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“It’s not really a little infraction, though, is it?” I asked, the blood starting to pulse in my temples so hard that I could hardly see straight. “Getting drunk before, or on a flight, could kill people. It could kill a lot of people.”
“Did you ever fly with the guy?” Baldy said. “Because it kind of sounds like you know him.”
"I wouldn't say that I know him, but I flew with him once. He was the lead pilot, and he got so drunk on the plane that he almost knocked himself out when we hit some turbulence. It wasn't just a little bit of drinking. He was out of control. My guess is that if I saw it, somebody else did, too."
“Shit,” Baldy said. “Maybe he was a little worse than I thought. You’re probably right. The guy was dangerous. Still, it’s a rough fucking break.”
I listened to the two of them for a little longer before making some bullshit excuse to get up and go. The plan to hang out in the Lounge until I came to a decision about Jess was gone. All I could think about was Fred. I was glad that he wasn't able to go out there and hurt people anymore, but now, I was also wrestling with the news that he'd been let go permanently.
Maybe I should have been sorry for my role in things, but I wasn't. Not at all. On the contrary, now I was pissed off. Fred had all the time in the world to go and get some help, and he'd done nothing. That was the kind of person I would never in my life understand.
Chapter 15: Jess
“God, this is so boring,” Emma groaned.
“Your dinner?” Sophie asked.
“Yeah, my dinner.”
“You’re telling me the dinner is boring?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide. “Who even says something like that?”
Sophie looked at me in disbelief, and I had to duck my head and put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. I knew enough about ten-year-old girls to know that Emma wouldn't appreciate being laughed at. Still, it was a struggle I thought myself likely to lose for a couple of minutes.
It wasn't just Emma’s pronouncement that her bowl of spaghetti was too boring to eat, although that would have been enough. As she spoke, my daughter sat across from me, her chin resting in the palms of her hands forlornly. Her face was a perfect picture of childhood discontent, something all kids experienced as the end of summer approached. I knew this from my own childhood, but it would have been pointless to explain it to Emma. Children rarely enjoyed being told that what they were going through wasn't unique.
“Emma,” I said softly, once I was sure that I wasn’t going to lose myself to a fit of the giggles. “You know that isn’t very polite, right?”
"No," she said sulkily, her chin sinking even further down. "I don't. What's not polite about the truth?"
“Your aunt Sophie was nice enough to cook for you, so you shouldn’t complain. You know that dinner didn’t just appear out of nowhere, right? We aren’t living in a Disney movie.”
“I wish we were,” Emma said grouchily. “I bet things wouldn’t be so boring if we were.”
“Sure,” Sophie said brightly, digging into her own bowl of pasta happily. “Unless you’re in one of those Disney stories where you get yourself locked in a tower or put under a sleeping curse or something. I bet you’d be pretty freaking bored if either of those things happened.”
“Ugh, you know what I mean, Aunt Sophie. I can’t take it anymore! There’s like, nothing fun left to do in life!”
“Sweetie, what are you talking about?” I asked as gently as possible, trying not to piss her off and make her fly off the handle. “It’s only the first of July. How can there be nothing fun left? Especially in your whole life? There’s a lot of life left to live, Emma. It’s pretty early to give up on it all.”
"I'm not giving up,” she said. “I'm just bored!"
“So, then you’re ready to get back to school then, I suppose?”
“Yup!” she crowed happily. Sophie and I both dissolved into laughter after all. “I kind
of am. I’ll get to see all of my friends, at least. And I sort of like school. There’s always something new to do, at least.”
"Seriously?" Sophie asked, her face registering genuine shock. "I don't see how that's possible. When your mom and I were young, we always wanted the summer to go on forever. Or at least, as close to forever as we could get. It's like we're not even the same species."
“You’re so silly.” Emma giggled, distracted enough to begin eating her dinner, despite it being the self-professed most boring food in the world. “And I bet part of why you weren’t bored was because you had boyfriends.”
“What?!” Sophie and I asked quickly and at the exact same time. “What does that even mean?”
“Boyfriends. You guys probably had boyfriends to hang out with you during the summer. That must make everything way more fun.”
"What on earth makes you think that?" I asked. My heart was thumping in my chest, and whether or not it was rational, I could feel the metallic taste of panic beginning to flood my mouth.
"If you have a boyfriend, you have somebody to always want to hang out with you,” Emma said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Plus, they like, do whatever you say and stuff. When they don't, you get to talk to your girlfriends about it. It makes it so there's always something to do. And even when you aren't actually doing anything, it makes it so that you have something to think about all the time. If I had a boyfriend, I bet this summer would be way, way better."
