Page 33 of The Sun Sister
‘Sure, I’m going. I’m real sorry, Electra,’ he said as he walked towards the door. ‘The last thing I meant to do was upset you.’
‘Well, guess what? You have! Big time!’
I marched ahead of him and held open the door.
‘Bye, Mitch. Have a nice life with your new wife,’ I spat.
Luckily for him, he said nothing else, because if he had, I may well have ended up doing time for murder. As he passed through the door, I slammed it behind him so hard that the glasses rattled in the kitchen cupboard. Then I slid down the wall and burst into great heaving sobs of anger and pain.
‘Can I get you anything, Miss D’Aplièse?’ the cabin attendant asked.
‘Yeah, a glass of tonic water with ice.’
‘Will you want lemon with that?’
‘No thanks.’
‘What about something to eat?’
I looked around my seat for the menu card.
‘Don’t worry, I have one here.’
He handed me the card. My head was spinning so hard, I could hardly focus.
‘I’ll take the stir-fry noodles and a side of salad.’
‘Perfect. Any wine to accompany that?’
‘No, just the tonic water.’
The attendant nodded and glided away down the first-class cabin. I opened up the bin in which my purse and duty-free were stored, and making sure no one was looking, screwed the top off the bottle of Grey Goose I had bought and took a swig. When the cabin attendant came back with my tonic, I’d drink half of it and fill it up with my private vodka stash. I lay back in my seat and closed my eyes, but there were weird bright lights pinging against my eyelids. I knew I’d done too much coke last night, and ecstasy didn’t suit me. It had been seven in the morning before I’d begun to come down, but by then, I’d taken a couple of sleeping pills. The next thing I’d known, I’d heard someone calling my name and had dragged open my eyes to see Mariam staring down at me, telling me it was time to leave for JFK.
‘Hi.’
Talk of the devil, I thought as Mariam appeared beside me from her seat in business class.
‘Hi,’ I said, looking up at her.
‘How are you feeling?’ she asked me.
‘I’m okay, thanks. It was a late one last night, that’s all.’
‘Well, the flight to São Paulo takes ten hours, so hopefully you can catch some sleep before we board the private jet up to Rio. You have a full day on the commercial shoot tomorrow.’
‘I know. I’ll be just fine, really,’ I assured her.
‘Did you contact your sister, by the way?’
‘No, I haven’t yet.’
‘Well, you can definitely see her tomorrow night, or on Thursday before we take the night flight back.’
‘Yup, I’ll get in touch with her when we land.’
‘Great. Okay, well, if there’s anything you need, just send the attendant to get me,’ Mariam smiled.
‘Will do,’ I nodded as my tonic water arrived with some cashews.
