Chris Bohjalian

Wingspan

Chris Bohjalian is the author of twenty books, including The Flight Attendant, The Guest Room, The Sandcastle Girls, Skeletons at the Feast, The Double Bind, and Midwives, which was a number one New York Times bestseller and a selection of Oprah’s Book Club. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages, and three of his novels have become films (Secrets of Eden, Midwives, and Past the Bleachers). Wingspan is his first play. He lives in Vermont and can be found at www.chrisbohjalian.com and on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Litsy, and Goodreads.

ALSO BY CHRIS BOHJALIAN

The Flight Attendant

The Sleepwalker

The Guest Room

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

The Light in the Ruins

The Sandcastle Girls

The Night Strangers

Secrets of Eden

Skeletons at the Feast

The Double Bind

Before You Know Kindness

Idyll Banter

The Buffalo Soldier

Trans-Sister Radio

The Law of Similars

Midwives

Water Witches

Past the Bleachers

Hangman

A Killing in the Real World

Wingspan

A One-Act Play

Chris Bohjalian

A Vintage Short

Vintage Books

A Division of Penguin Random House LLC

New York

Copyright © 2019 by Chris Bohjalian

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Vintage Books eShort ISBN 9781984898975

Cover photograph © Kunitoshi Takayama/EyeEm/Getty Images

www.vintagebooks.com

v5.4

ep

First produced as Grounded by Throughline Artists at 59E59 Theaters July 20–August 31, 2018.

[picture]

Cast members K. K. Glick and Grace Experience preparing for takeoff in the original Throughline Artists Summer Shorts festival production at 59E59 Theaters in New York City. Photograph by Carol Rosegg.

Setting

The front of a wide-body passenger jet.

Time

The present.

Characters

Emily, a flight attendant in her early twenties

Karen, a flight attendant in her late thirties/early forties

Original Cast

Emily: Grace Experience

Karen: K. K. Glick

Original Director

Alexander Dinelaris

Stage is black.

On a screen upstage appears an airline preflight safety video: a cheeky, playful female voice.

Spotlights come up on two flight attendants, one all the way stage left and the other all the way stage right. The one stage right is early to mid-twenties: this is EMILY. The one stage left is late thirties to early forties: this is KAREN.

The flight attendants—uniform blazers, skirts, dark stockings, scarves, pumps—are standing as they face the audience, motioning appropriately as the safety video proceeds.

SAFETY VIDEO: In addition to the exit doors, there are two window exits over the wings. Each door has a detachable slide that can be used for flotation.

EMILY: But not the window exits, campers. No slides over the windows. We ditch this baby over the Atlantic and you leave through the window? You are jumping into the cold ocean. In the dark.

SAFETY VIDEO: All exits are clearly marked with an exit sign. In the event of a loss of power, white emergency lights will lead you safely and surely to the exits.

EMILY: No, they won’t. You won’t see them. The cabin will be filled with smoke, and everyone’s carry-on crap and service items will be everywhere. Good God, you’re probably dangling upside down by your seat belt.

SAFETY VIDEO: In the event of a loss of cabin pressure—which, trust me, is very rare—the panels above your seat will open, and oxygen masks will descend.

EMILY: Which is important, because when you put them over your mouth, the captain won’t be distracted by your howls of “this-is-it, we’re-going-down” terror.

SAFETY VIDEO: Be sure to adjust your own mask before helping others.

EMILY: And don’t expect either of us at the front of the cabin to help you. Karen over here—

EMILY points with her thumb at the older flight attendant.

will be shouting, “Brace! Brace! Brace!” and I will be sobbing into my sleeves and shitting my pants.

SAFETY VIDEO: Now, before we take off, be sure your seat is in its upright position, your tray table is put away, and your carry-on items are properly stowed. Take a moment and review the safety information card in the seat pocket—a little light preflight reading! Then? Sit back and enjoy your flight.

Lights come up.

Slightly stage right are the jump seats for two flight attendants. There is an identical, uniform clutch or purse beside each seat. Between the jump seats is the intercom phone. To the right of the two seats is a traditional passenger cabin door with a big handle and a small window.

Stage left is the galley, which will turn out to be fully appointed with cloth napkins, silverware, glasses, porcelain white cups for snack mix for the first-class passengers, etc.

In the middle is the locked door to the flight deck. Above it is an illuminated seat-belt sign.

KAREN (To EMILY.): And we’re off. Where did you say you’re from?

EMILY: Maine. College town not far from Portland. My dad’s a professor.

KAREN: You ever had first class before?

EMILY: I’ve never even had London before. This is my first overseas flight.

KAREN: And you’re the extra?

EMILY: I’m the replacement. I came the minute the airline called.

KAREN: Well, lucky me. Welcome aboard.

EMILY: Thank you.

KAREN: It’s Emily, right?

EMILY: Yup.

KAREN sits down in the jump seat farthest stage right and starts texting on her phone.

EMILY is in the galley cleaning up, putting away glasses and ordering the ramekins for snack mix. She notices the other woman on her phone and approaches her.

