Free Fall in Stilettos

by Catherine Louise

  ‘What’s he like?’ she asked. ‘You didn’t even tell me you liked anyone. Is he a good snog? Come on, I’m dying to know. I’ve had to wait all this time for you to get home.’

  Dumping my case in the hallway and kicking off my shoes, I ran upstairs then jumped onto the sofa, landing on the stack of fluffy cushions. She followed me, almost landing on top.

  Our flat was on the first floor, which we’d renamed the Penthouse. It was small but adequate for us. Emma had already laid out our Saturday night supplies on the table by the TV, next to the 007 gun for our favourite game of smoking hot cocktails, James Bond style. There were two glasses, wine in the cooler – fizzy – pizza (what was left of it) and crisps. Our all-time favourite ice cream – pralines and cream – was in the freezer, I’d bought it on my last shopping trip. We had everything we needed to accompany a most important, lengthy and in-depth discussion followed by a quiz on tonight’s new hot topic, Marc.

  ‘Was it a tongue-twister or more of the subtle variety?’ she asked, pretending to snog the back of her hand.

  ‘It was eloquent actually,’ I said in a pretend posh accent. ‘You’d have been proud of me, even if I was a bit drunk. I kissed him on each cheek.’ I demonstrated on Emma. She immediately wiped her face, which also removed a trace of tomato and a few crumbs of pizza.

  ‘He gives me that tingly feeling, you know,’ I said, patting my heart as I spoke.

  ‘Ooh la la… yeah, that’s called common sense leaving your body,’ she said.

  I raised two fingers.

  ‘Then did you make mad passionate lurvvve?’ she said in a husky voice and pushed me horizontal on the sofa, climbing on top.

  ‘Weirdo,’ I said, rolling her off onto the floor as she yelled and started laughing.

  ‘I didn’t shag him,’ I said, ‘although he does have enormous shaggability potential. It was just a kiss. Well, two actually. Only on each cheek.’

  ‘Steady on there,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t judge me by your own standards, or lack of,’ I replied, as we laughed.

  Whilst we ate and drank, I filled her in on everything. I told her about him progressing through the ranks from huge teeth to mighty sex god – although it hadn’t yet been tested out. I related minute details of how he brushed his floppy dark hair out of his face with a hand-stroke and cute flick of his head and that he’d renamed me the French version of my name, Avril. And that he was having a party.

  ‘Avril?’ Emma repeated, questioning the name by screwing her face up.

  ‘A party?’ Emma asked, ‘like a proper French style party in gay Paree?’ She gesticulated with her hands, pretending to smoke a very long cigarette.

  ‘Yes, except I don’t know anything about it so far, other than I’ve got his details and it’s sometime in August,’ I said.

  ‘He sounds suave. Come, my cherie. We ’ave work to do to get you a little French amour,’ Emma said, leading me to the computer where she plonked me down at the chair.

  She shoved a glass into my hand and grabbed the bottle of fizz. Clumsily, she poured so fast that it rose to the top of the rim, bubbled up then spilled over the edge onto my hand, then the floor.

  ‘Careful,’ I said, grabbing the bottle from her. ‘If we’ve only got one bottle, we can’t afford to waste it.’

  ‘Arghh, oo carez. Anyway, we still ave ze gun for ze cocktails,’ she said in a dodgy accent, raising her shoulders, strangely enough in the same way Marc had done when discussing working in the chicken factory.

  ‘What are you doing? Why have you sat me here?’ I asked.

  ‘Homework,’ Emma said in a more serious tone. ‘Clearly, you have it bad for this guy. We need to plan what you’re going to send. You have his email, right?’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘And you want to see him again and maybe go to a little soiree in Paris and do a bit more than kissing on the cheek next time?’ she continued.

  I laughed. ‘Possibly… okay, yeah.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to send him the first message soon as you didn’t give him anything. So, get logging on. We need to make sure you get it right. That’s where I come in, Doctor Lurve,’ she said. When Emma had a plan, it was usually crazy. But I went along with it. ‘Come on, drink a bit more of that sparkly and let’s get creative and dream up something hot to send.’

  I gulped the wine. ‘I can’t send him a message yet; I’ve only just finished working with him.’

  ‘Aha. Yes, but you can have it planned out right now and we’ll keep it in your drafts ready. This is so much fun,’ she said and clapped her hands. I rolled my eyes. ‘Oh, come on. You know you need a bit of help with this. You’re more fun on beer, works faster, pity we’ve ran out.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not doing too badly by myself so far,’ I said.

  But she was right. I usually knew how to mess things up. Like the time I went on a date, got a bit too drunk and ended up vomiting on a guy’s shoes as he stood on the pavement watching. Thankfully, I never saw him again.

  ‘Right, move over. The love doctor needs to get to work,’ she said.

  She shoved me off the seat, spilling more wine, and dominated the computer. There was no way I’d share his contact information with her. Who knew what she might do in her attempts to fix me up? But I’d let her tap out a message. She was usually the witty one. Anyway, I could always alter it later. After a couple of hours (it took us that long to craft a few simple sentences), and me having scrapped most of Emma’s wild attempts at a hot message, she resigned herself to bed for the night. I sat and pored over our combined but carefully composed attempt.

