The Accidental Socialite

by Stephanie Wahlstrom

  “Listen, I don’t know what kind of inferiority complex you’ve developed being from Quebec, but I’m not going to hold it against you. I’m getting on whatever flight I want.”

  My face was beet red and I tried to breathe slowly. I needed to lay on the honey if I was getting on this flight and find someone who had the power to help me.

  I found a well-groomed man who seemed to be in charge of this so-called secret flight. Bitchy gay man guarding a list that doesn't exist? If I can do it at Tramp, I can do it at Heathrow.

  “Umm hi. I think I’m supposed to be on the Toronto flight?”

  “There is no Toronto flight tonight, hun,” he said and turned his head to talk to a colleague in desperate need of Spanx.

  He was speaking my language. A real lady never accepts on the first offer.

  “Oh, sorry, I meant the Vancouver flight. Sandra sent me to talk to you?”

  “Try again, hun.”

  Now he was just being rude. Time to pull out the big guns.

  “Listen, I wouldn’t normally be this pushy but my dog is dying and I really need to get home tonight.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “My grandma?”

  “Not likely.”

  “My mom?”

  His response was an eyebrow raise which said “I bet this crazy girl would knock off her mum for a seat.”

  “Fine, I’ll tell you the truth. I have twenty-four hours to live and I want to die on Canadian soil.”

  “And you want to spend at least seven of those hours on a plane?”

  “Is there anything I can say or do to get on this flight?”

  “Are you propositioning me?”

  “No, I have a vagina. Don’t think you’re interested.”

  And with that super classy response the clipboard officially closed on my ass.

  The Gestapo had taken over Heathrow and kicked out all the media. Apparently, sad little children sleeping on airport floors with traces of the last Pret prawn and mayo sandwich all over their faces wasn’t good PR for BAA.

  So I started finding the saddest people I could with the saddest stories and posting them all over Twitter. It was trending in less than an hour and people in the airport were taking notice.

  A scary man approached me and requested (demanded) my presence in the two-way mirrored room they usually used to interrogate illegal immigrants or people bringing in French cheese.

  “Miss Crawford,” said a posh British guy who clearly hadn’t slept in days.

  “Who’s asking?” It was now almost one o’clock in the morning and I was feeling delirious from the mixture of stress, adrenaline, and airport air.

  “Please come,” he demanded, the word “please” did not make me feel any better.

  I ended up in a room with several tired-looking men in suits.

  “Miss Crawford, it’s been brought to our attention you’ve been distributing information about the situation in the airport.” The guy in charge needed a serious mint.

  “I was tweeting about it if that’s what you mean. I think it’s disgusting you are trying to cover this up by kicking out the media.”

  “There is no cover—”

  “Umm, you can cut the crap, I’m actually in the airport, remember? There is no information, no food or beds being distributed, and children are lying on floors. I think the public deserves some answers. How can an international hub grind to a halt with five centimeters of snow?”

  He sighed. I felt a little bad when I saw the battered gold ring on his left hand because he probably didn’t want to be sitting here any more than I did.

  “Miss Crawford, if I could get you out of here, I would. There just isn’t—”

  “Oh, but there is. I heard rumors there is a flight to Toronto leaving at some point. Get me on that one and a connecting flight to Edmonton and you will have zero tweets from me.”

  He nodded at his enforcer.

  Four hours later, I was in line for the Toronto flight. I walked by the snotty French girl and raised an eyebrow. See, maybe I could make this fame situation work for me.

  I slept harder than I ever had before, considering I’d been up for almost twenty-four hours straight and woke briefly to catch my connecting flight to Edmonton.

  It was twenty-eight below zero when I landed in Edmonton on December twenty third, and as I came through customs my mom was waiting for me with a big hug, Tim Hortons, and my old parka.

  “Paige! Oh I missed you! You look so different.” My mom held out my arms to make sure her youngest was still in tact.

