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Jonah probably wouldn’t be so amused if he knew that I fished out a plastic bag from my purse and have been holding it open in front of me for the past fifteen minutes. How I’ve kept down the chicken tacos that I devoured in Seattle this long is no small miracle, but they’re churning in my stomach now.
The plane’s nose suddenly tips downward. I brace myself and yank on my seat belt to make sure it’s snug. Then I concentrate on taking deep breaths, hoping that will soothe my frazzled nerves as well as my guts. What the hell was Agnes thinking, sending Jonah to get me in this death trap? I can’t wait to phone my mother and tell her that she was right, that I’m so not fine with weaving around mountains while packed into a tin can like a sardine. That no sane person would be fine with this, ever.
These Alaskan pilots are crazy to choose to do this.
“How much longer?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady as the plane tilts this way and that.
“Ten minutes less than the last time you asked,” Jonah mutters. He radios the dispatcher and begins rhyming off codes and talking about visibility and knots.
And I glare at the back of his bulky frame, wedged into the pilot’s seat. If he’s uncomfortable in this tiny fuselage, he hasn’t uttered a word of complaint. In fact, he’s said barely anything to me this entire trip. Mostly “yups” and “nopes” and closed-off answers that stalled all attempts at small talk that I made. I finally gave up and instead focused on the frayed ash-blond wisps of hair that curl around the brim of his baseball cap and over the collar of his jacket, and not on the fact that just outside the thin metal walls and glass panels are thousands of feet through which we could plummet to our death.
A reality that seems more certain with each sudden and violent jerk.
The plane careens to the right, earning my panicked gasp. I squeeze my eyes shut and keep taking calm, steady breaths, hoping that will quell this bubbling nausea. I can do this . . . I can do this . . . This is just like flying in any plane. We’re not going to die. Jonah knows what he’s doing.
“That’s Bangor, up ahead.”
I dare peek out the window and below, hoping the promise of my toes touching the ground soon will help with my nerves. Lush, green, flat ground stretches out as far as the overcast skies allow me to see, a vast expanse of land mostly untouched by the human hand. It’s peppered with streams and lakes of all shapes and sizes, and one wide river that snakes through it.
“That’s Bangor?” I can’t hide the surprise from my voice as I study the crops of low, rectangular buildings huddled along the river’s edge.
“Yup.” A pause. “What were you expecting?”
“Nothing. Just . . . I thought it’d be bigger.”
“It’s the biggest community in Western Alaska.”
“Yes, I know that. That’s why I thought the buildings would be, I don’t know, bigger. Taller.” With all the scrambling of the last two days, I had little time to educate myself on where it is I’d be going. All I know is what I read on my phone while waiting for my plane this morning—that this part of Alaska is considered “tundra” for its flat land; that the sun barely sets during summer months and barely rises during the long, arctic winters; and that most of the towns and villages around here have Native Alaskan names that I can’t pronounce.
Jonah snorts, and I immediately regret admitting my thoughts out loud. “Doesn’t sound like you know much at all. Weren’t you born here?”
“Yeah, but it’s not like I’d remember anything. I wasn’t even two when we left.”
“Well, maybe if you’d bothered coming back before now, you’d know what to expect.” His tone is thick with accusation.
What the hell is his problem?
We hit a pocket of turbulence and the plane begins jolting violently. I brace myself with a palm against the icy window as that queasy feeling begins to stir again, and the solid form deep inside me begins to rise. My stomach’s preparing to empty its contents. “Oh God . . . this is bad,” I moan.
“Relax. It’s nothing.”
“No, I mean . . .” My body has broken out in a sweat. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
His quiet curse carries into my ear. “Keep it down. We’ll be on the ground in five minutes.”
“I’m trying, but—”
“You can’t puke in here.”
“Do you think I want to?” I snap, fumbling with my plastic bag. Of all the things I dreaded, vomiting is up there with the worst.
And now I get to do it sitting behind this asshole.
“Hell. Six other pilots available and I had to be the one to get you,” Jonah mutters to himself.
I close my eyes and lean my face against the window. The ice-cold glass helps a bit, even with the jarring bumps. “ ‘Don’t worry, Calla.’ ‘It’s no big deal, Calla.’ That’s what a decent person would say,” I mumble feebly.
“I’m here to get your high-maintenance little ass to Bangor, not soothe your ego.”
