This section of chapters reframes Dave as a mirror for Linda, someone who uses her as a prop for his own gratification in the same way that she has been using him to augment her sexual encounters with airplanes. The exposition of Dave’s true nature begins with the disastrous reunion with his old acquaintance, Mike, which exposes the pathetic insecurity beneath his corporate veneer. Arriving at the Barley Bros bar, Dave immediately asks Linda to “pretend like we’re dating in front of Mike” (183), explicitly positioning her as a prop in a personal psychodrama. Dave reveals himself to be a man trapped by past failures, unable to move on from perceived slights to his masculinity. Mike’s dismissal of him as a “miserable, stuck-up son of a bitch” (187) confirms that Dave’s self-absorption is a long-standing character flaw, one that predates his relationship with Linda. His professional language bleeds into his personal justifications; he frames his and Linda’s precarious situation at work as “mutually assured destruction” (174), a cold, strategic term that emphasizes his transactional view of human connection. This public humiliation, combined with his earlier confession that his flight with Linda was the “most erotic experience” of his life and a “spiritual awakening” (174), paints a portrait of a man whose personal life is so empty that he must either relive old conflicts or manufacture new, transgressive thrills to feel anything.

Linda’s attempt to sever her connection to Dave by altering her vision board drives the novel’s surrealist logic and critiques the theme of Manifestation as Toxic Positivity. Believing her board has cosmically bound her to Dave, Linda “peeled off his photo […] and burned it in the sink” (209), a ritualistic act intended to undo the magic and restore her agency. Yet, this effort proves futile when Dave appears outside her home, demonstrating that her problems cannot be so easily wished away. The failure of her counter-spell suggests the vision board is less a tool of supernatural power and more a psychological mechanism for offloading responsibility. Linda tells Dave, “I believe it was because of my board that you’ve become compelled to fly with me, against your better judgment” (191), framing his predatory behavior as a cosmic event rather than his own choice. This worldview is contrasted with Dave’s cynical dismissal of her beliefs as “total nonsense” (230), yet his own actions are equally irrational, driven by a desperate, impulsive search for feeling. The narrative presents both magical thinking and hollow rationalism as inadequate coping mechanisms for navigating a world that offers little genuine meaning.

In stark contrast to Linda’s transactional relationship with Dave, her developing friendship with Karina offers a model of genuine intimacy and mutual care. After Linda’s laundry is stolen, Karina responds with practical support, taking her shopping and sharing her lunch. Their sleepovers become a key platform for their bond, transforming the space from a lonely refuge into a site of shared vulnerability. When Linda wakes to find Karina’s “arm thrown across my torso, as though I were her stuffed animal” (221), the image captures a platonic, comforting closeness that is entirely absent from her fraught encounters with Dave. Their bond also deepens through shared confessions about their fatalistic worldviews; Karina fears a plane crash will be “how God will punish [her]” (233) for past sins, a belief that mirrors Linda’s own conviction in a preordained, catastrophic destiny. This friendship provides an anchor to the human world, challenging The Alienating Nature of Modern Life that otherwise defines Linda’s existence.

The mutual care between them culminates in Karina’s request for Linda to help overcome her fear of planes, not realizing how much this plays into Linda’s desires. This sets up the biggest challenge to their friendship, which is the catastrophic collision between Linda’s private worldview and her public relationships. As they sit aboard the A319, Linda’s long-held fantasy of a fatal union with a plane becomes an imminent reality in her mind. Her declaration that the plane “wants to marry me” (239) and her horrifying invitation for Karina to be her bridesmaid in the ensuing crash mark the complete erosion of the boundary between her inner life and her friend’s safety. This moment is the terrifying, logical endpoint of her obsession, mirroring the monomania of Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick, who was willing to sacrifice his entire crew to his singular purpose. By finally confessing her deepest belief, Linda destroys her most meaningful human connection. At the same time, Karina’s horrified reaction and rapid deplaning force a reckoning, leaving Linda consumed by a self-loathing that prompts her to renounce flying entirely. The solitary, anticlimactic flight to Salt Lake City strips away the romance of her desire, revealing it as a deeply isolating and destructive force.

Throughout these chapters, mundane objects and spaces become imbued with intense symbolic weight, mapping Linda’s internal state onto her physical surroundings. The loss of Linda’s laundry is described as feeling “symbolic of a larger dissipation at the center of my life” (197), an external manifestation of her internal crisis. Her living space, the cube, is described by Karina as being “like a cave” (222) and a “sensory deprivation tank” (235), reinforcing its function as a site of extreme isolation. However, Karina’s presence transforms it into a space of intimacy. The SAD lamp Karina gives her is another emblem: a well-intentioned but artificial source of light brought into a space that gets none, symbolizing a fragile attempt to combat psychological darkness. Similarly, the piece of 737 fuselage that Linda carries is more than a talisman; when she shows it to Karina, it becomes a gesture of deep trust, an unveiling of the central relic of her private religion. These details ground the novel’s surreal psychology in the material world, demonstrating how a life devoid of authentic connection leads one to project deep meaning onto inanimate objects and claustrophobic spaces.