EMILY: I once had a guy tell me that was the Sharon Stone seat. Basic Instinct. (Beat.) Creepy, right?

KAREN looks at EMILY like she’s insane, then crosses her legs. She resumes tapping a message or email on her phone.

EMILY: Shouldn’t we be in airplane mode?

KAREN ignores her and her phone pings. She smiles. Only then does she put her phone into her purse.

KAREN: See that old dude in 2B? Any minute now, he’s going to ask if he can hit the head. Sorry, you should have thought of that before we got in the car.

EMILY: My mom used to say that to me.

KAREN: Yeah, I used to say it to my kids.

EMILY: How old are they?

KAREN: My daughter’s fourteen going on forty. My son is eleven going on three. I still have to tell him to pee before getting in the car.

EMILY: You did put your phone in airplane mode? Right?

KAREN: Yeah, I did. Probably.

The wall phone attached to the flight deck chimes and KAREN answers it.

KAREN: Yeah? Got it.

She hangs up the phone and joins EMILY in the galley.

EMILY: Everything okay?

KAREN: Starboard-side engine is on fire.

EMILY: What?

She frantically cranes her head to look out the window of the passenger door.

KAREN: That’s port side, honey.

EMILY: And you were kidding.

KAREN: Yes, it was a joke. The starboard-side engine is not on fire.

EMILY: What did the captain just tell you?

KAREN: We’re fifteenth in the conga line.

EMILY: That’s not too bad.

KAREN: Beats an engine fire.

EMILY: Will you do me a favor? (Beat.)

KAREN: Sure.

EMILY: Would you double-check your phone to make sure it’s in airplane mode?

KAREN: There are 256 people on this plane and twelve of us in the crew. That’s 268 people. Do you really believe that every single one of them has put their phone in airplane mode?

EMILY: I don’t know. But I kinda hope so.

KAREN goes to her purse, gets her phone, and dramatically swipes right for EMILY to see.

KAREN: There. If the plane augers in, it’s not on me.

EMILY: Thank you.

KAREN: Tell me something.

EMILY: Go ahead.

KAREN: Just how scared of flying are you?

EMILY: Very. But way more when the plane is going to be over the ocean than land.

KAREN joins her in the galley.

KAREN: Because a plane does A-okay when it slams headfirst into a mountain?

EMILY: At least you’re not over the ocean. No one lives if you crash in the water.

KAREN: Nah. Just think of the Miracle on the Hudson.

EMILY: First of all, note that we call it the Miracle on the Hudson. Not the Just Another Day on the Hudson. Second, that flight was mostly over land.

KAREN: Seriously: You going to be okay? This is a big plane and a big cabin and we have a lot to do. If you think you might wig out, please tell me now and—

EMILY: I’m fine! (Beat.) As long as we don’t ditch in the ocean.

KAREN: How in the world did you wind up doing this?

EMILY: A few years ago, my parents got me a series of sessions with a life coach for my birthday. The coach said I was too grounded. I thought he was just being funny, because at the time I was a barista. (Beat.) Grounded.

Pause.

Anyway, that’s a thing, apparently: being too grounded.

KAREN: Okay.

EMILY: And so, at his urging, I tried something completely different.

KAREN: Becoming a flight attendant.

EMILY: Yes. Something that would force me to address one of my biggest fears.

KAREN leans forward and speaks to an audience member in the first row.

KAREN: Hey, sir. (She points to the seat-belt sign above her.) The seat-belt sign is illuminated. That’s not a suggestion. It’s a rule. Thank you.

On cue, there is the sound of a baby starting to howl in the back of the theater. KAREN looks up at the heavens for strength, and—mercifully—the baby grows quiet.

KAREN: I have a feeling this could be a really long flight.

EMILY: When we were boarding, I was surprised that you didn’t make that crazy man back down when he kept spreading his stuff all over the overhead bins.

KAREN: He was harmless. Just manspreading—overhead-bin style. It’s not like he was planting bags of plastic explosives.

EMILY (Angry.): I wish you would stop that.

KAREN: Stop what?

EMILY: Saying things like that.

KAREN: I’m joking.

EMILY: Well, it makes it worse.

KAREN: Last time I’ll ask, so think long and hard about your answer: honey, can you do this?

EMILY: Also? Don’t call me “honey.” That’s the second time.

KAREN: Fine. Emily. Can you do this?

EMILY (Defensively.):Of course. I’ve been doing it for two years.

KAREN: But not over water.

EMILY: I mean, I did Lake Michigan. I did Lake Erie.

KAREN: Yeah. They’re kind of like oceans.

EMILY: Right? You can’t always see the other side!

KAREN: They’re nothing like oceans.

EMILY: Inland seas. Will you give me that?

KAREN: Sure. But you know what I think?

EMILY: No. But you’re going to tell me.

KAREN: I think your life coach was kind of a dick. Who suggests to a person who has a fear of flying that she become a flight attendant?

EMILY: Wow. You really have no filter.

KAREN: I got two kids. No time for filters.

