Submission Karlene

Name: Karlene K Petitt

Email: Karlene.Petitt@gmail.com

Title/Genre: Flight 007, A Darby Series/General fiction.

Pitch: Imagine Stephanie Plumb as an Airline Pilot. For Darby, every flight's a challenge and every layover an adventure. A cougar in the sky.

1st 250 words:

My name is Darby and I am an airline pilot. That’s why I’m sitting outside the chief pilot’s office at 7:30 in the morning. Not because I’m a pilot, but because I’m Darby. Sometimes known as D.B., which has nothing to do with doing business and everything to do with Bradshaw being my last name.

Unfortunately I have an uncanny way of getting myself into trouble without even trying. Not a skill, but an innate talent that I’m not proud of. It’s also been said that I’m every older man’s regret and every younger man’s dream.

Right now, I’m the chief pilot’s problem, and he’s my nightmare. I’m not really a problem. He just couldn’t have me naked, so he takes every opportunity to make my life miserable. And being Darby, opportunity arises often.

Sitting in this hall is definitely not on the top of my list of to-dos after flying ten hours from Tokyo to L.A, at the tail end of an eleven-day trip. I’m tired. I’m grumpy. I can’t drink coffee, because I need to sleep. And on top of everything else, I really need to pee.

“Hey Darb, how ya doin?” Brandie asks, balancing her bags against the wall, in attempt to punch the code into the security door pad. I jump up to help.

“Great. Let me get that for you,” I say for the ninth time in the previous twenty minutes. I’m actually not good right now, for so many reasons.