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It hadn’t happened immediately after graduation, but they had grown apart. One day, Candace, Ezra, Mei and Miles had spent nearly every day together and the next it was like they were living on four different planets. Well, three planets; Mei and Miles were certainly on a planet together. In reality, they’d drifted apart gradually, so slowly Ezra had barely noticed. He’d naively thought graduation wouldn’t change them. But if things had to change, he’d hoped that he and Candace would drift closer together, not further apart. He’d been wrong.
She hadn’t come home for graduation. She’d decided to stay in South America and travel with a guy she’d just met. Three months later, he heard from Miles that she was in Jamaica, and then she popped up in New York before spending six months in Toronto. Ezra had felt as if a small part of his soul died every time he heard that Candace was somewhere new with someone who wasn’t him. But he’d also lived for every scrap of information about her; a geographic location, a story about a new under-the-table job. He was hungry for any news about her, even if it hurt. A mangled snippet of a funny story Mei couldn’t quite remember in detail while the three of them were waiting for the gates to open before the Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants game; a random anecdote about how she’d changed her hair, but never a picture; a throwaway comment about a new book she was obsessed with and then a discreet interrogation for the title, so he could read it and feel close to her. But never a coherent picture of what her life was like and, crucially, if she missed him.
After a year, he had to accept that the answer to that question was obvious and should have been obvious by her terse email congratulating him for winning the Gilder prize and then radio silence. She didn’t miss him. She never had. And he was a fool to have ever hoped she would. It was a lesson he’d had to learn and re-learn more times than he would ever be comfortable admitting. And apparently, he wasn’t done learning it just yet.
He watched her officially welcome the passengers to the flight and announce the drinks service, waiting desperately for her to look his way. She didn’t. She put her hand on her hip and stared down at her feet as she spoke, never once tripping over the announcement she must have made thousands of times. When she was done, he watched as she knocked on the cockpit door and spoke to one of the pilots briefly. Someone two rows above him and across the aisle pressed the overhead button to call her and Ezra hungrily — pathetically — drank in the curve of her elegant neck as she smoothly pressed the button to turn off the call and leaned over the passenger to ask what they needed. He reveled in the soft whiskey sound of her voice, the tinkle of her laughter and the curve of her hip as she placed her hand there and listened. He even took in the shape of her as she walked toward the front of the plane. But he ducked down in his seat and watched her over the chair in front of him when she returned, so she didn’t see him. Not that she looked his way. When she walked past him down the aisle, it was as if he wasn’t even there. He pushed himself up in his seat, feeling foolish.
How long was too long to pine after someone who clearly didn’t want you? Ezra had been asking himself some version of this question for his entire adult life and in just a few minutes he’d fallen back into that old pattern of wanting Candace in vain. That’s when he reminded himself that the entire reason for this trip was to break the bad habit of wanting the only woman he couldn’t have. And he reasoned that it was only right that he got to see her one last time before he forced himself to forget about her for good.
“Pssst,” the old man across the aisle said.
Ezra turned to him and frowned. “Yes?”
The man held up the latest issue of Tech Times. “Is this you?”
Ezra shook his head automatically, even as he stared at his own smiling face on the cover.
“Yes, it is,” the man said and turned to the woman sitting next to him.
Ezra didn’t need to hear what he was saying to get the gist, especially when the older woman, who was maybe the man’s wife, leaned forward to squint at Ezra. Her small eyes darted from his face to the cover. When she reached for the eyeglasses perched on top of her head, Ezra exhaled.
“Okay, you’re right. It’s me,” he leaned forward to whisper across the aisle.
“I knew it,” the man said triumphantly, beaming at Ezra. And then he extended the magazine across the aisle face up. “Any chance of an autograph?”
Ezra nodded and reached for the magazine just as Candace pulled back the curtain separating First Class from the main cabin. He looked up at her, the back of his neck getting hot from embarrassment. She was looking down, but not at him — never at him. Her eyes were glued to the magazine.
He’d have thought there would be nothing to see in her gaze, but he was shocked to find that she looked... well actually, Ezra didn’t know. There was a time when he’d known all of Candace’s facial expressions, cataloguing them like the lovesick fool he was. But this one was new; he’d never seen it before. And that shouldn’t have mattered. Not really. But Ezra was pathetic and that unknown facial expression on Candace’s face did matter, because at least it wasn’t indifference.
***
"I need you to do me a favor,” Candace hissed at Jorge in the back galley.
“You sound like Sarah. Are you about to ask me to cover your return because no can do, ma’am? Once we land in Quito, I’m hopping on the bus to the hotel, showering, putting on my shortest shorts and heading out to find me a man to ring in the new year with.”
Candace rolled her eyes. “I’m going to ignore you comparing me to Sarah because we’re friends and I need your help. Besides, I’m staying in Quito for a few days, so chill. I need you to take over First Class and Business for me.”
