American Vacanza

quiet moments at thirty thousand feet • madison

I woke up on the plane's plush carpeted floor with a water bottle on my chest. I'd never been a light sleeper, and I'd always has the tendency to roll around, but how did I fall on the floor and not wake up? And how did this water bottle stay on me?

I sat up and threw the water bottle at Siena. It hit her square on the stomach, and she woke up soon after that. Her eyes fell on the water bottle, which was slowly leaking into her t-shirt. "Did you do this?"

I shrugged. "No."

"Oh," she replied. "What time is it?"

I looked out the window at the night that swallowed the plane and drowned it in ink. "Night."

"I knew that, idiot. What TIME is it? How long were we asleep?" Her blue-ish eyes narrowed as she let out a puff of steam-- er, a sigh.

I quickly checked my phone, the light on it almost blinding me, and replied, "It's 5 A.M. in New York. We were asleep for seven hours."

She sat up, giving the cutest little cat yawn as she did. "How long does it take to get to Naples, Madison?"

"Usually nine to eleven hours," I replied. That's what Dad ways told me on the way there.

"Can you believe it?" she gushed. "We're almost there. We're going to see my mom, and your dad, and your brother. We can take showers. Oh, God, do I need a good shower."

"We can take showers on this plane," I pointed out, but there was something else in her sentence that stood out to me. We'd been talking about my parents for so long, we hadn't really talked about Isaac much. My older brother, who had been at college for a year, would be there. Siena might have been a great second place, but the title of 'best sibling' had to go to the boy I'd spent all seventeen years (besides his college years) with. It went to Isaac.

"This plane has a shower?" she asked. "Where?"

"Um, in the bathroom?" I snorted. "Where else?"

Siena made a beeline for the bathroom as I turned on the TV. It was pre-loaded with a bunch of movies, but my eyes were still so tired I didn't think I could stay up for one.

"I don't feel comfortable showering in an airplane," announced Siena, walking out of the bathroom. What if we hit turbulence? God, it would be like those Life Alert commercials on crack."

"I know. Why did my dad even have that installed?" I laughed.

"Whatever. I'm starving," she complained, prompting me to step over to the hidden mini fridge. I don't think Siena even knew about it, because the door just blended in with the wall, but she wss nonetheless impressed when I opened it to a large selection of food and drinks.

"What do you want? Coke or Pepsi? We have both." I gestured to the contents of the fridge.

"How about that apple in there?" I tossed one to her and grabbed an orange soda for myself.

"I can already feel the warm sun on my skin in Italy," I said, sinking into the tan leather seats.

"So the house is really cool, huh?" she asked.

"It's better than cool. Our house at home is super modern. It looks like someone took a concrete block and stuck glass panes all over it. But the Italy house is just as big, but it's rustic and charming. The sides are made of stone, and the roof is tiled, and the inside is so elegant and it looks so amazing."

What was amazing was that I couldn't find words to describe it other than "amazing" and "big."

"It sounds awesome," Siena, clearly confused, replied. "And we're almost there."

"Hey, since we're probably not going back to sleep, do you mind if I turn the lights on?" I asked. I was actually turning the lights on as I said this, so I wasn't really going to listen to her response.

"I guess," she replied after the fancy lighting had given the room a weird blue glow.

"Much better," I said.

We were silent for a moment, running out of conversation topics. Siena nibbled on her apple, and I took a big long sip of my soda.

"So anyway," she replied, "how about a movie?"

"Nah, not right now."

More silence.

"So, I didn't know this plane had a fridge. You just push it in and it pops out? I always thought that was just a storage cabinet."

"Yeah. Mom and Dad don't usually turn it on for short flights, but Moe must've turned it on when he and the crew were prepping the plane."

"Moe's awesome. I thought he was kind of creepy at first, but it turns out he's just really cheery. I figured that if Jake knows him well, Jake wouldn't lead us astray," she gushed.

"Yeah. He IS pretty cool."

Siena cautiously walked to the fridge and pulled out a Coke. "I need the extra caffeine to get through the jet lag. What time is it going to be when we get there?"

"Well, it's noon there right now if it's five in NYC. That means we'll probably get there around three, and we'll get to the house around four. Come on, Siena, I thought you knew this!" I joked.

"The jet lag's going to be the death of me," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"Yeah, it'll take about a week to get used to it," I said.

"And I thought that this past week was the worst one." She cracked up at her own joke. A week ago, I would have rolled my eyes and gagged a little. But I was starting to appreciate her weird humor a little more. I didn't think it was funny, but I appreciated it.

And besides, she was right; the jet lag was absolutely terrible. But for a few hours a day, being at the Italy house was absolute bliss. I'd take jet lag with those few hours of perfection any day.

Moe's voice crackled over the speakers that my parents had installed for no real reason except to be fancy. "Ladies, are you awake?"

"That we are," I called into the cockpit. Why didn't my parents make it an intercom so I wouldn't have to yell using my just-woke-up voice?

"All right. We're heading into clear skies, so we should be touching down at Naples International in two hours or so."

"Roger that, Captain," I called, giggling.

Morning light peeked over the horizon. Flying was a weird thing; we got on the plane at the beginning of night, and then we flew for a few hours and it was morning. Maybe we'd be able to see something other than clouds soon; then again, I kind of doubted it.

Siena looked at me blankly. "You think you're so funny."

"Um, that's because I am," I replied. "I'm hilarious."

"You know that people who say they're hilarious, you're probably quite the opposite of hilarious," she said, raising one eyebrow, a skill that I could never learn but she seemed to do with ease.

"I do know that," I said with the sass of a Real Housewife. "But in this case, I'm still incredibly funny and beautiful."

"Whoa," she laughed, "back up a step. When did we ever talk about being good-looking? When did that ever come into the conversation?"

"Um," I said, still channeling every Kardashian I could think of, "about two seconds ago."

"Well, okay," she sighed, clearly confused. "Lets just watch a movie."

I perked up. "Slumber Party II?"