The Celebrants

Naomi’s parents have been killed in a plane crash. Naomi meditates on the equation for gravity “like a Buddhist chant” (135). She expresses a wish to have a positive memory of her parents when she remembers that they left her a voicemail with a “curt happy birthday, followed by dead air” in stark contrast to the 9/11 documentary she remembers seeing in which “surviving loved ones were comforted by […] calls of love” (136).

Naomi calls Marielle and plans for another living funeral. Unable to face returning to her parents’ house, the group meets instead in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. After dinner and tequila on the first night, Naomi calls the front desk saying that she wants to fly, and the staff book skydiving for five people for the next afternoon. Naomi thinks that her friends will talk her out of it, and they think she’ll back out; all five end up prepared to jump from the plane. Flirting with the pilot, Naomi talks him into letting her take control of the plane, but she eventually admits that her parents died in a plane crash and begins sobbing. Alarmed, the jump partners begin escorting the group out of the plane, and in the end, Naomi is the only one who doesn’t jump.