I lean forward and pull the rope from his hands. I hook the end through the closest belt loop on his black jeans, then string it through the others, one after another. I have to lean in and loop my arms around him to reach the ones at his back. We’re practically embracing as my hands work, my head pressed so close to his chest I can feel his heart hammering beneath my cheek. I barely breathe until his whole waist is circled and I’ve pulled back out of his space.
Able to breathe once more, I fashion a proper bowline. I’ve done it a million times — taught a million campers. Still, my fingers shake as I tug the knot tight.
“There.” My eyes lock on his. “That’ll hold you.”
He nods stoically.
“You…” I swallow. “When you reach…” I can’t bring myself to say the body. “Call out. I’ll pull you back in.”
Another nod.
I bite the inside of my cheek, trying not to let the fear show on my face. Fear for him. Fear for myself. Fear that he won’t come out of that water again, once he goes in.
“If you’re not back in five minutes…”
“Start pulling,” he murmurs, eyes on mine. “But I’ll be back.”
I can’t help myself. I reach out, grab his hand, and squeeze. “Promise me?”
He doesn’t promise. He doesn’t even nod. But his hand tightens on mine, a white-knuckled grip, and in that instant I feel something forge between us. A bond. Not of love or friendship or respect, not even of compassion or civility… but of survival.
If politics make for strange bedfellows, plane crashes certainly create the most unlikely allies.
His pulse is pounding in his jugular. Tick, tick, ticking like a bomb set to self-destruct. He’s afraid. I can feel it in his grip, see it in the depths of his stare. I want to tell him to stay with me, in this flimsy floating shelter. To be selfish. To let whoever is out there find their own way to salvation.
Don’t leave me here alone!
I bite back the words.
He swallows down his fear.
We drop our hands at the same time and turn, side by side, to face the raging water. Barely breathing, we wait for another bolt of lightning to show us the way. When it comes, I throw my pointer finger out to guide him, but he’s already airborne. He hits the water with a splash and starts swimming, his strong strokes cutting like a knife. A wave crashes and I lose sight of him for a moment. Panic sluices through me.
Where is he?
I can only make out his form during the lightning flashes. I feed out the line bit by bit as the ocean swallows him up. My fingernails cut crescent moons into my palms as I wait, eyes straining in the dark, ears alert to every sound. For a long time, there’s nothing but the howl of the wind, the rasp of the rope against my damp palms, the whipping waves that drench me, the rain that fills the raft with several inches of water. The high, tubular walls keep most of the ocean spray out, but there’s still a considerable amount sloshing around my folded legs. The hem of my blue summer dress ebbs around me, translucent as a jellyfish. I feel a bolt of shock move through me as I spot my bare feet. I’ve lost both sandals in my frantic swim to the surface. I hadn’t even noticed, which says something about my state of mind.
A giggle of hysteria bubbles up from my stomach. I can’t help it — the sight of my pink-painted toenails shoves me over the edge of shell-shock on which I’ve been dangling.
Can it really be less than twenty-four hours ago that I sat in a massage chair, chatting with Mom as two technicians applied tiny dollops of magenta polish to our toes? That girl — the one who was so concerned with making a good impression on her new employers, who cared about things like taming frizzy airplane hair and finding the perfect pair of stylish-but-sensible sandals to match her outfit — seems galaxies away. Just the thought prompts another chortle of hysteria.
Logically, I recognize that I’m experiencing a certain amount of shock. But knowing something and changing it are vastly different feats. I don’t know how to overcome the strange, detached sensations coursing through me as I wait for Underwood to return with the other survivor. If someone had told me at the LAX baggage claim that a handful of hours later, I’d be praying for a glimpse of his brooding eyes and pursed lips, scowling in my general direction, I’d have laughed my head off.
Funny how fast the world shifts.
The longer I wait for him, the tighter my grip grows on the line. I hold so tight I’m worried it’ll fray apart in my hands as I shiver in the darkness with my eyes on the sea.
I’ve always thought the ocean was beautiful. The way it eternally kisses the shore, the most persistent of lovers. The sound it makes as it skims over sand dunes and rocks. The ocean is a place for skinny dipping on summer nights; for long walks at sunset, ankle-deep in warm shallows. Powerful, to be sure, but restrained. A slow-eroding force, graceful even in its destruction.
But now, as I watch it claw at the raft, as I see the unadulterated fury in its every ebb and flow, I realize I have judged a beast by the tip of its smallest talon. The seashore of my summer sailing days was the merest hint of this wild creature, thrashing thousands of miles from the nearest point of land. This, here, is the true heart of the ocean. The beast of Poseidon, unleashed.
Doing its damnedest to tear us to shreds.
“Well, go ahead and try,” I hiss, staring down the monster as another wave hits me in the face. “You can’t have us.” I tighten my grip on the rope in my hands. “You can’t have him.”
I’ve more than likely gone mad, because here I am, yelling into a hurricane… but I don’t care. The defiance emboldens me.
I don’t even know his first name, I realize ludicrously, eyes locked on the dark horizon. If he dies, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what that goddamned B stands for.
Over the howl of the wind, I think I hear him cry out, but the sound is snatched away so quickly I’m half convinced my ears have deceived me. But then it comes again, a shout in the night, calling for help. With aching arms, I heave him in inch by inch, foot by foot, until the rope coils on the bottom of the raft. When he finally comes into view, I see instantly that he’s not alone. There’s an unconscious man in his arms — one of the flight attendants, judging by the uniform beneath his life vest. I recognize him from the preflight safety demonstration he gave before takeoff.
If there is a drop in cabin pressure, panels above your seat will open, revealing oxygen masks…
A water evacuation is unlikely, however, life vests are located under your seats…
At the time, I thought it was a useless piece of protocol. I never imagined, a few hours later, we’d be here.
Living the emergency demonstration.
“Is he alive?” I yell as they reach the side of the raft. The flight attendant’s body is limp, his youthful features ashen white. I can’t tell whether or not he’s breathing.
“I think so.” Underwood treads in place, straining to hold the man above water. “Can you grab his arms?”
Careful not to fall in, I reach over the edge and grab the flight attendant by the lapels of his uniform, beneath his life vest. Together — Underwood pushing from below, me pulling from above — we attempt to maneuver the sodden body into the raft.
He’s so heavy. Deadweight.