Phone chimes and KAREN crosses to the jump seats to answer it. She listens, nods, and hangs it up.

EMILY: Good news?

KAREN (Holding up one finger.): Wait for it.

CAPTAIN’S VOICE (Onscreen male voice—think Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff): Captain Elder here. Good evening. Well, we will get you to London. But we’re going to spend a little more time here in beautiful Jamaica, Queens, on scenic Runway 13L. Sorry folks, we’re in a traffic hold. Sad to tell ya, drink service is suspended until we take off. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have more information.

EMILY: Traffic holds kind of freak me out.

KAREN: Good God, why?

EMILY: It just reminds me of how many planes are up there. Above us. I mean right here we have JFK, we have LaGuardia, we have Newark. Just so many planes, circling and circling and taking off and landing. And there are just so many clouds up there. And now it’s dark. And a fender bender at two or three thousand feet? It’s not a fender bender. It’s a fucking nightmare.

KAREN (Gently.): It’s a big sky, Emily. It really is.

EMILY (Beat.): I was actually really good.

KAREN: At what?

EMILY: At coffee.

KAREN: I’m sure you were.

EMILY: I could swirl hearts in cappuccinos. I could nail a triple-skim-half-caf-latte in seconds. I was a microfoam chemist.

KAREN: And your life coach had you give all that up?

EMILY: He…(Beat.)

KAREN: He what?

EMILY: Never mind. The secret to a good espresso? A hot cup.

KAREN: Tell me.

EMILY: It’s nothing.

KAREN: C’mon. We’re going to be together for the next seven hours, then tomorrow in London, then seven hours back to JFK. What were you about to say about your life coach?

EMILY: I wasn’t about to say anything.

KAREN: The thing about flying is this: people talk more, passengers cry more. We all get more emotional. I have seen grown men sob through Love Actually. It’s the idea we’re alone. We’re leaving home or we’re going home. Or we’re not alone, but we’re going or coming from someplace special. A funeral. A wedding. A big business deal. People talk more. And you and me? We’re not exempt from that.

EMILY: I know.

KAREN: So: I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me one. And you’ll really like mine.

EMILY: And you know that…how?

KAREN: It’s the secret to not being scared of flying.

EMILY: The secret to not being scared of flying is Xanax.

KAREN: But you’re not on Xanax now.

EMILY: No.

KAREN: So, you need my secret.

EMILY: You’re just going to tell me that turbulence has never brought down a plane. Or the infinitesimal odds of crashing.

KAREN: Nope.

EMILY: I should practice “attentional focus:” keep my attention elsewhere—on my job, for instance.

KAREN: Not it.

EMILY: Avoid “hypervigilance.”

KAREN: Not the secret.

EMILY: Remember, I had the same training as you.

KAREN: Apparently not.

EMILY: Fine. Tell me. (Beat.)

KAREN: Next time you’re in a car, pretend you’re a dog. But instead of sticking your head out the window, stick out your arm. Stick it out flat like a wing. A big wing, long wingspan. Then tilt your thumb downward and watch what happens. Then tilt your thumb up. Think of the flaps on this plane. When you tilt your thumb down, your arm will shoot down. When you tilt your thumb up, your arm is going to shoot up. Bernoulli’s principles. Aerodynamic lift. Go fast enough and set the wings right, and this plane can’t do anything but fly. It’s physics. It’s science.

EMILY: You know what’s also science?

KAREN: What?

EMILY: Gravity.

KAREN: That’s my secret. Your turn. Tell me about your life coach.

EMILY: Fine. (Beat.) He was kind of more than my life coach.

KAREN: Don’t tell me.

EMILY: Yup. He was sort of a lover.

KAREN: But he began as your life coach.

EMILY: No. Kind of the other way around.

KAREN: Was he your boyfriend or your life coach when he said you were too grounded and needed to become a flight attendant?

EMILY: It was sort of a gray area. And he was always more lover than boyfriend.

KAREN: Life coach with benefits? Sounds ethically kind of nasty.

EMILY: You just think you know everything because you’re older than me. You are seriously such a…such a judgy-judgerson.

KAREN (Smirking.): A what?

EMILY: You know what I mean.

KAREN: Sadly? I do. And, yes: I am older than you.

Once more there is that sound of a baby screaming—real baby howls—in the back of the theater.

EMILY: That’s the mom in the last row.

KAREN: No, that’s the baby in the last row.

KAREN tidies the galley and EMILY glares at her.

EMILY: She’s actually pretty cute.

KAREN: Ugly baby.

EMILY: Not a fan of babies on planes?

KAREN: I’d rather have snakes.

EMILY: It’s worse for the mom or dad. They’re convinced everyone else on the plane hates them.

KAREN: We do.

EMILY: Seriously? You’re a mom.

KAREN: My kids are closer to your age than mine. Remember? I’m old.

EMILY: I said older. Just older than me. That’s all.

KAREN (Ignoring her and returning to the subject that really interests her.): Don’t care. So, you were sleeping with your life coach when he told you to leave the coffee shop and become a flight attendant. But it was still a…a “gray area.”

