Fly Like Paper, Get High Like Planes

Setting: Post-Economics (only by a little)

"This trip brought to you by Valium."

She didn't laugh at that joke, just like she hadn't laughed when he suggested checking their daughter in as a third bag, which would have only cost them fifteen bucks rather than full fare, or when he cracked about smuggling cocaine in Aja's Dora the Explorer backpack when going through security screening, barely out of earshot of the TSA employee.

"That's not funny!" She hissed through clenched teeth, gripping the strap of her carryon hard enough to whiten her knuckles. "What if they heard you?"

"They didn't hear me. Plus, I'm not a cocaine smuggler."

"They don't know that! They would've taken you to a special room and interrogated you for hours and then—" Her voice trembled as she whispered the last sentence. "We would've missed our flight."

"Their flight" was significant on so many levels. When the invite had been made, and Makoto had determined that come hell or high water, she was making the trip, by any and all means necessary, they had sat down to work out the logistics late into the night. Noah had explored an alternate route: Amtrak, perhaps, and then some sort of boat, but the length of time, especially with Aja, and the cost, proved to be insurmountable odds. So instead, he worked on making the experience as easy on her as possible.

There were a lot of ducks to set in a row.

Nonstop was essential; there was no way she could handle multiple takeoffs and landings, and the less time spent in an airport, the better. Major carriers only. Her parents had died on an Airbus, so a Boeing was necessary, and the bigger, the better. Economy cabin: first class had only two adjacent seats, and she would either have to sit alone or with Aja. After a lot of digging, he managed to book their unmatchable flight.

He reached for her arm, and then ducked sideways to pull Aja out of the way of a beeping electric cart that was bearing down on her. Foolishly he had hoped that the bustle of a major hub would tamper her anxiety, but it seemed to only make it worse. "Do you want to take a Valium?"

"Not yet." She fiddled with the buttons of her sweater, pulling a thread hanging off of a button and twining it around her finger. "I can wait until we get to the gate."

At the gate, they settled on the ground against the window, facing the tarmac. Aja was delighted. "Daddy! Look a him!"

Why she was pointing at a grizzled man with a mustache zipping around on a baggage cart, he would never know. "I see."

She turned her impossibly large, brown eyes on him. "Which. Which our plane?"

He had been the one to explain to Aja that they were going on a trip, and would be riding in airplane, which was going to be fun. But, she would have to be good and sit down for a long time, and not be loud because there were going to be people on the plane that liked it quiet. How long? About five hours. How long was that? Well, it was like watching Finding Nemo five times in a row. Yes, she had never done that before. How many was five? Uh, not a lot. But when they landed, they would be in Sint Maarten, and she could go to the beach and build sand castles and see the Nemos in person and go to a butterfly farm and it was hot and sunny and she would like it very much.

He didn't tell her the last part, where she would spend a full twenty-four hours with Aunty Serena and Uncle Darien, so that he and Makoto could barricade themselves in their suite and have ungodly amounts of freaknasty sex. The weeks leading up to this trip had been so nerve-wracking that there hadn't been any of that, much less of the freaknasty variety.

Noah had resisted asking the question for as long as he could. "Are you OK?"

She couldn't even force a smile as he rubbed her back gently. "Stop asking that. I don't want Aja to hear." She was determined to keep her fear from her daughter, lest she pass it on unintentionally.

"Ready for the Valium?"

"Oh yes." She had been prescribed both Valium and Xanax, and had been taking the latter to help her sleep. A few swallows from a water bottle, and she was on her way to artificially induced serenity.

"Daddy! Is da plane?"

His gaze followed her finger. "Uh, no, that's not our plane. Our plane is, uh." He racked his brain, trying to remember what Continental's colors were. "Our plane is blue. And white. And yellow, I think."

"That?"

"No, that's blue and white, very good, but that's an AirTran." Next to him, Makoto emitted a small whimper. No doubt that airline had come up on her Internet search of plane crashes in the last ten years.

There was one last hurdle to overcome, when boarding was announced for passengers with young children. She grabbed his wrist before he could stand, the unhinged, wild fear surfacing fully in her deep green eyes. "What if something happens?" she whispered, her voice wavering dangerously. "What if we all died in a crash? All of us? The baby, too, oh my God, we brought the baby with us…"

He used the arm that wasn't holding Aja's backpack to grab her and pull her to him, pressing her body so tightly that he could feel the tremors that wracked her limbs. "Makoto. Stop it. That's not going to happen."

She swallowed. "What if—"

"It's not going to happen," he said, more forcefully. "What's going to happen is that we're going to breath recycled air and sit uncomfortably in tiny seats for five and a half hours. And you're going to fall asleep right after takeoff, and Aja's going to get bored at the two hour mark and start whining, and I'm going to eat really salty peanuts and drink really expensive beer and watch some terrible movie while my legs cramp up. Then we're going to land in a Caribbean island with nothing but blue water and white beaches, and stay in a five star resort that we don't have to pay for, and overeat and get sunburned, and somewhere in there we have to take Aja to the butterfly farm because I'm dumb and mentioned it to her. And she'll probably end up squishing a bunch of them on accident." He leaned over and kissed the corner of her eyebrow. "We're going to be fine."`

She wrapped her arms around him. "You promise?"

"I promise."

They gave Aja the window seat, with Noah in the middle, and Makoto in the aisle. "Can I drink alcohol?" The Valium was already slurring her words as she slipped on noise canceling headphones.

"I don't think that's a good idea." He squeezed her hand as the plane started taxiing down the runway. On his other side, Aja squealed and pointed out of the window to the same airport worker she had seen before.

Makoto tried her best to reassuringly smile. "This is her first plane ride. Make her love it."

He tried his best; his hand clenched in his wife's the entire time. Aja held her fuzzy dice up to the window so it could "see" the ground grow smaller and smaller below them, until they were flying above a cottony layer of clouds.

It ended up that he didn't keep most of his promises.

Makoto didn't fall asleep until they had been at cruising altitude for a half an hour. Aja got bored five minutes after that, and developed a new obsession with the coffin-like airplane bathrooms and their vacuum flush. He set up the portable DVD player for her, but discovered that he had stuck Dazed and Confused in by accident instead of Yo Gabba Gabba!, an epic fail on his end. He ate salty trail mix, drank really expensive 7 & 7s, got neck cramps like a mofo, and did his best to entertain a whining three year old for the next four, hellish hours.

When they landed, he woke her by plunking Aja on her lap. "Mommy. Mommy," she chirped, pressing her face against her mother's neck.

Makoto blinked, coming to. Noah laughed at the stray curls that fanned out from underneath her headphones. "We're on the ground."

"Really?" She yawned and stretched one hand behind her as other travelers filed down the aisle and off the plane.

"Yes, really. We're here. You did great, babe; you were so brave."

Blinking, she pulled her daughter into a hug and kissed her curly head. "Not really. This trip was brought to you by Valium."