Page 22 of Stroked Hard
This old person is one-hundred percent dead. Call the coroner, we have a fresh one.
Feeling slightly skeeved from a fresh dead person sitting in front of me, I say, “Umm, I think I’ll get a flight attendant.”
Thankfully the girl helping me out says, “I’ll ring the call button.”
The line of people behind me start to get a little rowdy no thanks to the heavy-breathing pervert behind me.
“What is the hold up?” he shouts. How is his shouting helpful? It’s not, just like honking a horn in traffic won’t get you anywhere, unless you think your horn has magical god-like powers and will part LA traffic like the Red Sea.
Hint: your horn does not possess such powers.
“Someone won’t take their seat,” another passenger offers, stirring the pot with the perv.
Just great. This is all I need. I look around for help but find nothing.
The girl sitting next to postmortem Molly suggests, “Maybe you can climb over her?” She shrugs. It is a good option. I’m limber.
“Let me see. Can you take my bag?”
“Sure.” She grabs my purse and sets it on my seat then offers her hand for help. I’m mid-step over the elderly woman when the flight attendant makes her way toward us.
“Is everything okay?”
Quickly I retreat my foot, nervous that I’ve been caught doing something wrong and I say, “Um, this woman is not moving. We’re not sure if she’s responding.”
“Oh dear.” The flight attendant takes a closer look as does everyone around us. I seriously don’t see any movement in the woman’s body “Have you spoken to her?”
“We’ve asked her to move,” the girl whispers. “But she’s unresponsive.”
Panic crosses the flight attendant’s face for a brief moment before she starts with protocol for such a situation. I couldn’t imagine having to go through training for such a thing. “Okay, let me get the paramedics.”
Everyone holds their breath as the flight attendant turns to make her way to the back just as the old lady flops her hands in the air. A brief terrifying thought of rigor mortis flies through my head just before the woman starts to speak. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she says, springing up from her seat like a spry chicken, scaring the crap out of all of us. “Can’t an old lady find out more about this one’s pierced nipples from her boyfriend? Her texts were just starting to get good.”
Pierced nipples? I raise an eyebrow at the girl in the middle seat who’s blushing feverishly.
After a quick check from the flight attendant, I’m situated in my seat, replaying the last few minutes in my head. What the hell just happened? This old lady was faking her own death so she could read the girl with the pierced nipple’s text messages.
Damn, I have to admit it, well played.
“She seems like a fun companion,” I mutter out the side of her mouth.
“Could be worse,” the girl whispers back. “Could be a smelly dude with flaky skin.”
Gah, I think I just threw up in my mouth. “So gross.” I look out the window and say, “Here I am, sitting on a commercial flight when my boss is taking a private jet to Omaha. How is that fair?”
“Your boss is taking a private jet to Omaha? So is mine.” I thought so. I’m pretty sure I know this girl.
“Why does this feel like aParent Trapmoment?” I laugh. “Should we both pull up a picture of our boss and show one another on the count of three?”
“Could be a magical moment. Let’s do it.”
I know the exact picture I’m going to share. It’s one I save for occasions where I have to tell people who I work for. The minute they see the picture, they understand completely.
“Three, two, one . . .”
Flipping our phones to each other, we both display a picture of Bellini Chambers.
Whereas the girl’s picture is of Bellini holding her beloved Pope Francis, mine is of Bellini, trap wide open clearly screaming something horrific. It’s my favorite picture of all time because it truly shows how ugly Bellini really is.
