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“Okay girl, spill,” Jorge whispered as he rushed to the back of the plane.
“Shhh, we need to get ready for the dinner service.” Candace hoped the gravity of the task would distract Jorge from gossiping, but she was grasping at straws and she knew it. Jorge had a nose and encyclopedic memory for messy in-flight dynamics. He lived for it and rated each flight by how entertaining he found the passenger drama. Candace usually didn’t mind trading stories — being a flight attendant was more boring than people imagined — but it was decidedly less fun to be the object of his interest.
“No one’s listening,” he whispered, and then turned to preparing trays for the service carts. “Besides, we can multi-task.”
“Mark hates gossiping,” she said.
“I put Mark on the meals for the premium passengers. You know how he gets about that,” Jorge said with a roll of his eyes. “And Mark hates spicy foods and fun, who cares what he thinks? Gimme the tea, girl.”
Candace focused on moving the frozen meals in and out of the oven in a timely and safe manner, but much like the drinks service, the movements were programmed into her muscle memory and didn’t require the kind of attention she needed to tune Jorge out. She turned to him and glared. “Don’t pull a Sarah,” she said, annoyed.
His face fell. “Ouch.” He clutched his chest and took half a step back. He might have been hurt but Candace got her wish. He turned to the trays and gave his full attention to stocking her carts. Candace turned back to the oven and sighed in relief. She knew the reprieve couldn’t last long but she would happily and enthusiastically take every second of it as she prayed for this flight to literally fly by. She needed to get off this plane.
She and Jorge worked in efficient silence for a blessed fifteen minutes.
“How are we doing back here?” Mark asked as he walked into the rear service area.
“Great. Almost done,” Candace replied quickly. Her voice sounded strained, uncomfortably high-pitched.
“Perfect. I really appreciate how well you two work together.”
“Yep,” Jorge said, turning to her, “it helps when you’re friends.”
Candace slid another tray of cold vegetarian meals into the oven and ignored the stress he put on that last word. “Do you need anything, Mark?” she asked instead.
“Oh no, I was just checking up on you two.” There was a moment of silence and then she and Jorge turned to him for the first time. Candace noticed that his face was flushed. She’d never seen him look quite like this before so she couldn’t be sure, but he looked excited. It was actually kind of unnerving.
“Is there something you want to tell us?” Jorge asked carefully.
“Did something...happen?” Candace added, thinking of the couple breaking up.
She only noticed that his hands were behind his back when he brought them forward and held out the issue of Tech Times. “Ezra Posner is in First Class. I’m freaking out,” Mark whispered. “I’m a huge fan.”
“Who?” Jorge asked, but then he gasped and snatched the magazine from Mark’s hands.
“Hey—”
“Oh my god,” Jorge said, his eyes darting from the magazine to Candace’s face and then back again.
“I know,” Mark said. “He’s like a billionaire genius with a heart of gold.”
“A what?” Jorge yelled, turning to her.
“Shhh,” Mark and Candace said at the same time.
“A billionaire?” Jorge hissed at her.
The combination of Jorge’s excited eyes and Ezra’s smiling face on the cover was too much for Candace to handle. She turned away and began double-checking the carts in front of her even though she knew they were packed perfectly; she and Jorge really did work well together.
“I can’t believe he’s flying commercial,” Mark said.
“Yeah, that’s strange. Don’t you think that’s strange, Candace?”
“I wouldn’t know. Let’s announce the dinner service, guys.” She straightened and smiled at Mark. “You don’t want to get behind schedule, do you?”
Mark’s back straightened predictably. “Yes, yes, let’s get started,” he said, but then his posture relaxed and he cringed. “I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what? Make the announcement? I’ll do it,” she said in a relaxed voice, even though she felt wound tight. She just wanted to get the rest of the crew on track. She needed to do her job and lose herself in it so she could forget about Ezra, even if only for a few minutes.
Mark shook his head and his eyes widened in fear. “No, I can’t cover First and Business. My hands are shaking now,” he said, “I’ll probably drop his food in his lap.”
“You can’t be serious right now. He’s just some tech guy,” she started.
“Just some tech guy?” Mark exclaimed. “He’s literally going to revolutionize the way Americans travel long and short distances around the country. His high-speed trains run on renewable fuel and have you seen his infrastructure plans?”
As it happened, Candace had. She’d seen almost every early version of Ezra’s plans to revitalize public transportation locally and nationally. He’d given her the first draft of his project proposal at the end of their freshman year of college and she’d taken it home with her. She hadn’t understood one word of it, so she’d read it over and over again until she did. And when they met up a week before classes started sophomore year, she’d given him a response essay — mostly questions — of things he needed to clarify and expand upon and define that was nearly as long as his draft. She wasn’t certain how Ezra would take critical feedback — especially not from her — but they’d had maybe the longest conversation of their entire relationship up to that moment and gone through each of her queries point-by-point. Candace had felt a kind of exhilaration at having the smartest person she’d ever met take her seriously and listen so intently to her suggestions. When he’d given her the next version of his report, she could hardly contain her glee when she’d seen how many of her suggestions he’d incorporated into his revisions. And her heart had practically burst at all the footnotes he’d added with questions for her.
Even after college, she’d read every article about him from interviews to fluffy PR pieces, as if keeping up with Ezra were her job. Over the years, she’d watched that germ of an idea grow and change in ways she couldn’t have imagined, just as she’d watched Ezra become the kind of man she always knew he would. It was bittersweet. In college, she’d naively entertained the hope that she’d be right there by Ezra’s side when he won the Gilder prize and began to build his company, because she believed in him and his work. So watching it all happen from the outside felt like a knife in the heart, even as her entire body was suffused with pride.
