Elevated Pt. 01

Summary: A flight attendant's bad day is elevated by a benevolent mind controller.

***

This had to be the world's slowest elevator. Selena gripped the plastic handle of her suitcase, white-knuckled from stress, wobbling it as she watched the numbers go down. "C'mon, c'mon," she muttered. She pressed "L" again, knowing it wouldn't do anything, but it made her feel a little better.

Finally, it reached the first floor, and she strode out, thankful for her longer legs. Longer legs that helped me get what turned out to be the world's most irritating job, she thought, then chided herself. Today was not the day to decide she was too good for this, not after her latest tongue-lashing about her demeanor, and not after her rent just went up. Rent for an apartment I never get to sleep in anyway, that mean little voice inside her said, before she clicked her tongue hard, trying to rid herself of it.

The airport van was already out in front of the lobby, and the driver was loading up the last of the passenger suitcases. She rushed over, half-expecting the automatic doors wouldn't open for her with the morning she'd been having. "One more, please!" she yelled as he slid the last bag into the trunk. "One more."

He gave a visible sigh, but took her suitcase, struggling to push the handle down. "Looks like you need a new one," he grumbled.

"Mmhmm, thanks." She climbed into the van and settled into the only open seat, crammed between a red-nosed kid playing a game on his phone and an ebony-skinned man a few years older than her who was looking out the window contemplatively.

She took in a few deep breaths. Not out of the woods yet, but she should make it just in time for preflight prep. She should have listened to her parents when they asked her why someone who had consistently missed the bus in high school would want a job that consistently required early mornings.

Because I got tricked. Which was such an invalid excuse. She'd never been dumb enough to think that being a flight attendant was a glamorous life, but it hadn't really hit her until her first flight, when she'd been barfed on and yelled at and stubbed her toe on suitcases too big to fit down the aisle.

"It's too early to look this done with the day."

She turned to look at the man sitting next to her. He had a warm smile, shining eyes. He glanced at her nametag. "You're with Elevated," he observed.

Elevated Airlines. Once the jewel of the American skies. They still used that tagline sometimes, which Selena now found eminently ballsy.

Selena laughed. "Yeah."

"Flight attendant?" he asked.

"Mmm." She nodded.

"I'm sorry if I overstepped," he said. "With my comment." He had a silky, deep voice. Selena thought she could listen to it all day, but she was destined for the crackling sounds of a captain who liked to make corny jokes over the loudspeaker. "Forgive me, I have an awkward way of starting conversations sometimes. Or trying to start them, with people who otherwise aren't interested in talking to me."

"No, no." Normally, she would have found his comment irritating, especially when she was this cranky, but she was already finding herself relaxing, wishing that this cramped, bad-smelling van would never make it to its destination as long as she could talk to this man. "It's fine, just...been one thing after another this morning. I didn't hear my alarm for almost ten minutes, then the coffee pot in my room was busted, then I noticed a stain on my sweater..." She trailed off, not wanting to bother him with her problems, though he didn't seem bothered at all.

"Where are you flying to today?" he asked.

"Boston."

"Oh." His eyes lit up even more. "Then I suppose I'll see you on board."

In her tired state, it took a moment for her to realize what he meant. "Oh. Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully you're in my section."

"Hopefully," he said with a nod and a smile.

"Are you heading home?" she asked, finally feeling up for some conversation.

"No, just more travel," he said. "I go all over."

"What do you do?"

His smile became more enigmatic, almost wistful. "Very boring things," he said.

She knew better than to pry when someone was being cagey. "And how does Butte rate among your world travels?"

"Not terribly hopping, I'll admit," he said with a chuckle. "But the people I've met are very nice. Have you had a chance to explore it?"

She shook her head. "I've come through a few times, but I'm always too exhausted by the time I get here to venture out." She paused. "I guess I'm always too exhausted to explore any place I go." Then she gave a blunt laugh. "It's funny; that was one of the things I told myself would be so great about this job. All the travelling. And all I've gotten is a world-class tour of all the three-star airport hotels this country has to offer. Two-star, in some cases."

He laughed. "What else did you hope for?"

Her parents had asked a version of that question the last time she'd been home, just with a bit more bite. Well, what did you expect? What did you really think the job would be like?

