The Lion's Den(7)

They look at me with pity for a painfully long moment before Wendy scratches my arm with her French-manicured nails—an incurable habit that I assume evolved from her theory about light touch being ingratiating. “Don’t want you retching all over the jet,” she teases. “I get a little woozy facing backward, too, but take Claire’s seat. Claire, you don’t mind, do you?”

Claire shrugs amiably. “Okay.”

“You sure?” I ask.

She smiles, gathering her things. “It’s not a problem.”

“Oh my God, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And I’m so sorry for making you move. I owe you one.”

“I totally understand. Anyway, I’m on a private jet. I really don’t care where I sit.”

I’m just settling into my seat next to Wendy when the older flight attendant approaches, a look of alarm on her face. “My apologies. I’m going to need you to take your assigned seats for wheels up.”

“It’s okay,” Wendy explains. “Claire switched with her.”

The stewardess smiles tightly. “I know. But unfortunately, I’m going to need you to take your assigned seats.”

I blink at her. “But the other flight attendant said—”

“Mr. Lyons has requested that everyone take their assigned seats for wheels up.” She gestures toward my seat. “Please.”

Wow. Okay. I unbuckle my seat belt and collect my things like a toddler punished for throwing her green beans on the floor at a fancy restaurant.

As I move past the stewardess, she mouths, Sorry. I can’t quite bring myself to smile back.

I sink into my rear-facing seat, again doubting my choice to come on this trip. In a daze, I buckle my seat belt and reach for the airsickness bag tucked into the arm of my chair. At least I’m by a window. Across from me, Rhonda and Brittani are engrossed in a celebrity magazine, tittering over the cellulite of some reality star.

Amythest pats my hand, her violet eyes exuding genuine sympathy. “Sorry,” she whispers. “That totally sucks.”

“I’m sorry if…” I gesture to the airsickness bag.

“It’s okay. I hold Brittani’s hair back, like, every Saturday night. And sometimes Fridays, too. And Thursdays. And…Well, you know. I’m pretty much an expert.”

As she fiddles with one of her many silver earrings, I notice the script etched into the inside of her forearm. It reads TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE.

“Polonius,” I smile, recognizing the line. When her eyes flit to mine in confusion, I indicate the tattoo. “From Hamlet?”

“Oh, no, that’s from a Reba song. ‘Fancy’?”

Of course. “Oh yeah. I like that song. Ever been on a private jet before?”

The tiny purple stone in her nostril glints in the sun as she shakes her head.

And with that, the jet is hurtling forward. The ground rushes away faster and faster until we lift into the air. I look out the window, my palms sweating.

The endless grid of Los Angeles lies beneath us in all her glory as we climb into the sky. The dark-blue sea appears to be held back only by the thin line of sand that separates it from the rows upon rows of homes sprawling across the basin and up the sides of green mountains that turn to umber as they rise past the line of irrigation.

“Two kinds of neighborhoods in LA,” I say, “the ones with blue pools and the ones with blue tarps.”

“I’ve always wanted a pool,” Amythest says. “But I don’t know how to swim.”





(ten years ago)

Georgia



I lay on a plastic lounge chair in the scorching Georgia sun, staring up at the milky blue sky through scratched sunglasses. The day was still, the rhythmic rise and fall of the cicadas interrupted only periodically by the spray of water from the pool filter as it slapped the concrete, turning the stone darker for just a moment before evaporating.

The oppressive midday heat ensured I had the pool to myself at this hour. If I blocked out the chain-link fence and NEWBURY PARK COMMUNITY POOL sign, I could almost imagine it was my own.

Someday.

Beads of sweat glistened between the round of my breasts in the new string bikini I had to hide from my father. I’d just turned sixteen, and while I’d been a head taller than most of the guys in my class since I was twelve, I was a late developer, so this was the first summer I’d gotten to enjoy having the curves of a woman.

I sat up, took a long swig of my quickly melting blue-raspberry slushie, and contemplated the five feet between my chair and the pool. Slip on my flip-flops or hazard frying the bottoms of my feet on the blazing stone? I decided shoes were too much trouble and sprinted the short distance on tiptoe before cannonballing into the pool.

As I dove through shards of light in the aqua blue and flipped upside down for a handstand, I heard a muffled voice calling my name. I surfaced, squinting in the sunlight, to see hot-pink toenails in bedazzled flip-flops.

“You need a pedicure,” Summer said.

“I know.” I looked down at my fingernails, which still had traces of dirt under them from working with my mom in the garden that morning. “Manicure, too. I was gonna do them last night, but my dad made me play chess with him.”

“You guys are such nerds. I love it.” Summer perched on a lounge chair and took out a cigarette, frowning across the street at the low line of my house. “Your mom’s not there, is she?”