Chapter Seven #2
‘Oh, okay. See you in a bit,’ I say, trying to keep the disappointment from my voice.
I join the throng of passengers as we’re rushed through Changi and towards our next departure gate.
Having spent the past day in a state of frustration, I find some strange comfort in seeing Callum Bang sitting alongside Clio and Brody at the gate, waving over to me.
‘Babes, you okay?’ Clio asks. ‘Cal’s just been saying that he had an empty seat next to him that entire flight. Did you know? You should have gone and sat there.’
‘Did he?’ I feign surprise.
‘Yes, I did,’ Callum says. ‘After our … conversation about me being seated in premium economy, I thought I ought to check in with Jan from accounting. To confirm, we’d both been booked the same tickets.
I think Nina had assumed that I’d somehow been given preferential treatment,’ Callum adds smoothly, dazzling smile for everybody’s benefit but me.
‘Surely not?’ gasps Clio.
‘That’s what I thought.’ Callum shoots me a brief yet crushing look.
‘So what happened?’ asks Clio. ‘Was there a mix-up with the tickets at Heathrow?’
Callum has folded his arms and is looking pointedly at me. ‘Yes, what happened, Moss?’
‘Gosh, I’m not sure. Must have been a mix-up as you say,’ I add breezily, back to my old sweeping-it-under-the-carpet tricks.
Callum narrows his eyes suspiciously.
‘Funny kind of mix-up,’ he says. ‘They don’t usually get these things wrong, do they?’
I stare at him, telepathically ordering him to drop it. He is immediately disobedient.
‘Not that I’m complaining.’ He grins in what, outwardly, looks like he’s making a joke. Inwardly, I know full well that he means every word. ‘I got even more space to spread out, slept like a baby and they let me eat your meals as well as mine. Delicious prawns.’
Urgh, I think, mind returning to the definitely less sumptuous meals I picked through in economy just now, ar?me de body odour making me feel less keen to eat.
‘Oh Cal,’ Clio laughs. The poor thing. Why must everyone be fooled but this devil in disguise?
‘Clio,’ Brody suddenly pipes up. He’d been slumped in his seat but quickly transforms into being animated and extremely loud. ‘CLIO! Are we going to join the mile high club or what?’
Similar but different to the dream, I note. Maybe this was a blip, after all. I watch closely as Clio hands her fiancé the protein ball I already know will keep him busy for the next ten minutes, and gives us a can-you-believe-him look.
‘Honestly, I love this man to bits but sometimes I do also want to kill him,’ she chuckles.
‘If you ever need any help burying the bodies,’ Callum says, gesturing towards me.
‘Nina’s your person. She might look sweet but she can be ruthless.
’ The delivery is of a man who is just joshing.
I paint a smile on my face, laughing away, ha ha ha, but when I turn my smile in Callum’s direction, I make sure to bare teeth.
‘Oh Callum!’ I fake-chuckle, patting him on the back just a little too hard. ‘Such a great sense of humour. Is that the first thing you put on your dating profile? Or do you have to come clean about the whole no garlic, dates in the dark only, will-probably-drink-your-blood thing first?’
‘Says the woman who has teeth like a little vampire. Surely blood lust is number one on your dating profile, Moss.’
‘I do not have a dating profile. Or little vampire teeth!’ I add, appalled.
‘Oh my God, babes,’ chimes in Clio, peering at me delightedly. ‘You actually do! They’re so cute, Nina. Like adorable little fangs.’
I round on Callum with my sternest look. He is elated with the way things are panning out.
‘Adorable little fangs,’ he echoes with a superior grin. By now, I would like to wipe that smile from his face for evermore.
‘Careful,’ I mutter. ‘I will bite.’
‘Ah, yes. Nothing says perfect dating profile more than the threat of attack.’
I run my tongue over the sharp points of my teeth.
‘Come to think of it, these could do some damage. Puncture marks.’
I watch Callum’s gaze drag down to my mouth and stay there. I wait for a witty riposte, but he says nothing. His jaw tenses and when he swallows, I’m temporarily paralyzed watching the way his throat bobs.
Eventually, he clears his throat.
‘Phew,’ says Clio, fanning herself with an actual fan. ‘You two. How much longer do we have to wait until you bone?’