  “I missed you,” was all I could choke out as the tears started to flow. I spent so much time in London trying to forget how homesick I was, and with all the drama it wasn’t that difficult. But now that I was standing on my native soil, hugging my mom, I was pretty sure I wasn’t ever going back.

  I slept for most of the rest of the day and woke up only to watch some news and eat my mom’s lasagna. I had plans with old friends, most of whom couldn’t be bothered to stay in touch when I left and whose lives were now consumed with a race down the aisle. I’m not sure why they were so worried about being last, they already knew I was a sure bet. I cancelled the plans. All I really wanted to do was hang out with my mom, sit in my old room, and watch hockey.

  Twelve of us were sitting around the dining room table with two extra leafs in on Christmas Eve. It was moments like these my mom relished. Everyone was together, the most amazing smelling food was on the table, and I suddenly felt sick at the thought of leaving all of this for the cold, damp dungeon I called home in London.

  Dinner was going nicely and quietly until my annoying, holier-than-thou sister opened her big fat mouth.

  “Paige, tell us more about your travels,” asked Aunt Elizabeth.

  “Well, I haven’t really been able to go to loads of places—”

  “Loads? What, are you trying to be Madonna? Why are you talking like that?” See my sister’s mouth? Big and fat.

  “I’m not trying to be anything, I’m just talking.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Anyway, it’s kinda expensive to travel, but I did go to Oktoberfest in Munich, which is kind of like the Calgary Stampede but with Germans.”

  “That sounds fun,” encouraged my mom.

  “Not as fun as Paris, right, Paige?” Jackie stared at me from across the table.

  Oh my fuck she is going to out me at the Christmas dinner table in front of our entire family.

  “What are you talking about?” My heat was racing. I was very aware all it would take was a quick Google on her part to ruin me.

  “Oh, that’s weird, I thought you went to Paris. I think I read it somewhere—”

  Dammit, my sister must have been Googling the shit out of me and was going to blow my cover. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said tersely to Jackie and then changed my focus back to my aunt. “I also went to Rome with a work colleague.”

  “Hear that Mom? She has ‘colleagues.’”

  Maybe I wouldn’t be going back to London not because I didn’t want to, but because I’d smacked my sister into next week and was doing hard time.

  “Really, Jackie?” I shouted. “What is your problem?” If she was going to fuck with my life by telling Mom all my little London secrets, I wasn’t going down without a fight.

  “My problem is that thousand-dollar bag you have. You know there are kids with nothing in our own country and you have the nerve to walk around as a slave to capitalism, spending what would be others’ life savings on a thing to hold your lip gloss?”

  “Seriously, for once can you leave the starving children out of an argument?” But she never did, because it worked. I planned on selling my Mulberry as soon as I could and give the money to starving children. God I hate her.

  “Wouldn’t you just like that? Run around being a capitalist minion and not thinking about anything. Becoming friends with Kim Kardashian?”

  “Why would I be friends with her
? She doesn’t even live in Englan—”

  “ENOUGH you two,” shouted Mom. “You are both different and special in your own way—”

  “Jackie’s a special kind of special—” Out came the snide remark before I even realized. Jackie had a way of bring out the five-year-old in me.

  “You’re a LEMMING!” she yelled.

  “Communist—”

  “International prostitute!”

  “If I have to tell you two to stop again, I am selling this house and moving where you will never be able to find me.” My mom said in her I’m-speaking-quietly-because I’m-so-mad-I-can’t-even-yell voice. It was terrifying.

  “And where did you get the money for the bag, Paige?”

  I’d had enough and now remembered why I’d left. If I wasn’t going back to London, I heard Timbuktu was nice this time of year. I stormed out of the dining room and ran downstairs to my bedroom, ready to pack.

  But instead, I collapsed on my bed and cried. I cried so hard I hoped I could drown in my own tears. Squinting through the river flowing through my eyes, I noticed the plaque I received from my University’s paper for writing a controversial article about a “scoop the poop” bylaw sitting on my bedside table.

