ROW 38, SEAT C
“I guess we could pretend we didn’t cross a line”
“Yeah, yeah, no I hear you just fine mom, you don’t have to raise your voice at all. I’m still in the boarding area. Yeah, dad got me to the airport just fine. No, the traffic wasn’t bad. Not like Houston usually is. The flight got delayed another forty five minutes but it shouldn’t be any later. At least that’s what they’re saying now.”
The woman, visibly exhausted, was sitting slumped into the blue plastic chair. She nodded, muttered a few variants of “mhm, yep, of course, love you too” before taking out the ear buds and snapping them into their case. She sighed, dropping her forehead to her palm and then remaining there, with her elbow perched on the arm rest. Desperate for sleep, now 11:30pm, with her flight delayed over an hour already. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let her eyes close, and took one large deep breath and matching exhale before leaning back and sitting back up. Always one to book the cheapest flight possible, she’d anticipated the slightly gruesome red eye, but hadn’t been prepared for the lack of sleep the night before.
Quinn blearily looked around at her fellow passengers. The people watching in airports never failed to be prime entertainment and key observation for the oddest of human behaviors. But of course everyone in airports was acting fucking weird. Humans being in giant flying planes criss-crossing the world was never supposed to happen. No wonder everyone’s morality exponentially degrades here. Like Wonderland, where up feels like down, left is a Dunkin’ Donuts, and your connecting flight is three terminals (a mile and a half) away.
She peeked down at her phone screen, unwilling to open any of the eight unread texts. With a mild yawn, she shoved the phone into her sweatshirt pocket and instead opted for the book in her lap. She managed to read for a half hour, though, the last five minutes felt as if she had reread the same page three times. Then the intercom for their flight crackled, “Good evening passengers, I know it’s a late night but. This is the pre-boarding announcement for flight 1127 to Seattle. We are now inviting those passengers with small children, and any passengers requiring special assistance, to begin boarding at this time. If you could have your boarding pass ready, we’d sure appreciate it. Regular boarding will begin in approximately ten minutes time. Thank you again for all your patience.”
There was relief then. They were boarding. Unzipping her backpack, she shoved the book inside, and then slung the bag up and over her shoulder, while simultaneously standing. She could fill her water bottle, wander a few last steps, before it was time for her boarding group to be called. At least she was almost home.
Once abroad, Quinn found herself rather pleased with her seating arrangements. She normally couldn’t care less about where she sat on the plane. Ideally the aisle? But she didn’t find herself preferring to be towards the front of the plane. De-boarding was perhaps the worst of the airport related hells, and so, she thought “fuck it,” and booked a seat in the final row.
But luckily for Quinn, no one else did, and the flight once fully boarded had several empty seats scattered amongst the back five or six rows. With the row to herself, she wondered if she could spread out her legs, maybe use her backpack as a pillow. She had never had a whole aisle. The opportunities felt endless! She started by sitting in the window seat, rather than her assigned aisle seat. With an easy shove of her backpack under her seat, she picked back out her book, and her earbuds and threw on a playlist. Soon enough, she’d be able to sleep. Once they were in air and turned off those god damn overhead lights.
She let her eyes close and pressed play on one of the downloaded playlists, as the flight’s regular safety announcements commenced with a flight attendant at the front of the light, then midway by the exit doors. The monotony of “We ask that you please fasten your seatbelts at this time and secure all baggage underneath your seat or in the overhead compartments. We also ask that your seats and table trays are in the upright position for take-off. Please turn off all personal electronic devices, including laptops and cell phones.” Quinn blinked, and shook her head. The flight attendant, nine or so rows ahead, looked so much like Viv. She squinted, maybe it was just her exhaustion, but then sure enough. Five years later and Vivian looked…good. Quinn turned off her music, if only to catch the last of Vivian’s monologue.
