She knew that one day—perhaps not today, perhaps not even in ten years—David would look at her, look at himself and realize just how much better he could do. He was far too sweet and devoted to realize it now, but it was bound to happen by the time he hit middle age. As a result, she had to be vigilant. Plastic surgery was out of the question because of her fear of ineffective but paralyzing anesthesia—it had happened to some woman in Kentucky and the story had trended on social media—but there were other things she could do. Her fitness routine was intense. In college, she only did the occasional dance workout video, but she had come a long way since then. Darius, her fitness instructor at LifeSpin, assessed her as a Level Four during her StrengthFlex test. Her new LifeSpin routine involved light weights, yoga, Pilates and NaturBuzz hydration. She did squats in the shower while the conditioner was in her hair in the hopes of attaining a Photoshop butt.
Aboard the plane, she rolled on two tight black knee compression socks. They looked stupid with her dress, but this was one of the few health-over-beauty sacrifices she made. If there was anything she worried about more than her declining looks, it was her health. She had recently read a Dr. Oz article about deep vein thrombosis, the silent killer. There seemed to be way too many silent killers out there for one thing to be given the title, but as far as silent killers went, deep vein thrombosis—and its aggressive cousin, the pulmonary embolism—played the part quite well. They could strike any person, at any time, and one of the symptoms was “no symptoms.” She shuddered just thinking about it.
“You should listen to some music,” David said, handing her a pair of white earphones, the speaker area lightly dusted with his orangey earwax. They would be so gross if they came from anyone but him. Maybe that was something she could incorporate into her wedding vows.
“I actually popped a Benadryl right before we got on the plane. I’m going to sleep.”
“I wish I could sleep on planes. My neck always hurts and then I wake up as soon as there’s any turbulence. I don’t know how you can be so anxious and still have such an easy time sleeping in public places.”
She laughed. “That was a compliment, right? You should try to sleep too. We won’t get much sleep when we arrive. Everyone is going to ask us how work is going and a gazillion other questions we don’t want to answer.”
“Ugh, I hate talking about work.”
“Me too. I want to talk about fun things.”
“Like parasites?”
She gave him an indignant look. “Like fun things.”
“You’re cute.”
“Want to have sex in the bathroom?” she asked perkily. Sometimes she liked to throw out offers like that. David was too vanilla to ever take her up on them, but they made her appear kinky, so she could fulfill the roles of both seductive “other woman” and loyal, nurturing wife. If she were giving him so much sex, he wouldn’t have any energy left for all the other women she imagined were sneaking around him, waiting to strike as soon as she turned thirty. Sometimes she swore she could hear the popping of their bubblegum and the sizzling of their hair underneath curling irons when she walked down the street.
“Sex in the bathroom sounds illegal, but you can give me a hand job underneath my blanket.” She assumed he was kidding, but he really did have one of those fleece blankets given out by the flight attendant, so maybe he was serious.
“Just you? Like, I don’t get any...you know...under my blanket?” Having sex with a guy in the airplane bathroom was sexy, Pan Am, Mad Men stuff. Giving a hand job under a fleece blanket while everyone on the plane watched reruns of How I Met Your Mother was just sad. But if David really wanted it, she’d look so cold and withholding if she said no.
“Finger banging is harder to maneuver,” he said. “You don’t have to give me the hand job, though. I just thought...” He gave her a flirty smile.
“I’m just joking. I’ll give you the hand job.”
“Wait, seriously? I was joking too.”
“I don’t know why you would joke about that. People do this stuff all the time.”
“Have you?”
“No. Just people do.” He never wanted to hear about, or even think about, her previous sexual experiences, even though on their first date she was twenty-five and had obviously had relationships before him. No one-night stands, though—she was too afraid of antibiotic-resistant chlamydia. He had never even divulged his own number, which led her to believe it was either embarrassingly high or low.
“Okay, you can give me a handie, but only after the safety demonstration.”
“I can give you a hand job? I’m not begging to do it, I was just offering.”
“I mean, can you give me a hand job after the safety demonstration?”
A peppy blonde flight attendant popped her head into the row and reached her arm around David’s lap to make sure his seat belt was fastened. She pursed her mauve lips.
“Sir, in the future please do not have a blanket on your lap when we are checking seat belts,” she said, in a way that managed to be both unnecessarily friendly and unnecessarily rude.
“Uh, sorry.”
“And, ma’am?” the flight attendant asked. Emily realized her blanket was covering her seat belt, as well, and lifted the blanket to reveal that it was, in fact, fastened. Not that it would mean anything, if there were a terrorist on the plane. Why did anyone even check this? They should have been going around making eye contact with all the passengers to check for secret signs of nervousness, the way she once heard people did in Israel. Why didn’t she live in Israel? Her cousin Rebecca did Birthright in 2007 and kept going on about how the police presence “ruined the experience.” Of course, Rebecca was being stupid, because police were the only thing making the experience possible in the first place. Maybe if Emily lived in Israel, she’d feel safer. Except there would be a lot more threats in general—she wasn’t sure if the police presence outweighed the increase in threats.
“Thank you,” the flight attendant said.
“Oh, I have a question,” Emily said.
“Sure, ma’am.”
“Did you call me ma’am because you thought I was old, or because you say that to all women over the age of eighteen?”
She cocked her head. “I’m confused. Would you prefer something else?”
“I mean, I don’t prefer anything because it’s not like I’m going to be hanging out with you loads of times, but I just want to know what calculation went through your mind when you looked at me and thought, She’s a ma’am.” Emily could see David wincing out of the corner of her eye.
“Well, you’re an adult woman, so we say ma’am to be polite.”
“It’s not that polite, though. I mean, you obviously weren’t trying to be rude, but when I hear ma’am I don’t think the person is being respectful. I think my crow’s feet are showing and that I look forty.”
“Well, how old are you?”
“How old did you think I was?”
“I don’t know, thirty-two?”
“I assume you were rounding down not to offend me. You probably meant thirty-five or older. I’m twenty-eight. Thanks.”
The flight attendant looked like she was about to say something but thought better of it and walked off.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” David asked. “She thinks you’re a weirdo now. Why do you always do that? For the last time, you