  From:

  April@redhotmail.co.uk

  To:

  Subject:

  Bonjour!

  Salut Marc!

  Thought I’d test out those details you gave me!

  It was good to have your company on the Paris night-stop. I hadn’t been looking forward to it, but it was a good crew and a fun night in the bar.

  I’ve got a couple of standby days on my roster coming up, so I may find myself in Paris again before the end of the month… be great to see you again.

  Don’t work too hard.

  April x

  I added a kiss, hopefully reminding him of the lift episode, although it was unlikely he’d forget. The plan or golden rule was to let four days lapse, because that amount of time avoided a look of desperado.

  What a relief email existed! It was preferable to a potentially difficult and stilted phone conversation. There was no way I’d do that… too many pitfalls. This way it could be tailored to perfection, as Emma had said. Light and casual yet considered and meticulously prepared.

  That level of effort never went into application forms, but usually no one filled them out for me either. I’d recently applied for a long-haul position just to try my luck, and it hadn’t taken me nearly as long to complete.

  I reread the email to Marc, just to make sure the words hadn’t somehow jumbled themselves up a bit, like predictive text. I was still traumatised from having received an awkward message from my mum one night, about my parents having fondled themselves, meaning Googled their names.

  *

  Two days passed; it was Monday morning and my final rest day. Sitting alone in pyjamas, I contemplated sending the message to Marc. I’d thought about him. Unable to resist, I booted up the computer, filled in the to line. Then on impulse hit send.

  A pang of excitement raced through me as it disappeared off my screen. My message had left England and was flying over the Channel to Paris, France. The concocted four-day rule had been wiped out by impatience. Biting my fingernail, I wondered when he’d get it. Did he check his mail regularly? Or was he the annoying type that left it for ages? I texted
Emma: The deed’s done. Secretly, she’d be pleased, despite breaking the agreed golden formula, which had no proven past results, and she was just as impatient.

  After two days and no reply, my logical reasoning vanished. I began overanalysing that maybe he wasn’t really interested. Perhaps he’d had a bet on with Henri that night. Maybe he was one of those pilots.

  Only a minority of pilots had an ego with a head size to match. And some hosties were willing to be a bike to bag one. Kerrie, the gorgeous goddess from my first day, had become a well-known social butterfly. After having got her well-manicured claws into Christian for starters, she’d soon moved on to pilots as a main course, or so the rumours went. Christian was also a distant memory for me.

  There were other obvious gold-digger hosties. But ironically, the young and attractive pilots were usually in heaps of debt. The silver foxes (grey, wizened and so old they were off my scale) could afford to be more generous at the bar.

  My over-thinking led to a dangerous tango with the keyboard. Hurriedly, I bashed out a prompt.

  From:

  April@redhotmail.co.uk

  To:

  Marc@worldawayonline.fr

  Subject:

  Bonjour again!

  I forgot to mention your party. If it’s a definite I’d love to come! If you’d like to get in touch it would be great to hear from you.

  Mobile: 00153 6079786099

  April x

  I hit send. Instantly, I regretted it, for being such a loser. Emma would call me a muppet. I cringed and decided to try and forget all about it.

  *

  After a couple more days, two replies arrived.

  From:

  Marc@worldawayonline.fr

  To:

  April@redhotmail.co.uk

  Subject:

  Re: Bonjour!

  Hello Avril

  Good to hear from you. You did the right thing by getting in touch. I just got back from doing the earlies. I’m away on night-stops until Monday. Hopefully they’ll send you to Paris CDG on your standbys. Let me know if you get called out, that will be nice to meet again. Next time we’ll try to find a good restaurant. Got to get some sleep so will say goodnight now.

  Hopefully talk to you very soon.

  Marc x

  The next one read:

  From:

  Marc@worldawayonline.fr

  To:

  April@redhotmail.co.uk

  Subject:

  Re: Bonjour again!

  Just got your new email.

  Of course you’re welcome for the party, it’s Sunday August 24th my place, please come.

  Night again xx

  Two kisses. I smiled. That night, I recounted everything to Emma.

  ‘Don’t worry. Guys don’t analyse in the same way that girls go over every last thing there is to examine,’ Emma said. ‘He’s probably too knackered to notice how uncool you are. It’s not like he’s tucked up in bed with a mug of hot chocolate by 10 pm each night thinking about you.’

  ‘Harsh but true,’ I replied. Emma always spoke bluntly, even if her words smacked and bruised occasionally.

  ‘Anyway. I can’t wait. I’m going to a proper ooh la la French party,’ she said.

  ‘You mean I’m going to a French party,’ I said, puzzled.

