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They met at the airport.
One wore a knitted v-neck pullover. Another wore a finely-tailored suit with no tie. There were businessmen with frameless glasses, lost children with Dora the Explorer backpacks, people who looked famous, people who were famous, old ladies in floral shirts with short white hair and fawn-coloured shoes, an Asian woman in a turtleneck and straight-leg jeans. I wore a dress with no sleeves. They were going to Sydney, to New York, to Japan. It was sunny inside. It sounded like a restaurant but smelled like an office. Every minute an aeroplane took off. Every second minute an announcement was made, Now Boarding, Final Call, Check-In Closing. It was my mother’s birthday. Below, in front of, around me – cars and planes and buildings, a child’s set of toys – the reflection of the sky in the airport windows muted it, transformed it, made it squiggly and pink instead of light and blue. I listened to the Dresden Dolls. I listened to the Smashing Pumpkins. I listened to the announcements and the sound of cutlery on crockery. I listened to their conversations as they sipped their champagne. I listened to The Final Countdown and examined my arm-hair-regrowth. I relaxed, I tensed. Two hours til boarding time. I bought my mother a book. I wore a pearl necklace and painted my nails silver. I needed scissors.
There were exit signs and toilet signs; there were men in hard hats and yellow shirts. There were backpackers with jeans; there were men who put up their feet and read The Age. There was a couple, a man and a woman, with short razor-edge haircuts and thick-framed glasses, who drank champagne and looked like alternative lesbians. Her arse was huge, his jaw was shadowed. I was not supposed to be here.
“How old are you?”
“I’m fifteen.”
“Okay. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s okay, I’m not going to kick you out, just don’t let anyone at the bar give you alcohol or we’ll lose our license.”
The place needed Amanda Palmer. I listened to Vermillion Lies.
Behind me sat a man in a yellow tie and a pale blue shirt. He had a face like Obama and hair like an Arab. I listened to Velvet Revolver. He drank red wine.
It was all meaningless. A man with a white handlebar moustache asked me for a tissue. I said I didn’t have any but offered him band-aids. He accepted. I’m not sure what he’s going to do with it. I believe it is orange and has images of Bart Simpson on it.
The food was free. I didn’t eat. The windows were warm. I was wearing too much make-up. My carry-on baggage is well over fifteen pounds. I won’t tell them.
I listened to the Hives and watched the men make phone calls and sip their white wine, their red wine, their sparkling wine. The men without suits drank beer.
I was alone, I was afraid.
There were round white tables and red leather oyster-chairs and brown suede armchairs. The carpet was a zebra and the lamps were giant white spheres of hemp. It was arrogance, it was modernism, it was bullshit.
I got on the plane. Business class, they treated me like I was special. They gave me hot cloths and coke in wine glasses and pasta. I listened to the in-flight radio.
The seats reclined in unison as soon as the seat-belt sign went off. We were all class, our tray-tables came out of our arm-rests. “Would you like a newspaper, miss? We have the Age, the Australian, the Financial Review, and various others upon request.” I took the age, and looked at the cartoons. The woman next to me looked at me as though she were better than me. Fuck you, you’re just jealous because you have too much pride to look at the damn cartoons – don’t think I can’t see you looking at them over my shoulder.
The plane landed and I realised that I’d been asleep for five minutes. I hope I snored. Fuck you, business class.
I sat on the sink in the bathroom next to baggage claim and fixed my make-up. I met Mum and we searched for Dad.
They bought fish and chips.
I bought vegetables.
We drove to my grandpa’s house. His sister died. He has the flu.
I’m afraid.
It’s cold and I miss being small and feeling invincible.
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