Oh my goodness.
I’d clean forgotten that Callum and I are standing right next to our clients and, indeed, squabbling in front of them.
Something I promised I would categorically not do.
This is so incompetent of me! I curse Callum and the fact that he muscled his way onto this trip.
If he weren’t here I’d be cool, calm and collected.
Brilliant events planner Nina, at your service!
Instead, his very presence is making me flustered and irritable, and I do believe I just threatened to leave puncture marks on his skin with my tiny vampire teeth in Clio’s presence.
(I’m not counting Brody, he’s still very busy trying to open his snack.)
Mortifying. Unacceptable.
‘That won’t be happening,’ I say primly, desperate to claw back some professionalism. ‘Listen, shall we discuss plans for landing in Perth?’
Clio looks slightly crestfallen, but at least we’re back on track.
Thanks to my cheeky seat reshuffle I’m the last of our group to board plane two of the day.
With five hours until we get to Perth, I fully intend to dazzle Hamish with my brilliance as he settles down in the seat next to mine.
His behaviour has not been ideal so far but given all the glorious times we’ve shared in the past, I’m happy to brush that aside.
He’s probably still processing the fact that he’s seeing me again for the first time in years.
I know I’m all at sea right now, too, so I must cut him some slack.
‘Fancy seeing you again!’ He smiles.
‘I know. It’s as if Fate is trying to get us back together,’ I giggle.
Damn it, Nina! That sounded way too keen and also unhinged.
‘Ha, erm, yeah,’ Hamish says, looking a little unsure.
Too much. Just be cool.
‘Did you get to make all your calls?’ I ask.
Hamish nods, and I suddenly realize that he could have been checking in with a girlfriend during the layover.
My stomach swoops uncomfortably. How haven’t I established if he’s single or not yet?
What a rookie mistake. I’m pretty sure in Time Travel for Lovers and Dummies, checking if the one that got away is available is right up at the top of the to-do list.
‘Got to check in with your girlfriend, right?’ I ask, cringing at myself for the delivery. What happened to cool, chic, easy-breezy Nina? Where did she go?!
‘Huh?’ Hamish frowns. ‘Oh, no. I’m not seeing anyone right now. Actually just came out of a relationship, to be honest with you.’
‘Did you?’ I ask, immediately needing to know every last detail as the plane is prepped for take-off.
‘Great girl,’ he says, and I nod along encouragingly. ‘Really cool. But ultimately, Nee, it just wasn’t meant to be.’
‘How so?’
‘She just didn’t really get my drive and passion,’ he says.
There’s a tumbleweed moment where I try to match up his words with his actions. I cannot.
‘Drive and passion for … ?’ I can’t help it, I have to ask.
‘Surfing,’ he replies, as if this were obvious.
‘No, of course,’ I say hurriedly. ‘She wasn’t a fan?’
‘I mean, she could surf, but it wasn’t her main thing. For me, that’s my whole focus, you know? And in the end we just got into too many arguments about me wanting to be out on the ocean and her wanting to do other shit, like, I don’t know, hang out and stuff.’
‘You know, Hamish, that sounds exactly like me and my ex,’ I say, a bubble of optimism rising inside me.
This is much more like it! Finding things in common with my one true love all over again.
Next stop, falling back in love. By the time we’ve landed, who knows what could have happened between us.
‘Really?’ he asks, interest apparently piqued.
‘Yup.’
‘You broke up recently?’
‘About a month ago,’ I say. ‘He was a great guy, and we had fun together, but ultimately I was more focused on work and less on him, and it started to cause arguments.’
‘Man,’ Hamish says, shaking his head. ‘Increasingly, I’m learning that being tethered to someone else is too challenging. Monogamy, eh? It’s not natural for human beings to put boundaries on themselves in that way.’
What? No!
‘Well,’ I counter, ‘sometimes boundaries are good. And when you get it right …’
I leave that hanging in the air, suggestive of our time together.
How we totally got it right. I can see Hamish thinking on this.
Now, I just need to casually drop into conversation some amazing memories from our hot hot summer together.
But which one to lead with? It feels important to get this right, because a lot is at stake here. My future happiness, for one.