But the way he asked it carried a warmth she hadn't received from anyone she'd talked to about her job, not that she'd gotten a chance to talk to many people about it. That was another issue. This life was terribly isolating. She didn't have time to date, or make friends, or see her family much. The few dates she had gone on had all gone similarly; once the guys found out what she did for a living, they subjected her to a barrage of "Mile High Club" jokes.

"I always loved that old timey flying aesthetic," she admitted. "You know, the flight attendants in the snazzy uniforms and their perfect hair." She awkwardly put her hand to her own hair, done up in a lazy ponytail with a few tendrils already sticking out. "I knew they didn't dress like that anymore, and I knew that flying was different now, but I still thought it would be interesting. I didn't really think it would be like the old days, you know, where flying was glamorous and one big party, but," she sighed, "maybe I did. Maybe I thought, if I got on the right route, the right plane, that would happen. I don't know, I think I just assumed that it would be something more than just a job." She flopped her hands in the air and then back down on her thighs. "I think I just need to quit."

He considered her words contemplatively, then nodded.

"Are you a therapist?" she asked. "Is that what you do?" She supposed a travelling therapist could be a thing.

"No. But I have been told I'm a good listener. I appreciate you sharing that with me. I know it's not easy to open up to a stranger."

That was kind of an odd thing to say, but she brushed it off, unable to think of anything sinister he could mean by it. "Well, I guess we're not going to be strangers for very long. At least until we get to Boston."

"True." He held out a hand. "I'm Andre."

She extended her own olive hand. "Selena." Though he'd probably guessed that from her nametag.

"Selena." He smiled. "I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you today, Selena."

The van was pulling up to the Departures area. "Don't be disappointed if we barely have time to say hello after this."

He started gathering his laptop bag. "I have a feeling I'm not going to be disappointed today."

Another odd comment. If it had come from anyone else, she might have thought this was leading to another crass joke about fucking in a lavatory. But coming from Andre, it seemed to have a different meaning. Exactly what, she wasn't sure, but it almost seemed, for lack of a better word, elevated.

"Audiobook narrator," she said, taking one more stab at his profession as the van door slid open.

He shook his head with a smirk. "See you at the gate, Selena."

#

Selena had never volunteered for gate duty before. But she did today, after seeing she wasn't scheduled for it. She was supposed to hang out all the way in the back of the cab, a job she normally preferred, because it meant minimal interaction with the general public. But today, when she told her crewmate Diana that she wanted to switch, she thought the poor girl's eyes might fall out of her head, they bugged so wide. Diana didn't ask any questions, which was good, because Selena didn't know how to explain that she wanted to scan the tickets just so she could learn where a single passenger was sitting.

She half-expected Andre to be among the first-class passengers, of which there were ten total spots. That was another reason she wanted to be on gate duty; it meant being assigned to first class once she was on the plane. But nope, he was in group two out of three of the coach class passengers, assigned to seat 10C.

He joined the line in front of a loud family of four. "Selena," he said again as he approached her podium with his ticket, this time with a sly grin that made her stomach flutter. "That's a lovely name for a lovely flight attendant."

"Well, hello there, Mr..." she made a show of looking at his ticket, "Ecchols. Andre Ecchols?"

"That's what is says on my driver's license."

"Well, we're delighted to have you aboard with us today." She'd perfected the art of the fake-but-believable smile since starting this job, and realized as she smiled at Andre that she'd almost forgotten how to make it real. Her lips twitched at the corners and she struggled to convey warmth with her eyes. But she stared back at his very real smile, and felt her whole body relax.

"Can we keep it moving?" the harried dad behind Andre barked.

Selena handed Andre back his ticket. "Welcome aboard, sir."

"Thank you." He took it with a wink and went to the jetway.

The family behind him stepped forward. "Finally." The dad carrying all of his family's tickets slapped them onto her little scanning table. "Some of us," he said, "are trying to get our families to their destination without being subjected to your..." He pinched his lips, clearly trying to think of an appropriate word, "...displays."

"My...?"

"Glenn, I just want to sit down," his wife said. She turned to Selena with a glare. "Do you have any idea what it's like to wrangle two kids to get out of the house by five in the fucking morning?" she asked.

