It's Not You It's Me

by Allison Rushby

  Of course not.

  ‘Miss, can you fasten your seat belt, please?’ The flight attendant is standing over my seat staring at me as if I’m a loon. By the look on her face I think she might have asked me more than once already. Hastily, I grab the two ends of my seat belt and buckle up. When I’m done, I have one last crane of my neck to check for Kath and Mark and the twins before I concede defeat.

  Left with nothing else to do, I get my book out of my backpack and read right up until they begin the safety demonstration. When that starts I put my book down on my lap and listen carefully. I even get the safety card out of the seat pocket and read that too.

  Like I said before, the oldest plane in the world…

  I’m watching attentively as the flight attendant shows us how to fasten and unfasten our seat belts when I hear it. This clunk…

  And something lands on my lap.

  I drop my safety card on the floor in fright.

  I’m stunned for a moment, unsure of what’s happened. But when I look down, there’s a videotape in my lap. Instinctively I reach my hand up to my head as I realise that one side of it hurts. As I feel around, I notice there’s a little lump on it. No, hang on, a mid-sized lump. Wait a second—quite a big lump, actually. Quite a big lump, which is starting to throb.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’ the guy in the seat beside me asks.

  I turn to him. No, I want to say. No, I’m not. I’ve got a lump on my head. Not a little lump, not a mid-sized lump, but quite a big lump, actually. But I can’t get the words out. Instead, I bring my hand down off my head to see if there’s any blood.

  There’s not. This is probably a good sign.

  The flight attendant comes and crouches down beside me. She picks the safety card up off the floor and puts it back in the seat pocket in front of me. ‘I’m so sorry. It’s never done that before.’

  I look at her blankly and she picks the videotape out of my lap and holds it up. ‘It’s the safety video. It ejected out of the VCR stored above you. Is your head OK?’

  I keep looking at her. ‘I’ve got a lump.’

  She feels the side of my head. ‘Oohhh, you do too. Does it hurt? Do you have a headache? Should I see if we have a doctor?’

  Too many questions. ‘It doesn’t hurt much,’ I say, before I realise what the implications of what I’ve just said could mean in today’s litigious society, and add a little disclaimer, ‘Yet’.

  She pauses, thinking. ‘Well, maybe we should move you up to the front, just so we can keep a better eye on you. We’re about to take off, so I’ll have to leave you for a minute or two, but I’ll come right back, OK? Don’t go anywhere, now.’ She walks down towards the front of the plane.

  As I watch her go, I wonder where she thinks I’d run off to. I mean, I’m on a plane, here. I don’t have too many options.

  True to her word, she comes back as soon as we’ve levelled off. She gives me her arm to help me get up. ‘Jessica will keep an eye on you up front. Just tell her if your head starts to hurt, all right? Now, do you have anything overhead?’ She gestures at the lockers.

  I shake my head, no, and she turns and starts walking back up to the front of the plane. I follow.

  We keep going. And going. And going.

  Then, suddenly, as she parts the swishy curtain that divides the have and the have-nots, the clean and the unwashed, I realise she’s putting me in business class. Excellent. But, no—wait. We keep going. We pass another swishy curtain. And we enter…first class.

  Ta-da!

  I look around me in awe. Toto, I don’t think we’re in economy any more.

  The people in the few seats around the doorway turn and stare at us. Under their gaze, I try to look as if my head really hurts now. As if it hurts in a first-class-this-seat-reclines-all-the-way-back kind of hurt.

  There are about five people in first class, and—I count them—about twenty seats. What a waste.

  Another flight attendant—Jessica, I presume—comes over. Yes, it is Jessica. I read her name-tag as she gets closer and note she speaks French and German and Japanese, which I’m sure would come in very handy if I did too. The flight attendant who’s been with me till now, Lisa—the economy-model flight attendant who speaks nothing but plain old English—leaves.

  ‘Just take a seat here,’ Jessica says, directing me into a seat behind a man and sitting me down. ‘And do tell me if you start to feel sick or you get a headache, won’t you?’

  I nod.

  ‘Would you like a biscuit and some apple juice? Everyone’s just had a snack.’

