I ask.
‘Maybe I’m just more used to drinking,’ he laughs. ‘Why don’t you get some sleep? It’s going to be a long flight. We can talk when you wake up.’
I think for a moment.
‘OK, sure. Thanks,’ I reply.
I really do need to get some sleep, but as I make myself comfortable I carefully and discreetly tuck my handbag at the side of my seat, keeping my money out of his reach. I’m not exactly sure how Jack could possibly steal it while we’re flying at 40,000 feet, but I’m not entirely sure I trust him yet…
The smell of maple syrup hits my nose before any of my other senses have chance to wake up. My ears soon follow, although the plane chatter is slightly muted, which means my ears must need to pop. Finally, I open my eyes slowly, just as I hear Jack roaring with laughter next to me. That’s when I realise that, at some point while I was asleep, I must have rested my head on his shoulder.
I sit up quickly, wiping the little bit of drool from my chin before he notices.
‘Having a lovely time?’ I ask sarcastically.
Jack notices me out of the corner of his eye and removes his headphones.
‘Huh?’ he asks.
‘I said, are you having a lovely time?’
‘Oh, you bet,’ he replies, smiling widely.
Jack is sitting comfortably, watching one of the in-flight movies while he tucks into a breakfast of French toast and bacon, covered with lashings of sweet-smelling maple syrup. His choice of tipple for washing his breakfast down? A glass of champagne, no less – not his first, I’d imagine, given how funny he’s finding this movie about a talking horse detective – Prancing Justice III.
‘You want a drink?’ he asks.
‘Not for a long time,’ I reply. ‘Y’know, lest I do something stupid like get married again.’
My husband laughs wildly.
‘You know what, I have a good feeling about this,’ he says.
‘That’ll be the champagne,’ I reply.
‘No, I’m serious. And it’s not just about the money – the money helps, don’t get me wrong. It will keep me going until I find another job, but… I don’t know. I don’t really have any family left so I don’t get invited to big family events like weddings.’
I pause for thought. When I moved to the States for uni, the truth is I couldn’t wait to leave life in Lancashire behind. I grew up in a small town just outside Blackpool, where everyone knew everybody’s business, and no one really had much going on. You’re born there, you grow up there, you marry someone from there and then you die there, leaving your kids to follow in your footsteps. I never wanted that to happen to me, so I got out of there as soon as I could, and avoided coming back like the plague. Sure, I’ve visited home over the years, but since John came on the scene, I’ve seen less and less of my family. The last time I visited, everyone was on my case about why I hadn’t brought John to meet them (I think my auntie might have been peddling a theory I’d fabricated him). The truth is, I was embarrassed. John is from a very well-off family and everyone in his line of business seems to be cut from similar cloth. He’s quite serious, bordering on stuffy sometimes, and I’d be lying if I said he wasn’t a snob. Taking him back to the town I grew up in, showing him the three-bedroom semi I lived in with my blue-collar dad and dinner-lady mum… It’s not that I’m ashamed of them, it’s just… I worried John would love me less if he knew where I came from. I know what you’re thinking: how did I manage to keep who I am from him? Well, let’s just say that even though I’m not a successful actress, I’m still a talented one.
‘Coffee then?’ Jack persists, snapping me from my thoughts.
‘Please,’ I reply.
As Jack calls over an air hostess and orders my drink, I examine his body language. He’s not like John at all. He’s so cool, with his relaxed demeanour and easy, charming way with everyone he speaks to. He reminds me of how I used to be, or how I thought I was, at least. The day I met John I was on my way back from an audition for the role of a rich, suburban housewife. I’d wasted a lot of time and a lot of effort on a lot of failed auditions, but I still wasn’t ready to give up, so I decided to take the clichéd, ‘dress for the job you want’ advice and wore exactly what I imagined a snooty housewife would wear. Turning up in the type of outfit I usually wore, like a plaid shirt-dress and pair of Converse teamed with bright-red lipstick and too much eyeliner, wasn’t going to cut it. From my pastel lemon twinset to my pearls, to my minimal make-up and newly trimmed bob, I looked nothing like myself and everything like the kind of girl who would catch John’s attention, it turns out. I was walking down the street, the weight of the world on my lemon-clad shoulders after yet another rejection, when a man sitting outside a café struck up a conversation with me.
‘How can someone be so sad when it’s so sunny outside?’ he asked me from over his cappuccino, which, I suppose, is just a posh person’s way of saying ‘cheer up, love, it might never happen’. As we sat and chatted I learned all about the kind of person he was, and having realised it was the temporarily classy-looking me who’s caught his eye, I kept the image up when he asked me on our first date, and then our second, and then it just stuck. Dating an orchestral pianist, going to his performances and the swanky events that go with them, hanging around with his fancy friends… I had to keep it up, or I never would’ve fitted in. His friends would mock girls in yoga pants and boys in flip-flops, and I would keep my head down, my mouth shut, and the door to my flat full of offending outfits closed, because I loved John, and I wanted his people to accept me.
Around the time I met him, I was starting to consider whether or not I should move back home. Not just because I missed my family, but because things weren’t really working out for me career-wise. Not only did he convince me I should stay because he’d help me find work (he’s worked on a few movie scores and said that he could introduce me to the right people in the industry – although that never happened), he promised me we’d start our own family someday.
I shouldn’t be thinking about this right now; I should be filling Jack in on all the info he needs to pretend to be my elusive fiancé. It used to really upset me he wouldn’t let me put things on Facebook – I thought he was ashamed of me. But right now I couldn’t be more thankful, because the fewer people know about him, the fewer facts Jack and I will need to stick to. We can ad-lib the whole thing, and there will be no one with a dated timeline of information to fact-check any of it.
I explain to Jack that no one knows too much about John, so it shouldn’t be too hard for him to keep up the act.
‘So, you’re an orchestral pianist,’ I remind him. ‘We live together in LA but you travel around a lot for work, and most of the time I go with you. I work different temp jobs, so it’s easy for me to take time off. I’m between jobs at the moment.’
‘Pretty sweet life you’ve got going on,’ he observes through a mouthful of breakfast.
‘Had going on,’ I correct him. ‘So, you love classical music, pop culture makes you angry, social media makes you furious—’
‘Do your family know this stuff?’ he interrupts.
‘They know he doesn’t have a web presence. Well, I mean, they’ve noticed he doesn’t.’
‘Do they know he’s boring and kind of a douchebag, though?’
‘He’s not…’ I jump to John’s defence then wonder why I’m bothering. ‘No, they don’t.’
‘Cool, so I can reinvent the guy, make him seem like you have better taste.’
‘Must you?’ I ask with a slight whine.
Jack