“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.