“Huh?” Jorge frowned.
“I can’t get into it, but I need to switch cabins with you. Please.”
Jorge’s eyes shifted from left to right. “Girl, let me get this straight. You want to take over the packed, plebian ass economy seats even though there is a married couple in row 30, seats A and C who are right now almost certainly hurtling toward divorce even though we’re barely at cruising altitude? And in return you want to give me a cabin that might have a man rich and almost single enough to be my first mistake of the new year? Am I hearing you correctly?”
Candace put her fist on one hip. “Don’t make me take it back,” she said. Jorge didn’t need to know that she would absolutely never do that.
He put his hands out toward her and shook his head, “Haha, just kidding. I’ll do it.”
Candace exhaled. “Thank you. I really appreciate this.”
“Um... you’re welcome,” he said skeptically. He turned back to the cart he was currently filling with refreshments. Technically that was her cart now, but Candace let him finish the task. She was giving him First and Business.
“So, 30A and B are breaking up?” she asked, looking down the aisle and trying not to focus on the dark blue curtain cordoning off the main cabin from the premium seats.
“A and C, girl,” Jorge corrected.
She turned to him. “What about B? Who’s in between them?”
“Some dude. I don’t think he’s related or even knows them.”
“Why not?”
Jorge smiled. “He asked me if I could bring him a bag of popcorn.”
They ducked back behind the bathrooms to laugh. When a passenger pushed out of the bathroom — even though the captain had yet to turn off the seatbelt light — she and Jorge tried to rein in their silliness and get back to work.
“Alright, you’re good to go,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He turned and smiled at her. “No, thank you. And if you think I’m not going to make you explain what’s going on, you’re dead wrong. Be prepared to spill after refuse service, bye.” Jorge crossed his feet at the ankles so he could turn slowly and smoothly while he waved with just his fingers.
Candace rolled her eyes again. She normally would never have let him get away with such annoying behavior, but he really was doing her a favor so she couldn’t afford to rock the boat. Putting as much distance as the plane allowed between herself and Ezra mattered more than dunking on Jorge.
It was pathetic, but there was something about seeing Ezra on the cover of that issue of Tech Times that made her feel so small she could hardly breathe. The conflicting emotions she felt were almost too many to handle. She was so proud of him — she always had been — but that pride was tinged with shame. Ezra was a tech giant on the cover of a magazine, and she was the woman asking him if he wanted nuts or cookies. She didn’t think it could get any more embarrassing than that. And she couldn’t bear to see pity in his eyes. So she’d run away, and not for the first time.
She took a deep breath, checked over the cart, made sure the aisle was clear and then she backed out into the aisle to start the drinks service.
She tried to keep her mind Ezra-free as she served but handing out drinks would never be more engaging than thinking about Ezra and how soft his beard looked. The repetition of her job was as much a reason to love and hate it. She said the same things — “Would you like something to drink? How about you?” — and the passengers asked the same questions — “Do you have decaf? Coke? Tomato juice?” She hardly had to think at all, which gave her mind ample time to keep wandering back to row five, seat C. The only aisle that stole her attention for a bit was row 30. Jorge was right, seats A and C were absolutely sniping at one another across the lap of a complete stranger who was thoroughly enjoying watching their marriage dissolve up close and personal.
To keep her mind from Ezra, Candace worked overtime to remind herself why she’d said yes to this trip; why she’d let Sarah con her. This trip was supposed to be a new beginning. She wanted to find herself in the exact city where she’d been lost. It was dramatic and maybe wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but it made sense to her and that’s all that mattered. As she passed out the last row of drinks and snacks, she decided that it even made a kind of sense that Ezra was on this flight, since she’d lost herself in Ecuador all those years ago partially because of him. It wasn’t his fault per se, but she’d never have let Marcel convince her to live like a nomad for a year if she hadn’t been trying to drown her sadness in adventure and just okay rebound sex. It wasn’t healthy, but Candace decided to hold onto that ancient hurt, hoping that it would help her survive the next ten hours.
She’d just stashed her cart away and turned toward the aisle when the curtain cordoning off the premium and main cabins fluttered. Candace sucked in a breath as Ezra appeared in the aisle. They locked eyes across nearly the entire length of the plane and Candace felt immediately trapped. She took two steps back as he began walking toward her. But there was nowhere else to go. So she did the only thing she could do; she pulled the door to the nearest bathroom open and jumped inside.
Desperate times and all that.
***
Ezra should have stayed in his seat. What did it matter that Candace had walked through the curtain to the main cabin and hadn’t returned? Why should he care if she stayed on the other side of the plane for the rest of the flight? He was supposed to be getting over her. He wondered all these things as he unbuckled his seatbelt, stood and pulled the curtain back.
