“Rob, I want to get out of here.”

“Why? What’s wrong? Mary, what happened?”

Mary says nothing. More people shouting from the ride now, from above. Squawking birds. It’s been a couple minutes but it feels like an eternity. The people in line restless. All eyes on her. She looks quickly toward the man, who is now showing more impatience than apology. Eager to get this over with, one way or another, she guesses. Rob grabs both her hands.

“I want to go on the ride,” Rob says, and now it’s Mary’s jaw that drops. “Seriously. I don’t know what’s wrong, but we can talk about it later. Please, Mary. For me. Let’s just go on the ride.”

Mary is flabbergasted. Unsure of herself, of him.

Hypnotically, without emotion, she finds herself nodding, then turning toward the open door. Toward the beet-red tub, rocking loosely on the hinge that connects it to the massive wheel. She feels hands on her again and wants to fucking slap them away but she knows it’s just Rob, and that’s okay. He’s helping her up, and they’re inside.

The seat next to her is sticky with spilled soda. She slides to the far side. Rob is opposite her, smiling uncomfortably. How did this all get so twisted? she thinks, then sees the smiling asshole operator stepping quickly to the door.

“No hard feelings, huh?” he says, and slams the door hard, almost clipping Rob’s knee which lingered too close to the opening. She hears the latch snap firmly into place. She looks away, toward the hard white strut of the wheel, and beyond that the ocean, the coastline. People. Careless people and a distant moon. The sky otherwise full dark.

Mary feels a sickening jolt and they’re moving. She can’t look at Rob. She feels sick. Weak. Stupid. She feels taken advantage of. She’s disgusted with herself. Why didn’t she say something?

Because Rob. She studies him. Tries to understand why he’s acting so strangely. Is he…nervous? Yes. Very nervous. Why hadn’t she noticed it? Why hadn’t she immediately understood? He wasn’t acting aloof, or angry. He’s scared shitless. Mary’s rage subsides, buffered with the question of why?

What could Rob possibly be scared of?

The wheel stops. Below and behind them, more people get off, more climb on. Laughter. They are a little higher now. Away from the pier, the people, the creep. The breeze is light, cool.

ROB WATCHES MARY. He wants to ask her what happened, but he doesn’t have to. Not really. It’s obvious. The guy did something. Grabbed her weird. Touched her inappropriately. Something. But Rob doesn’t want to ask. Doesn’t want to know. Not now, please, not now. Don’t let it spoil things… please, Lord.

Don’t let anything spoil his plan.

5

FRANK IS IN the air.

The propeller drones. He studies the controls, but his mind is wet, slippery. The console of switches a blur. The black eyes of gauges wink at him. Taunting.

He finds himself losing altitude and jerks up. At one point he nods off, just as the plane crosses the line of cooling beach, the rustle of white-capped waves.

He comes to, but it’s as if all the booze has kicked in at once. Panic gives his body the shakes. His eyeballs are vibrating, his hands full of tremors. A stabbing thought drills white-hot through his sluggish brain.

Just how drunk am I?

With a burst of clarity, Frank realizes that flying an aircraft is not a good idea. In fact, it’s a horrible, terrible, idea. He’s over the water now. Black, icy Pacific. He tries to focus on the meters, but they’re fuzzy. Shit shit shit! Come on! he thinks, raging at his mind to SNAP OUT OF IT!

Frank vents the window, gulps in cool air. He clicks on the radio.

“Uh, SMO tower… uh, god, this is Cessna 172 Tango Charlie…I got a little problem here…” he begins, but doesn’t know how to finish. Help me? I’m drunker than I thought and I can’t fly?

“Go ahead Cessna 172 Tango Charlie…” comes the crackled reply.

Frank shuts off the radio. The coast is disappearing behind him. He’s afraid. Catalina is twenty minutes if he flies straight… but what’s straight? It’s pitch dark, he needs to rely on the plane’s compass, the controls... but he can’t fucking see them!

He begins to hyperventilate. This is bad. Oh, so bad. How had he been so stupid?

“Okay, okay… think, dammit.”

And he does think. Right before fear comes raging at him like a pissed-off jackhammer rattling itself into his brain and he knows right then – at that moment – that he will never make it.

If he tries to fly, he’ll die. One hundred percent. He’ll go down into the black ocean; the frigid water will fill the cabin in a heartbeat and he’ll sink like a stone. Food for fishes.

“Fuck that,” he mumbles.

He wipes a shaky hand across his sweating forehead, turns the control wheel. His altimeter flashes briefly – he’s flying too low – and he pitches back, gains altitude. Christ, he thinks. He starts to straighten out, but he can see nothing but a curtain of black. He fights the plane like a drowning man fighting a lifeguard. Blind fear. Sheer panic.

I can’t see! He pulls back too hard, the plane whines and bumps against pockets of air. He’s under five hundred feet. Too low! His gyroscope is slipping around, he has to keep it level.

There! Lights! He focuses on the lights. Needs to center himself, devise a plan. If he can get back to the coast, find the airport… if he can only clear his goddamned head!

His stomach twists into a hard knot. He drools and moans, his eyes glassy. Without warning, vomit gushes through his throat, burns him inside, splashes the console, the control wheel, parts of the windshield. It runs over his chin and soaks his chest through his shirt. His arms are rubber. His jaw hangs like a wet hook.

He is close to blacking out. If that happens, it’s all over.

He curses his body, his mind, for the betrayal. He sobs like a child stuck in a bad dream. He recalls his own childhood nightmare. Hidden in the closet. The boogeyman’s shadow filling the light wedged beneath the door. The handle turning. How he would wake, screaming.

He wants to wake now. In bed. Hungover, but on the ground. Alive. This whole thing a nightmare he’d laugh about. He’d go directly to a meeting, get his shit straight again. Forget about revenge. The past. If only he could wake up…

His eyelids flutter like mosquito wings. His eyeballs roll white.

The cockpit is a blur. Gauges spin madly. The plane lurches through the wind-blown dark, toward the lights, the pilot careless anymore to stop the inevitable, knowing with a broken heart that it’s too late, too late.

SILENCE.

Rob and Mary are almost at the top. They haven’t said a word since being locked in. Rob is tense. Nerves frying like oil on a hot pan. Mary is a two-faced doll. One minute fuming, eyes fire. The next docile, smiling warmly at him.

There’s no such thing as a perfect moment.

That’s what Rob’s father had said to him. Rob confessed the plan. The ring. Mom on the line crying. Both parents talking over each other in excitement. Rob not sure when, how. His father, wisdom embodied from Chicago: There’s no such thing as a perfect moment. The perfect moments will come after.

After.