in again. Doing another long-haul trip was insane.
She jumped as she felt a hand cover hers.
"Sorry!" Sam took his hand away again. "I just thought you might want — I remembered that it used to help you, having a hand to hold. I didn't think. Sorry."
"No, it's ok," she said, holding her hand out to him. "It's fine. You just took me by surprise, that's all. It does help. It really, really helps. I just hate feeling that if the plane goes down, I'm going to die alone."
"Well, you're not. All of these nice people will be right here with you, keeping you company. And if we're going to die, I promise you that I won't hold it against you if you break my fingers." He smiled. Despite herself, Nina smiled back. She wanted to hold onto her reluctant distance from Sam. Damn it, he was not supposed to interfere! He wrote that feature on Frank Matlock, advertising his book, knowing full well that Dr. Matlock had shafted Nina by stealing her work. It had damn near killed their friendship for good.
It took perilous experiences well beyond her acceptance and surreal terror under the thrall of an ancient relic to mend their fresh camaraderie. Then her subsequent emotional collapse ripped her from Sam's friendship and she had to make the harsh decision to distance herself long enough, to keep her episode utterly secret from all who knew her, and retreat into the drudgery of devising her next move in life. And with all her plans in place, finally working out, Sam had to plummet back into her life.