Page 38 of Big Sexy Love
Dammit. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I should have made a coffee as soon as I got back earlier. I squint at my watch. 11 p.m. Nooooo! Now I’ll be awake allnight!
I sit up, feeling a slight chill on my naked body. Grabbing my robe, I wrap it around me and pad over to the kitchenette to make a cup of tea and a piece oftoast.
I notice I have a sweet text from Colin asking me what my favourite breakfast food is. I smile to myself and type back ‘Weetabix.’ A few seconds later, he sends a reply. ‘Weetabix for me too!’itsays.
Not many people would choose Weetabix. This has got to be a sign of some sort. Of what, I don’t know… But, still. It’s got to be a good thing,right?
Outside on the street I hear the sound of a police siren fly past and feel my shouldersbunchup.
I tell myself thatof coursethey’re not coming for me. I made a clean escape from Gramercy Park, they don’t even know I’m here! But nevertheless the sound of the siren makes me feel a bit on edge. I grab the remote and turn the telly down to mask any outdoornoise.
Oh! Look! It’s that show,Sunday Night Live! The show that Seth the queue jumper said he wrote for. We don’t get it in the UK, but I see the clips floating around the internet every Mondaymorning.
The actors on screen are dressed as aliens, and they’re all hanging out at a bar in outer space playing some alien version of pool. It’s a bizarre and funny sketch and pretty soon I find myself laughing along with the live audience. I wonder if Seth wrote this sketch? If this was what he was typing away at on the plane? I watch with renewed interest until the advertbreak.
Having finished my tea and toast, I head to the kitchenette to rinse the crockery. When I return there’s a new sketch playing out on the screen. Set on a turbulent airplane, from the looks of things. How they’ll make a turbulent airplane funny, I havenoclue.
‘This is my first time on an airplane,’ one of the actresses screeches, swigging back from a bottle of champagne. ‘I live in England, don’t you know,’ she’s saying to one of the other passengers – a bespectacled man. ‘It’s the best country in the whole wiiiiiideworld.’
She’s putting on a Britishaccent.
A really twangy northernaccent.
Likemine.
Howweird.
I frown. And then, almost as if in slow motion, I notice that the actress on screen is in a wig of massive brown wavy hair. Like mine. And – oh my god – is wearing a bumbag. A pink bumbag.Likemine.
All at once my jaw clenches, my cheeks get very, very hot and I can only stare, mouth agog, as the actress on the screen invites a bespectacled fellow plane passenger to join her in the mile-highclub.
‘I need it,’ she says. ‘I need itreeeeealbad.’
When the actress who looks like me and the bespectacled guy enter the airplane toilet, the actress rips off her top, sits onto the loo and says, ‘Olivia likes to be watched! WATCH ME! WATCH MEPIDDLE.’
Oh.My.God.
My mouth completely dries up as the bespectacled man tries to escape the airplane loo but the woman makes him stay and watch her haveawee.
No.No!That is not whathappened.
Whatthehell?
How did he?Whydidhe?
I jump up from the sofa bed and switch the telly off inshock.
That damn queue jumper! He has completely screwed me over. He used my fear of planes against me! How mean is that! Stunned tears cloud my vision.He didn’t even disguise me.Olivia? From England? Wearing a beautiful pinkbumbag?
The adrenaline I felt earlier today is back in full force and I am wideawake.
And there I was thinking this trip couldn’t go any moreterribly.
Boy, was I waswrong.
* * *
Ispendthe next twenty minutes pacing around the tiny apartment angrily. But it doesn’t calm me down. Not at all. I suppose it doesn’t help that the entire length of the room is about seven steps endtoend.
