Dread

Drowsiness hits me like a brick at thirty thousand feet and for the next four hours I drift in and out of consciousness, half suspended in reality while half-suspended somewhere above the Atlantic. I like this feeling. Thrust at the mercy of physics and a pilot named Evan who ends each of his updates with the word “Aloha.”

We are not flying to Hawaii.

I got the window seat that I asked for and am happy for the empty seat between me and the woman in 21D. Her friend is across the aisle in 21C and it seems like they’re on some kind of girls’ trip, doughy and giggly in stretchy velvet pants and zip-up hoodies. I look at them and my mind fast-forwards one week; I see their pink peeling noses, five extra pounds, a hickey from an almost-divorced businessman. D pulls a familiar magazine out of her carry-on. I look away but listen as she turns the pages too quickly, and continues to chats with her friend. I resist a strong urge to lean over and point my name out on the masthead.

The flight attendant is demanding our attention now. She does a half-hearted Macarena while her partner narrates in English and then again in heavily-accented Spanish. I know the dance by heart, but watch anyway, all the while trying to imagine scenarios in which a Delta leather-like seat cushion could actually save my life.

Safety instructions are followed by a special announcement; it seems they have mixed cocktails onboard now, specially designed by a celebrity “mixologist” (her word, not mine) whose name I sort-of recognize but can’t quite place. The special this month, our flight attendant announces, is a pink martini “in honor of breast cancer.” A pleased murmur spreads throughout the cabin and it seems that no one else has noticed she’s left off the word "awareness." The girls next to me are particularly excited and eagerly fork over five dollars each for the makings of the special drink: a can of Minute Maid Pink Lemonade and a very tiny bottle of Finlandia.

“Cindy Crawford’s husband,” I say to myself, finally remembering where I’d heard the name Gerber. The girl looks at me warily; I can tell she doesn’t like me. Right now, I don’t really like her.

I think that if I were flying with a friend maybe I, too, would be giggly and up for a drink at 9 AM. But I’m not with a friend; I’m alone and cranky because I was up all night packing and am not entirely looking forward to this weekend. This weekend, when my youngest cousin will marry and the rest of my family will ask me over and over again when I plan to do something about my perpetual state of singleness.

Perhaps I should order a cocktail...