From now on, she thought, she would put her own needs first, family, love. She couldn’t afford to end up one of these lifer-widows with too much makeup and a boob job. She was old enough already. Time was running out.
They pulled up in front of the corporate town house just after seven, the dusky London sky a rich midnight blue. Rain was forecast for tomorrow, but right now it was perfect summer weather.
“Looks like there’s only one other crew tonight,” Stanford said, pocketing their itinerary as they climbed from the car. “Chicago-based.”
Emma felt a twinge of something—worry? dread?—but it vanished almost as quickly when Chelsea gave her arm a squeeze.
“A quick bath and a vodka and we’re off,” she said.
Inside, they found Carver Ellis, the copilot for the Chicago flight, and two flight attendants dancing to French pop songs from the 1960s. Carver was a muscular black man in his thirties. He wore chinos and a white tank top, and smiled when he saw her. Emma had flown with Carver a couple of times and liked him. He was lighthearted and always treated her professionally. Seeing him, Chelsea made a purring sound. She had a thing for black guys. The flight attendants were new to Emma. A blond American and a pretty Spaniard. The Spaniard was in a towel.
“Now it’s a party,” Carver said as the Frankfurt crew rolled in.
Hugs and handshakes were exchanged. There was a bottle of Chopin vodka on the kitchen counter and a crate of fresh-squeezed orange juice. From the living room windows you could see the treetops of Hyde Park. The song on the stereo was a drum and bass loop, sultry and infectious.
Carver took Emma’s hand and she let herself be twirled. Chelsea kicked off her heels and jutted a hip, her hands lifted toward the ceiling. For a moment they danced, letting the energy of the music and the thrum of their libidos rule them. The groove had a pocket you felt in your loins. How amazing to be young and alive in a modern European city.
Emma took the first shower, standing under scalding water with her eyes closed. As always there was that feeling in her bones that she was still moving, still hurtling through space at four hundred miles per hour. Without realizing, she began to hum in the steamy glass stall.
People of the Earth can you hear me?
Came a voice from the sky on that magical night.
She towel-dried, her toiletry kit hanging from a hook by the sink. It was a testament to MAC’s efficiency, organized by region—hair, teeth, skin, nails. Standing naked, she brushed her hair with long, even strokes, then put on deodorant. She moisturized, first her feet, then her legs and arms. It was a way to ground herself, to remind herself she was real, not just an object hovering in midair.
There was a quick knock at the door, and Chelsea slipped into the bathroom with glass tumbler in hand.
“Bitch,” she said to Emma, “I hate that you’re so thin.”
She handed the glass to Emma and used both hands to squeeze the imaginary fat around her own middle. The glass was half full of vodka over ice with a floating slice of lime. Emma took one sip, then another. She felt the vodka moving through her, warming her from the inside.
Chelsea pulled a glassine envelope from her skirt pocket and cut a line of coke on the marble countertop, working with professional efficiency.
“Ladies first,” she said, handing Emma a rolled dollar bill.
Emma wasn’t a huge fan of cocaine—she preferred pills—but if she was going to make it out the door tonight she needed the pick-me-up. She bent and put the roll to her nose.
“Not all of it, you saucy cunt,” said Chelsea, slapping Emma’s naked ass.
Emma straightened, wiping at her nose. As always, there was a physical click in her head as the drug hit her bloodstream, the sensation of something in her brain being turned on.
Chelsea racked the line and rubbed the remaining powder into her gums. She took Emma’s brush and started in on her hair.
“It’s gonna get wild tonight,” she said. “Trust me.”
Emma wrapped herself in a towel, feeling every thread on her skin.
“I can’t promise I’ll stay out too late,” she said.
“Go home early and I’ll smother you in your sleep,” said Chelsea. “Or worse.”
Emma zipped her toiletry kit. She knocked back what was left of the vodka. She pictured her father in a dirty white tee, frozen forever at twenty-six. He walked toward her in slow motion. Behind him a bigger man fell to the ground.
“Just try it, bitch,” she told Chelsea. “I sleep with a blade.”
Chelsea smiled.
“That’s my girl,” she said. “Now let’s go out there and get proper fucked.”
Coming out of the bathroom Emma heard a man’s voice. Later she would remember the way her stomach lurched and time seemed to slow down.
“I took the knife away from him,” said the man. “What did you think I’d do. Broke his arm in three places, too. Fucking Jamaica.”
Panicking, Emma turned to duck back into the bathroom, but Chelsea was behind her. They knocked heads.