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I swallowed the remaining candy shards. “Um. Yes. I think so,” I said, trying to disguise the terror
in my voice.
“An old friend of mine once said that a fear uncovered is no longer a fear. It’s an opportunity for a
decision. Once you see how a plane operates, once you get an intimate look at all the buttons and
levers, you can decide to end your fear of flying. Captain Nathan will be all too happy to help you.”
She was quoting Matilda! Eileen was one of us. She gave me her hand, and practically had to pull
me to my feet because my legs were rigid with terror.
“There. See? That wasn’t so bad.”
We made it down the short aisle. Standing in front of the cockpit door, she gave three quick knocks.
A second later, a sandy-haired young man with thick glasses and a space between his front teeth
poked his head out. Oh dear. I hated to admit that my shallow Southern heart sank, though I politely
pulled my grin a little wider, reminding myself what the C in S.E.C.R.E.T. stood for. If my fantasy
man wasn’t … compelling, I didn’t have to go through with the fantasy.
“Is this our lovely visitor?” he asked with a lisp. Oh dear.
“Yes,” the flight attendant said. “Miss Dauphine Mason, this is our multitalented First Officer Friar.
Miss Mason is keen to see what goes on in here. It might help her with her fear of flying.”
“Ah, yes. Dispel the mystery and the fear disperses. That’s Captain Nathan’s specialty. He can
show you around while I stretch my legs. Three’s a crowd in here! Good luck!”
After enunciating all those s’s, First Officer Friar made a beeline to the back of the plane. Out the
window in front was a dark sky; below, nothing but black water. The high whine of the engines
masked the screams in my own head as my legs now turned to cement. Eileen nudged me through the
narrow doorway.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” she said, looking at her watch. “Enjoy your flying lesson.”
She shut the door behind her.
The pilot sat silhouetted in the window. The only thing I could see above the seat was the back of
his head. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, only his white shirt, the muscles on his arms apparent beneath
his sleeves as he flicked a number of switches from left to right on a panel in front of him. Thankfully,
the white noise drowned out my pounding heart.
“Be with you in a moment, Dauphine. I just want to make sure autopilot’s running smoothly. A robot
takes over for most of the flight from now on. A very smart one.”
There it was. That accent again. The man from Security! The man with the sexy Cockney accent!
The air left my chest and the pressure squeezed my lungs. Feeling tantalized and terrified at that same
time had a bad effect on my stomach. I slapped both hands on the curved walls of the cockpit to
steady myself as the plane rose and straightened. The pilot faced a wall of lights and levers that
seemed to blink and shift on their own. Then he finally turned his chair around, aviators off, dark eyes
on me. I gasped.
“Don’t worry, we’re on automatic, but we’re not going to be alone in here for long, so I apologize
ahead of time for the furtive nature of our interlude,” he said, loosening the top button of his uniform.
“But I need to know, before we continue with our tutorial on the safety of flight: Do you accept the
Step, Miss Mason?”
I couldn’t believe this was happening.
“Here? Now?”
“Yes. Here and now. Trust me when I say I can help you with your fear of flying. And a few other
things too, I suspect,” he said, leaning back into the plush leather of his pilot seat, taking me in from
bottom to top.