He wondered other things when he saw the wide-eyed shock on her face and the way she scurried into the bathroom to hide from him. He wondered why he wasn’t turning around. He wondered why she’d always mattered so much to him. Why he never meant nearly as much to her. But most of all he wondered why he couldn’t let her go, not even when he was flying across the continent to do just that.
He knocked on the door to the bathroom.
“The other one’s open, dude.”
Ezra turned to see a tall, bald man looking quizzically at him. He hadn’t heard him walking behind him in the aisle; he’d been so focused on Candace. Always so focused on Candace.
“Um,” he said, stepping past the bathrooms and out of the man’s way, “you can take it. I’ll wait for this one.”
The man squinted at him, “Why? What’s wrong with this one?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it, I just need to talk to the person in this one.”
The man eyed him for a few seconds and then shrugged. “First 30A, now this,” he mumbled. Ezra didn’t know what that meant but he was happy when the man opened the bathroom door and disappeared. He took another breath and knocked on the other door again. “Candace,” he whispered.
He wasn’t sure if he’d meant to whisper her name that way — like a plea — but he’d done it, and he guessed there was no going back now. But she didn’t respond.
He knocked again.
“Sir, there’s no one in the First Class bathroom,” one of the other flight attendants whispered to him, as if he was crazy for walking past the bathrooms behind Business and all the way to the back of the plane like a commoner.
“I don’t have to use the bathroom,” Ezra said. “I just need to talk to someone in this bathroom for a second.”
The flight attendant wrinkled his nose.
Ezra sighed and knocked again. “Candace, I’m not leaving. Just open the door,” he said, loud enough that people a few rows ahead turned to see what all the racket was about.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to return to your seat.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a federal offense to assault a flight attendant while in the air. Now please return to your seat before I contact the Air Marshall.”
“What, I—?”
The bathroom door opened and the men turned to see Candace looking resignedly at them. “Don’t do that, Jorge. I know him. He’s... Ezra’s harmless,” she said, still refusing to even look his way.
“Are you sure?” Jorge asked. “Because I’ll let the captain know and we can turn this whole damn plane around.” He glared at Ezra as he spoke.
“I didn’t do anything. I wasn’t going to do anything,” Ezra said and turned to Candace. “I just wanted to talk.”
She wouldn’t look at him.
The other bathroom door opened and the other man stared at them for a few seconds before he turned to Jorge. “So about that popcorn?”
Ezra squinted at them both, but Candace took charge, just like she used to in college when they were running late for one of the dances in the student union, which only got packed and sweatier the longer they went on. She stepped out of the bathroom and pushed past Ezra. She pulled open one of the metal drawers lining the back of the plane and snatched a small bag of chips from the compartment.
“This is the best we can do,” she said as she handed the bag to the other passenger. “Now please, I’m going to have to ask you to return to your seat.”
“Why does he get to stay back here?”
Candace was always the levelheaded one in the friend group. Mei was always much more likely to start a ruckus and Miles was a wild card — just as likely to stoke Mei’s flame as talk her down — while Ezra was full of silent, anxious happiness just to be involved. That usually left it to Candace to keep them all in check; until she couldn’t. Everyone had a limit and Ezra watched as Candace neared hers. Her mouth flattened in a line, and she squinted her eyes. He stepped back out of the line of fire on instinct.
But apparently Jorge knew what that look meant because he stepped in between them, his back to Candace, and smiled at the passenger. “Hey, I heard 30C say something about a prenup.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, I knew it!”
Ezra’s eyes squinted as he watched the man scurry up the aisle. “What just happened?”
“Apparently the couple in row 30 decided to get a divorce just after takeoff. That guy is sitting in between them and he’s loving the drama,” Candace said.
Ezra turned to her, a confused smile on his face. “How? I would have asked to move seats or crawled under the seat in front of me. That sounds hella awkward.”
Candace opened her mouth as if to speak, but then she clamped her lips shut and looked away. A pit formed in Ezra’s stomach at the movement. It was a reminder that he’d lost so much with Candace, not just the sex or the object of his infatuation, but his friend. He knew that whatever she’d been about to say would have been great, probably funny, maybe scathing; definitely something worth remembering. And instead of telling him, she’d bitten her tongue.
He couldn’t for the life of him understand how they’d fallen so far.
“Candace,” he said.
She shook her head and then the plane lurched just as the seatbelt sign illuminated. He watched as she exhaled in relief and then lifted her eyes to his. “Please return to your seat,” she said to him, as if he was just some other passenger and not her best friend or the man who had rung in the new year with his face between her legs more than once.
She spoke as if he’d never meant anything to her at all. And as he walked back to his seat, he guessed that was because he hadn’t. Ezra was surprised he still had pieces of his heart large enough to break, but he did. What a terrible realization to have at 30,000 feet in the air.