Allegra, wearing a blue hospital gown—“underpants on, bra off”—lies face down in a small tunnel. She does not suffer from claustrophobia, but she now understands why people do, because this is not fun. She is wearing giant headphones. Michael Bublé is crooning love songs to her through the headphones. Her mother is a Michael Bublé fan, Allegra not so much. She holds a buzzer she can press if she needs to talk. A clip on her finger is attached to a long tube monitoring her heart rate and breathing. She rarely goes to the doctor, has never been admitted to the hospital. Everyone is friendly and kind, but she doesn’t like the way they are in charge of her, the way she is in charge of her passengers. She recognizes something of herself in the authoritative boredom of their tones. Everything they say they’ve said a thousand times before. Every question Allegra asks has been asked and answered before.
Her back pain is far worse this time around. Nothing seems to help. She may require surgery. They just have to work out what’s going on. She has never had surgery.
Her mother remains in a state about the prediction, in spite of the blessings, mantras, and the famous astrologer in India who could see nothing untoward in Allegra’s birth chart.
She overheard her brother saying, “Mum, no doctor is going to prescribe Allegra antidepressants as a preventative measure based on some nutjob’s prediction.”
“But back pain causes depression, Taj!” said her mother. “And depression causes back pain! It’s a loop! She’s stuck in a loop! Now she can’t work, she can’t drive, she’s stuck at home all day, she is a sitting duck for depression!”
“So we fix her back pain,” said Taj. “We don’t muck around with her brain chemistry.”
Allegra is not suicidal, absolutely not, but in the same way she now understands claustrophobia, she also has a new understanding of suicidal ideation. There have been times when she would do anything to escape the pain.
A disembodied voice says, “All right, Allegra, we’re about to begin! It’s going to get very noisy, but try to relax and press the buzzer if you need me.”
In spite of the warnings, she is still surprised by the loudness of the machine when it starts up. The noises are so comical she wants to laugh. Is someone playing a joke on her? They are like pretend sounds for a children’s spaceship toy.
Eow, eow, eow, eow.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thump, thump, thump.
Beep, beep, beep.
The fact that these strange sounds are interspersed by snippets of Michael Bublé makes it all the weirder. How did she end up here? She thinks of the moment she took the full weight of that caftan woman’s carry-on bag, and then that day, when she’d felt so happy, Anders running, the dog on the lead, her legs tangling so unnecessarily. Nobody to blame for all this except herself.
She tries to remember all the MRI sounds so she can replay them for Jonny, and then she remembers that she and Jonny are not together anymore, or were never really together in the first place, she isn’t sure. Of course, he didn’t abandon her on the grass that day. He and Anders got her to her feet—she was nearly sobbing with the pain—and Jonny drove her home, got her into bed, and gave her two painkillers left over from last time. Her parents came over because she called them like a child. She didn’t know what else to do. Who do people call if they don’t have parents?
Jonny met her parents on the same day she made it clear she didn’t want to meet his. He was warm and friendly with them and she heard him describe himself as “Allegra’s friend.” And then he left. He has checked in twice to see how she is doing. His messages are not cold, but they are not warm either. They are neutral. Neutral is awful.
Fool, fool, fool, she taunts herself, in rhythm with the MRI noises.
“I’m sorry you’ve had to take time off work again for me,” says Allegra to her mother as she drives her home from the MRI.
“It is fine,” says her mother with a shrug. “I am indispensable. They know it. And my family comes first.”
Her mother has worked at the same insurance company for many years.
“How is the pain right now?” she asks.
“Seven out of ten.” Allegra shifts in her seat. “It’s bearable.”
“We will get it sorted out. Put your seat back farther. Are you having suicidal thoughts?”
Her mother has been doing research and she has learned that you should not be afraid to ask someone if they are having suicidal thoughts. Allegra is sure the research is correct, but she’s not sure you’re meant to ask the question quite as often as her mother does. It’s a little jarring.
“I’m fine,” says Allegra. She reclines her seat back. “I’m not bursting with joy, obviously.”
“Because of that boy?”
“No, because of my back,” says Allegra. She sighs. “Also because of the boy. I mucked it up.”
“Well, then you fix it,” says her mother as she weaves in and out of traffic.
Allegra says, “It might not be that easy.”
Her phone buzzes. It’s Jonny. Her heart automatically lifts at the sight of his name, but then she remembers to steel herself for another neutral, we-are-friendly-work-colleagues-who-hooked-up-for-a-while-but-that’s-all-over-now message.
It’s a link, along with a text that reads: At least try it in this life too.
“Try it in this life?” She clicks on the link and laughs a little. It’s a flight school offering trial introductory flights. He’s talking about her being a bird in a past life.
“What is it?”
“Jonny sent me a link,” explains Allegra. “He got the impression I want to train to be a pilot.”
“How did he get that impression?”
Allegra tells her the story of her conversation with Jonny on their walk. “I’m not interested in training to be a pilot,” says Allegra comfortingly.