EMILY: My parents weren’t happy I was a barista.

KAREN: Perfectly noble profession.

EMILY: They expected more after college. They were hoping the life coach would make me more willing to take risks. Put myself out there.

KAREN: Be less (Using air quotes.) “grounded.”

EMILY: Uh-huh.

KAREN: This life coach have a name?

EMILY: Vladimir.

KAREN (Incredulous.): Vladimir?

EMILY: Vladimir.

KAREN: And you and Vladimir were sleeping together when he said you should do (She waves her arms around the plane.) this.

EMILY (Sighs deeply, existentially.): First of all, we were never sleeping together. We were only having sex together. That’s a big difference. And only in his office. Well, mostly in his office. Technically, we never, ever slept together. You know, sleep. He’s married.

KAREN: You took the advice of a married life coach who was fucking you in his office? You agreed to train for a job that demands spending three or four days a week at thirty-five thousand feet when, clearly, you don’t want to spend a whole lot of time above sea level? Are you—

EMILY: You make it sound way crazier than it was. Than it is.

KAREN: Ya think?

EMILY: I do.

KAREN: Are you still not sleeping with but merely fucking Putin?

EMILY: Volkov. His last name is Volkov. I was not fucking Vladimir Putin.

KAREN: No shame in that: he’s fucked most of America.

EMILY: Vladimir is a family friend. He’s actually my father’s best friend. They went to college together. They were roommates.

KAREN: This just gets better and better. Are you still fucking Vladimir in his office?

EMILY: No.

KAREN: But he was a family friend—your father’s best friend—who was married.

EMILY: Is married.

KAREN: So you knew him growing up?

EMILY: Yes.

KAREN: So, he’s way older than you. He’s older than me.

EMILY: Way is relative. He’s in very good shape.

KAREN: But he is still, quite literally and quite creepily, old enough to be your father.

EMILY crosses to her jump seat, the one farther from the exterior cabin door (more stage left), and sits down. She reaches into her purse for her lip balm.

EMILY: You told me a secret; I told you a secret. Let’s not talk about this anymore, okay? Can we be done…Mother?

KAREN (Shrugging.): Sure. It’s not like this conversation is mandatory. Now, telling someone their connection is totally fine when we all know they’re going to be sleeping at the airport—and I mean at the airport, not an airport hotel—because there is no way they’re making their connection? I mean, that is mandatory shit. But telling me about your dad’s best friend who was banging you—and then told you to become a flight attendant? Not mandatory.

EMILY: Then we’re done.

The phone to the flight deck chimes and KAREN crosses to answer it.

KAREN: But it might be helpful. (Into phone) What? (Beat.) Really? (Beat.) Got it. Will do.

She hangs up the phone.

EMILY: The air traffic hold is over?

KAREN: No. There’s someone from the “no-fly list” on board.

EMILY: What?

KAREN (Enunciating precisely.): There’s someone from the “no-fly list” on board.

EMILY: You’re kidding. Tell me you’re kidding. You have to be kidding because we wouldn’t be taking off if you were not kidding.

KAREN: Yeah. I was kidding.

EMILY: Then what did he—

KAREN (Holding up a finger.): Wait for it.

CAPTAIN’S VOICE (Onscreen.): Good evening, folks, Captain Elder here. Again. Just wanted you to know that Air Traffic thinks they’re only going to keep us hostage here another couple minutes. So, if you’re at the vending machines or the concourse shopping mall, please scoot back to your seats. We thank you all for your patience. Flight attendants, please prepare the cabin for takeoff.

EMILY, furious, starts toward the galley.

EMILY: You are insane. Or mean. I don’t know which. Why would you joke like that?

KAREN: I was just having fun. Leave that crap. You can have the honors.

EMILY lifts the intercom phone from its cradle.

EMILY (Into intercom phone.): Ladies and gentleman, you just heard our captain. Please make sure you are buckled into your seat, the seat is upright, your tray table is put away, and your carry-on items are properly stowed. We will soon be leaving for London.

KAREN: With a terrorist on board.

EMILY (Eyes wide, appalled.): What if the intercom had still been on?

KAREN: We’d have a flight attendant hot mic scandal.

EMILY: That’s exactly what I mean. You have no filter.

KAREN: Filters are overrated.

EMILY joins KAREN as they batten down the galley: putting away the glasses, throwing away wrappers, etc.

EMILY: I just think you need to be more…circumspect.

KAREN: Vlad the Impaler teach you that?

EMILY: You really are fixated on his name.

KAREN: No. I really don’t give a damn that he has the name of an actual Bond villain. If I am fixated on anything, it’s that I am about to work a seven-hour flight with someone who is scared of flying and just may be a tad judgment challenged. I want to know what the hell I’m in for.

EMILY: I have a spotless record.

KAREN: Spotless at thirty-five thousand feet, maybe. But on the ground? On the ground you—

EMILY: Hey, on the ground you know nothing about me. You know nothing!

They both stop and look toward the first row. KAREN takes a step forward to speak to someone male in the audience as if he is a passenger.

