So Now You're Back

by Heidi Rice

  I should be so lucky.

  She quashed the spurt of panic. Once the take-off was over, she could let the pampering begin.

  ‘Would you like a beverage, Ms Best?’

  She briefly entertained the idea of deadening her anxiety with champagne. ‘Some iced water would be great,’ she replied. Getting legless could be her fallback position if the sedative didn’t kick in soon.

  Settling into her seat, she stared in dismay at the panel of buttons. Sweat collected on her upper lip and the muscles in her neck began to twitch. If only one of those buttons could whisk her across the Atlantic at warp speed.

  ‘How many knobs does one person need, right?’

  Her head swung round so fast at the suggestive comment it was a miracle she didn’t get whiplash.

  ‘Luke, what the …?’ She searched for the flight attendant. ‘You’re not supposed to be in here. They’ll throw you out.’

  ‘I’ll risk it.’ The sheepish expression on his too-handsome face instantly threw her back to their schooldays and all those times he’d done something diabolical—like spray-painting an image of Mrs Wendell going down on Mr Truer all over the sixth-form toilets—and she’d been his final line of defence against instant expulsion. Annoyance bunched in her neck muscles, but beneath it was the furtive spike of excitement. A mortifying reminder of how her sixteen-year-old self had once relished his bad behaviour.

  ‘Relax.’ He settled into the pod next to her. ‘I got an upgrade, too.’

  ‘What?’

  He slung his laptop bag under his console while she gaped as if he’d just spoken in Swahili. Either that or she’d gone momentarily deaf and misheard him.

  What had happened to Luke Best, class warrior? The guy who thought first-class train carriages were there to be invaded? Even business class had seemed like a stretch.

  ‘I’m a frequent flyer. It only cost a couple of grand extra. And it’s tax deductible.’ He began to fiddle with the dials on his personal control panel. ‘This is actually pretty cool.’ Propping his feet on the footrest, he rolled his shoulders and relaxed into the seat. Then sent her a grin that plugged her right back into the electric socket.

  ‘You can’t stay here.’ The in-flight trauma of taking off was bad enough, she did not need the one man capable of giving her a nervous breakdown when she had both feet on terra firma as a witness to her humiliation.

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘But doesn’t travelling in first go against everything you ever stood for? I distinctly remember you telling me once that the premium seats in Holloway Odeon were an exploitation of the working classes.’

  ‘I’ve mellowed.’

  ‘You mean you’ve sold out for a lie-flat bed and some complimentary champagne?’ Why did it even surprise her? Luke had never had the courage of his convictions.

  ‘There’s complimentary champagne?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Damn, if I’d known that, I would have sold out sooner.’

  The flight attendant returned with Halle’s iced water.

  ‘Hi there, Debbie,’ he said, reading the woman’s name badge. ‘Is it true you get complimentary champagne in first?’

  ‘Certainly, sir, would you like a glass?’

  ‘You might as well bring the bottle. It’s a ten-hour flight and I plan to get my money’s worth.’

  The attendant hesitated. ‘We’re only allowed to serve it by the glass I’m afraid, sir.’

  ‘And it’s ten o’clock in the morning,’ Halle butted in. ‘Drinking at altitude will get you pissed. You’re supposed to be driving us to the resort when we get off this flying death trap. I refuse to get in a car with you if you’re over the limit.’ Hadn’t the man grown up at all in sixteen years?

  ‘I guess that’s me told.’ He flashed a sheepish smile at the attendant, whose cheeks shone pink beneath the ten layers of foundation. ‘I guess I’ll have to pass. I’ll have what she’s having,’ he finished, indicating Halle’s glass.

  The purser’s amplified voice filled the cabin giving them a rundown of the in-flight services as the stewardess headed off to do Luke’s bidding.

  Halle gulped down the chilled water, but it did nothing to ease the rawness in her throat.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She rolled the icy glass across her forehead, then bent to retrieve her bag.

  ‘Why did you call it a “flying death trap”?’

  She ignored Luke’s question as she waged war with the child-safety lid on the Xanax bottle. Only to have the bottle whipped out of her hands.