  My finger traced over the word “poop” on my award and for a second, I smiled. Maybe it’s better here, to be in a place where people appreciate and care about things like local dog feces bylaws instead of worrying about Botox, handbags that cost more than my first car, and what your last name was.

  The bedroom door opened and I wiped a stray tear.

  “Paige, do you—” My mom stopped in the doorway, sensing I’d been crying/feeling sorry for myself.

  “Paige, honey what’s wrong?”

  The look of genuine concern on her face made me burst into tears again. Nobody had looked at me like that for the last twelve months.

  I took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds to try and stop the waterfall that was flowing out of my eyes.

  “Mom, I don’t think I’m going back to London.”

  A tissue magically appeared in my right hand.

  “Yes, you are.”

  A little more of me crumbled inside. “You want me to go?”

  “Of course not. But I know you have to.” She indicated around my room. “This place isn’t for you anymore. To be honest, I’m not sure it ever was.”

  “I just don’t think I can do it anymore. I’m not fancy, I didn’t go to some super school, and not only am I not rich, I’m actually hovering right around the poverty line. Mom, I pretty much have no idea what’s going on at any given time. I don’t know where my life is going. I just—”

  “Paige, that’s enough. I love you, but you’ve never had any idea what’s going on or where you’ll even be tomorrow. You aren’t fancy, but believe it or not, we do have designer handbags in Edmonton and you went to a damn good University. Or it better have been for how much it cost.”

  I picked up my award again and traced my finger over the University of Alberta crest. “This was going somewhere, right? I knew what I was doing.”

  “Maybe that would have gone somewhere, but once you got there I have a feeling you wouldn’t have liked it. It’s up to you, Paige. It’s your life. But if I know anything about you it’s that you don’t quit. Ever. You’re probably in the running for most stubborn human on earth.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Of course it is, honey. So be that stubborn girl and be you. You never cared what people thought before and that got you pretty far. Visit with your friends, sleep in your old room, ignore your hippie-dippie sister—but don’t ever tell her I called her that—and go back to London with a little bit of home. Everyone will love you, trust me. And you know what? Even if they don’t, we do and no matter how many times you trend on Twitter, that won’t change.”

  Oh god, she knew? And … was fine with it? I decided not to inquire further. It was one thing I didn’t want to relive, especially not with my mom.

  “I guess maybe I could do that.”

  “Yes, but try not to get drunk and end up in the newspaper so much. If your grandmother finds out she’ll have a bird.”

  “What? You knew about everything and didn’t say anything?”

  “Paige, I’m fifty-three years old. I may not know how to change the ringtone on my cell phone, but I know how to Google.”

  She patted me on the knee and kissed my forehead. My mom was right, she always was. This was my life and these were my choices. When I got back to London, I was going to make sure they were the right ones.

  “Now clean yourself up and get ready to open a present upstairs.”

  Landing back in London after Christmas, the Heathrow Express was delayed more than half an hour, which really meant they’d have it running some time around the end of January.

  You can do this, Paige, don’t give up.

  I still had one more year left on my visa and I was determined to make it count. No more getting mixed up with assholes, no more coasting in my career. This was my year.

  London seemed to want to make me feel at home because it had dumped more snow on the ground while I was away and the roads were now full of a grey-brown slush. At least it was a change from the rain.

  As I walked out of Earls Court Station at 9:30 A.M. on New Year’s Eve, I was running my new life plan through my head. I came back early because Fashionista was throwing a huge New Year’s Eve party and as much as I love home, this party was going to be IT.

  I was so distracted I didn’t notice the bus until the split second before it sprayed dirty slush all over me.

  That did NOT just happen.

  A small Asian woman came to my rescue. I think I had been standing motionless for several minutes.

  “Miss, you ok?”

