I waited impatiently to be called to board, flicking through the pages of the newest issue of Icon for the millionth time, wishing I’d left my Paris guidebooks and notes in my hand luggage so I could work on them on the plane. There was no way I’d be able to sleep on the flight, I was full of butterflies. Nervous about the article, nervous about not being able to speak French, nervous about getting to the hotel on my own and, for some reason, nervous about spending almost a straight week in another country with Alex. Good nervous, I was pretty sure, but still definitely nervous. Not as nervous as Alex however, who had spent the previous three days becoming increasingly uncommunicative and turning an attractive shade of pale green. He had explained that he didn’t like flying at least twenty times and no matter how many times Graham and Craig, the bassist and drummer in his band, Stills, slapped him on the back and offered to get him shitfaced before they boarded, he never seemed to look any better.
I looked around for any telltale patches of puke at the boarding gate to show he’d been there, but it was clean as a whistle. But then, JFK airport probably sorted that kind of thing out fairly quickly. The Americans were pretty up on cleanliness.
It was really quite cute. Even when I was climbing the walls about something, Alex was always so laidback, and to see him panicking about the flight was sort of reassuring. So he was human after all. Even when I’d tried to reassure him with my ‘more people die in hippo attacks than in plane crashes each year’ favourite factoid of all time (not that I actually knew it was definitely a fact), he had just kissed the top of my head and gone back to pretending he wasn’t flying anyway.
Eventually, the flight was called and I hauled myself and my wildly overpacked and battered MJ handbag over to the gate. I’d packed my beautiful blue number and decided to carry on my trusty old (well, I’d had it almost a year) satchel for fear of the new bag being scratched or stained or touched by human hands other than my own. And besides, I’d more or less convinced myself that the knackered satchel actually looked better for being worn in. Kind of. Shuttling down the windy tunnel on to the plane, a reassuringly boredlooking flight attendant took my tickets, checked my passport and then pointed down the right-hand side of the plane with a Joker-sized smile. I returned a tight grimace and shuffled down the aisle, trying not to wedge my bottom in the faces of all the club class passengers already boarded. One day they’d tell me to turn left, one day.
Predictably, I’d been blessed with a teeny, tiny economy seat in the middle of a row of four and all three surrounding seats were taken. According to an overly sincere Cici, it was Spencer Media travel policy to fly economy on all flights under twelve hours, but for some reason, I just didn’t believe her. And besides, there was economy and there was the nine hours of living hell I was about to endure. Wedging my handbag under the seat in front of me, I glanced to my left to take in the extraordinarily large man currently crossing himself with closed eyes, a very large Bible in his lap. To my right, love’s young dream sat giggling and holding hands. Catching my eye, a (not actually so young) blonde woman thrust her left hand under my nose.
‘We just got married!’ she shrieked, waving her hand around to give the ginormous solitaire sufficient opportunity to blind me. ‘In New York! Married! We’re from England. But we got married in New York. Not Vegas. Tacky, that is.’
‘Right,’ I stuttered, trying to pull my head away from the hard, shiny thing that could potentially blind me. ‘Congratulations?’
‘Oh you’re English too! Dave, she’s English,’ my seat buddy went on, oblivious. ‘It was just at City Hall, quiet, but very classy, you know? And we stayed at the Waldorf Astoria. We haven’t told anyone at home. I mean, they knew we were engaged, but they didn’t know we were getting married. Dave’s been married before you see, so we didn’t think we needed to make a big deal of it.’
‘I’ve been married before,’ Dave confirmed, leaning across to show me his massive, diamond encrusted wedding band. Mmm, tasteful. ‘She was a right old cow. Not like this one.’
‘Well, yeah, congratulations,’ I said again, fiddling with my seatbelt as a polite ‘leave me alone’ signal, while seats 47 F and G began a rather aggressive PDA session.
‘It was lovely,’ Dave’s wife said, pushing her amorous husband away. ‘I got them Loobootin shoes, didn’t I, Dave? Lovely.’
‘She did,’ Dave nodded. ‘Loobootins.’
I managed a wan smile and tried not to start crying. How long was this flight again? Jenny would have actually slapped her around the face by now, my tolerance levels were most impressive.
‘And now we’re going to Paris for the honeymoon. Nice that, isn’t it? He’s a romantic, my Dave. Always said I’d marry a romantic. You married, love?’
‘No,’ I smiled, shaking my head. ‘Not married.’
‘Engaged?’
‘Nope.’
‘Boyfriend?’
‘Actually, yes.’
‘Well there you are,’ she said, patting my knee. ‘There’s hope for you yet.’
I smiled brightly and speedily plugged my ears with my earbuds before she could start up again. Only to have the flight attendant tell me that I couldn’t keep them in for take-off. Cow. Happily, Dave’s wife wasn’t a terribly good flier and had to bury her face in Dave’s reassuring chest throughout take off and for a good fifteen minutes after, by which time, I’d got the earbuds in and was pretending to sleep. Not an easy task when the man to the other side of me was a) incredibly sweaty and b) reading out Bible passages under his breath, just loudly enough to convince me he might be a serial killer. Fantastic.
I squinted to see the screen on my iPod, trying not to open my eyes enough to be busted and I scrolled down to the play lists. Alex had promised to upload something ‘other than Justin Timberlake and Gossip Girl’ to put me in the mood for Paris. I smiled and clicked on ‘Adventures of Angela: Paris Edition’ and tried not to look incredibly smug that I had a wonderful boyfriend who had made me a mixtape – the internationally accepted Token of True Love from a Boy. I settled back in my seat for some musique en français, but instead was jolted wide awake by the sound of Alex’s voice.
‘Hey Angela, so I put some songs together to help you get through the flight although, I guess it’s me that needs the help, right? Uh, anyway, I really wish we were flying out together, but I’ll see you when you get to the hotel and I promise it’s going to be a great trip. And yeah, this is a new song I’ve been working on…’
His quiet, smoky voice trailed off into a quick cough before his guitar took over. I closed my eyes quickly, not wanting to give The Second Missus Dave an opportunity to spoil this moment. Not that she could. I felt a hot flush in my cheeks while my stomach dropped and my heart pounded. It felt like falling off the kerb in my sleep, only in a good way. It felt the same as opening my eyes in the morning and seeing Alex’s face. The same as getting off the subway and spotting him waiting for me. The same as I felt whenever I thought about him being within a three-foot radius of me. Honestly, what was my problem? He was amazing. And he wasn’t my ex. My ex wouldn’t have even asked me to come to Paris with him in the first place, probably because he’d have wanted to bring his mistress, but still.