KAREN (To passenger.): Just a little lover’s spat. We’re good. (Pause.) Tray away. Thank you.

She returns to the galley.

EMILY: You seem really worried about my competence. I’m very competent. But if we’re going to work this cabin together, you have got to let go of my ex–life coach.

KAREN (Beat.): Ex?

EMILY: Yes. Ex. I haven’t seen him in a while.

KAREN: That’s good! Can I ask you one more question?

EMILY: Fine. Sure.

KAREN: You went to college. After college you got a job at a coffee shop.

EMILY: The coffee shop was in New York.

KAREN: In New York. And your parents give you these sessions with a life coach who is a friend of the family. And you two start banging and he tells you that you’re too grounded and you need to take risks with your life. Whatever. And you become a flight attendant. And—

EMILY: We didn’t start banging then.

EMILY goes to her jump seat and sits down.

KAREN: Where is my chronology off?

EMILY: We started—to use your oh-so-poetic use of the word—“banging” before that.

KAREN: Before he was your life coach?

EMILY: Uh-huh.

KAREN (Hesitantly.): How long before? Weeks? Months?

EMILY: Years.

KAREN: Like when you were in college?

EMILY: Before then. I told you he was a…a family friend.

KAREN: You were a teenager…

EMILY: Mostly.

KAREN: Mostly? Mostly like, what? Sixteen?

EMILY: The first time was when I was fifteen.

KAREN (Stunned.): Fifteen.

KAREN goes to her own jump seat, the one closest to the exterior door and more stage right, and sits beside EMILY. As they speak, they buckle into the seat belts and shoulder harnesses.

EMILY: It went on through high school. You know, when he’d visit Maine. Two times when I went to New York. And then when I was in college, we’d see each other.

KAREN: His wife—

EMILY: His wife isn’t very nice. She’s kind of a bitch. I mean, I guess that was my justification.

KAREN: You don’t need a justification. You did nothing wrong.

EMILY: I know.

KAREN: Do you?

EMILY: Yes.

KAREN: You were fifteen. There’s only one word for that. There’s only one word for what he did.

EMILY: Two. Don’t forget statutory.

KAREN: So, you’ve thought about this. Good.

EMILY: Yeah. I mean fifteen is young. I was young. Trust me, I’ve made all the Humbert Humbert jokes. “You took advantage of my disadvantage.”

KAREN: I don’t know what the hell that means, but listen to me. It can’t ever be consensual when you’re fifteen and he’s…what?

EMILY: He was forty-seven then. He’s fifty-six now. (Pause.) It was…flattering. I was flattered. I liked that he thought I was pretty. I liked that he wasn’t a teenage boy. Then I liked that he wasn’t a frat boy.

KAREN: So what are you going to do?

EMILY: I’m not going to do anything. At least anything other than what I’ve already done, which is stop seeing him. Forever. For. Ever. But anything more? Like go to the police? It would devastate my parents.

KAREN: Because they actually like this dirtball? This…this pedophile?

EMILY: Well, there is that. The betrayal they’d feel. My dad would want to kill him. But it’s more than that. It’s because of what they missed. How they didn’t see what was going on and stop it. How they didn’t protect me.

KAREN: Don’t you think—

There are three chimes on top of her line, and EMILY cuts her off with a slashing motion with her hand—then the sound of an aircraft engine accelerating as the plane begins its roll down the runway, picking up speed, and ascending. EMILY just stares straight ahead, terrified, and KAREN just stares at EMILY. Once the plane is airborne, the conversation resumes.

EMILY: Takeoffs and landings. They’re the most dangerous times.

KAREN: Nah.

EMILY: No. You know that’s the truth. But…

KAREN: But what?

EMILY: I’ll be more terrified when we’re over the ocean. Even on the regional jets, I was more afraid when we were zooming along at thirty thousand feet than on the way up or the way down. I especially hated the flights over the Great Lakes.

KAREN: If you don’t crash in the first sixty or so seconds, you can chill. At least until the last sixty.

EMILY: Takeoffs and landings.

KAREN: So, you stopped seeing Vlad.

EMILY: Vladimir. Uh-huh.

KAREN: That was a great decision. That was the first step. But…why? What got you to finally pull your head out of your ass?

EMILY is exasperated.

EMILY: Wow. There were a thousand better ways for you to ask me that question.

KAREN: I’m sorry.

EMILY says nothing. Just shakes her head and tries to rein in her fear as they climb through the bumpy air.

KAREN: Let me try that again. What finally caused you to stop seeing him?

EMILY (Long beat.): Doing this.

KAREN: Flying.

EMILY: Uh-huh. He didn’t think I could do it. He didn’t think I would do it. He thought I was just this mousy little barista. I don’t think he ever believed that I’d take his advice—this advice. That I was capable of taking this advice.

KAREN: When did you see that?