  I tried to open my mouth but as soon as I did, I was met with the gritty taste of the slush as it raced past my lips to find the one spot of my body that wasn’t covered in it.

  “Miss, that bus driver such a jerk! You need help?”

  I realized then that this was, in fact, happening.

  “Oh, no, thank you, I’ll be fine. It’s just water, right?” I started to move again and could feel the squishing in my Hunter boots. Turns out, rubber boots don’t work very well when water gets inside them, even very expensive ones.

  The squishing continued until I was back at my flat and had pulled off the boots in the bathroom where I could drain the excess sludge that hadn’t managed to soak into my socks and jeans.

  Rules of any discerning traveler would insist that you don’t go to sleep directly after a nine and a half hour trans-Atlantic flight, but those people probably weren’t sitting next to a three-year-old throwing a tantrum and flopping like a fish out of water during the sleep hours. He was, of course, a perfect angel for the first and last hour of the flight.

  It was eerily quiet in my flat. Now, I wasn’t complaining—well, obviously, I was a little bit—but it had a sense of desertion to it. Creepy Phil never had anywhere to be, other than when he was clearly murdering hookers. Could my Christmas wish have come true already?

  All the weirdos I lived with had magically vanished and I get to fill the flat with people I like!

  I searched for evidence to support my hypothesis like any good University student who took Figuring Shit Out 101. As suspected, three of the five bedrooms were empty. Natalie’s room still had things scattered around, but it looked half-packed. This didn’t bode well for my nap.

  At this point, I wasn’t so much concerned with why I had to move out, because the question of when seemed more pertinent. If it was today I would be fuming. Why hadn’t anyone told me? Aren’t we supposed to get one month’s notice?

  Natalie didn’t answer her phone and that’s when I realized I didn’t have anyone else’s number. Awesome. The thought of meeting potential rapists through Gumtree was exhausting. My bed groaned as I collapsed on it, still in my dirty wet clothes. I fought with my skinny jeans which were difficult to get out
of in the best of circumstances, never mind when they were glued on with miscellaneous road sludge.

  Upstairs, a door slammed and I woke with a start. I was lying facedown on my bed with crusty skinny jeans pulled down to my knees. It took me a few minutes to realize this was actually my life. My phone said it was 8:57 A.M.

  Did I time travel?

  Then I remembered it was still set to Edmonton time and that in my reality, it was almost four in the afternoon. The sun was already on its way down, just like the London bus drivers who shut the lights off on their double deckers the second they are off shift, even if it’s in the middle of your journey.

  Bits of sand scattered as I pulled off my jeans and found my Lululemon pants. The stairs creaked as I investigated who was home, praying it was Natalie.

  “Hello?”

  “Allo!”

  “Natalie, what’s going on?”

  “Oh, you scared me! We must go.”

  “That much I’ve gathered. Why? More importantly, when?”

  “We ’ave to leave by the fifth. Zee owner is renovating.”

  “Well, that’s not a surprise, this place is a shit hole.” I was relieved to know I had a few days, but I was still stressed. I didn’t want this hanging over me on the start of the new year.

  Apparently I had already forgotten my welcome splash because I decided to go for a walk. I didn’t have any food and considering I had to leave, I didn’t see much point in grocery shopping for my new healthy eating plan which I’d painstakingly researched and printed over the holidays.

  I’d turned the corner onto Old Brompton Road towards Balans when I remembered that Duncan had mentioned he might have a place when I was crawling around in the men’s section of Selfridges. Albeit that was several months ago, but there is such a thing as New Year’s miracles, right? Wasn’t that chick from Glee in that movie? It was a long shot, but even if he didn’t have a room, maybe he knew someone who did. A cute old gay couple took my usual place in the back so I slid into a booth alongside the bar, ordered my eggs benedict and called Duncan.

  “Hey, doll!”

  “Hey, Duncan. I know this is out of the blue, but do you happen to have a room still?”