“Hey, I’m sorry about what I said yesterday,” I try out as an apology Sunday morning. The plane is about to lift off from SFO. Afton and I are stuck sitting together, seats 17 A and B, respectively, and while I’m still moderately pissed off at my older sister, for reasons I can’t quite articulate, I don’t think I can endure the entire six-hour flight with the two of us actively fighting. So I’m waving the white flag. Being the bigger person. Making nice.
Afton pulls out a compact and reapplies her lipstick. “What part?”
“What?”
“What part of what you said, exactly, are you sorry for?” She presses her lips together to blot them and clicks the compact closed.
“Um, all of it?”
“Hmm. Okay.” Afton starts texting someone. Probably Logan. Because Afton, lucky her, still has a boyfriend.
“You’re not supposed to use your phone right now,” I say. “It interferes with the plane’s radar or something.”
Afton sighs and puts her phone back into her purse, but she doesn’t turn it off or put it into airplane mode first. The plane starts to pick up speed. I try to steady my breathing as it thrusts itself into the air. I’ve never loved flying. I don’t like being in tight, enclosed spaces where, if something were to go horribly wrong, I’d be trapped with no way of escape. I only get through it by reminding myself that it’s temporary.
But this is a six-hour flight.
“Have you heard from Leo?” Afton stares out the little window as the ground drops away beneath us. She has the window seat. She always gets the window seat, and I always get the aisle. This feels like a metaphor for something.
I exhale through my mouth slowly before I answer. “No. And I don’t want to hear from him, ever again.”
“Good,” says Afton.
So we’re on speaking terms again. I sigh in relief. “The thing that kills me is how he always said the right things, all that progressive, woke, feminist bullshit about respecting me and liking me for who I was, but underneath that he was just a cliché of a douchebag, after all.” I’ve also been taught not to say the word douchebag, because the reason it’s supposed to be an insult is that it’s associated only with women. The same way that pussy is a slur. But the word asshole just isn’t covering it when it comes to Leo. “So you were right. It’s a good thing.”
“Right,” says Afton vaguely.
“This trip is just what I need,” I say, almost cheerful now. “Even if Pop’s not coming.”
We haven’t talked about that yet, Pop not coming and what it could mean. Because we haven’t been talking.
“And even if it is for the stupid conference,” I add.
“Excuse me,” comes our mother’s voice from the seat in front of us, making us both jump. “This conference is going to be amazing.” She shifts to a higher-pitched voice to represent us: “Thank you, Mom, for taking us on this wonderful adventure.”
“Thank you, Mom,” Afton and I drone in unison.
“That’s better.” Mom obviously thinks the conference is super exciting. For the rest of us, the conference largely consists of waiting for Mom to become available after the meetings and social mingling she’s expecting to do, punctuated by a few touristy trips they book in advance for the families—like the time we took a boat ride through the bayou when the conference was in New Orleans. Or the Vatican in Rome. Or the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil. But the food is usually good, and we always stay in the best hotels. This time the conference is at a Hilton that has like twenty swimming pools and its own lagoon and a myriad of gift shops and restaurants. I looked it up online earlier, and it seems like a literal paradise, swaying palm trees and gleaming blue water.
I want to play with watercolors. And I want to go paddleboarding, to find that “spiritual experience” Pop was talking about. And I want to try to forget that Leo ever existed.
“Maybe you could find some cute boy to have sex with,” Afton says then. “I’ve heard rebound sex is awesome.”
I peer around the seat to see if Mom is still listening, but she has her noise-canceling headphones on again. She’s working—still, perpetually working—hunched over her laptop with the presentation for the conference open on the screen. It’s weird how she can do that: pop in for a tiny part of a conversation, to prove that she’s participating, I guess, and then disappear into her own world again. Next to her, Abby is also wearing headphones, watching a movie on her tablet with the subtitles on. When I asked her why earlier, she said that she was teaching herself to read.
“I don’t want to have rebound sex,” I whisper to Afton stiffly.
Afton twists a long strand of her hair around her finger and releases it. “What? You said you were ready. Maybe in Hawaii there will be a boy you’ll want to get busy with. You never know.”
I’m about to argue that yes, in fact, I do know, but that’s when I realize that Afton doesn’t mean it. She’s perfectly aware that I’m not considering having sex anymore. She’s just trying to mess with me, because she thinks we’re still fighting. Because she’s still mad.
Why is she still mad?
“Look, I said I was sorry,” I say in exasperation.
“And I said it’s okay.”
“Meaning that it’s okay, you forgive me?”
Afton regards me coolly. “Meaning that it’s okay that you’re sorry.”
Oh. That’s not the same thing at all.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned off the fasten seat belt sign,” says a voice from the speaker over our heads. “Please feel free to move about the cabin.”
Afton unbuckles her seat belt, wriggles out of her jacket, and reclines her chair as far back as it will go. Then she rolls up her jacket into a makeshift pillow, pops on an eye mask, and curls against the gray plastic wall. Conversation apparently over.
I poke her. “You’re supposed to have your seat belt on.”
She lifts the mask. “The seat belt sign is off.”
“Yes, but you’re supposed to keep it on while you’re seated. In case of turbulence.”
Afton stares at me for a long minute. Then she says, still totally straight-faced but I can tell this time that she absolutely means it: “Oh, Ada. Don’t be such a fucking square.”
I inhale so sharply I can hear the air sucking into my lungs. What’s happening to us? We’ve never been the kind of sisters who try to hurt each other. We argue sometimes, give each other crap, of course, when called upon, but it always felt like we were on the same team. Sisters. Best friends.
“All righty, then,” I murmur, blinking fast because my eyes have started to burn. Bitch, I think, but I know that if I say that there will be a real showdown, and I won’t be the winner.
Afton slides the eye mask back into place and appears to go to sleep.
I stare at her peaceful face. It’s not fair. I didn’t actually call her a slut yesterday. Maybe she thought I was implying it, but I didn’t mean it that way. And I’d just had my heart broken—sort of. I was upset.
The air thingy on the ceiling starts making a whistling sound, and I reach up and twist it until it stops. At that exact moment the plane rises and drops suddenly, like it’s riding a wave. Once, and then twice. Instantly I become very aware of everything else around me: the baby crying a few rows behind us. A tray rattling. The smell of burnt coffee wafting out of the back.
The plane dips again. My stomach lurches.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” comes the captain’s voice from the speaker. “We seem to be experiencing a bit of rough air. We’ll be through it and on to smoother skies shortly, but in the meantime, take your seats and fasten your seat belts.”
Afton shifts and murmurs something unintelligible.
I clutch at the armrest. The seat belt light goes on, accompanied by a perky ding.
Turbulence ahead.