EMILY: When I made it through the airline’s training. When I flew. At every step, he was weirdly skeptical. He wouldn’t say that what I was doing was meaningless, but I could tell he thought it was like I was playacting. That I’d fail before I finished. I’d find a reason to drop out and go back to the coffee shop. And I began to think that was what he wanted. His mousy little barista he’d been screwing for years on and off in his office.

KAREN: You went to his office?

EMILY: Yes. That’s usually where we met. I could see how shocked he was. I was based in Philly and I did four days, three to five flights a day, none longer than ninety minutes, and at the end of the fourth day I took the train to Manhattan. The next morning, I told him. I was a flight attendant. I’d done it. I’d just flown sixteen times in four days.

KAREN: What did he say?

EMILY: I think he was almost scared of me. I mean, here’s what I expected: he would be proud of himself as a life coach, yes, but maybe also a little disappointed that his hamster was no longer in its cage. Instead? He was just defensive and scared.

KAREN: Scared?

EMILY: Scared.

KAREN: That you were going to stop being his plaything.

EMILY: No. Not so much. I think mostly he was terrified that he was about to be outed as the next super-gross, super-horrid male predator. If I was able to do this (She motions at the airplane.), who knows what I was capable of doing? Who knows who I’d tell about what we’d done?

KAREN: Emily, what he’d done.

EMILY: Yeah. What he’d done.

KAREN: He should be scared.

EMILY: This was almost two years ago. He’s probably not scared anymore. By now he knows I’m not going to do anything.

KAREN: Oh, I have seven hours to change your mind, honey—Emily. And that’s just our first leg together. I also have London and the trip home.

There is a mechanical whir, long and loud, and EMILY flinches.

KAREN: They’re just flaps. Just. Flaps.

EMILY: I know.

KAREN: You have to do something.

EMILY: I don’t.

KAREN: You do—

EMILY: Karen, would you please—

KAREN: We’ll be back at JFK in two days. We’ll—

There is a huge bump of plane-rattling turbulence.

EMILY: Stop it! Just stop it. You didn’t live it, it didn’t happen to you. Look, maybe he hurt me. Maybe he grounded me. But I’m one person. One. Do you really think I have the right to destroy a whole bunch of other lives because I willingly—willingly—kept seeing him? Yeah, I was fifteen, but I knew what I was doing. I knew. Yes, he was fucking his friend’s fifteen-year-old daughter. But I was fucking my dad’s friend who I knew was married. And then I was doing it when I was sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and nineteen and twenty and twenty-one. This was…years. Years. Sure, maybe his life deserves to auger nose-first into a mountain. I can see that. But his wife’s life? My parents’? I told you what it would do to them. I told you. He also has two kids, one of whom is a daughter my age. In her eyes, her old man is a pretty great dad. Think of what it would do to her. Think of that. And look at me. Look at me!

KAREN does.

EMILY: I am here on this airplane. I am going to work this goddamn cabin with you.

I am still here. I am fine.

There is a ping—a cell-phone chime as if a text message has come in. EMILY’S face changes, her anger now a dagger of disbelief at the fact that a phone is not in airplane mode, but KAREN puts both hands up, palms open, the universal signal for innocence.

KAREN: Not me. Not mine.

KAREN leans forward and raises an eyebrow angrily toward some indeterminate point in the audience.

KAREN (To “passenger” in the audience.): That’s right. You best put that phone in airplane mode right this very second. I have two kids: you wouldn’t be the first person whose phone I have confiscated. (Pause.) Thank you.

KAREN (To Emily.): Maybe you’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t think this through.

Collateral damage. Maybe people would get smacked around way too hard.

There are two airplane chimes and KAREN reaches for the intercom.

KAREN (Into intercom.): Ladies and gentleman, we’re now passing through ten-thousand feet, which means approved electronic devices are now allowed. The seat-belt sign is still illuminated, so please remain in your seat until the captain turns it off. In a few minutes, our cabin service will begin—and to my friend in the first row and anyone else who thinks like him, that does not include slipping off the airplane mode on your cell phones. Thank you.

She puts away the phone.

EMILY: You don’t mess around.

KAREN: It seems to matter to you. This ridiculous cell-phone thing. I want to oblige.

EMILY: Thank you. (Beat.) I saw the menu for this flight. Not bad in first class and business.

KAREN: Did you have boyfriends?

EMILY: Excuse me?

KAREN: Did you have boyfriends when you were with the pedophile and life coach?

EMILY: Not really.

KAREN: You thought there was a future with a man thirty years older than you.

EMILY: Thirty-two. And, no.

KAREN: Then why?

EMILY: The idea this successful older man was interested in me kept drawing me back. I was like this weird little paperclip and he was this enormous magnet. I couldn’t pull away. (Beat.) I never wanted to pull away.

KAREN: Do you have one now?

EMILY: A boyfriend? No. I am on Tinder.

KAREN: Yeah, I am not totally sure that’s progress.

EMILY: I’d love to find someone.

KAREN: You will. You’re pretty and smart—

EMILY: I thought you questioned my judgment.

KAREN: Oh, your judgment is a disaster. It is—forgive me—a plane crash. But that doesn’t mean you’re not smart.

