The Trouble with Flying (14 page)

P.P.S. I
thought
that most recent photo of you on Facebook looked suspiciously like a lettuce leaf …

_____________________________

From:
Facebook

Sent:
Sun 22 Dec, 7:48 am

To:
Sarah Henley

Subject:
Aiden Harrison has accepted your friend request

_____________________________

I’m lying on my tummy on my slow-leak mattress typing a reply to Adam about how individual plucking of his hair can most certainly be arranged when the Facebook email about Aiden accepting my friend request pops up. Feeling a zing of anticipation shoot through me, I tap my way to my Facebook app and log in for the first time since I logged out on Friday morning. Now that we’re officially Facebook friends, I can check out everything Aiden’s posted on his wall. And that does
not
make me a stalker. Everyone does this. It’s just one of the ways people get to know each other in the modern age.

Wait. Hang on. That probably means Aiden’s checking out my profile.
Eeek!
I quickly go to my own page and scroll through it to see if there’s anything overly embarrassing there. Aside from some less-than-attractive photos of Jules and me posing at various tourist destinations in London, my page seems fairly tame.

I navigate back to Aiden’s page and start looking through his recent activity. He doesn’t seem to be on Facebook too often, not like those people who post and comment and share and like
hundreds
of things every day. The most recent item on his wall is a digital artwork of a ship on a choppy sea with a woman standing at the bow looking out, her hair blowing back from her face. A dramatic sky is filled with orange, red, and dashes of purple, the colours reflected in the water. It’s originally from a page called The Luminaire Artist, and Aiden’s shared it along with one word: ‘Awesome.’ I have to admit, I agree. Sophie would definitely appreciate this.

I open a private message to her—no way am I sharing the image directly from Aiden’s page, otherwise he’ll know I came straight online to snoop around his profile—and type, ‘Found this cool artist’s page on FB. The Luminaire Artist. Kinda reminds me of some of your stuff. Check it out.’

I’ve just pushed ‘Send’ and gone back to Aiden’s page when a shout from downstairs—“Breakfast is ready in ten minutes!”—reminds me that Nan said she was cooking a fry-up for everyone this morning. I drop my phone onto my pillow and jump off the mattress. I am so not sitting at the breakfast table with creased pyjamas and hair that looks like several mice crawled through it during the night.

I grab my shower stuff from my suitcase as Elize rolls over and mumbles, “Mmwawasthat?”

“Breakfast in ten minutes,” I say, then run down the passage.

By the time I get back to the bedroom, she and Simone are gone. I hurry downstairs to the dining room and find the enormous table already crowded with people. Matt waves me over, and I slip into the seat he saved for me before everyone looks up to see who walked in late. The table is laden with plates of bacon, eggs, mushrooms, sausages, tomatoes, baked beans, and toast. Despite having already consumed a ton of food this weekend, my stomach grumbles in anticipation.

Matt squeezes my knee and says, “I’m glad to see your face doesn’t look anything like Rudolph’s.”

I frown at him. “Rudolph?”

He gestures across the table. I look up, and when my eyes fall on Aiden, I start laughing. “Oh no! How did you get so burnt?”

Aiden touches his red cheeks and his even redder nose. “I thought I put sunscreen on, but I must have imagined that part.”

“I guess your English skin just wasn’t ready for our sun,” Matt says. There’s a tightness to his voice that matches his grip on my knee. He smiles at Aiden, but I know him well enough to know it isn’t a genuine smile. “So,” he says, turning back to me, “everyone seems keen to hang out by the lake today. Shall we take one of the rowboats out?”

“Uh, yeah, that sounds nice.”

“Cool.” Matt reaches for the nearest serving spoon and starts dishing food onto my plate. “I guess you’ll have to keep out of the sun today, Aiden” he says. “Wouldn’t want that burn to get any worse.”

***

Matt stays close to my side for the remainder of the weekend. He says it’s because he wants to spend time with me after our weeks apart, but it kinda feels like he’s watching me. By the time he and I leave mid Monday morning, I’m feeling rather smothered. Saying goodbye to everyone I know in the farmhouse takes a bit of time—and is hardly private—so I don’t get to say much more to Aiden than ‘Goodbye,’ ‘Nice to meet you,’ and ‘Maybe I’ll see you again before you leave.’ I half expect Matt to start interrogating me about my last words to Aiden the moment we’re in the car, but he doesn’t mention it.

“You know,” I say once we’re driving down the dirt road away from the farmhouse, “I could have driven myself here. Now you have to drive all the way back after dropping me off at home.”

“It’s fine,” he says, his eyes on the road. “I like driving you around. Besides, I’m seeing an old school friend this evening. Wiggins. You remember him, right? So I’m only driving back here tomorrow.”

“Christmas eve,” I murmur, wondering how it snuck up so fast.

“Yip.” Matt turns onto the tar road. “Big family Christmas at the farm.” He turns the radio up as a news broadcast comes on. I watch the mountains growing smaller and wonder if this is what the rest of my life will be like: Matt in the driver’s seat and me doing little more to influence the direction of our journey than a passenger.

The sun bakes the roof of my trusty old Opel Corsa as it carries me along the coastal road towards Ballito on Tuesday morning. With no air conditioning, I’m forced to wind the window down to keep myself from melting. The air whips strands of hair across my face and fills the car with that distinctive smell of the sea. The ocean itself is startlingly beautiful. With barely a breath of wind to churn the crests of the waves into white horses, the water is a glistening stripe of deep blue, bleeding into almost-green as it reaches the shore.

I turn off the road and drive up to the imposing entrance of Zimbali Coastal Resort. Like always, I feel completely awkward and out of place, as if I’m a lowly commoner trying to gain entrance to the royals’ palace. My little car is like a piece of tin compared to Ostentatious Oversized Vehicle Number One that just drove past me and Extravagant Expensive Vehicle Number Two that glides into the estate ahead of me beneath the residents’ boom.