  ‘But you know you’re going to need me to hold your hand. If he’s having a party then he’s not going to be able to spend all his time with you, and you’ll hardly know anyone. And you can’t even speak French. He’ll be busy entertaining and juggling baguettes and garlic and whatever French people do at parties,’ Emma said, whilst giving me a demo of pretend juggling with the DVDs on her lap, which ended up on the floor.

  We looked through our mixed collection of DVDs / VHS cassettes, trying to decide on a film. I favoured Indecent Proposal. Emma wanted Ghost. We’d seen them both a zillion times, but it didn’t stop us watching them on repeat. We’d seen Desperately Seeking Susan on video cassette exactly fifteen times as teenagers, just because we thought it made us true Madonna fans.

  We kept a relegation shelf containing all the films we couldn’t agree on (mainly science fiction, which was Emma’s stuff, and an occasional documentary, which was mine). That shelf was strictly for nights in by yourself. It was past 10 pm, and giving in to Ghost, I knew I’d be asleep before the end.

  ‘You can just tell him I’ll be coming with you,’ she continued. ‘The rate you’re churning out these messages, you’ll be virtually engaged to him by then anyway.’

  ‘Need to test drive him first and go on a date,’ I laughed.

  ‘And that’s your next email. We’ll do it tomorrow,’ Emma said, ‘after skating.’

  ‘I’ll do it myself.’

  ‘Oh, let me. I’m so enjoying this and just when it’s starting to get good,’ she said. ‘A French love machine and an English rose. Don’t worry, I’m not imagining you two or anything… not that I know what he looks like. But I’ve got a sort of sugar daddy, Gerard Depardieu, image going on.’

  ‘Eww. He’s not that old, or ugly, and I might just want to keep a few things private. Sorry, but you know…’

  I hugged the DVD close to my chest.

  ‘You’re spoiling my fun,’ she said with a grin.

  *

  I developed a bad crush and went off food. I couldn’t physically force myself to eat. It wasn’t a problem at work; the cardboard crew meals weren’t that appetising anyway. But I just wasn’t hungry. I was content living on lust and allowing my heart to rule my head, like a teenager. Marc was on my mind.

  The sleep deprivation made it worse. I’d worked more charter flights as the summer season began. Sometimes I was too wired, like an over-exhausted toddler – knackered but unable to drop off. The rumoured effect was premature ageing, which worried me, if the looks of the dragon wagons were anything to judge by. Shift work gave us a certain tired-all-the-time look. Plastering on a layer of make-up became an art form of disguise, mainly hiding bags under eyes. But I’d worry about my face dropping and bits and pieces sagging, further down the line. For now, a Wonderbra, moisturiser and a good concealer hid any damage.

  For most of the day, I’d been seeking inspiration for something to write to Marc. Perhaps I could tell him about the new charter flight to Corsica. When we flew over Bastia, I’d gazed out of the window and caught a glimpse of the tiny aquamarine coloured pools as they sparkled amongst a backdrop of mountainous rock formations. The sunlight glimmered off the surface; it was stunning. The sky had been a perfect sapphire holiday blue. Marc would understand. He’d appreciate the beauty in flying. From the cockpit, he’d have a birdseye view.

  I’d promised myself two things on that flight. Firstly, I would look up where Corsica was on a map. (My geography was terrible, but I would rectify that later.) Secondly, one day I would holiday there.

  The Bastia trip outweighed the Ibiza charters. It was easier. The clientele was more upmarket, attracting discerning older couples and families rather than a budget flight to Ibiza. Those flights were frequented by a three-star fake tan and alcohol crowd looking to drink the bars dry. And the alcohol mixed with altitude worked more potently up in the sky, resulting in lively passengers and hard work.

  It was past 11 pm. I clicked on a new message, leaving the subject line blank. I didn’t bother telling Marc about Corsica in an email. It felt stupid.

  From:

  April@redhotmai
l.co.uk

  To:

  Marc@worldawayonline.fr

  Subject:

  Hi Marc

  It was great to hear from you. I hope you got some sleep on those night-stops? I did a late charter to Italy and didn’t get back till 5.30 am last week. As Henri would say – I was “naaykid”!

  Let me know if you have a free day, maybe we could meet up? It would be great to see you.

  Au Revoir

  April xx

  Being brave by email wasn’t a problem. Awkward moments didn’t exist. I thought about the old lady on the plane, then added a P.S.

  P.S When are you going to give me that French lesson!

  From:

  Marc@worldawayonline.fr

  To:

  April@redhotmail.co.uk

  Subject:

  Re:

  Hello Avril

  Night-stops in Guernsey not too bad, thanks for asking but good to get back. Pretty busy July roster but we should definitely find time to meet.

  I’ll teach you French anytime, you just need to come over to France, it’s easier to learn in the country… not joking, plus more sunshine on this side of the Channel.

  Got to go, speak soon

  Marc xx

  I got up uncharacteristically early after a late finish. But I couldn’t sleep in. The sun beamed through the kitchen window as I stood in the rays, waiting for the kettle to boil. Closing my eyes and feeling the warmth bathe my skin, I smiled. Visiting him in Paris was an idea I loved, along with him becoming my French teacher.