Lieutenant

by Lesli Richardson

  I can’t really understand them, but I’m back in my brace position, and see others, who were watching me earlier, have assumed it, too.

  We’ve flown under the clouds now. It’s still damned cold, but at least it’s slightly warmer than before. Looking across the aisle, to my left, through those windows, I can see grey skies above us and rain around us.

  I don’t want to crane my head to the right to look through the gaping hole and see how far away the water is, because I’d have to look at what’s left of Mike’s body to do it.

  I’m no hero, like Carter. I’m a coward about some things, and I’ll readily admit it.

  I don’t want to stare my death in the face.

  I keep my eyes closed now and listen as the remaining engine throttles back. It feels like maybe they’ve deployed the air brakes or flaps or something.

  The first hard skip off the ocean’s surface as we ditch hits bone-jarringly hard and bounces us, like a stone along the water. Salty spray blows in through the hole in the fuselage, completely drenching me and Connie and everyone around us. Everyone’s screaming now, including me. The water’s cold, and it’s rough, and I hope I can get out before I drown.

  We make three more skips before we plow hard into a wave that finally grabs us and hauls us out of the sky for good, even though we’re still moving due to momentum. We’re no longer airborne, and we’re adrift in a stormy sea that’s rocking the entire cabin and will make it difficult to keep my footing.

  But the pilot is a goddamned hero. He brought us down in one piece. We landed belly-down and didn’t cartwheel.

  The rest is up to us now.

  The engine shuts off and it’s eerily quiet in the seconds before people start crying, screaming, and the weird creaks and groans coming from the doomed plane’s superstructure echo throughout the cabin.

  I tear my seatbelt off and stand, flipping my seat cushion to find…

  No life vest in the empty spot that should hold it.

  Motherfucker.

  I grab Connie’s seatbelt, rip it off her, and yank her to her feet by her arm. She’s got a life vest under her seat, and I put it on her and jerk the waist belt tight around her. A glance back at the rows immediately behind us show several more people dead or dying in the window seats in those rows.

  A flash of guilt I don’t have time for washes through me over giving thanks Mike got the window seat after all.

  Grabbing my purse from under the seat—no, it wasn’t stupid reflexes, believe me—I shamelessly shove my way into the aisle, dragging Connie along with me as we follow the red lights along the floor in the darkened cabin toward the aft exits. We’re moving faster than most. But we pass an empty seat, and I flip the seat cushion to find a life vest.

  Thank fucking god!

  I pull it on, find Connie’s arm behind me, and keep dragging her.

  Along the way, I check two other empty aisle seats and grab those life vests, too.

  Ahead of us, at the rear exits, the flight attendants already have both doors open and the slides deployed, although in this case, they’re not so much slides as they are crappy pool floaties.

  But I nearly weep with joy to see, through the windows on either side, inflated life rafts tethered to the aircraft.

  I aim for starboard, where we were already, and glance up at the rear of the cabin to see an overhead bin with first aid and other informational signage on it.

  Wrenching it open, I grab everything I can put my hands on and shove some items at Connie. On our way past the rear galley alcove, I rip open the drawer marked Water and scoop out as many bottles as I can shove in my purse.

  We’re going to need them.

  Now, more stunned people are moving, but water is sloshing in through the doors. Too many people are stupidly trying to head forward instead of aft, but that’s to our benefit, I suppose. We’re going down quickly, and it’s not exactly smooth seas out there. I shove Connie out the door ahead of me, and she lands face-first on the slide, losing the items I’d handed her. I follow her out, jumping and landing on my ass. Dropping what’s in my arms, I immediately grab the tether line for the life raft to drag it toward us. More passengers are making their way out now.

  I yank the inflation cords on her vest, then on mine.

  “Move your ass, Connie!” I scream over the storm. “Get in! Now!” I grab what I’d scavenged from the plane and heave everything into the raft, saving my purse for last, then grab the shit I’d handed her and throw it in, too. There’s a mounting ladder on the side, and she finally heads for it. I clamber in after her.

  Two men who emerged behind us help two other women into the raft before they climb in, too. A third man stumbles out of the door, lands face-first on the slide, and then tries to make it to us. We manage to grab him by the hands and haul him in.

  He’s not wearing a vest.

  I’d shoved the extras I found into my purse but opt to hold on to them.

  For now.

  But…it’s bad. The front of the plane is already mostly submerged in the rough waves. At least eight- to ten-foot seas, probably more.

  And the water’s not exactly bathtub-warm, combined with the wind and rain. Fortunately, it’s not as cold as I first thought it was.

  Wind whips around us, rain intermittently pelts us, and I take a moment to reflect.

  There should be people streaming out of the exit, and they aren’t. It’s impossible to see through the windows as dark as it is inside the plane.

  Carter would, no doubt, be grabbing people and tossing them out the doors and charging back inside the cabin to help even more. I did nothing but make a mad, nearly panicked scramble to get out.

  Sure, I dragged Connie with me, but only because I knew if I didn’t she would have sat there and drowned, and I couldn’t have dealt with that guilt.

