Page 71 of Stroked by (Stroked)
“I will ring the call button.”
The line of people looking to get in their seats is held up and due to the miniscule space planes offer, she is unable to step aside to allow others to pass.
“What is the hold up?” an angry man waiting to board shouts.
“Someone won’t take their seat,” another passenger offers.
The poor girl bites her bottom lip and looks around for help.
“Maybe you can climb over her?” I offer.
“Let me see. Can you take my bag?”
“Sure.” Grabbing her purse, I set it on her seat and then offer a hand. She’s mid-step over the elderly woman when the flight attendant makes her way toward us.
“Is everything okay?”
The girl retreats her foot back to the aisle way and says, “Um, this woman is not moving. We’re not sure if she’s responding.”
“Oh dear.” The flight attendant takes a closer look, at the same time as I do. It doesn’t look like she’s breathing. “Have you spoken to her?”
“We’ve asked her to move,” I whisper for some reason. “But she’s unresponsive.”
“Okay, let me get the paramedics.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the old lady says, springing up from her seat like a spry chicken, scaring the crap out of all of us. “Can’t an old lady find out more about this one’s pierced nipples from her boyfriend? Her texts were just starting to get good.”
A couple men tuning into the conversation stare at my boobs making me feel incredibly self-conscious.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” the flight attendant asks, some irritation in her voice.
“Of course I’m fine. Now move it along so I can sit back down.” The girl at the window seat stares at her blankly. “Go on, chicky. I don’t have all day.”
Scrambling, the girl scoots in and I squat on my seat, letting her in as well. We all take our seats as the waiting passengers grumble over the wait they had to endure. I duck my face away from them, avoiding eye contact and hiding my phone from the prying grandma next to me.
“For what it’s worth, your boobs do look like they could be prime meat for any man,” she says before putting on obnoxious set of earphones over her head and pressing down the play button on her Walkman.
“Oh my God,” I mumble to myself.
“She seems like a fun companion,” the girl next to me says, talking out the side of her mouth.
“Could be worse,” I whisper back, not sure if the lady is actually listening to a cassette player or if she is pretending to. “Could be a smelly dude with flaky skin.”
Shivering, the girl laughs. “So gross.” She sighs and looks out the window. “Here I am, sitting on a commercial flight when my boss is taking a private jet to Omaha. How is that fair?”
Private jet? That seems too coincidental.
“Your boss is taking a private jet to Omaha?” I ask. “So is mine.”
“Why does this feel like aParent Trapmoment?” She laughs. “Should we both pull up a picture of our boss and show one another on the count of three?”
“Could be a magical moment.” I laugh. “Let’s do it.”
With a smile on my face, I search for a picture of Bellini on the Internet and wait for the girl to do the same. When she’s ready, I count down. “Three, two, one . . .”
Flipping our phones to each other, we both display a picture of Bellini Chambers. Mine is of her holding Pope Francis on a sidewalk, an obvious paparazzi shot. The girl next to me picks a picture of Bellini with her mouth wide open, clearly screaming at another human being, most likely Pocket.
Together, we laugh and grab each other’s phones. “Man, I wish I pulled up this picture. Where did you find it?”