EMILY: Thank you. I think.

KAREN: So, the only adult relationship you’ve ever had was with this…

EMILY: Life coach. I guess. Yes. I mean, I saw a few boys in college. But…I don’t know.

KAREN: When we get back home, if you want, I can take you to a lawyer.

There is a huge bump of turbulence.

EMILY: No. I don’t want that. I told you, I’m not going to destroy my parents. His kids.

KAREN (More curious than adamant.): You don’t think that maybe they need to know their dad was with a fifteen-year-old?

EMILY: It’s over. I got away.

KAREN: Listen to your words: “I got away.” Doesn’t that tell you something about how toxic the whole—and I hate to use this word—“relationship” was? Shit, people “get away” from cults.

The flight deck chimes. KAREN picks up the phone and listens.

KAREN (Into phone.): Got it.

KAREN (To Emily.): The captain says we have a couple pretty good bumps ahead of us as we climb. Just turbulence. Why don’t you take this one?

EMILY hesitates—looks at the phone as if it’s a snake, and then cranes her neck to look out the door window. Then, finally, she takes the phone.

EMILY (Into mouthpiece.): Ladies and gentleman, the captain says there will be a few more bumps—

On cue, a huge thump and the flight attendants bounce in their seats.

—such as that one—on our climb up to thirty-five thousand feet. You’ll see that the seat-belt sign is still illuminated. When we’re through this rough air, we’ll start a beverage service.

She switches it off.

KAREN: Nicely done.

EMILY: Not my first rough air announcement.

EMILY again peers out the window in the door.

It’s just so dark out there.

KAREN: We’re still over Long Island.

EMILY: We won’t be soon.

KAREN: New England—Maine!—the Maritimes. We have at least ninety minutes until we’re over the ocean.

EMILY: I can’t even see the moon.

KAREN: You will. And the stars. Once we’re above the clouds. (Pause.) Do you ever think about the other girls he preyed on.

EMILY: Can we drop this?

KAREN: My bad. Sorry.

EMILY: You think there were others?

KAREN: Were. Are. Yeah, I do.

EMILY: Why would you want me to see a lawyer? Why not the police? It’s not like I want to sue the man.

KAREN: Where did it happen when you were fifteen?

EMILY: The barn. My bedroom.

KAREN: I meant what state. I assume it was Maine.

EMILY: It was. And New York. But that was two days after my sixteenth birthday.

KAREN: Okay, so we see the local prosecutor in Maine. That’s what I mean by a lawyer.

EMILY: We? You want to come with me to Maine?

KAREN: I’ll go way out on a limb and bet there’s a flight. Wouldn’t be all that difficult.

EMILY: There is. There are. But I usually take the train when I go home.

KAREN: Wow. You can fly for free and you still pay for the train.

EMILY: I see no reason to press my luck.

KAREN: Well, we can meet at the prosecutor’s office.

EMILY: Still, it would be my word against his. If I even did it, which I told you, I won’t.

KAREN: He’d cave.

EMILY: You don’t know him.

KAREN: You ever tell anyone about it when it first happened? (Beat.) Emily, I can’t be the first person you’ve told.

EMILY: A few people in college knew there was a guy I sometimes saw in the city. A married man. But he wasn’t really my boyfriend, of course. He was just…

KAREN: I know what he was.

EMILY: So, no. I never told anyone.

KAREN: He give you any presents—appropriate or inappropriate?

EMILY: He gave me some fuck-me wear—you know, slinky lingerie—over the years when I was in college. He’d give it to me over lunch in the city. He’d take me someplace nice. I mean, it wouldn’t matter if anyone saw us. He was my dad’s friend. Then we’d go to his office. Then I’d leave.

KAREN: Well, there’s a receipt for the underwear.

EMILY: It’s not a crime for a man in his fifties to buy a woman in college some slutty underwear.

KAREN: Isn’t it?

EMILY: He was just very handsome. He is very handsome.

Another thump causes both flight attendants to bounce in their seats. EMILY looks ashen.

KAREN: That was just a cloud.

EMILY: With a cement wall inside it?

KAREN: We still have two wings.

EMILY looks out the window to be sure.

KAREN: Lots of monsters are handsome. Maybe most of them.

EMILY: Look, if I went to a prosecutor, it would just be a he-said/she-said thing. And it would ruin too many lives.

KAREN: So, you just want to live with this.

EMILY: It’s over. It’s done. I haven’t seen him in a long time.

KAREN: And you haven’t had an adult relationship in a long time. Maybe ever. Clearly there’s a connection.

EMILY: Clearly?

KAREN: I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know anything. But, Emily? At the very least, you need to confront him. Call him out. He’s a middle-aged man who had sex with his friend’s fifteen-year-old daughter. His best friend’s fifteen-year-old daughter. There has to be a price for doing that shit.

EMILY: And what would that accomplish? I thought about what you said a minute ago, and I honestly don’t believe he’s done to someone else what he did to me.

KAREN: Of course, he has. Once you cross the line and fuck a fifteen-year-old, all bets are off. You do this one time and get away with it, you do it a second time. And a third. Also?