  I nod again, never one to say no to a biscuit. Or apple juice. And certainly never one to say no to first class biscuits or first class apple juice that I can eat in my fully reclined seat, watching my own cable TV all while I’m on my personal phone if I so feel like it.

  ‘Yes, please,’ I say politely.

  Jessica turns around and leaves. I watch her go with interest. I’ve never seen a first class flight attendant before. I inspect her closely. I may never get another chance to see one in captivity. She has really expensive stockings on. I can tell. Because they look nice. All shimmery. And very unlike anything I’ve ever worn waitressing that usually came three in a packet and were holey by the time I left the apartment.

  I’m impressed, to say the least.

  And, after a good inspection, I have to admit that first class is fantastic. Everything about it is—well, first class. The flight attendants, for example, like Jessica—they’re better-looking and they speak four languages and wear expensive stockings. Even Jessica’s red lipstick is first class, I think, as I watch her lean down and talk to another passenger.

  I realise then that she’s a Woman. I’ve always wanted to be one of those. Yep, I know—I guess the breasts and all the other equipment give you instant qualification into the club, but that’s just to be a woman. The kind without the capital ‘W’. What I’m talking about is a Woman. With the outfits and the shoes and the smell. The kind of Woman who sashays instead of walks. The kind of Woman men trample each other over in order to get to her first and light her cigarette. A Woman like Marilyn Monroe or Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

  A vavoom, boom, boom kind of Woman.

  And, yes, I realise that you can’t go out till five p.m. when you’re a vavoom, boom, boom kind of Woman, because you have to spend all day getting ready, but what the hell? It’s a great look. I catch another glimpse of Jessica as she smiles her perfect red-lipsticked smile at another passenger, making me wonder if her lipstick is a magic lipstick that’s reapplying itself every five minutes—a magic lipstick that’s resistant to leaving even a smidgen on her glossy white teeth. Maybe she’s done that trick—the Vaseline on the teeth thing that they do in the beauty pageants.

  Or maybe I’m taking it all a bit too far now? Either way, I’m distracted—distracted away from Womanly things by material things.

  By my seat, actually. Because, I think—wriggling my satisfied behind around a bit—it is sooo comfy. It’s really more like a lounge chair. I snuggle back and fold my hands neatly on my lap, wishing I’d worn something a bit classier than my old denim jacket, black stretch pants and grey felt Birkenstocks.

  Like the pale pink pashmina the woman a few rows up is wearing.

  I almost laugh out loud then. Me in a pale pink pashmina? How long would that stay pristine and pale? Well, I know the answer to that—until right before the apple juice and the biscuit arrived, that’s when. I’m not a pashmina kind of girl anyway. Mark brought me one back from overseas once and I accidentally put it in the wash. It was more like a short, gnarled scarf after that.

  I spot the arm of the guy in front of me as I think this. He’s wearing a denim jacket quite like mine, which makes me feel a bit better—because I figure he’s actually paying to be here. At a cost of approximately $7,000 one way or $11,000 return, if I remember the figures on the whiteboard of my local travel agency correctly. It’s even a pretty old and daggy denim jacket he’
s wearing, which makes me wonder for a second or two—but then I tell myself it’s probably meant to be that way, it’s been professionally beaten up and most likely cost ten to fifteen times the price I paid for my one, which I think came from Bettina Liano and was already way out of my budget.

  I lean forward a bit to see if I can read the label on the bottom of his jacket. It’s sticking out over the side of his chair. There’s a patch there with some writing on it that seems vaguely familiar, and if I just…

  There’s a clearing of a throat above me, which makes me glance up. It’s Jessica. With my biscuit and apple juice. On a plate. A real plate! And in a glass. A real glass! I’m sure my eyes are completely round by now, and I probably look very much like a character in a Japanese cartoon.

  I smile at her. She doesn’t smile back.

  Uh-oh. Bye-bye Woman; hello economy-class-passenger-eating-Rottweiler, I think.

  ‘If you’re going to disturb the other passengers, I’m afraid I’ll have to move you back to—’ She starts to lecture me, but stops when the guy in front turns around.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I say a little too loudly as I recognise him.