Vivian and Quinn had dated for just over ten months, maybe just short of a year? Both of them had worked at the same coffee shop that year. It was a bit of a blur, back then. Vivian was four years older, probably 33 by now. Embarrassed to realize she was gaping while staring, she ducked behind the seat in front of her as the announcements and pedantic demonstrations of the seatbelts and life jackets and oxygen masks. She sunk into her seat and began thinking… Should she just pretend she didn’t see her? Pretend not to recognize her? Should she say hi? Would Vivian even be happy to see her? Oh god. What if Vivian doesn’t remember her. Not likely, but what if. The quick-to-catastrophe thoughts plummeted her already depleted brain.
And then, Vivian walked down the aisle and paused by her row. She turned her head, paused, “Excuse me, miss. You’re not sitting in your assigned seat.”
Quinn swallowed, miss, so she didn’t recognize her. Fuck fuck fuck. Quinn craned her neck and faced Vivian, her face flushed and hot, “Oh, um. Well. No. I am not.” She pointed at the empty seats. “But, uh no one is sitting there. So.”
Vivian’s face remained tepid. Quinn felt panic in her gut, one swell of nausea followed by sweat at the nape of her neck.
Then, slowly, she grinned at Quinn. “Hm. Still nervous about breaking the rules then, are we?”
Her breath left Quinn at that grin. She inhaled and chuckled, shaking her head. “I really thought you didn’t recognize me.”
“Quinn. You’ve got the same haircut. It’d be hard not to.”
Inadvertently, Quinn’s hand reached up and shuffled the mess of short hair on top of her own head. It’s true. Quinn had chopped off all over her at 22 and hadn’t looked back. Plus, once you find a barber who isn’t a creep because you’re a lesbian, you’ve gotta stick to that man until the day you die. Sheepishly dropping her hand, she let her focus drift up and down Viv. “And you look…different.”
Vivian peered up the aisle of the plane, as another flight attendant approached. “I know. But promise. Same old scamp. Gotta run, I’ll check on ya soon.” She winked at Quinn, and then took a step towards the back galley of the plane.
Quinn wasn’t exaggerating. Vivian looked good, but she certainly did not resemble her former self. In the last five years, her hair had gone from a dyed vibrant red to a natural dirty blonde, and had grown from a chin length bob to long enough to be coiled into a thick bun at the back of her head. She wore far more make up than back then, and yet, significantly less eyeliner. She wore the uniform navy blue pencil skirt and jacket of the airline, and a crisp white shirt. Kitten heels. Quinn frowned, as Vivian walked away, with the thought she’d never even seen Vivian in clothes so much as resembling business casual. Vivian of the torn-up tees and tactile cargo pants and worn-to-shreds Docs.
How the fuck did she end up here?
Which, couldn’t have been Houston, Vivian hated the sun. And Texas. So, where was she these days? Not Seattle. That’s what acted as the impetus of the break up, in the first place. Vivian pleaded for Quinn to move down to Portland, and when Quinn refused, Viv went without her. And a month into long distance (ironic to call it that, being a few hour drive away), but then Vivian had called — “I don’t know if this is going to work out.” Of course, it was a rather rambling and emotional phone call, about Quinn’s stubbornness writ large, about Vivian’s inability to stay anywhere longer than a year. The phone call ended as sweetly as it could.
She’d seen her, a few months later, at a New Year’s Eve party at Neighbors. Vivian, obliterated, and Quinn a few months sober. Vivian slurred a wet and warm kiss of a greeting into Quinn’s neck, but then disappeared into the throng of writhing and dancing and squealing queers. And then, now.
On a plane. Five years. And the exhaustion left Quinn’s body, replaced by a tingling across her skin. The hairs on her arms now standing. Quinn smiled to herself.
Vivian tried to keep her hands from shaking as she walked down the aisle of the plane, pushing the drink cart to the center of the plane, her jaw tight and a smile white enough to woo even the angriest passenger in the final hour of their 27 hour trip home from Taiwan. She poured mostly waters that evening. Several Diet Cokes. Five glasses of red wine. Three glasses of white. Handed off two whiskeys. A row of men in slick suits and a myriad of cloying cologne ordered Bloody Mary’s. At fucking midnight. She wanted to cringe, but smiled wider as she pushed her cart to the next row.