  ‘What are these for?’

  ‘Give me those.’ She made a grab for the bottle as he read the label, only to have him hike it out of reach.

  ‘Heavy-duty happy pills. When did you start popping these?’

  ‘It’s not Ecstasy. It’s a mild drug to help with anxiety. And it’s none of your business what pills I pop.’

  ‘Mild, my arse. This stuff can kill you if you take too much of it.’

  ‘You are joking?’ She skewered him with her best give-me-a-bloody-break look. ‘This from the guy who once had so much E he ran down Green Lanes naked declaring to the whole of Hackney he was Sonic the Hedgehog.’

  ‘I was seventeen,’ he protested. ‘It was Super Mario and I was only half naked, don’t exaggerate.’

  ‘Nope, it was definitely Sonic. I remember because I was sober.’ Or soberish. ‘And all you had on was a baseball cap!’

  ‘Well, then I had all the essential stuff covered, didn’t I?’ He threw her the challenging grin again, daring her to deny it.

  ‘Essential stuff? What, like your brain, you mean? That certainly didn’t qualify as essential at the time, given it wasn’t the organ you did your thinking with.’

  His eyes sharpened and she relished the hit. But then the captain’s monotone tenor came over the public address system with a rundown of their flying time and their altitude over the Atlantic, and the brief surge of triumph was smothered in panic.

  ‘Give me the bottle.’ She stretched out a shaky palm. ‘I need another before we take off.’

  He lowered the bottle but didn’t hand it over. ‘How many have you had already?’

  She pressed the tip of her tongue to her upper lip and tasted the salty sweat. ‘Only one.’ Or had it been two? Her mind seemed foggy on the details. But then the flight attendant strolled past to check their bays, and the plane rumbled into motion—and the panic became razor sharp. ‘Luke, for Chrissake, hand them over.’

  ‘Look at me.’

  She squinted, trying to focus as he held two fingers in front of her face.

  ‘Do you know your pupils are the size of pinpricks?’

  ‘“Prick” being the operative word.’ She made a grab for the bottle again and missed by about twenty nautical miles, her coordination skills—along with her dignity—now completely shot.

  ‘Why do you need this stuff anyway?’

  Why was he looking at her like that—all stern and concerned? And why couldn’t she remember how to speak?

  The plane made a lumbering turn onto the runway, then gathered speed. Her stomach lurched up to slam into her larynx. She gripped the armrest hard enough to fracture granite, her nails gouging the leather.

  Flying is safe. Remember Rain Man. You are not going to die.

  ‘Dammit, Hal, since when have you been scared of flying?’

  She would have shot him another give-me-a-bloody-break look but she was far too busy clinging on for dear life.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something sooner?’ he added.

  Because it’s stupid and irrational and humiliating and I’d rather lose a limb than admit a weakness to you.

  ‘I’m not scared of flying,’ she said, her fingers now fused with the leather. ‘I just have issues with the whole concept.’

  ‘What issues, exactly?’

  He wanted to have a conversation about this now? When they were both about to die?

  Extreme exasperation got the better of her terror for a second
. ‘Gravitational issues,’ she snapped. ‘Such as, how does a huge metal box that weighs several tons stay airborne?’

  The plane tore away from the runway and her stomach—and the last of her courage—went into free fall.

  Please don’t let me start whimpering. Or puking.

  ‘Hal, it’s called aerodynamics,’ he said, all knowledge and reason when she was embarking on a major panic attack.

  His pure blue eyes blurred round the edges as she struggled to make sense of the statement. Her stomach rocked against her ribs as the plane banked. She caught a glimpse of chequerboard fields and ribbon roads dotted with toy cars through the window and slammed her eyes shut.

  Do. Not. Look. Down. The first rule of upchuck avoidance.

  ‘Excuse me if I’m not convinced by your knowledge of aerodynamics,’ she hissed through clenched teeth. ‘I happen to know you bunked off every physics lesson you ever had.’

  ‘I did an article on the aerospace industry for a tech website last year.’

  A weak scoffing sound was all she could manage, the rumbling thud of the plane’s undercarriage lifting into the fuselage echoing in her stomach.

