And then, as if to somehow prove she wasn’t in agonizing pain or maybe to distract herself, she decided to make conversation. Marcy and Lydia were sitting across the aisle of the plane from her, so she looked over at them.
For most of the flight, none of them had spoken much. Harper was reading the book, Gemma was trying futilely to sleep, Lydia had some of Audra’s notes laid out on the tray and was going through them, and Marcy was typing feverishly on her phone.
“Are you texting someone?” Gemma asked.
“No, I’m using Twitter.”
“You paid, like, twenty dollars for in-flight Internet so you could tweet?” Gemma asked, and for a second, she was too stunned to notice that it felt like a swarm of mosquitoes was trapped inside her brain.
“Wait.” Harper looked up from her book. “You have Twitter?”
Marcy shook her head. “There’s so much you don’t know about me.”
“What’s so important that you have to tweet en route to Charleston?” Gemma asked.
“I’m just talking to Kirby,” Marcy replied noncommittally.
“Kirby Logan?” Harper closed the book and leaned forward in her seat, so it was easier for her to see Marcy. “Are you guys like dating now?”
“What are you doing?” Marcy looked over at them, narrowing her eyes behind her glasses. “Why are you interrogating me about my love life? I never do that to you.”
Harper scoffed. “You ask me about my love life all the time!”
“Yeah, but I just do that to be polite,” Marcy said. “I don’t actually care.”
“That makes it so much better.” Harper rolled her eyes.
“Doesn’t it?” Marcy asked.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend, Marcy?” Gemma asked, since keeping this conversation going really did seem to take her mind off the pain. At least a little bit. “I’ve never heard you even talk about going on dates.”
“Ladies don’t kiss and tell.” Marcy turned her attention back to her phone. “And I’m a lady in the streets and a freak with the beats.”
“It’s a ‘freak in the sheets,’” Gemma corrected her.
“What?” Marcy shook her head. “No. I play the steel drums. I don’t do anything with sheets.”
“Marcy has had boyfriends,” Lydia said. She rubbed her neck and looked up from the notes. “She was really serious with this guy in high school. Keith.”
Lydia and Marcy were both nine years older than Gemma, so neither she nor Harper had known them in school. But Lydia had graduated with Marcy and had been really good friends with her, and Gemma just realized that Lydia might have all kinds of fun dirt on her.
“Keith?” Harper sounded dubious. “That’s such a normal name.”
“Yeah, I thought you would only date guys named Bram or Xavier or Frodo,” Gemma agreed.
Marcy rested her head against the seat and sighed. “Okay, first of all, I’m not gonna date a hobbit. And secondly, obviously those names would be way cooler, but I don’t get to pick my boyfriends’ names.” She paused, thinking. “Actually, I wonder how committed Kirby is to his name. He’s always looked like a Stanley to me.”
“How is Stanley better than Kirby?” Gemma asked.
Lydia leaned forward, resting her arms on the tray table, and gave Gemma and Harper an impish smirk. “Oh, and Keith was a football player.”
“He was third-string and benched the whole season,” Marcy said in an exasperated way, like she’d explained this a hundred times before. “He was also on the math league and a founding member of the paranormal society. It’s that last fact that attracted me to him, and I was willing to overlook the whole ‘jock’ thing to be with him.”
“Wow.” Gemma shook her head. “I just can’t picture you like going on dates or kissing or anything.”
“You shouldn’t picture me kissing. That’s gross and weird,” Marcy said.
“They even went to prom together,” Lydia added.
Marcy groaned. “Oh, my god. This is the longest flight of my entire life. When are we getting there?”
“Marcy went to prom? Seriously?” Harper snickered.
“I know!” Gemma agreed. “I couldn’t believe it when Marcy told me last week.”
“Right?” Lydia sounded as shocked as they were. “For a little bit, I was afraid that it might be some trick, and the football team was gonna go all Carrie on her. But nope. She didn’t win prom queen, and Keith really liked her.”
“That prom was horrible, though. Pig’s blood would’ve been an improvement,” Marcy muttered, and began typing on her phone again.
“There really is so much I don’t know about you, Marcy,” Harper said.
“What are you tweeting now?” Gemma leaned into the aisle, trying to read it.
“I’m not tweeting anything. I’m Googling to see if anyone has developed teleportation technology so that I never have to go through this again.”