“We’re boarding soon, mom, everything’s okay,” I reported, preemptively, when my mother picked up.
Out of the eleven missed calls, nine were from my mother; the rest were international—from Javier. Mom didn’t leave any messages, while Javier whispered Bon Voyage in a tone so sad, I wished the motion sensor behind my back would flush me deep into the underbelly of JFK.
“You sound sick. Maybe you shouldn’t go,” my mother said, plainly, in between her laborious breaths. Despite having spent the last thirty years of her life in suburban New Jersey (as well as her flawless fluency in English), she still preferred to speak to her children in Russian. I always replied in English, while Vlad preferred to do his best in Russian, brutalizing it savagely, chewing the words into oblivion before eventually spitting them out.
“I’m at the airport, mom. The plane takes off in an hour and a half,” I groaned. I heard some of my girls (the petite Sophie and the leggy Sage) enter the bathroom and thought it best to switch to my own crooked Russian, channeling my brother. “It’s too late to find another chaperone.” I couldn’t translate “chaperone” without Google translate, so it stayed in there for my students to hear.
“Oh, Helen, don’t be so naïve. No one is irreplaceable. These aren’t kids—they won’t exactly miss you,” my mother spat right back, her breaths misleadingly even for a second. “This is a glorified vacation. I can hear you are sick, and I don’t think running around Europe with a fever will do you any good. I had a heart attack when I was around your age, so I know what I’m talking about,” she sighed, changing tactics with the speed and agility of a trained intelligence operative.
“You got a heart attack from running around Europe with a fever?”
“No, I got it from the stress of traveling to a strange country, determined to give my children a better life,” she stung back, quickly. “Well, I only had one child, then. You were born after,” she added, as if I were confused as to our birth order. “It was high risk, the pregnancy. I risked my life having you—”
“I thought you had that heart attack because of some congenital heart defect—”
“Helen—”
“Something about arrhythmia—”
“Helen!”
“Right. Well, this is just a little cold. I’ll be fine. I just wanted to let you know we’re here. Sorry I missed your calls.”
“Okay,” my mother sighed in a way that’s become her trademark—besides a puff of air, there was always a bit of a phlegmy follow-up. “You have to remember to wash your hands right away when you get home or to work, et cetera. You’re in the city, picking up germs—”
“Have you talked to Vlad, mom?” I asked, quietly, as if my girls could understand me. Russian wasn’t even offered at Talents, although a dialect coach was available for when you scored a part in one of those annual Chekhov plays.
“What about?”
Her question came too quickly for me to even try to fool myself into believing that she somehow didn’t know that I was now single and homeless—or, simply put, not currently in possession of any of the necessary components of this so-called “better life” she had suffered a heart attack in order to afford her kids. I wasn’t going to clarify in the stall reeking of Clorox.
“Nothing, just curious if you talked to him, that’s all,” I answered, thinly, rising from my seat. I was ready to meet Sophie and Sage at the sink, desperate to catch some of their giddy, careless buzz to help me somehow make it through the next ten days. “I have a plane to catch,” I added before mumbling a goodbye and promising to call upon landing.
The toilet flushed before I was fully upright and on my feet.
PARIS
Chapter Six: Turbulence
Turbulence seemed to rattle the tail of the plane, where we were all situated, the most. The cabin had its lights already turned down, and the incessant chatter of our wandering charges seemed to only agitate the moderately stressed French population aboard further. Our Boeing of a bird was abuzz with vibration.
Having steered each student back to his or her assigned seat (and made sure that all the seat belts were securely fastened), I collapsed into my row, my own assigned seat between Jamie and the pile of limbs that was Stephanie and Abbott—my mentor was now curled up in his girlfriend’s lap, presumably sleeping. Rolling my eyes at the spectacle, I wrinkled my nose and stuck out my tongue at Jamie, my shoulders releasing a shudder only part physiological. He let out a muted laugh in response as he crossed his legs, his top knee angled toward me. When he saw me struggle with my blanket, he helped to make sure it covered my shoulders (before throwing his own on top, for good measure). The gesture was enough to cause my heart to pause its function, letting my blood go stale if only for a second. I caught a glimpse of his ring as I watched his hand return to his lap—it was still there. This “inevitable pull” I’d imagined would have to be severed before it drew me in too close, I told myself.