  Mike’s gone. I hate thinking like a cold-hearted bitch, but I know he loved his wife. He wouldn’t want her to lose her life over his corpse. They have two married adult sons, grandchildren, a loving extended family.

  Losing Mike will be hard enough on them. I can’t imagine looking them in the eyes and not being able to honestly tell them I did everything possible to help save Connie.

  If I even make it.

  I rummage through the first-aid kit and pull out four of the five silver emergency blankets packed inside. They won’t really keep us warm, but they’ll keep the rain off us and maybe allow us a chance to warm up a little. I hand two over to the other women before I wrap one around Connie. Then I pull my left arm out of the sleeve of my soggy sweater, zip my purse, hang the body strap crossways over me, pull my sweater back on, and wrap my emergency blanket around me with my purse in my lap and covered by the blanket and sweater.

  I have my reasons.

  Mainly, those reasons being the dozen or so precious small bottles of water securely zipped inside. There’s a small emergency kit attached to the inside of the raft with a couple of bottles of water in it, along with another life vest the guy missing his can wear, but no telling how long this ordeal will last.

  I don’t know how many people this raft can hold, but by the time the plane really flounders and it’s obvious it’s going under, there are only nine total in our raft—five women and four men. The line tethering us to the aircraft is about thirty feet long, putting us now well past the end of the inflated slide.

  The slide on the starboard side gets cut loose by one of the flight attendants, who jumps on to it.

  No one emerges from behind her.

  The wind and current quickly push the slide away from the fuselage, and the raft, before we can help the people on it into the raft. Three men and two women, including the flight attendant, are clinging to it, and there’s no way we’ll be able to catch up to it. Two of the men in our raft desperately work to untie us so we can paddle away from the aircraft.

  I try to look around, to spot the other rafts, but the one from the front entrance on the starboard side isn’t visible. Either they’ve
already cut loose and drifted away from the aircraft in the rough seas, or maybe the rafts didn’t deploy, or were somehow damaged when we ditched. I can’t even see the front slides now.

  There are several small oars in the raft. Once we’re clear of the tail section, the men manning them try to paddle us around to the other raft, but it’s no use. Between the wind and the waves, we’ll never be able to make it to them, either. It looks like maybe fourteen or fifteen people on that raft, and only one person, a flight attendant, on the second slide, which is also adrift now.

  I wonder how many states will be planning multiple state funerals. Several governors and lieutenant governors just died, along with other state officials.

  Spouses.

  Hopefully I won’t be adding to that number.

  I wonder what Carter would arrange for mine, how Daddy would probably fight him and Owen every step of the way.

  I wonder if the tragedy of losing his best friend’s wife like this will help sweep Owen into a landslide re-election.

  I can’t help the grim smile at that thought. If nothing else, maybe my death can ensure our legacy lives another four years.

  I can only hope.

  When one’s adrift in rough, open seas in a goddamned life raft, one is allowed to reflect like that without feeling guilty about it.

  * * * *

  It’s been maybe ten minutes since we cut loose from the plane, even though it feels like ten hours already.

  But, for now, we’re alive.

  The men manning the paddles have given up trying to catch up with the people on either aft slide, or the aft life raft. We have some flares and other emergency supplies that I didn’t spot earlier, and five other rescue packs, in addition to what Connie and I grabbed and brought with us.

  No one’s talking, although two of the women and two of the men are sobbing as we watch the fuselage take on water and begin its final descent. Connie’s back is to it. That’s probably for the best, because I watch through the wound in the starboard side of the plane as Mike’s body sinks with the aircraft.

  For another ten minutes by my watch we all sit there, maybe in silent prayer, maybe stunned, I don’t know, when one of the women finally speaks once the plane is no longer visible.

  “What…happened?” She has a soft Southern drawl that I think puts her from South Carolina.

  I glance around and realize either no one else knows, or is going to speak.

  Maybe they’re not able to speak.

  “Something ripped a hole in the starboard side of the fuselage,” I say. “I think something came off or out of the starboard wing or engine. It happened after one of the hard bounces. Explosive decompression took over.”

  “Was it a terrorist?” she asks, wide-eyed and obviously in shock.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I think it was stupid, bad luck and a mechanical failure.”

  “We need to send up flares,” one of the men says, reaching for the bag.

  Another stops him before I can. “Not yet,” that man insists. “That’s a waste right now. We need to wait until the weather clears. No one will be out looking for us yet, anyway. We’re safe, for now.”

  But that’s…debatable, and I know it. Apparently, that guy knows it, too, because I’m staring him in the eyes when his gaze meets mine. He’s from Tennessee, I think. Lieutenant governor, if I remember correctly.

  He was with his wife, and the governor and his wife.

  None of those three people do I see in the life raft with us.

  Not making a moral judgment, but I know damn well Owen and Carter wouldn’t be in a life raft without me unless I was already dead.

  That’s when I remember seeing them sitting a row ahead of us…

  Oh.

  I take a deep breath. His wife probably died when Mike died.

  With the rain and waves, it’s impossible to see much around us. All we can do for now is hang on to the handhold lines inside the raft.

