Page 56 of Fly with Me

He laughed, a Hollywood smarmy laugh that happens right before a big company buys up all the land in a cute small town to put in an oil refinery. “We’d like to have you on today.”

“But it’s 5:30 P.M. I can’t get there today.”

“No, TODAY.”

“I told you I’m really sorry but I can’t get there today. I’m still at work, and I don’t get off for—”

“The TODAY show.”

Olive dropped the phone. It clattered on the floor, and Olive scrambled to pick it up.

Who’s on first. Her life had devolved into a bad Abbott and Costello routine. Jesus Christ.

“Are you there, Ms. Murphy?”

She grabbed the phone off the floor, making a mental note to clean it with an alcohol wipe. “Um. I don’t think I can come to New York.”

“We can film you in DC. We already talked to Allied Airlines about Stella Soriano coming. That’s your girlfriend, right?”

Shit. They hadn’t talked about TODAY when they discussed an interview. Olive had said local news and maybe a radio show. Would Stella be mad?

“Yeah. I should probably ask her—”

“We verified with the airline. She’s available.”

“Oh. Great.”

“So, you’re still available on Thursday morning, right?”

“Yeah.” Nausea hit. Olive’s ears were ringing, but she managed to force out a few more words. “I’ll be there.”

“Great. See you then. Will email the full deets.”

An unironic deets. Wow.

“Coolio.” Olive winced. “Bye.”

OLIVE

So slight change of plans with this interview… And any chance you can borrow one of those airsick bags from your plane? If things go bad with this, I’d like to keep my panic-puking on theme.

Chapter 20

The scent of vanilla and lilacs washed over Olive as Stella adjusted the collar of Olive’s teal dress. The dressing room was illuminated from the Hollywood lights around several mirrors. Stella was in uniform today, pilot-wings pin gleaming on her chest. They’d spent last night talking on the phone about their story, basically deciding to keep it identical to the actual story of their relationship. Which, to Olive, begged the question of WHY THE FUCK WEREN’T THEY ACTUALLY JUST REALLY FUCKING DATING?

But… Olive decided to put off that discussion for another day especially given how certain Stella seemed that any time she was in a relationship the other person would wind up hurt. Despite this…

Things were good.

Great, actually.

Stella slipped her hand in Olive’s as they sat in two stools waiting to be called. They’d discussed talking points with the interviewers beforehand. And Joni had given her a prescription for Zofran in the hopes that there would be no stage fright panic-puking. Although Olive had been joking, Stella did bring her a tiny Allied Airlines airsickness bag. When Olive unfolded it, she found a small note.

You won’t need this. We got this.

We got this. Just something else to make Olive’s heart do that dumb, delighted little spasm.

They did have a plan though.