She took a deep breath and let it out shakily, fisting her hands behind her back. “If you love his ideas so much then go serve him his pasta with meat sauce and ask for his autograph,” Candace said. “Talk to him about the company.” Her face was hot, her head was starting to ache and all she wanted to do was hide in one of the bathrooms and cry.
“Do you think he’d...?” Mark started and then shook his head. “No, I can’t. Oh my god, I couldn’t. Sorry, can’t do it.”
Candace gave Mark a tight smile. “Fine, Jorge, can you—”
“Nope,” he said way too fast, “I need to check back into the divorce court drama in the main cabin. Besides, First and Business are your territories.”
“What is wrong with you two?” she screeched. She had to close her eyes, hold her face in her hands and take a few deep breaths to get herself together. She couldn’t believe that she’d just yelled while on the job; a violation of the AeroPlan flight attendant code of conduct.
“Better question,” Jorge said, “is what’s wrong with you?”
“Yeah,” Mark said, and Candace’s eyes opened quickly. “Normally you love First Class. Am I missing something?”
Maybe if Mark’s hands had still been shaking or if his concerned eyes hadn’t been darting between her face and Jorge’s, Candace might have told him some version of the truth, especially if it would have gotten her out of switching back to the premium cabins. But she couldn’t. She wasn’t certain it was fear of being written up or pure cowardice, but she took a deep breath in through her nose, smiled and shook her head as she released it. “No, sorry. I just have a headache and I’m waiting for my medicine to kick in.” She sounded much calmer than she had before.
Jorge sucked his teeth and probably rolled his eyes, but Candace ignored him. She focused on Mark and waited.
After a few seconds that felt like an hour, Mark visibly relaxed and smiled. “Sorry to hear that. But that’s even more reason you should cover the premium seats. Fewer people and no crying babies,” he said. And as if the universe was conspiring against her, the sound of a baby crying rent the air and Jorge and Mark both nodded at her as if to say, “See. Told ya so.”
Candace exhaled loudly.
“Have fun,” Jorge said.
She turned to him and glared.
He smirked at her as if to say that’s what she got for not telling him about Ezra. And maybe he was right, she thought, as she turned to walk up the aisle. She wanted to curl up in the empty seat in 42E and cry. She might have even considered parachuting from the plane. She felt completely wrung out and they were barely two hours into the flight. The only reason she was still upright was inertia.
And a pathetic desire to see Ezra smile wide enough to show that wonky tooth she’d always loved.
***
Ezra had never directly admitted his feelings for Candace to anyone. Not his parents or Miles — even though he felt certain they knew — and definitely not Mei or his work friends. He’d always been too afraid that confirmation of his crush would get back to her and she’d push him away. Ezra had always known that Candace didn’t love him the way he loved her. But they were friends. She was kind to him, she made him laugh, he’d never met anyone smarter, they had amazing sex, and sometimes when she moaned his name during her climax her voice sounded full of love. That was more than enough for him.
For years, all he could think about was everything he’d lose if she knew for sure that he wanted more than their casual hookups. He’d never imagined that not admitting how he felt would ultimately cost him everything anyway.
“Pssst,” the old man across the aisle whispered. “Ezra. Can I call you Ezra?”
Ezra smiled wearily as he turned his head. “Sure. What should I call you?”
“My name’s Martin, but everybody calls me Marty. And this is my wife, Alejandra,” he said, motioning to the sleeping woman next to him.
“Nice to meet you, Marty.”
“Nice to meet you too. I’ve never met a billionaire before.”
Ezra’s stomach lurched and he shook his head. “The company’s worth a lot of money, not me. I’m comfortable, but not filthy rich,” he said, in what had become a practiced response in the past few years as his company had gained a higher profile.
He’d been fully unprepared for all the strangers who read a profile of him in some newspaper and felt compelled to approach him on the train or at the grocery store to ask if he was actually a billionaire and then, why he was riding public transportation and picking his own tomatoes. He’d honed his response to two simple sentences that made him feel less exposed, something he’d always hated.
“Sure, sure,” Marty said with a wink. “So, are you single?”
Ezra sighed. That was usually the third thing people asked after surreptitiously checking his left hand to confirm the absence of a ring there. Ezra hated lying. Lies took too much energy. But he could tell by Marty’s forwardness that he wouldn’t let him breathe if he was honest. They were barely two hours into a ten-hour flight and he couldn’t bear to have this man shoving pictures of every ostensibly unattached woman he knew in his face, trying to force a promise of a date when he was back in town. As far as Ezra could tell, there was only one thing to do.
“I’m engaged, actually,” he said, just as Candace pulled the curtain aside.
His face flushed when he looked up at her. He saw the pain flit across her eyes, even if he didn’t understand it. And then he saw her entire face close to him.
“Candace,” he said, just as the seatbelt sign illuminated.
She moved forward as if he hadn’t spoken. Watching her walk away would never not break his heart, but this time there was something else mingling with that pain. It was fragile and probably completely ill-advised, and yet the pathetic hope that sprang up in his breast was an honest to God breath of fresh air.
He watched her walk away and then disappear into the small alcove across from the forward door. Marty was still trying to talk to him, but Ezra couldn’t hear anything besides his beating heart. He unlocked his phone and opened his text messages. He began typing his message to Mei, finally ready to ask the thing he should have asked her the day after Candace kissed him freshman year.
Do you think I have a chance with Candace?
He typed the message quickly and pressed send before he could second-guess himself. Because after eighteen years, it wouldn’t be a second guess. He was probably on his millionth moment of hesitation. But he could feel time running out. Whatever was between him and Candace, he had to get it right now or never.