Lilies are funeral flowers, said my mother in my ear.
A man in a black puffer jacket walked by swinging a long tube on a strap. It was canvas with a leather cap. It was my father’s fishing rod tube! How did that man get ahold of it? He had my dad’s worried expression, and then he saw someone in the distance and the worried expression vanished and he smiled with his whole face, exactly the way my dad smiled whenever he was waiting for me or my mother to get off the train.
No more, I thought, please no more.
But there was my childhood piano teacher. She drummed her fingers anxiously on the table as if she were practicing scales. Same sweet face, same long fair plait, except she was wearing a big hoodie and she wasn’t crying like my piano teacher cried, not at first, but as I watched she turned fast and knocked a can of soft drink over with her elbow, and then, as she tried to dab up the spill with paper napkins, her other elbow knocked her phone to the floor, and her face crumpled, as if she were about to burst into tears.
A man with Elvis Presley sideburns wearing a moss-green Ralph Lauren polo shirt stood with narrowed eyes checking the departures board. Ralph Lauren cologne in a green bottle and Elvis Presley sideburns. Once again, those two things together added up to something of relevance only to me and my life, my past, my memories, and I thought to myself, nobody has long sideburns like that anymore, nobody!
Everything meant something.
I closed my eyes and tried not to see all the signs, but it didn’t help because then my other senses took over. I could smell my mother’s scent (Avon: To a Wild Rose) and my auntie Pat’s cigarettes (Pall Mall slims). I could hear my father’s laughter when he saw the expression on my face when I caught my first fish (a good-sized yellowfin bream) and I could taste my grandmother’s scones (approved by the Country Women’s Association!).
I opened my eyes and saw my veiny, age-spotted hands and I told myself, Stop it. You are being so silly. You are embarrassing yourself. You’re imagining all this. This is just an ordinary departure lounge. You are not the center of the world and this is not all about you.
I felt confused and fearful and lonely. I felt filled with rage and resentment about the errand I had to undertake. I needed a cup of tea and a Monte Carlo biscuit.
A cup of tea might have solved everything.
Chapter 20
Eve is asleep in a sticky scratchy heap of chiffon and lace, her cheek squashed against the side of the plane, when she wakes with a dramatic audible gasp for air, as though she’s been pulled unconscious from the ocean and brought back to life by chest compressions.
So that is seriously embarrassing.
“Whoa!” says her husband, Dom. Her literal husband. He looks briefly away from his phone. “You okay?” He’s catching up on all his puzzles. He doesn’t want to lose any of his streaks.
“I’m okay.” She sits up, wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, and fishes another red rose petal out of her cleavage.
The rose petal cannon launchers had been a big hit. Maybe too big a hit. Some of their friends had looked like crazed soldiers spraying bullets. Dom’s friend Zeb had literally shouted “Attaaaaack!” outside the church, which was not romantic.
She tugs at the neckline of her dress.
Her mother had said, “Eve, you can’t get on a plane wearing that dress! You’ll be so uncomfortable. Change into something comfy!”
Could there be a more depressing word than “comfy”? As if anyone needs to feel “comfy” heading off on their honeymoon.
Her wedding dress had cost fifty dollars. It’s beautiful. Not like anyone else’s wedding dress. She likes to be different, although under-the-radar different, not I’m-making-a-point different. She tried to make her voice not show-offy each time she described her dress as “vintage.”
“As in secondhand,” said her mother.
“As in not made in a sweatshop,” said Eve. “As in eco-friendly.”
She’d found it in the back of a Vinnies store in Hobart on a rack with a sign that said Pre-loved Wedding Dresses. The woman in the shop said she thought it was around forty years old. “It’s got the seventies look to it,” she said. “Bishop sleeves were big back then.”
Annoyingly, her mother had pointed out the tiniest, smidgiest little stain on the hem.
“It looks like a little sun emoji,” said Eve.
“It looks like a little drop of urine,” said her mother, but then she must have felt bad because she said, “Princess Diana had a stain on her wedding dress, so you’re in good company.”
Which, ah, no, not good company, Mum, she got divorced and died.
Everyone said Eve looked amazing and nobody mentioned the stain and she felt beautiful all day, but honestly, right now, she kind of wishes she’d changed into track pants at the airport. It’s annoying when her mother ends up being right. She will not tell her.
Or actually she will tell her, one day, as a little gift, when her mum is stressed and needs cheering up.
It would have been fine if not for the long delay on the tarmac. They would have been in their hotel room by now. Probably without any clothes on.
It’s not so much the dress but her new lingerie that’s driving her crazy. She never normally wears this sort of scratchy, lacy, sexy underwear, but her friends convinced her it was like a literal legal requirement for your wedding night.
Dom might think if she’s changed her underwear he’s got to change his moves. Do more porn-y type stuff. Like choking. Choking is so fashionable right now. No, thank you.
“I think I was dribbling,” she whispers to him.
“That’s so hot.” Dom keeps tapping at his phone.
“I can’t wait to rip off my bra,” says Eve.
Dom looks up, grins. “Sounds good.”
“Then I’m throwing it in the trash,” says Eve.
“Okay then.” Dom looks back at his phone and chews his lip.
Eve scratches her head. Her hair feels like straw because of all the hair spray and there are a million bobby pins sticking into her scalp as if she’s a hedgehog.
Dom is perfectly comfortable in his tux. He’s unclipped his pre-tied bow tie so it’s hanging loose, not quite obscuring a cheerful chocolate splotch in the middle of his shirt. He probably hasn’t noticed, or if he has, he doesn’t care. Their wedding cake was chocolate, three-tiered, with seminaked vanilla frosting and edible flowers. It looked amazing, but Eve couldn’t eat any of it! She basically ate nothing at the wedding, she was too overexcited. It felt like she couldn’t take a full breath the whole day. Now she’s starving. She could have eaten forty of those “light snacks.”