  ‘And, by the way, this plane is mostly made out of carbon fibre, not metal, if that helps.’

  It didn’t. She couldn’t compute his words any more. Her head tipped back, anchored to the seat, as she ground her teeth hard enough to crack a molar.

  ‘Oh, God.’ She panted, hyperventilation the only way to keep breathing as the plane lifted into the cloud bank. Her stomach levitated into her throat. She swallowed convulsively to stop it vomiting out of her mouth. ‘I’m not ready to die.’

  That would be whimpering.

  A warm palm covered the hand she had superglued to the armrest.

  ‘You’re not going to die. You’re indestructible.’ His palm curled over her whitening knuckles and his thumb stroked the small scar on her wrist left by the burn he’d noticed in Paris. ‘If we crash, you’ll bounce.’

  She wanted to tell him he was right, she was indestructible, because she’d had to be. But she didn’t feel indestructible. And she had lost the ability to talk, every single muscle and sinew in her jaw and neck having atrophied.

  ‘I need a pill,’ she finally managed to squeak. ‘Please.’ The begging would have embarrassed her, but in the grand apocalyptic scheme of things, having Luke smirk at her while she died didn’t seem like such a big deal any more.

  ‘Is everything OK, Ms Best?’

  Halle prised open an eyelid to find the stewardess looking down at their joined hands with a benevolent smile.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Her whole body shuddered like an alcoholic recovering from an all-night bender. The stewardess didn’t look convinced. ‘If I could just …’

  ‘For Chrissake, Hal.’ Luke’s grip on her hand tightened. ‘You’re freaking out. There’s no shame in admitting it. Loads of people don’t like flying.’

  ‘I a-a-am not freaking out.’ She never freaked out. She happened to be a champion coper—even if her chattering teeth weren’t helping to emphasise the point.

  ‘Let go of the chair,’ he ordered. ‘You’re about to break your fingernails.’

  ‘If I let go, I’ll fall.’ The plaintive plea sounded childish, even to her.

  ‘You’re strapped in, Hal. You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘You won’t fall, Ms Best. This is an Airbus 380, the newest and best-designed plane in our fleet.’ The stewardess’s soothing tone managed to be even more annoying than Luke’s condescension.

  ‘You don’t know that,’ she whimpered.

  Luke’s thumb caressed the web of flesh between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I do. Now let go, I’ve got you.’ He massaged into the pressure point. And her fingers released instinctively.

  He threaded his fingers through hers and held on to her, just as he’d promised. ‘See, you didn’t fall.’

  She rolled her head towards him, which wasn’t easy given that the sinews in her neck had about as much give in them as steel suspension cables. And managed a small nod.

  ‘Now breathe,’ he commanded.

  Air swelled into her lungs and gushed out as the plane’s nose dipped to level off to their cruising altitude.

  ‘That’s it, keep doing what you’re doing,’ he prompted.

  She concentrated on taking deep, even breaths, willing her lungs to cooperate. But continued to cling to his hand. The seat-belt sign pinged off and the purser’s reassuring voice droned on about their cruising altitude and flight path. Her gaze drifted to the fluffed cloudscape floating beneath them outside the window. The panic settled to purr under her breastbone, like a sleeping tiger ready to snarl at the first sign of danger, but subdued enough not to bite off her head at the slightest bump.

  Luke squeezed her hand. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ she croaked, her throat sore as her neck muscles relaxed.

  ‘You sure? You still look pretty spooked.’ He searched her face.

  She took another careful breath, sighed when it didn’t hurt. ‘The take-off’s always the worse bit. I’ll be OK now.’ The Xanax must have finally kicked in, because she was starting to feel pleasantly numb.

  Way to go, Xanax, only twenty minutes late to the party.

  Luckily, Luke didn’t call her on her euphoric state, because she wasn’t quite ready to give him back his hand.

  ‘You look terrible,’ he said.

  Way to go, Luke. You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.

