A little more Gin

It's a crazy deadline day (as they all will be for a while), so I thought I'd post one of my favorite scenes from LEARNING TO PLAY GIN.

Enjoy!

“Planes are fun!” Nina said forty minutes later as she held the tiny bottle of vodka against the light of the flight attendant call button and watched the last drop of silvery liquid slosh inside. She seemed to revel in the doll-house proportions of the little bottle, the little buttons on the ceiling. The little carts. The little plastic forks for eating little TV dinners with little servings of chicken cordon bleu. Every frequent flier Julia had ever known complained about the narrow seats and cramped surroundings, but Nina acted as if she’d been waiting her entire life to find a place built exactly to her scale.

Of course, the vodka didn’t hurt.

“Aren’t planes fun?” Nina asked the man across the aisle who was glued to his Wall Street Journal. She patted his arm, reveling in the texture of his Brooks Brothers suit while he pretended she didn’t exist, even when she leaned closer and whispered, “I love flying.”

Julia reached across the seat and grabbed her best friend by her shoulders and pulled her back across the aisle. “Yeah, Neen,” Julia said, as she glanced around at the cabin full of staring people. “Did you know your seat reclines? Did you know you can take a nap?”

Julia tried to pry the bottle from her hand, but Nina pushed her aside and yelled, “Jason’s an idiot!” Then she looked at her best friend. Her face was part obstinate child, part woman-on-mission. “He told me I couldn’t go to that business conference in Cancun because I hate to fly. But I loooove flying!” she cried as she climbed onto her knees and looked all around the first class cabin.

“Jason’s an idiot!” she said again like it was brand new information. She looked down at Julia with a terrifying sort of purpose that, in Julia’s experience was usually followed by trips to the emergency room and/or bail money. She nodded in defiance as she said, “I should tell him he’s an idiot.”

Julia sat perfectly still in her leather chair and no longer cursed her small friend’s carrying voice or inability to be knocked unconscious. I should tell him he’s an idiot. The sentence echoed through the cabin, and instead of wishing the words would go away, Julia hoped that everyone, from the pilot to the poor soul in 47C, would hear them. She had been waiting her whole life to hear Nina say something of the sort. Maybe I should have gotten her drunk and put her on a plane years ago, Julia thought, realizing the power in vodka and thirty thousand feet of perspective.

“Yes,” Julia said finally, “you should tell him that.”

“Good! Right!” Nina chirped. “Will do!”

Nina leaned back in her seat, and Julia finally felt safe in closing her eyes. She felt her head fall to the window, and waited for fatigue to wipe her mind blank and sleep to take her, then she heard someone yell, “Cell phone!”

She bolted upright and ripped the device from Nina’s hand before she could punch send.

“Tell you what, Neen. Why don’t we call Jason after we land?”

“But—"

“Or you could write him a letter,” Julia offered. “A nice, old-fashioned letter that he can save and read over and over again.”

The idea of eternal torment must have appealed to Nina because she ripped a piece of paper from the legal pad on the tray in front of Mr. 3A and asked Julia for a pen.

Dear Jason,

I am on plane. Far far above ground and everything looks tiny—especially you!!!

I am going to California with Julia, but while I’m there I’ll probably become very, very famous because you won’t be there to embarrass me by sending back your meat one hundred million bazillion times and snapping at the waiter and, oh yeah, WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING ON YOUR LIP? Gross. On behalf of women everywhere, gross! Gross! Gross! Gross! Gross!

(FYI women aren’t impressed by men who spend that much time thinking about their own faces. It shows they don’t have anything better to do…like build stuff or cure a disease or something.) And while you’re at it, lose the pinkie ring, Elton.

I am just so very happy to be NOT MARRIED TO YOU because many, many NICE men want to marry me. In fact, very nice business traveler-type man in 3A has just said he will marry me if his wife has tragic accident or terrible Lifetime Television for Women-type disease. Just wrote my phone number on his hand with lucky blue ink pen to seal the deal!!!

So see, I’m going to be wonderful, tanned, Mrs. 3A living in California. You are more than welcome to come visit. You can stay in the pool house (like on the O.C.).

Okay, just asked Mr. 3A if he has pool house, and he said no but that if he married me we could move, so see, there’s you a place to stay…in my pool house!!!

So, I’ll send you a postcard when I get there or an invitation to my wedding to Mr. 3A or at least a card with the address of our pool house!

Love, Sincerely, Best Wishes, Goodbye forever!

Nina