“And why is that?” asks her mother. They stop at a light and her mother looks at her, her hands on the wheel. “Do you think because you’re a woman you can’t be a pilot?”
“Of course I don’t think that,” says Allegra. “Absolutely not.” If it was any other woman than herself she would be encouraging them. The industry needs more female pilots.
She says to her mother, “You don’t want me to be a pilot! You still go on about dentistry!”
“I haven’t mentioned that in years,” says her mother. “I’d be proud if you became a pilot! If that’s what you want, of course.”
“It’s not what I want,” says Allegra. “I’ve honestly never thought about it. Not consciously, anyway.”
“But then why did you say that to Jonny?”
Allegra says the same thing she said to him. “It’s just the first crazy thing that came into my head. It’s like saying, if I could be anything, I’d be a rock star!”
“You could not be a rock star,” says her mother. “Your singing is terrible.”
“Thanks, Mum.”
“Seriously. It’s very bad. I see the contestants on those singing shows and I say to your father, ‘Why do their parents not set them straight?’ But you could be a pilot, Allegra, you could be a very good pilot. You are a good driver, best in the family, better than your father, and you are so good with his coffee machine.”
Allegra laughs. “So I should be a pilot because I can drive and work Dad’s coffee machine?”
“It has as many buttons and switches as a spaceship. And you always wanted to fly. Do you not remember at your grandmother’s house how you would run and jump off her back veranda with your arms out? It was terrifying to watch. Taj wouldn’t do it!”
“I wasn’t pretending to be a pilot,” says Allegra. “I was pretending to be a plane.”
“Well, you can’t be a plane, Allegra, but you could be a pilot.”
“You’ve never said this before, Mum.”
“I didn’t know it was your dream. I thought it was your dream to be a flight attendant.”
“It was! It is! I love it.”
“But just because you achieved one dream doesn’t mean you can’t now try for another. I’ve recently wondered if you needed a new challenge.”
“Because you’re obsessed with me not getting depressed,” says Allegra.
“No! Before that! I simply thought it might be time for something new. Sometimes I worry you have become too…” Her mother looks for the right word. “Careful,” she finally says.
“Careful? That was your favorite phrase when I was growing up, Mum: Be careful, Allegra.”
“But now you’re too careful. You dress like a rebel, but you are not one! Ever since that stupid boy broke your heart you have been so…tentative…with your heart, and now, it seems, with your dreams. YOLO, Allegra!”
“Ah, do you know what that means, Mum?”
“Yes, I do know what it means. It means you only live once.”
“Which is a very strange thing for my Hindu mother to say.”
“The acronym might mean that, but I think the message is: Dare to dream.”
“Now you sound like Oprah.”
Her mother sighs. “Also, that gorgeous young man likes you. He is sending you interesting links! And you have so much in common! Such beautiful faces and both just a little…stupid.” She jabs her finger at her head.
“Thanks, Mum.”
“Not intelligence-wise. But I find it interesting you both seem to need other people’s permission to dream.”
“Moving on,” interrupts Allegra.
They drive in silence for a while.
What if she stopped being careful? What would that actually entail? Could she be a pilot? Could she allow herself to want that? What if she failed? What if everyone laughed at her? What if she doesn’t have what it takes?
She looks at the reflections of the clouds in the car window.
What if she succeeded?
“I am wondering what that fortune teller is doing right now,” says her mother. “I think about her all the time, but does she ever think about us? And the stress she has caused the families of her victims?”
“She could be on another flight,” says Allegra. “Doing her ‘cause of death, age of death’ thing.”
Her mother frowns. “That is the phrase she used? That is how she spoke?”
“Yes,” says Allegra. “Didn’t I tell you that? She’d say I expect…and then she’d give the cause of death, followed by the age of death.”
“I expect,” repeats her mother. “That’s interesting.”
“Why?” asks Allegra.
“Her choice of language. I wonder if she works in the insurance industry. Expect. Expectations? Life expectancy. Age of death. Cause of death.”
Allegra doesn’t answer. She is not interested in the lady. The lady means nothing. She is taking out her phone and texting Jonny.
Can we please talk…
Delete.
Thank you for the link…
Delete.
I actually really like…
Delete.
The problem is I think I maybe love you.
She thinks of herself as a little girl running as fast as she could and jumping off her grandmother’s back veranda, arms straight and horizontal like wings. It wasn’t really that high, but you couldn’t see the ground before you jumped, you just had to believe it was there, and every time there was a terrifyingly glorious moment of freefall.
She presses send.
Her regret is instant. Her back clamors for attention. Her pain soars to a nine. Such a weird message. You don’t say “I love you” for the first time in a text. You don’t say “I love you” when you’ve not yet confirmed you’re in a relationship. He’ll go running for the hills!
Her mother says, “She sounds just like an actuary.”
Allegra doesn’t respond because she is looking at the words that have appeared so quickly on her phone it feels like magic, it feels like a miracle.
The ground was there all the time.
She just flipped her whole day. Maybe she just flipped her whole life.
It says: It’s not a problem, Allegra, and it’s not a maybe for me.