"I--"

"No, I don't think you do," she snapped. "So can we please just board now?"

Selena cleared her throat, then scanned the tickets, almost disappointed when they all beeped correctly. "Have a great flight," she said, her smile so tight she thought her teeth might fall out.

Glenn grumbled and took the tickets back. "Thank you, Selena," he said, looking pointedly at her nametag, in a tone that made it clear he intended to remember it so that he could complain about her later. Ugh, great.

That interaction completely overshadowed her flirtatious exchange with Andre, and she spent the rest of gate duty feeling like someone had squashed her like she was dog shit on their shoe.

#

Once the last panic-stricken and out-of-breath passenger was on board, Selena joined her crewmates on the plane. The most senior flight attendant, Lewis, gave the safety announcements with his usual jokes and exaggerated flamboyance. Everyone loved Lewis. Everyone loved the way he joked that if the plane did go down, people should be sure to grab as many free drinks as possible.

"Is that improv?" Selena heard an older lady whisper to her seatmate. "I bet that's improv. He sounds so off-the-cuff."

It wasn't improv. Lewis told the same jokes every time, to the point where Selena could mouth along with it by memory. But she liked Lewis, and she envied his ability to be that friendly and personable.

She needed a job where she didn't have to talk to anyone, probably. Where she didn't have to make anyone happy.

She blinked, trying once again to pry herself out of her shitty mood. The first-class curtain hadn't been closed yet, and she glanced over Lewis's shoulder, trying to get eyes on Andre. Ten rows back shouldn't be that many, but the first nine rows seemed to be occupied by a convention of the tallest people in the world. Normally, the attendant on gate duty would also be working the tiny first-class area, but Selena leaned over to Lewis as soon as his speech was done. "Do you mind if I switch with Tess and take coach?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, as if she'd asked permission to boil her own head in hot pickle juice. "Why?"

"I have a friend sitting in coach. I swear, I won't spend a ton of time chatting or anything." If Vacation Dad had his way, she'd be fired by the time they landed in Boston, so she didn't see the point in being too cagey now, though she slyly left out the "friend's" gender. "I just want to be able to check in."

He shrugged. "Whatever. As long as Tess doesn't care."

Tess, of course, did not care when Selena called over to ask. Personally, Selena found the guests in first class to be just as insufferable as those in coach, more so even, but at least there were less of them, though they tended to drink more.

Selena sighed with relief once she was on the other side of the curtain, and was ready to finally locate and exchange a look with Andre, but something else caught her eye first. She looked down the aisle, and blinked. Was there...another curtain? And was the aisle...was it wider than normal?

She gripped the top of the sixth row seat, pulling her gaze away from the strange hallucination, and found Andre.

Who was staring right at her.

No, not quite at her, more like in her general direction. His eyes were glazed over and he seemed deep in thought about something. Or, maybe, not thinking at all.

For some reason, something inside of her lurched, and she got the distinct feeling that something was shifting, though she had no idea what.

Diana waved her down from the back of the plane, and she realized she needed to do the final seatbelt check and make her way back for takeoff. She did so, trying her hardest to pay attention to everyone's laps. When she reached Andre, she looked for any sign of a change within him. His seatbelt was fastened, but he still seemed far away.

"Is everything alright, sir?" she asked.

"Hm?" He looked at her, pulled from whatever he was thinking of. "Oh, yes, thank you." As if they'd never met. There was a definite change in his expression from the way he'd looked at her before. Had he been embarrassed by the man from the line? Did he now regret being so forward with her?

She had no further excuse to linger at his row, so she awkwardly turned away and kept on her task.

She reached Diana and settled into the attendant seat. "You okay?" Diana asked. "You seem a little distracted this morning."

"Just," she shook her head, unable to think of a better explanation, "one of those days."

"I get it." Diana patted her thigh quickly, probably one of the nicest purposeful moments of human contact Selena had had in months. "We've all been there."

"Yeah," Selena mumbled, trying to find comfort in that idea. She stared at the drink cart, which jostled slightly as the plane made its way down the runway. Off to Boston, then to yet another place that held no significance to her, on a plane so cramped she could instantly tell if someone was wearing deodorant.

