Flight of Fancy - The Coconut Chronicles: Two Guys, One Caribbean Dream House - page 102

He called the airport to confirm his doubts.
“Come on out!” the man answered cheerfully. “It looks like the storm might break up a
little. If it does, we'll give it a try.”
Michael repeated this conversation.
“Give it a try?” I asked, my stomach turning back-flips. “What are they, stunt pilots?”
We closed down the house in record time.
Rain lashed the windshield on the way to the rental office but, by the time we checked
in the car, it had slowed to a steady drizzle and as we approached the airport, the rain
stopped.
Pandemonium reigned at the terminal. Flights were called and then canceled. Airline
employees with clipboards bustled (at least by Puerto Rican standards) up and down the air-
port's curving central staircase. The rain returned with a vengeance, giant raindrops pound-
ing the tin roof.
Our flight was scheduled to depart at eleven-thirty. At eleven-twenty, during a barely
discernible lull in the storm, they herded us together (there were only five of us) and led
us through the rain to the plane, thirty feet away out on the tarmac. Then they sorted us
by weight, as they always did, and seated us according to some unfathomable and vaguely
insulting equation.
Michael was instructed to take a seat two rows behind the pilot. Everyone else was
seated next to or right behind him while I was plopped down in the last row by the exit
(known to me as the “certain death” door).
Oh goody.
The pilot was the last to board. As usual he was disconcertingly young. And chipper.
And he didn't seem remotely nervous.
This probably should have made me feel better but it had the opposite effect.
My God , I thought, he's not even taking this seriously . Maybe he has a death wish.
Maybe he's so young he has no concept of death .
I studied the back of Michael's head. It was clear that he wasn't nervous either. Where
were all the grown-ups on this flight?
Then I spotted a kindred spirit.
The man two rows in front of me held himself very erect, darting nervous glances out
the window, punctuated by sheepish grins tossed towards the man beside him. As far as
I could tell, his friend was completely ignoring him. It was obvious that Michael and my
fellow-sufferer's companion were cut from the same bolt of heartless cloth. I could barely
stop myself from rushing up to clutch the nervous man's undoubtedly sweaty palm.
The takeoff was sensationally bumpy. At least, that's how it seemed to me. Michael
later professed not to notice, which made me dislike him intensely for at least five minutes.