  ‘I’ll look a lot better once I’m sure we aren’t going to get struck by lightning, hit a freak snowstorm, get hijacked or generally encounter anything that might cause us to go down in flames en route.’ The burst of verbal diarrhoea came naturally as the extreme panic downgraded to a bogstandard bout of nervous tension.

  Nervous tension was doable. She knew how to handle that. She even knew how to use it to her advantage, because she’d had a lot of practice. Her nerves were an old and trusted friend.

  The show’s first executive producer had once told her that her reaction to stress was the secret of her success, because the sharp, perky motormouthed quips she used to cope entertained while also making her totally relatable. Embracing the horrendous stage fright before every taping had become a key part of her ‘Everywoman appeal’.

  ‘Just so you know, if any of that stuff happens,’ she added, on a roll as her body sank into the seat, ‘I intend to arm-wrestle you for the Xanax. You have been warned.’

  ‘If any of that stuff happens,’ Luke replied drily, ‘you’re gonna need to be Dwayne Johnson to get to them, because I plan to bolt the lot.’

  She laughed, the sound only slightly manic. And released his hand.

  He flexed his fingers, probably checking for fractures, and she noticed the dark indents where her nails had dug into his skin.

  ‘I’ll keep these just in case.’ He flipped the bottle and caught it one-handed. ‘No more legal highs for you. Unless the slaphead executive over there turns out to be a hijacker.’ He nodded at the bald businessman, who had already resumed typing on his laptop. ‘In which case, let the arm-wrestling begin.’

  He lifted his bum to shove the bottle of Xanax into the front pocket of his jeans, drawing her fuzzy gaze to his lap. The worn, comfortable denim cupped him, the metal studs of his button fly visible where the placket stretched over his groin. And a question from over twenty years ago popped into her head.

  I wonder if he remembered to wear his underwear today?

  Her pulse spiked and warmth settled into her lower body as she allowed her mind to drift into the safe, comforting fog of memory.

  Chapter 7

  She could smell dust and varnish and the faint whiff of boiled cabbage as she stood in the wings of the school hall’s stage, waiting to do her piano solo for the Year Ten end-of-term recital.

  Her school shoes scraped from side to side on the scuffed floorboards, her lungs sawing in and out. Clammy sweat trickled between her shoulder blades
as she undulated the fingers of her right hand, miming the opening movement of the piece she’d practised for hours the previous afternoon. It had to be perfect, or her mum and dad might start questioning the cost of her weekly piano lessons. Then they would surely ring her piano teacher, Ms Havilland, to ask what was going on. And Ms Havilland would tell them their daughter had stopped coming to lessons months ago, and then her mum and dad would know she’d been pocketing the five-pound lesson fee to sneak off and hang out with Luke at the precinct.

  And if that happened, her life would be over, because they would ground her forever and she’d never be able to see Luke again.

  So, basically, her whole entire life was balancing on the edge of a precipice, ready to plunge into the abyss at the sound of a single bum note in five minutes’ time.

  Wiry forearms banded round her waist and a calloused palm captured her gasp as her captor hefted her back into the secretive darkness backstage.

  The scent of Lifebuoy soap and the sweet whiff of marijuana had the blast of recognition careering through her and all thoughts of Beethoven, bum notes and imminent disaster shot out of her head on a wild rush of adrenaline and adoration.

  It’s Luke. Luke’s here. Luke will make everything all right.

  ‘Luke, you shouldn’t be here. Miss Giddings will have a fit,’ she whispered frantically, the thrill pumping through her as she absorbed the determination on his face.

  ‘Let her,’ he said, and his lips covered hers.

  Molly Tanner’s halting rendition of ‘Give Peace a Chance’ on the pan pipes dimmed, obliterated by the buzz of excitement as Luke’s tongue thrust deep, claiming her mouth in hungry furtive strokes. Rough fumbling fingers delved under the skirt her mum had ironed for her less than an hour ago and found the plump, yearning flesh already dampening the gusset of her knickers.

  She cupped him in return—the illicit thrill of doing something forbidden streaking from the tips of her breasts to throb against his probing fingers. He hardened and lengthened against her palm, creating a big top in the coarse gaberdine of his uniform trousers.