  And pray.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Owen

  I’m struggling against building resentment as the re-election efforts kick into high gear. I know it’s a necessary evil, but…

  Yeah.

  I resent the additional public scrutiny on me and my every waking move.

  I resent the fact that it means I can’t risk any late-night rendezvous with Susa for a while.

  I resent it taking both of us away from Tallahassee to other parts of the state, meaning far fewer afternoon drop-ins at work, with her or Carter locking the door so the other can quickly give me what I need and crave from either of them, because we always have staff on us when we’re in the office, trying to eke out as much work from us as they can.

  I resent knowing we’ll have another four years of this if I win, followed by another eight when Susa wins.

  I resent that Susa is driving herself nearly to the point of mental breakdown, and Carter didn’t call me in earlier to comfort her. That he didn’t schedule time for us months ago to sit down with her, together, to gently confront her about this. She hides shit well—too damn well. Both of them do.

  I know they want to protect me, but dammit, they’re my husband and wife, and helpless nights like a couple of weeks ago leave me feeling like I’m not pulling my emotional weight with them.

  Yet I’ll still do this, all of this, because I want Susa to have my job. Because it’s her dream. I want her to be the next governor of our state, and the easiest way to guarantee that happens is winning re-election. Our poll numbers are amazing, both for voters liking our policies and liking us personally as people. They see me and Susa as trustworthy and dependable. We have allies in lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as a growing number who are switching their registration to Independent, who are responding to the poll numbers that prove the public likes and wants this centrist approach, and those lawmakers are helping us achieve it.

  We make them look good, they make us look good.

  This is the plan.

  As much as it pains me to admit it, Carter and Susa were both right about people liking my “face.” That means I can’t go fucking this up. Because if I fuck it up, it means I fuck it up for Her.

  I refuse to do that.

  Susa is currently out of the country. She’s on day eleven or twelve—depending on how you figure it—of a fourteen-day trip that took her to five cities in Asia as part of an official forty-person group made up of governors, lieutenant governors, and other high-ranking state officials. There’s another four dozen or so family members who’ve paid to accompany them. It’s being sponsored by an Atlanta-based organization to promote stronger business and tourism ties between a group of states in the southeastern US, and countries in the region. She awoke in Kuala Lumpur this morning. They fly to Manila later today.

  Or is that tomorrow? Maybe it’s technically yesterday when that happens.

  I’ve given up trying to calculate time differences. I leave that to Carter, because he’s Carter. And because he’s ordered me to focus on my job, not on Susa.

  I know that’s in no small part to help me not miss her quite so badly, but I still do.

  At least with her out of town, it makes sense for Carter to be with me all of the time. Meaning that, for now, I’m not alone at night. While I painfully miss Susa, there is more than a small comfort to be had cuddling with Carter in bed every night. This is the longest stretch I haven’t been alone in bed since taking office, and I have to say it makes me miss private life.

  Despite the horrible reason I had to spend the night with them a couple of weeks ago, it was achingly sweet, too, and reminded me why I do this—because I love them.

  They are my life, and I love them.

  When Carter awakened me before dawn this morning, he told me about Susa’s text and I texted her back, a quick I love you.

  Then I had to hand my personal phone over to Carter to monitor after we returned from our jog, because I have a busy morning full of speaking engagements both of
ficial and campaign-related. Right now, I’m only allowed to monitor my personal phone when I’m in the office.

  Because Carter damn well knows me.

  I cannot afford to be checking my personal cell every thirty seconds to see if she’s responded. I know Carter will let me know as soon as she replies, and I have work to do.

  I had thought about going on the trip, except Carter nixed that idea with the re-election ahead of us and so much work still to do legislatively. Susa’s had her fingers on the tourism issue throughout my whole term, so it made sense for her to go, along with the head of the state’s tourism commission, Connie Drucker. I thought about paying out of our own pockets to send Dray and Gregory with her, but Carter nixed that idea, too. He wanted Dray here in Tallahassee, helping him with re-election planning, and Susa concurred.

  I don’t argue against their plan. Not that I think I’d win that argument anyway, but I feel a little badly that Dray doesn’t get this chance to travel overseas with her.

  I hate that Susa’s essentially alone on this trip, even though she’s an adult and can take care of herself. It’s our job to take care of her—Carter to protect her, and me to serve her.

  I feel like I’m failing her. It’s ironic that she thought she was failing me—yes, irrational though that thought was—by not getting pregnant.

  I feel like I’m failing her, and Carter, by not getting her pregnant, even though that, too, is irrational.

  Carter already had me see a doctor in Tampa and forbid me from telling Susa. He scheduled it three months ago, when I had to be there anyway for a meeting, and they took me in after-hours.

  We’ve ruled out that it’s not a problem with me. In the wake of her meltdown, Carter promises me that once Susa’s back from this trip, he’ll get her in at the same doctor in Tampa, go bastard extraordinaire on her, and see what we can do medically about this.

  If anything.

  Still, it makes me want to work that much harder, both at my job and getting re-elected, to be one less disappointment for Her. Again, I know that’s pressure that only I am putting on myself, but there you have it. We’re three people who love each other and feel responsible for the others.