Chapter One
Murphy’s Law
/?m??f?z 'l??/
noun
a supposed law of nature, expressed in various humorous popular sayings, to the effect that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
I’ve always been skeptical of Murphy’s Law.
As a scientist worth her salt, I know that it’s all about the probabilities. With the thousands of actions we take every day, it’s just extremely unlikely that so many of them go wrong. But honestly? After sleeping through my alarm, barely making it to the airport on time despite Lennart’s—my sister’s husband—shortcuts and misplacing the allergy pills that make me drowsy enough to keep my flight anxiety at bay, I’m starting to believe that Murphy’s Law might actually be a thing.
It’s seemingly not enough that I have to be awake on this flight, visualizing what feels like a million different ways that this plane could crash. The seat belt signs on flight UA 963 from Berlin to Newark Liberty International Airport have barely been switched off when the universe decides to throw an emergency into the mix.
“Your check-in data say you’re a doctor. Is that correct?” asks the flight attendant with the black polka-dot headband. Right after boarding, when I asked the crew for some pills,she gently pushed me back into my seat, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. I’m well aware that the crew isn’t allowed to hand out pills just like that, even if it’s over-the-counter medication. They probably don’t even have them on board, but with mine out of reach, I was desperate and thought it was worth a try, no matter how unreasonable the request.
Now, the flight attendant is staring at me with big brown eyes, polite smile plastered onto her round face, while I’m too panic-stricken to respond, tongue thick in my mouth and heartbeat heavy against my ribs. She leans over the man sitting on the aisle seat next to me—the one with the thick, caterpillar-like eyebrows—to tap on my shoulder and try again.
“Excuse me? Ma’am? Dr. Silberstein?”
Caterpillar Eyebrows decides this situation is more interesting than his doorstop of a thriller and slots his finger in between the pages of his book. On my left, the woman is still fast asleep, tie-dye hoodie scrunched up between her head and the window, and one leg tucked up onto the seat.
“Could you confirm if you’re a doctor?”
Murphy’s having a field day with me today.
As I force my vocal cords to work again, I cringe into the pleather of my seat. Five years ago, freshly graduated with my PhD, it had struck me as a good idea to register my new official title in my passport. To show it to the world and rub it in everyone’s face. Yes, I’d TAed almost as much time as I’d spent in the lab because my stipend wouldn’t cover my monthly costs, and yes, grad school and the ensuing breakup with my ex had sanded down my self-confidence. But at least I had something to show for it. I could skip past theMissandMs.in the drop-down menus, and demand to be calledDr.instead.
“I am. But not that kind of doctor” I mumble awkwardly. When she tilts her head, I blabber on, “Not the medical kind.I have a PhD in neuroscience. I can’t help with any emergency, unless it’s a statistical one.”
“That should do,” she says cheerfully. “Can you bring a thousand-word abstract down to five hundred? It’s due in two hours.”
My gaze pinballs from her face to my neighbor, who raises those thick eyebrows at me. The woman on my other side stirs as I shift in my seat. Did I mishear? Maybe the flight attendantdidgive me pills after all, and they’re giving me surreal dreams?
Unless the abstract is about neuroscience or anything remotely related, I won’t be of much help, but I’m desperate for any kind of distraction. “I guess I can try,” I reply. And from how she snaps into action and gestures for me to get out of my seat, I begin to suspect that she’s being serious. That this is not some cosmic joke.
“Let’s get you to your new seat then, Dr. Silberstein,” she prompts.
My neighbor has already swung his knees into the aisle to let me through, so all I can do is get up and get out. “Just Frances is fine,” I tell her, stumbling out into the aisle and trailing her, my oversize tote bag bumping into my thigh with every shaky step.
As ridiculous as the request sounds, I feel for this person who’s racing to meet an abstract deadline. It’s a rite of passage in academia; one we’ve all been through. With the experiments, heaps of teaching, grant proposals, peer reviews of colleagues’ papers, and other admin work we have to do, conference prep—like abstracts—tends to be an afterthought, tacked on to train journeys, slotted between meetings, or, like yesterday, preceding my younger sister Karo’s wedding. Already dressed in my bridesmaid’s gown and waiting for the nail polish on my left foot to dry, my fingers whirred over my keyboard to put together the interactive code I need for this week’s workshop.
What a glamorous life.
Ahead of me, the flight attendant weaves effortlessly around other passengers down the aisle. “I’ve never been called for any emergencies before,” I tell her, grabbing onto headrests left and right. “I’m not really the useful kind of doctor.”
“The desperate man in 44L will find you plenty useful, I’m sure,” she replies as she picks up someone’s trash from their tray.
Seat 44L. We’re still only at 30. I scan the rows in front of me, trying to spot the person who didn’t understand the concept of an abstract—summarizing a study or a set of studies in a short paragraph, like a sort of preview—and wrote half an essay instead.
“And don’t worry, if it had been an actual emergency, we would’ve used the intercom,” she informs me. “I’m just bored, is all.”
I can’t help but be intrigued. “You help out desperate academics when you’re bored? What else do you do? Match up seat neighbors based on their interests?”
“Darling, have you ever flown long haul before? It gets real boring real quick.” She looks at me over her shoulder, while also helping a short, elderly lady grab something from the overhead bin before stepping around her. “Especially if the back galley chat is stuck on the same old topic. Kimberley’s wife just had a baby so that’ll be all they talk about today. Don’t get me wrong, lil’ Jonah is cute, but I’ll survive without seeing sixty more photos of his wrinkly face by the time we land.”
We pass through the mid-cabin galley, where the other flight attendants are preparing the drink carts. One of them bumps into me.