This flight was four hours, fifty five minutes. They’d do drinks now, and again, in four hours after many of the passengers had managed their half-sleep, necks crooked and snores a choir, amongst a sea of the flashing screens in each of the seats. Her feet were already hurting in these heels, this hour ten of the fourteen hour shift.
She tried to not keep glancing to the back of the plane. It was hard not to. Every time she looked she’d catch Quinn, who had moved to the aisle seat and was blatantly awful at hiding her own staring. Occasionally, they’d make eye contact. They’d both smile. Then Vivian would look down to the next passenger ordering and hand off pretzels and orange juice and again and again until finally she reached the back row.
Quinn looked tired, but as Vivian had already remarked, steadfastly the same. Quinnie the Pooh. Louis Quinster. Quinn, or rather Quintana Delgado, was as stunning as the first day she’d walked into that cafe seven years ago. Seven years. Vivian knew she had a crush, that Quinn would be trouble, she knew that first day. Quinn was shorter than her by a few inches, broad shouldered, and thick hips. Her short hair had always made her jaw line look sharp, against the rest of her softness. Even now, her jeans hugged her tightly, and the sweatshirt she wore stretched over her hips. Vivian’s smile shifted from something altogether false to a softer, less hard at the edges, the same gentle diminishing of the sun disappearing under the blanket of clouds day after day.
Quinn’s eyes looked hazy, but she cheered up and looked up at Vivian eagerly. Vivian felt a surge of guilt. She had the same effect on Quinn, even now. She could see it on Quinn’s face. She could feel it.
“And what can I get you to drink this evening?”
“I’d like a club soda.”
Vivian looked confused. “No mimosa? No whiskey coke?”
Quinn flinched, her mouth becoming a small grimace, before she shook her head with a shrug, “Eh. Not anymore. I’ve been sober for a few years now.”
It was now Vivian’s turn to flush, “Oh god. I’m so sorry for even saying anything.”
“It’s alright. Really. How would you have known?”
And like a small and precise knife cut, the paring of a honey crisp apple of its supple flesh, Vivian saw no flashes of memory. A vast blankness. She couldn’t even peg down in her memory, the last time she’d seen Quinn. Nothing. She then feigned a smile, “Well, a soda water it is.” She scooped ice into a plastic cup, cracked open a can of Schweppes and reached the cup to Quinn. Quinn accepted it, and as she did, the women’s fingers grazed. The electricity of their touch. Something that was now so drastically unfamiliar. Quinn nearly dropped the cup but took it into her hand and then nervously took a sip.
Vivian lingered, but then heard the other attendant rolling towards her down the aisle, and so she mumbled “I’ll be back in a few” and pushed the cart past the bathrooms and into the galley once more.
Quinn gingerly sipped the soda. Her stomach flip flopping. The skin of her hand, where Vivian’s forefinger and just barely touched, felt like it was burning. She took an ice cube out of her drink, plopped into her mouth, suckling as it melted.
An hour later, Vivian stood over a sleeping Quinn. She’d taken off her sweatshirt and turned it into a makeshift pillow. She’d shoved the arm rests up and stretched across all three seats. The other two attendants were in the galley, gossiping about their husbands, a conversation that Vivian could barely stomach on normal days. She poked Quinn’s foot, startling her awake. She jerked up with a half yawn and then pulled her knees towards her. Vivian took the opportunity and sat herself down in the aisle seat.
The lights in the cabin were mostly off, save for the sparse reading light. There was the sound of gentle breathing. The occasional snore. The whirling of the engines outside. The machine thousands of feet in the air.
“Sorry, if you need to sleep I can leave you alone, I just thought — maybe I could sit and chat with you for a bit? I feel like…I feel like I’ve missed out on some things,” Vivian said, her hands clasped awkwardly in her lap.
Quinn laughed gently, “Yeah. I’d say so. But then again,” she nudged her foot against Vivian’s panty-hose covered thigh. “So have I.”
Vivian smiled, “Let’s fix that then, shall we?”
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