Ask the Passengers

PASSENGER #5654

HELEN OBERLIN, SEAT 27F

FLIGHT #103

DETROIT TO PHILADELPHIA

“Ha!”

I bust out laughing so hard that I spit my ginger ale into the seat in front of me. It fizzes through my nose and burns like bad coc**ne. The guy next to me makes a disgusted face, and I give him my napkin. As I reach into my purse for a tissue to blow the ginger ale out of my nose, I can’t figure out what just happened. Did someone ask that out loud? Where did it come from? Am I hearing voices? Hallucinating again? And who doesn’t know that nearly everyone lies at some time in their lives in order to be happy?

In my case, I thought happiness was a lot of stupid shit. Drugs. Guys. Telling my parents off. More drugs. More telling my parents off. More guys. More drugs.

That shit isn’t happiness. But I thought it was. And I kept lying to get it.

What I also got was: two divorces, a kid who won’t talk to me, herpes, three stints in rehab and so much debt I went bankrupt.

What I have now is: nothing. So much nothing that at my age, I am flying to Philly to move back in with my mother. It’s pathetic.

To her, I’m the biggest loser who ever lived. And Mom never held back telling me that, either. Asking me, “Why couldn’t you be more like Robert?” Meaning my brother, who married his high school sweetheart and had three perfect kids. She can’t seem to stop telling me about them.

Truth be told, I’m scared shitless to move back in with her. I’m hoping she can see the good in me.

Just thinking this makes me so sad I look out the window and hold back tears. And I realize that I can’t even see the good in me. How can I expect Mom to see it? It’s twenty-nine years since I lied and left and made all those mistakes, and I still feel as bad about it as I always did. I run through the twelve steps of recovery in my head. I remember asking everyone else in my life for forgiveness, but I realize I never asked myself.

I ask the man next to me to get up so I can go to the bathroom. He does, still with that look on his face like I might have given him a disease from my ginger ale spitting. As I slowly walk down the aisle, I look at the people, and I wonder what they lied about in their lives. I want to ask for their help. How do I forgive myself? I have an imaginary conversation with them, and then they tell me: Just do it.

A minute later, as I wait in line for the bathroom and stare out at the beautiful Pennsylvania landscape, I get that feeling again—like I want to bust out laughing. I can’t control it. It’s worse than any drug giggles I ever got. I’m fifty years old and moving in with my mother, and I’m laughing my ass off. When I look to the other passengers, they don’t think I’m some junkie. They smile. I can almost hear them asking, What took you so long?

11

IT IS WAY TOO EASY TO GET INTO ATLANTIS.

LOOKING CONFIDENT and looking twenty-one are two entirely different things.

Right now, I’m pretty sure I look like a very nervous seventeen-year-old. And it’s cold out here, and we left our coats in the car. It’s a short line. Maybe three people in front of us. By us, I mean Kristina and Donna, Justin and Chad, and me. I am the fifth wheel.

“You have your money ready?” Kristina asks.

I nod, my five-dollar bill getting soggy in my palm.

“Don’t look so worried!”

“I’m not worried,” I say.

Kristina gives me the look. “You look scared shitless.”

“I’m not. Seriously. I was just thinking about something. That’s all.”

Yeah. I was thinking about getting caught. At first I was scared the bouncer might say, “Sorry, kids, I need ID,” but then I realized that would be fine. Then we could go home. Kristina could go back to meeting Donna at McDonald’s or the parking lot out by Freedom Lake and double-dating with Justin and Chad on Fridays like always, and I could go back to keeping my secret love for Dee stowed away in the deepest regions of my baffled heart.

We move forward, and we all hand him our five bucks. Donna says, “Hey, Jim. How you doing?”

Jim says something I can’t hear because the music is too loud and I’m concentrating on not passing out from fear. He smiles at me, and I know that he knows I’m seventeen. Then… we’re inside. Just like that.

It’s small. Maybe as big as the floor plan of my house. The bar itself is a big oval, packed two people deep. There’s about four feet between those placing orders and the walls. Donna and Kristina lead us past the bar to the dance floor, which is tiny. There are mirrors on two sides, and they skew my ability to figure out square footage, but I figure it’s twenty feet by fifteen feet, tops. It’s packed with dancing people. Dancing g*y people. People letting loose and not giving a shit what other people think about them, just as Kristina promised. People who aren’t thinking about small-town bullshit or, say, the humanities homework they have yet to complete. People who I wish I was.

We follow Justin and Chad into the back room, where they find a darkened corner and immediately set to work gnawing the faces off each other. Donna says she has to pee, so Kristina and I are left standing in the back room of Atlantis, looking around at the arcade games and vintage pinball machines, trying to pretend that we’re not seventeen. I pull my phone from the pocket of my jeans and check to see if anyone has called. No one. I check the time: 11:15. I am abruptly pissed off that all it took was a phone call from Jeff Garnet to convince my mother to let me break curfew. I’m pissed at how she said “Knock ’em dead” before I left the house. Let’s not urge our teenager to go and get laid quite yet, Claire.

They say: All normal teenagers are doing it. As long as they don’t come home with a disease or a baby, what’s the big deal?

They say: She hasn’t met the right boy, is all.

Donna comes out of the bathroom and looks ready to dance. She grabs Chad and Justin from the corner by the small coatroom and pulls them with her. The DJ puts on something techno and upbeat, and we head out to the dance floor like a tiny mob.

This is around the time when I remember that I don’t really dance.

12

TURNS OUT ASTRID JONES IS A ROBOT.

I LOOK AROUND THE DANCE FLOOR and see other people who are good dancers, and then I see myself in the mirror, and I see I am a nervous dancer. A barely dancing dancer. A robot. I don’t move anything below my waist. I look like I’m about to do a defensive drill during basketball gym class.

Upon noticing this, I become so self-conscious that I can’t stay on the dance floor, so I gravitate toward the edge, where people are standing around drinking, talking and watching. I turn to watch the people on the dance floor. There is a lot of grinding and shaking and virtual humping. Kristina is there by herself while Donna goes to the bar for two beers, and she’s really moving. Justin and Chad are nowhere to be seen. Probably back in the corner by the coatroom making out again. They get two nights a week to see each other, so they use them well. I get it.