EMILY: Also what?

KAREN: He’s a really crappy life coach! Who tells a twenty-two-year-old girl who’s scared of flying to become a flight attendant?

EMILY: I was twenty-one.

KAREN: Oh, that makes it better.

EMILY: I think it worked out okay. I’m going to London tomorrow. I’ve never been out of this country before.

Another colossal thump. EMILY is miserable.

KAREN: Remember, pretend you’re a dog. Arm out the window.

EMILY: Here?

KAREN: Why not?

EMILY: But not literally.

KAREN: Yeah, that would be a bad idea.

EMILY extends her right arm, and KAREN gently takes it.

KAREN: Thumb down, that’s it. Now thumb up…There you go. Bernoulli. Think of the wingspan of this plane. How long it is. This plane can’t do anything but fly. And no cloud will do anything but cause a bump.

She gives EMILY back her arm and EMILY rests it in her lap.

KAREN: Look, I might be wrong. I get it. But I know what is wrong. And I’m telling you: confronting your—and please hear the sarcasm in my voice—life coach will be life-changing.

EMILY: For him. But for everyone else?

KAREN: I said confront him. I didn’t say you take out an ad in the newspaper. And I know there might be turbulence—which, forgive me, you seem to suck at. But you fly through it. I think confronting him would be really good for you.

EMILY: For me, yeah.

KAREN: For you. That’s who I care about. Personally, I’d love for you to flay this fucking rapist. See a prosecutor in Portland. But I get it. That may not get you justice. It may wreck more lives than just his. So, you won’t do that and I understand. But, Emily? At the very least, get in his face, tell him what he did. Do it because of who you are and who you’ve become.

The plane is shaken by a massive bump of turbulence and the baby starts to cry. Then there is a second, even bigger thump and the baby cries harder. Neither flight attendant moves, but EMILY begins to sing the Welsh lullaby, “All Through the Night.”

EMILY (singing softly, soothingly):

Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee,

All through the night.

Guardian angels, God will send thee,

All through the night.

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,

Hill and dale in slumber sleeping…

EMILY is completely overcome and needs to gather herself before continuing.

I, my loved ones’ watch am keeping,

All through the night.

All through the night.

The baby’s cries slow and disappear by mid-song.

KAREN (A little shaky.): That was…pretty.

EMILY: You ever had a close call on a plane?

KAREN: As in a near crash?

EMILY: Uh-huh.

KAREN: Plenty of go-arounds. Plenty of bad landings. Once an air pocket must have sent us down a thousand feet in seconds. But no. Not really.

EMILY: I did.

KAREN: Seriously? How close?

EMILY: I was on a flight that stalled in a snowstorm going into Cleveland last winter. Twin-engine turboprop. Everything got caked in ice and we stalled completely. The pilot was practically my age and he panicked. Instead of pointing the nose down to get air flowing over the wings again, for the longest time he kept trying to climb. And that wasn’t going to happen. Obviously. Finally, the first officer, a woman who was also practically my age, took over and knew what to do. She pushed the nose down to get air moving over the wings and applied full power. It worked.

KAREN: And what were you doing? As this was happening?

EMILY: My job. I was the only flight attendant on that little plane. I was in my horrible Sharon Stone seat, and I reminded everyone that I wanted their gear stowed. I told the people in the exit rows to be calm and be ready. And I told everyone to get their heads down and to brace. I still hear my voice in my head: Brace, brace, brace.

KAREN: And you landed safely.

EMILY: The TSA computer-modeled the flight because it was such a nightmarish near crash. I’ve watched the simulation a couple of times. The first time I watched it, I threw up into the trash can beside my computer. Literally. I got nauseous. I got sick. But the morning after that flight? I flew. I checked out of the hotel, met the crew, went to the airport, and took off. We had a new pilot. And I had four turns that day: Cleveland–New York–Charlotte–Philly–Burlington. All uneventful. When we landed safely, I swore to myself I would tell Vladimir to go fuck himself.

KAREN: But you didn’t.

EMILY: No. I didn’t. (Beat.) There were others, weren’t there? Or there will be. Other girls.

KAREN: What do I know? (Beat.)

EMILY: You know enough. I’m gonna do it.

KAREN: Confront him?

EMILY: See him. If I can do this, I can face him. I can make sure he lives with what he did, too.

KAREN: After London?

EMILY (Nodding.): Yeah. Right after London.

Pause as KAREN digests this. She looks out the window, sees something and smiles.

KAREN: Switch seats.

EMILY: What?

KAREN: Switch seats. Look out the window.

EMILY is perplexed, but she obeys, and they switch seats so EMILY has the window seat.

Then EMILY leans forward, angles herself so she can see out the window, and almost presses herself against the glass like a child. She smiles ever so slightly.

The lights dim and the theater fills with stars—on the screen upstage and on the ceiling and above the audience. There is no sound but the loud whoosh of air as the plane flies across the sky—and then abruptly all goes silent and the theater goes black.

The End.

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