Chapter Two #2
The plane gives another terrifying swoop, and I find myself clutching the man’s hand in panic.
“We’re not going to make it. I know we’re not.
This is it. I’m twenty-five years old, for God’s sake.
I’m not ready. I haven’t achieved anything.
I’ve never had children. I’ve never saved a life.
The one time I tried to do the Heimlich maneuver, the guy thought I was coming on to him…
.” I feel myself clutching the magazine in my lap, still open at the “30 Things to Do Before You’re 30” article.
“I haven’t ever climbed a mountain, I haven’t got a tattoo, I don’t even know if I’ve got a G spot… .”
“I’m sorry?” says the man, sounding taken aback, but I barely hear him.
“My career’s a complete joke. I’m not a top businesswoman at all.
” I gesture half tearfully to my suit. “I haven’t got a team!
I’m just a crappy assistant, and I just had my first-ever big meeting and it was a complete disaster.
Half the time I haven’t got a clue what people are talking about.
I don’t know what multi-logistical means, I’m never going to get promoted, and I owe my dad four thousand quid, and I’ve never really been in love… .”
The plane levels off again, and I draw myself up short with a jolt. “I’m sorry,” I say, and exhale sharply. “You don’t want to hear all this.”
“That’s quite all right,” says the man.
God. I’m completely losing it.
And anyway, what I just said wasn’t true. Because I am in love with Connor. It must be the altitude or something, confusing my mind.
Flustered, I push the hair off my face and try to get hold of myself. OK, let’s try counting once more. Three hundred and fifty…six. Three hundred and—
Oh, God. Oh, God. No. Please. The plane’s lurching again. We’re plummeting.
“I’ve never done anything to make my parents proud of me.” The words come spilling out of my mouth before I can stop them. “Never.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” says the man kindly.
“It’s true. Maybe they used to be proud of me.
But then my cousin Kerry came to live with us, and suddenly it was like my parents couldn’t see me anymore.
All they could see was her. She was fourteen when she arrived, and I was ten, and I thought it was going to be great, you know.
Like having an older sister. But it didn’t work out like that… .”
I can’t stop talking. I just can’t stop.
Every time the plane bumps or jolts, another torrent of words comes rushing out of my mouth. Like a waterfall.
—
“…she was a swimming champion, and an everything champion, and I was just…nothing in comparison….”
“…photography course and I honestly thought it was going to change my life….”
“…eight stone three. But I was planning to go on a diet….”
“I applied for every single job in the world. I was so desperate, I even applied to…”
“…awful girl called Artemis. This new desk arrived the other day, and she just took it, even though I’ve got this really grotty little desk….”
“…sometimes I water her stupid spider plant with orange juice, just to serve her right….”
“…sweet girl Katie, who works in Personnel. We have this secret code where she comes in and says, ‘Can I go through some numbers with you, Emma?’ and we go and get a coffee and have a gossip….”
“…coffee at work is the most disgusting stuff you’ve ever drunk, absolute poison. So we usually nip out to Starbucks….”
“…put ‘Maths GCSE grade A’ on my CV, when I really only got a C. I know it was dishonest. I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I so wanted to get the job….”
—
What’s happened to me? Normally there’s a kind of filter that stops me from blurting out everything I’m thinking, but the filter’s stopped working. Everything’s piling out in a big, random stream, and I can’t stop it.
—
“Sometimes I think I believe in God, because how else did we all get here? But then I think, Yes, but what about war….”
“…wear G-strings because they don’t give you VPL. But they’re so uncomfortable….”
“…size four, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just said, ‘Wow, those are absolutely fantastic….’ ”
“…roasted peppers, my complete favorite food…”
“…joined a book group, but I just couldn’t get through Great Expectations. So I just skimmed the back and pretended I’d read it….”
“…I gave him all his goldfish food. I honestly don’t know what happened….”
“…just have to hear that Carpenters song ‘Close to You’ and I start crying….”
“…perfect date would start off with champagne just appearing at the table, as if by magic….”
—
I’m unaware of anything around us. The world has narrowed to me and this stranger, and my mouth, spewing out all my innermost thoughts and secrets.
—
“…name was Danny Nussbaum. Mum and Dad were downstairs watching Ben-Hur, and I remember thinking, If this is what the world gets so excited about, then the world’s mad….”
“…lie on my side, because that way your cleavage looks bigger….”
“…works in Market Research. I remember thinking the very first time I saw him, Wow, he’s good-looking. He’s very tall and blond, because he’s half-Swedish, and he has these amazing blue eyes. So he asked me out….”
“…always have a glass of sweet sherry before a date, to calm my nerves….”
“He’s wonderful. Connor’s completely wonderful. He’s sweet, and he’s good, and he’s successful, and everyone calls us the perfect couple….”
“…I’d never tell anyone this in a million years. But sometimes I think he’s almost too good-looking. A bit like one of those dolls? Like Ken. Like a blond Ken.”
—
And now I’m on the subject of Connor, I’m saying things I’ve never said to anyone. Things I never even realized were in my head.
—
“…gave him this lovely leather watch for Christmas, but he wears this orange digital thing, because it can tell him the temperature in Poland or something stupid….”
“…took me to all these jazz concerts and I pretended to enjoy them to be polite, so now he thinks I love jazz….”
“…every single Woody Allen film off by heart and says each line before it comes, and it drives me crackers….”
“…determined to find my G spot, so we spent the whole weekend doing it in different positions, and by the end I was just knackered. All I wanted was a pizza and Friends….”
“…he kept saying, What was it like, what was it like? So I just made some stuff up, I said it was absolutely amazing, and it felt as though my whole body were opening up like a flower, and he said what sort of flower, so I said a begonia….”
“…can’t expect the initial passion to last. But how do you tell if the passion’s faded in a good, long-term-commitment way or in a crap, we-don’t-fancy-each-other-anymore way….”