I pull up beside the guardhouse and wind my window all the way down as the guard walks over. “Hi, uh, I’m here to visit someone. I’ve got a code.” I remove my phone from my handbag and find the message Livi sent me this morning. I show the screen to the guard, who leans down and squints at the numbers. He nods, then disappears back into the guard house where I see him speaking briefly on a phone. He returns and hands me a plastic access card.

“You know where to go?” he asks me.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He opens the boom for me, and I drive beneath it. I follow the perfectly paved road past the resort and hotel area and towards one of the residential areas. All the houses are at least four times the size of my parents’ house, but nestled amongst the trees and other expertly maintained vegetation, they somehow manage not to look so grandiose.

I make a few turns, drive beneath another boom—hence the access card I was given—slow down to allow a buck to leap across the road, and eventually arrive at Livi’s house. I head up the driveway and park in front of the garage next to a white Jetta I recognise as Adam’s mom’s car.

Excitement races through me as I reach around to grab a beach bag from the back seat. It’s only been a year since I saw my friends, but after having spent every day of high school with them, it’s felt more like an eternity.

There were four of us—Alivia, Adam, Logan and I—who gravitated towards each other at the beginning of high school and formed one of the nerd herds. It would have been nice to be popular, of course, but as long as I had a few good friends I wasn’t terrified of speaking to, I didn’t mind what label I had.

At the end of high school, I decided to study in Pietermaritzburg with Matt, Logan went off to the gigantic, popular University of Cape Town, Livi got herself an au pair job with some noble family in Germany, and Adam went to America to spend the year working and travelling. Logan obviously became too cool to stay in contact with his nerdy high school friends, but Livi, Adam and I exchanged emails throughout the year. They told me all about their exciting experiences while I studied hard like a good girl and wished I had been brave enough to take an overseas gap year like they did.

I slam my car door shut and skip up to the front door. I consider knocking, but Livi always seems to be too far inside the house to hear me. I twist the knob and step inside the palatial home Livi’s parents decided would be adequate for them and their only child. I leave my handbag and beach bag on the table in the entrance hall and head to the living area. It extends across the whole front of the house with nothing but floor-to-ceiling panes of glass separating the inside from the outside. Beyond the infinity pool in the garden, the golf course stretches out, blending into a line of blue sea at the horizon.

I hear laughter coming from the direction of the kitchen, and I follow the sound. I step through the doorway and find Livi sitting on a counter while Adam shows her something on his phone. She looks up as I walk in. “Sezziiieee!” she squeals.

“Liviiiiiii!”

“Eeeeeee!” Adam joins in the jumping up and down. “Let’s all do the high-pitched, girly squeal thing!”

Livi punches his arm, and he falls all over the counter pretending to be injured while she runs across the kitchen and almost knocks me over with the force of her hug. “Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, don’t
ever
let me leave home again for so long.”

I laugh and squeeze her tight. “Like I could ever stop you.”

“I give you permission to tie me up,” she says as Adam slings an arm around my shoulder and gives me a sideways hug.

“Ooh,” I say, running my hand over his upper arm. “Did someone do some working out recently?” Adam is probably the ONLY guy in the whole world I can say that to without my face lighting up like a red traffic light. Five years of high school bonding will do that for you.

“I know, he is looking
so
good, right?” Livi says as she steps back to admire him.

“Sorry, ladies, but I’m already spoken for.”

Livi laughs and puts her arm around me. “Don’t worry, we wouldn’t dream of stepping on Jenna’s territory.”

“Never,” I add. Adam may turn out to be hotter than we could ever have predicted at school, but there’s no way I can think of him as anything more than a friend or brother. “So, are we doing this pool thing?” I ask Livi. “I see you’re all ready for the sun.” Her naturally orange-red hair is scooped into a bun on top of her head, the tied ends of a bikini are sticking out at the back of her neck, and she smells like she used a whole bottle of sunscreen.

“Well, clearly I’ve got some catching up to do.” She holds my tanned arm up and compares it to her pale one.

“You’ll never be as brown as me,” I tease. She sticks her tongue out, then crosses to the fridge and takes out three bottles of water.

“Where are your parents?” Adam asks.

“Oh, they’re playing golf today, so we’ve got the house—and, more importantly, the pool—to ourselves.”

“I’m just going to change,” I call over my shoulder as I head out of the kitchen.

Several minutes later, I step outside and join Livi and Adam on the warm stone tiles beside the pool. I lay my towel out next to Livi’s. Adam is on his stomach facing the two of us, and between our three towels sit a number of bowls of sweets, chocolates, and chips.

“Wow, you were serious about the junk food,” I say, helping myself to a handful of M&M’s.

“I’m always serious about chocolate,” she says.

After a few minutes in which we all sample the contents from every bowl, Adam says, “So how was London, Sarah?”

“It was amazing,” I say around a mouthful of cheese curls. “But I don’t want to talk about London. I want to hear about Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon and your epic road trip and the summer camp you worked at. And Livi, I want to hear about the family you stayed with and the brats you looked after and whether they’re actual, real-life royalty, and if you really did stay in an actual, real-life castle. And what about the BOY you mentioned?”

“Oh, total swoon!” Livi falls dramatically across her towel and dangles her hand in the pool. “You are going to love this story. Well, except for the ending. That part kinda sucked.”

Adam groans. “Can’t you keep the swooning-over-foreign-boys stories for a time when I’m
not
around?”

“Fine.” Livi raises herself back onto her elbows. “The spotlight’s on you then, Mr Anderson.” She grabs her water bottle and holds in front of Adam’s face like a microphone. “How is Miss Jenna Mackenzie?”