“You’re still cold?”
“Yeah, I guess I’m running a bit of a fever,” I whispered before blowing my nose into my Kleenex, grateful that my heart didn’t forget how to beat after all, happy to feel it loud and heavy inside me again. “Sorry, I won’t be offended if you want to swap seats with somebody,” I attempted a smile, actually thankful for my runny nose: it helped explain my glistening eyes.
“That would be irresponsible,” he laughed. It came out easily, his laughter—wild and unrestrained. “Get someone else sick while saving my own ass? No, thank you! I don’t need that on my conscience. It’s all right—you’ll just give my immune system a work out.”
I chuckled, my eyes heavy as I leaned back, resting the side of my head against the headrest, facing him full on—this beautiful man I’d fantasized about for weeks, with increasing intensity, was now in front of me. His mouth, when he wasn’t smiling, was slightly downward turned, his lips full and seductive, highly pigmented. His nose was slightly hawkish at its tip and his eyes were dark and deep, the brow bone above them prominent—just the appropriate degree Neanderthal. There was something androgynous about him, undeniably raw and sensual. His loose braid was undone and his black-as-night, pin-straight hair was resting on his shoulders as he looked me dead in the eye, unflinching, saying nothing further, making me squirm.
“So, you lug that guitar around with you everywhere you go, or just here?” I asked, pointing to the overhead compartment, uncomfortable with the prolonged eye contact.
“Pretty much,” he answered with a slight shrug of his slim shoulders. “Also, I’m sort of between apartments, and I didn’t have time to think of anything better before having to come to the airport. This trip actually came at the most opportune time for me.”
My heart performed a clean summersault, sticking the landing flawlessly somewhere around my heels. As dictated by years of habit, I rubbed my (now) bare ring finger with the thumb of my left hand underneath my two flimsy blankets.
Briefly, hoping Jamie wouldn’t notice, I closed my eyes and imagined his perfect wife. I saw her flowing black hair, full lips to complement his, a long and shapely frame. Maybe she was a talented musician in her own right, or perhaps she was an artist. A sculptor, maybe, good at molding clay—good with her hands. I imagined the two of them packing their belongings together, moving into a new apartment—a larger one, to accommodate their likely growing family (God knows his genes needed reproduction). It was full of grace, the life I painted for him—for them. And I did it with such ease. It certainly took much less energy to concoct this world for Jamie than to even try to envision a new life for myself.
I couldn’t remain seated, not under that gaze.
“Excuse me,” I smiled as I brusquely threw off my blankets and stood up. I stepped over his skinny knees and joined the queue of groggy passengers in line for the bathroom located directly behind our row; it was convenient for its proximity but not for the smell and the never-ending congregations it caused at our heads.
“So, how come you were available
this last minute?” Jamie asked when my place in line reached his seat. I couldn’t wait for it to finally be my turn inside one of those broom closets that all airlines insist on calling bathrooms. I needed to be away from those eyes, and the sooner the better. I’d dissolve into a puddle otherwise, surely irreversibly unnerving the Frenchmen around us.
“Ms. Levit!” I heard Paz squeal behind me before I had the chance to come up with an answer that wasn’t as lame as either of the many versions floating around in my head.
“Paz!” I exclaimed, trying to match her delivery through my growing congestion, buying time.