  He just stares.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jessica hisses under her breath, and I get the distinct feeling she’s going to throw me out of first class.

  The guy keeps right on staring at me.

  It’s Jas.

  Chapter Six

  And without his make-up, long black hair, leather bodysuit and whip, he’s a lot easier to recognise.

  I think he might even be wearing the same denim jacket he had when we were living together.

  Beside us, Jessica is still making annoyed first class flight attendant noises.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Jas says, standing up next to her. ‘We know each other.’

  ‘Oh.’ She doesn’t look particularly pleased with this, as if we’ve broken the rules somehow—me coming from economy and all—and moves her attention to smoothing her skirt with one hand for a moment.

  Somehow, I feel it would be an appropriate moment to break into a rousing, economy meets first class ‘breaking down the barriers’ rendition of Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Ebony and Ivory’, but I can’t quite bring myself to do it.

  ‘Right. I’ll leave this here, then, shall I?’ She puts down the tray with the biscuit and apple juice onto another seat’s table and stalks off.

  I stand up too. Awkwardly, not sure how Jas is going to react. After all, you hear stars complaining about it all the time—people claiming they went to high school with them etc. Confused, I mumble, half looking at the floor, ‘I heard them calling for you. At the airport.’

  He makes a face. ‘Late. Still.’

  This makes me smile and I raise my eyes to meet his. ‘As usual.’

  There’s a pause then, as if neither of us knows what to do next. I’m about to sit back down, thinking I’m making a nuisance of myself, when Jas makes a move.

  ‘What am I waiting for?’ he says, and steps forward to give me a kiss on the cheek and a hug. I hug him back. He smells shockingly familiar. But the hug feels right and puts me at ease.

  ‘Come on. Sit with me,’ he says.

  And this time I don’t need to worry about the convenience of an aisle seat. You could put on a production of Cats between the rows up here if you wanted to. I make myself comfortable beside the window and Jas passes me my biscuit and apple juice. I pull out my tray-rest. ‘Somehow I don’t think they’re getting homemade wild fig and wattle-seed biscuits back there.’ I nod my head in the direction of economy and tell Jas the story of the wayward videotape and how I ended up here with the famous people.

  When I’m done, he feels my head for the lump.

  ‘Ow!’ I yelp as he finds it.

  ‘Sorry. It’s pretty big. Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m certainly a lot better now,’ I say, holding up the biscuit and taking a big bite. With my other hand I feel the lump one more time as Jas watches me. I can’t help noticing he looks exactly the same as he used to.

  ‘Charles. Your hair.’

  My hand still on my head, I pat what’s left of my hair, knowing precisely what he’s talking about. We used to have this joke. We’d been swimming one day, a few months after he’d moved in, and I’d pulled my wet hair back into a pony-tail to get it out of the way when we were done. Jas had fallen about laughing when he’d seen the end result. It was my ears. They were—well, of the sticky-out variety, which is why I kept my hair medium to long and down. Always. Thus, the second nickname—Charles.

  I realise my face must have fallen a bit when he mentioned it again because Jas touches me on the arm. ‘No. It’s great. Just different, that’s all.’

  I shrug. ‘I’m growing it. I had to have it short. It was damaged.’

  ‘Damaged?’

  ‘Um, over-processed, actually.’ I roll my eyes and take another bite of biscuit. ‘It was the only option. Hair extensions cost a fortune, you know.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ He shakes his black hair at me.

  I realise then that he probably does know. ‘You’ve had yours cut too,’ I say. It’s a lot shorter than I’ve seen it in all the magazines and on TV.

  He nods and picks a bit of hair off his jacket. ‘Only this morning. Hated it. That’s why I was late.’

  I notice something then—hair lying on Jas’s right shoulder, the one next to me. Without thinking, I reach over and dust it off. ‘It’s all over you! I don’t know how you could get on plane after a haircut. I always have to rush straight home and jump in the shower.’ It’s only as I reach the end of my sentence that I catch on to what I’m doing. Slowly, I pull my hand away and look up to meet Jas’s eyes. He’s staring at me again. ‘Sorry, I can’t believe I just did that.’