She took deep breaths, trying to imagine herself somewhere more interesting, though Diana interpreted it as preflight jitters. "Just the usual takeoff turbulence," she said to Selena. "Nothing to be concerned about."

"I'm fine," Selena replied, a little tenser than she meant to. The truth was, she did feel a little off, maybe even a little sick, which was unusual for her.

"Oh, I know you're fine." She could see Diana jiggle her shoulders out of the corner of her eye. "You got the best job today."

Selena couldn't help let out a mirthless laugh. "Okay, I get it. I know it's weird that I switched duties with you, and that I'm back here in coach now, but--"

"What're you talking about?" Did Diana's voice suddenly get higher? More breathy? "Once we're smooth in the air, you get to leave this stuffy old corner!"

Selena finally turned to Diana. "Di, what are you--"

She paused.

"What's wrong?" Diana asked.

What was wrong? What was wrong was that Diana was wearing a completely different outfit than the one she'd been wearing when they sat down just minutes ago.

No more scratchy navy blue sweater and black dress slacks. Now, Diana had on a perfectly pressed flight attendant's uniform with a short skirt and white trim, with a matching blue-and-white pillbox hat. It showed off her cleavage and slim waist perfectly. Selena looked down. Normally, Diana would wear the same kind of shoes as her, sensible sneakers or maybe ballet flats. They were on their feet all day, after all, and these days heels were forbidden as a tripping hazard anyway. But sure enough, as Selena could have almost predicted, dark blue pumps adorned Diana's stockinged feet. She looked like she came straight out of the old magazine pictures Selena had posted in her dorm room during her training.

She realized that she still hadn't said anything to Diana, whose hands were pressed firmly into her lap, a cheery smile plastered on her face.

"I...I..." Selena had never felt so dumb and thrown off, not even when she'd gotten dumped right before prom. "What you're wearing..." She blinked several times, scratched her neck and pinched the back of it, but Diana's outfit remained the same.

"Oh, is my pin not straight?" Diana adjusted the gold pin that replaced her nametag, emblazoned with a logo that took Selena a moment to place. It was an old Elevated logo. She remembered her training manual, the page that showed the logos from throughout the years. This one, a sleek stylized bird flying over the word, "Elevated," with the word, "Airways," in smaller script beneath, hadn't been used since 1969.

"What is this?" Selena asked, still trying to rationalize how Diana's quick uniform change was even possible. "Did I miss a memo? Is this a prank? Vintage day?"

"Vintage day?" Diana blinked. "Honey, why would we ever play a prank on you? I mean, we can't all pull off the uniform the way you can, but we definitely don't hold that against you!" She giggled.

"Hold it against..." Selena looked down at herself, which she realized she'd been avoiding doing for fear of what she would see. Sure enough, she was wearing the exact same outfit as Diana, down to the pin and shoes and everything. "Di, what is going on?"

"You must be getting so cooped up and antsy back here," Diana said with a laugh. "Don't worry; any minute now you'll be free. And don't worry about me. I like dealing with the littles."

Selena almost asked what she meant by the littles, but she was confused enough as it was. A moment later, just as Diana predicted, there was a deep ding, indicating that they were safely in the air and passengers were free to get up, as if there was anywhere interesting to go besides the lavatory.

"Right!" Diana clapped her hands. "Off you get. Go on, go on!" When Selena didn't react right away, couldn't react, Diana reached over and snapped off Selena's seatbelt. "You really gotta loosen up. I know the folks in the main lounge will help you with that."

Diana might as well have been speaking another language, but Selena rose to her feet in a daze. She used to love wearing heels in high school and college, but by the time she graduated, the novelty had worn off and she couldn't wear them even on special occasions without her feet immediately getting sore. But now, she didn't wobble at all, didn't feel the familiar soreness. She walked with surprising ease into the main cabin.

Her jaw dropped.

The aisle was wider, impossibly so, the seats much more spacious than before. And every single passenger in this section was a child. Some of them were sitting quietly, reading or coloring. Others were playing hide and seek or arguing. All of them were dressed impeccably, as if for Easter service or something like that.