“Ooh, and hello there Mr. Sola! My name is Paz. I’ve heard oh so much about you! And I have to say, I am not disappointed— Oh my God, where is your engagement ring, Ms. Levit?!” Paz interrupted her own breathy introduction to shriek at a brand new pitch, much higher than I’d ever heard out of her before. This impressive note seemed to displease a passenger on the other side of the aisle; the man removed his eye mask and threw his seat into an upright position in one jerky move (with an irritated cough sprinkled on top for effect).
I stammered as my eyes shot away from Paz’s to Jamie’s; both were equally murky and enchanting.
“Umm….”
“Jesus, Paz, will you please leave Ms. Levit alone already!” Abbott opened his eyes, and mouth, just in time to come to my rescue. “First, she’s taking too little luggage, and now where is her ring?! I told you all to leave your valuables at home, but it seems that only Ms. Levit listened. Even Mr. Sola here hauled his guitar aboard this very plane. Now, Mr. Sola, pray tell—are you planning on teaching a class aboard our ferry transfer to Dover? Because if you’re not, frankly, I hardly see the point.”
In that moment, I knew I’d always love Abbott. His sexist “spring chicken” term of endearment, his standing entirely too close when talking to you, his love of coffee and gum and the confused aroma that resulted when the two combined in his mouth—it was all forgiven right then and there. Still, I wished his looks in my direction were a little less conspiratorial. Or at least more brief.
“Why, yes, Mr. Abbott. That ride should be a good ninety minutes, from what I remember from my last time aboard one of those things, and I don’t believe in wasting time,” Jamie answered without missing a beat. Though I was busy studying my own feet, I could’ve sworn his eyes didn’t leave me for a split second until it was my turn to use the facilities. It didn’t, it couldn’t matter, anymore, I had to remind myself when I finally locked the door from inside and splashed some cold water on my face. It wasn’t allowed to matter, in any case.
As I strained my thighs balancing over the toilet seat that clearly wasn’t wiped by the previous occupant, my eye sockets pulsated with the pressure imposed on them by my body’s contortion. Part mad at no one but myself for being trapped on this plane with a potential flu in the first place, and part angry at Jamie’s wife (as I imagined her) for merely existing, I caught myself wishing I could just go home. The problem with that elementary wish of the garden-“self-preservation”-variety was that I’d evicted myself from my last place of permanent residence without securing other arrangements. Like Jamie, sooner or later, I too, would have to tell people that I was “between apartments.” Maybe we could be roommates, I let myself kid for a brief moment. If only there’d be no sculptor wife, of course.
I hadn’t lived with my parents since before college. After, when I returned to the tri-state area for graduate school, I was all too happy to not have to return to the suburbs. After years of taking the bus to New York to wander aimlessly around as an adolescent, I was downright thrilled to finally have a place in the city, even if it was a walkup, and even if it was with George.
We met on a beach in Jamaica, George and I. I was there to try to prove to myself that I could hold my liquor and didn’t really need to have a boyfriend. It was the spring break of my third year in college, just a couple of months before I was due in Spain for that scandalously expensive summer semester. I distinctly remember considering that weeklong trip my training wheels for the next one—the real one (just like Seville itself was supposed to be my training wheels for the rest of my life). Jessica was with me.
At first, it was nothing—no magical pulls, real or imagined. Tipsy and warm, George and I made out at the resort bar one evening and then had to smile awkwardly at each other the next morning over breakfast as we each tried to remember exactly what did and did not happen. Jess, my wingman, was there the whole time, but she couldn’t offer much by way of insight given that she spent the entire trip significantly inebriated herself. We’d barely stayed in touch through the summer, rarely exchanging more than clever-bordering-on-asinine one-liners on Facebook while I was away, but there he was—waiting for me at the airport, holding some of the reddest roses I had ever seen when I returned. I fell quickly and hard right then and there, and only part of it had to do with the man’s perfect physique (the rest could be explained by his well-rehearsed flattery and his generous parents).
