I’m going to have to do some major butt-kissing when I get back.
While I am happy about not having to visit my hometown this time, I am not exactly jumping through hoops about the fact that I’ve got a twelve hour flight to London followed by a five hour train journey to the far side of Cornwall. I’m going to be knackered when I get there. Belle has planned my journey to the second, so at least I know when I arrive she and Dan will be waiting for me at the train station, ready to give me a lift to the party house so I can spend way too much time with the family I moved over five thousand miles to get away from. Oh joy.
***
‘Is this your first time flying?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘Why would you ask that?’
The young man sitting next to me nods towards my hands. I hadn’t even realised I was doing it, but I’m slowly but surely tearing up a sick bag into tiny pieces.
‘Oh. My sister is getting married,’ I say by way of an explanation.
‘So you thought you’d, what, make extra confetti?’ he teases.
I playfully throw a handful of shredded paper at the total stranger. Thankfully he takes my gesture as intended – as a joke – and doesn’t have me manhandled off the plane by an air marshal.
‘I’m heading home for my little sister’s wedding. She’s twenty-four. I’m twenty-nine and I’m single.’ I stare at the stranger expectantly until he works out what is so wrong with that. It doesn’t take him very long.
‘Rather you than me, sweetie,’ the stranger says as he sweeps his long fringe from over of his eyes. ‘You should have paid someone to be your date, get everyone off your back.’
‘Oh, they would never believe I was a reformed character with a sudden respect for monogamy. It was only a couple of days ago I called my sis and told her she could come and stay with me if she wanted to call it all off. Anyway, it’s too late now – unless you’re not busy,’ I jokily suggest with a wink.
‘Honey, they’d be far more likely to believe you’re a romantic than they would me being a straight guy.’
I can’t help but laugh. It did occur to me that my new friend was rather camp, but this is LA after all and you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
‘Anyway,’ he continues, ‘I’m going to London to try and meet a prince! I want to marry into royalty.’
‘I’m not so up on current events back home,’ I explain, ‘but I’m fairly sure most of the royals are taken and/or straight.’
‘Well aren’t you a Debbie Downer,’ he teases. ‘I’m Ethan, by the way. I suppose we should do names.’
‘Yes, we seem to have skipped that bit. A mere formality considering we’re already plane pals. I’m Mia.’
‘Yey! Plane pals!’ Ethan squeaks. ‘We can share our lunch and go to the bathroom together.’
‘I’m all for distributing the calories but it might look like we’re trying to join a different kind of club if we go to the loos together,’ I laugh.
‘Speaking of the not so exclusive Mile High Club – which I have been a proud member of since 2009…’ we slap each other a high-five, ‘… that cute flight attendant is checking you out.’
‘No! He’s gay, right?’ says the girl who was just preaching about not judging a book by its cover.
‘He’s straight. I’m the authority on the matter and he is hot for you.’
I smile back at the tall, muscular flight attendant. His gorgeous smile and his dirty blonde hair would usually make for my type, but he’s almost too pretty. Too polished and perfect. Of course, I can’t tell Ethan that this gorgeous creature’s teeth are too white. That his face is too symmetrical. That his clothes are too neat. He looks like he’d want to snuggle afterwards and that’s the last thing people do in aeroplane bathrooms.
‘Not my type,’ I insist to Ethan.
‘Your type isn’t gorgeous and crazy for you?’
‘Nah,’ I reply with a laugh. ‘You might be into that weird stuff, but I’m not.’
‘You like a bad boy?’ Ethan asks.
‘I do. I like them manly and dangerous looking. Rough and ready, heartbreakingly handsome, could have any girl they wanted – that’s my type.’
‘So you like the chase,’ Ethan concludes. ‘You reel them in and then you throw them back.’
‘Well, you know, if we’re sticking with the fish metaphor, you kill them when you catch them. What would I want with a dead fish? I just chuck them back, leave them for someone else to suffocate.’
‘Mia, honey, you are a case study waiting to happen.’
‘Why thank you,’ I reply proudly.
As the in-flight movie starts playing, Ethan and I – or the plane pals as we’re now known – both reach for our headphones. It’s some weird animated movie and all the characters are things you would find in the bathroom. I watch Ethan recoil in horror as he watches a talking toilet brush chatting with a “sexy” loofah with long eyelashes and lipstick.
‘What the hell?’ he asks me, before standing up in his seat and addressing the entire plane. ‘Can we get something with Ryan Gosling on please?’ he yells to no one in particular. Most of the female passengers find this utterly charming (they’re clearly Gosling fans) and applaud Ethan’s bold move.
‘Sir, if you’d like to sit down,’ the sexy cabin crew guy insists firmly.
‘Yeah, sit down,’ I whisper to Ethan as I pull him back down by his arm. ‘It’s not worth getting wrestled off a plane for Ryan Gosling – unless Ryan is the one doing the wrestling.’
‘Aw, would you miss me, plane pal?’ he teases me.
‘I would actually, because for the first time in days you have managed to stop me stressing about having to go to this wedding.’
And now I’ve just reminded myself again…
***
As we touched down on English soil everyone applauded the pilot for doing what he does every day of his working life. He’s landed the plane, we’re all alive, it’s a miracle, applause, applause. In a new twist, Ethan started throwing the sick bag confetti in the air – something that landed us absolutely filthy looks from the crew as we left the plane. I did still get a wink from the cabin crew cutie though.
I know it’s just a weird coincidence, but the more I tried to keep my mind off the wedding, the more things would crop up to remind me exactly what would be waiting for me when I got off the plane. The funniest of all was when the second in-flight movie turned out to be one of mine – and a wedding flick, no less. As Ethan gushed over the male lead, I decided it best not to tell him I had a hand in writing it, because I imagine it would take the shine off it a little.
After going