  His eyes don’t move and I get that feeling again. The one where I wish I could just sink down and disappear. This time into my plush first class seat.

  But then something unexpected happens. Jas laughs. ‘Hair might be different, but you haven’t changed a bit, have you?’ he says, starting to laugh even harder.

  This makes me pause. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He laughs away. ‘Hey!’

  ‘Sorry. Just funny seeing you again, that’s all.’

  I raise my eyebrows at this one. ‘Funny seeing me?’ I halt for a moment before I decide it’s OK to go for it. After all, it’s going to have to come up some time, isn’t it? ‘Funny seeing me?’ I repeat. ‘It’s been pretty funny seeing you in all your get-up, that’s for sure.’

  Jas moans. ‘Ah, man. Knew that’d have to come up sooner or later.’

  ‘Really? Did you? And here I was, almost forgetting the fact that you’ve been tramping around for approximately two years posing as a devil worshipper, eating live animals and seducing young boys.’

  ‘A guy needs a hobby.’

  I snort delicately so that apple juice doesn’t fly out of my nose—who says I don’t belong in first class? I could handle that pale pink pashmina. ‘No, really, tell me the whole story.’

  So he does.

  And it goes pretty much the way I’d imagined it. Jas had gone to Sydney and met up with his contact in the industry at exactly the right time. One of the big record companies was putting together a ‘let’s go for maximum shock value and freak the public out’ kind of band, and he’d gone along and auditioned. Apparently they liked his ‘look’—tall, dark, pale, thin. But not so much that they decided to leave him how he was. Instead, he was signed up and kitted out in a full black leather bodysuit. A few weeks, a stylist, publicist and hairdresser later, he was Zamiel and Spawn was on the road. Apparently it was just a bonus that he could actually sing.

  ‘I couldn’t believe it the first time I saw you on TV.’ I’ve listened to the story open-mouthed.

  ‘Not surprised.’

  ‘But it’s great, isn’t it? It’s what you always wanted?’

  Jas pauses. ‘No. What I always wanted to be was a songwriter. You know tha
t.’

  ‘But you write Spawn’s songs, don’t you?’

  ‘Course,’ he laughs. Then, looking around furtively, ‘No,’ he whispers.

  ‘Oh.’ There doesn’t seem to be much more to say to that, so I move on. ‘So why the trip to London? Are you going to see your, um, boyfriend?’ I mumble the last word.

  ‘Boyfriend? What are you on about?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  I say the actor’s name.

  Jas laughs. ‘You’re kidding me, Charlie. You, of all people. You don’t actually believe all that stuff?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Come on—tell me that you think I worship the devil, that I eat live animals, that I got town planning to change my house number to 666.’

  ‘I never said I thought it was all true.’

  ‘You think I’m going out with piglet-face?’

  ‘Piglet-face!’ I laugh, then cover my mouth with my hand. It’s not very nice, but he’s right. The actor does have a bit of a piglet-face. He is a bit of a Babe.

  ‘It’s his nose.’ Jasper puts one finger on the tip of his nose and pushes upwards.

  It’s highly realistic. I laugh a bit louder.

  Standing a few rows in front, Jessica gives me a dirty look and instantly I remember the Eleventh Commandment—there shalt be no rowdiness in first class. I cover my mouth with my hand again.

  ‘You really think I’d go out with him? You crazy? I do have some taste, you know. Wouldn’t go out with a guy like him.’

  ‘He had his tongue down your throat on TV one night. Or do you let just anyone do that now?’ I regret the words as soon as they come out of my mouth, as they remind me of That Night, our last night in the apartment together, but Jas doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘That? All him. No idea he was going to do it. Amazing what you can make something seem like when you cut it down to ten seconds of footage.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I’m confused.

  ‘What really happened—he grabbed me, mauled me as I was coming out of some club. Wasn’t expecting it. Didn’t even know he was there until after it all went down. Guess I knew he had a bit of a thing for Zamiel, but I didn’t think he’d actually pull a stunt like that. Used up a whole perfectly good bottle of Listerine that night. Think he’d just eaten Indian for dinner or something.’