We’d moved in together the day after my college graduation. He helped me move back north, and Dr. and Mr. Kasun insisted that I did not owe them any rent money. Ever. It was an easy deal to make; it sure saved me quite a bit in loans. The apartment was theirs, after all (as was the entire brownstone, for that matter), and they had a certain deal with their son: he was allowed to live there rent-free until the tender age of thirty, when he’d need to either get his act together and do a little more than meditate, or they’d proceed to rent out the place to actual paying tenants. George still had about a year to find his calling, even if I didn’t have the stamina to stick around to witness the epiphany.
When I thought of “home,” my spacious and sunny room in New Jersey wasn’t it anymore; instead, it was that messy, five hundred square feet located arguably too close to the West Side Highway, depending on your worldview. I needed a new “home” before I would inevitably succumb to waxing poetic about the fire escape in my old bedroom, my old kitchen consisting of a stove, a sink, a microwave, and literally that one set of cabinets. I could picture my quilt, my pillows…. Well, his quilt, his pillows. Were they even his pillows, technically?
With a groan muffled by that of the plane, I flushed using my foot before washing my hands, staring at my tired self in the mirror. The light was harsh but I quite liked the shadows. I rode my index finger back and forth across my chin, picking up one fairly fine hair with my nails on the third run. I knew I had to try to rip it out before I could show my face out there again, so with my jaw twisted and my face sore, I continued to stubbornly go at it even when it refused to budge for a length of time unmarked. Every time I thought I almost had it, the plane would jerk with a rough patch of air, as if zooming over a speed bump without breaking first, and it would slip out of my grip. I succeeded only at cutting the skin of my fingertips.
No, a new “home” was in order—one I could afford to live in without confusing love with obligation. One I could leave without hearing threats of self-harm. One where at least something would belong to only me, the way Jamie’s guitar belonged to him. I no longer even owned a bicycle. No wonder I was an embarrassment to Vlad.
Giving up on the hair that I hoped only I could see, I let the bathroom door fold open to immediately begin to swear to Paz that that was not my urine on the toilet seat that she was about to walk in on; it wasn’t my mess and I wasn’t about to clean it. Paz made a face seemingly incongruous with her acting skill level before reluctantly switching places with me.
Chapter Seven: Could Do Worse
“‘Jamie’ is a man’s name?” the grotesquely French man behind the reception desk inquired with a fleeting smile. As if committed to perpetuating a stereotype, his name was Claude, and his accent was predictably snooty.
“Yes,” Jamie scoffed, uncomfortably. He held his passport open for the gentleman, his long arm outstretched.
“I see. Well, I am sorry, Mr. Sola. We have you and Ms. Levit assigned to one room because when we
saw your name on the roster, we presumed you were a woman. I apologize. Now, Mr. Abbott, your group’s initial booking was for nine rooms, which is what you’re getting. You are certainly free to reorganize your assignments, yes? We don’t care who is where, but we don’t have any spare rooms. We are booked solid, as you say,” the man summed up as he pushed his glasses up his crooked nose.
“We can’t do that—we can’t reorganize,” Abbott declared with conviction. He took me by the elbow and urgently ushered me away from the counter. “Sweet Levit, I can’t really reshuffle much. I don’t think either of you sharing a room with a student, even if eighteen, is a good idea. And I’m not leaving Stephanie to share a room with Jamie,” he explained in a poorly masked whisper. “Or you, for that matter!”
I looked over at the beige leather couch situated in the center of the mirrored lobby of our conveniently located hotel. It was covered in our students and their belongings, half of them exhausted, the other half itching to get out into the warm Parisian sunlight. It was bona fide spring here. Was there a point in much put-on modesty? Hadn’t I come here to be with Jamie in the first place? The universe certainly seemed to have a perverse sense of humor.
“Fuck it, I don’t care. Jamie, do you care?”
“I’m okay if you’re okay,” he shrugged as he shoved his passport in the back pocket of his jeans with too much apparent gusto.
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