I’m quickly flicking through my catalogue of great dates with Hamish when he yawns and brandishes his eye mask again.
‘If we don’t get to catch up again, it’s been good to see you, Nina,’ he says benevolently, pulling the mask over his face and GOING TO SLEEP.
I stare, wide-eyed and in shock.
He’s done it again! Cut me off for the sake of yet more sleep.
How much slumber can a grown man possibly need, I wonder furiously.
As Hamish gently snores away, I cast my gaze about the plane in desperation.
How has this gone so spectacularly wrong?
How have I squandered my chance at a beautiful reunion with the man of my dreams?
And why does he seem hell-bent on ending our conversation?
I shake my head crossly, sending wild curls all over the place.
In front of me, my TV screen shows our journey over Indonesia and out across the Indian Ocean. Just a casual five-hour hop to fill. Again.
I close my eyes, resolving to figure out why I feel like this is the world’s longest episode of déjà vu.
Because of course I’m not actually time-travelling, am I?
I did not die at Perth airport thanks to a speeding luggage buggy.
Firstly, that would be the most deeply uncool of deaths.
Untimely end via airport buggy? Surely that’s not how I’m actually meant to leave this mortal coil.
I’d imagined something much chicer and more exciting.
RIP Nina Moss, tragically crushed under the weight of the massive diamond she bought herself after becoming a trillionaire CEO.
That’s definitely going to be more my vibe.
Or maybe something simpler.
RIP Nina Moss, died because she was just too fabulous.
Being ploughed down by an errant buggy is one hundred per cent not how it’s happening.
They remind me of those golf buggies you see whizzing around golf courses and, much like Jennifer the divorcee in my dream, I don’t even like golf!
Those visors are a crime against fashion, for a start.
It must have been a very vivid dream. That’s all.
Besides, as I look back on everything that has happened today, I realize that I’ve already done a lot of things differently to the dream I had.
As well as feeling, by now, utterly exhausted, I have also managed to change the course of the dream in many respects.
So I decide to keep up that good work. As long as I avoid any speeding luggage buggies at Perth airport, I’m sure I’ll be just fine, I decide as exhaustion overcomes me and I pass out in my seat.
My mind is one-track as we land at Perth.
I’m like a meerkat, head scuttering around looking for wayward buggies at every turn.
Hamish, once again glued to his phone, has wandered off in his own little world.
That’s okay, I decide, because there will still be time to at least swap numbers when we’re through passport control and out the other side.
I decide to dilly-dally in the loos, eating up time to make sure that the vehicle of my doom will have passed by the time I emerge from passport control and baggage pick-up.
I spritz my face with a refreshing spray to wake myself up a bit, and whack on some more deodorant, by now positively fantasizing about stepping into a hot shower once we’ve checked in.
I emerge from the loo to find Callum’s tall frame leaning against a pillar and realize with a jolt that he’s waiting for me.
By now I’m too on edge to mutter much more than a curt greeting.
When he drops his passport, as I suspected he would, and I inevitably go to pick it up for him, I’m too distracted to poke fun at the picture of him with a man bun.
Not that it matters, he’s in razor-sharp get-shit-done mode too as we march through security.
I don’t blame him. After all that long haul, even those of us who didn’t spend most of it madly deciding they’d developed psychic abilities-slash-travelled through time must be ready to get settled into their Australia trips.
‘Ha ha, time travel,’ I chuckle to myself as we’re handed back our passports and head to pick up our bags.
I need to get to the hotel, drink some water and maybe try meditating. Or take up running. Or, my preferred option, listen to some vintage Britney Spears really really loud.
‘Oh baby, baby,’ I start to sing quietly as Callum pulls my suitcase off the carousel and we make our way to the exit. I’m deliberately moving slower, with measured purpose now. On high alert.
He hums the tune too, eyes straight ahead.
Hearing Callum humming is surprisingly cute.
‘A Britney duet—’ I’m smiling as the sound of screeching tyres interrupts me.
The next thing I know, Callum is flung across me and we’re a tangle of limbs as my head hits the airport floor with a thud.
My ears rush with pumping blood and I can feel something warm and wet trickle around the base of my skull.
Someone’s turned the television off again.