“Guys, apparently my perfume is offending people now,” she told her screen.
She flipped her hair over her shoulder. It hit me squarely across the face.
“Careful, sweetheart. Your hair just hit me.”
“I’m standing in line.”
“Personal space is still a thing.”
I stepped back. She whipped her head around again.
This time it caught my hand.
“What?”
“Your hair.”
“It’s called volume.”
The cashier lost it completely.
“Whatever. Some people just can’t appreciate good hair.” At the door she turned. “Maybe you’re just jealous.”
“Of the perfume? Not particularly.”
She left. The smell stayed behind like a guest who hadn’t noticed the party was over.
The cashier scanned my present. “Lucky granddaughter.”
I zipped it into my purse and went to find my gate.
I was certain of two things. I’d never see that girl again, and the present would reach Emily in one piece.
I was wrong about both.
My row was near the back. I got there at the same time as the perfume.
Heavy. Sweet. French.
An older gentleman in my row was heaving his bag toward the overhead bin.
The blonde stopped one row ahead and spun around to show her followers the cabin.
Her hair spun with her, half a second late.
It caught him across the face. His glasses went one way. His bag went the other.
I caught the bag.
“Thank you.” He retrieved his glasses. “I believe I’ve just been assaulted by a shampoo commercial.”
“Should I file a report?”
“It would be a long form. There’s a lot of surface area.”
He smiled. “Harold.”
“Martha.”
“Martha, I do hope she isn’t sitting near us.”
She sat down directly in front of my seat.
Of course she did.
“Oh my God. Not you again.”
“What a small world.”
“Are you following me?”
When the seat belt sign went off, she stood up in the aisle with the phone held behind her.
“Okay, guys, you asked for the back view.”
“Eight hundred dollars, guys. Look at that length. Worth every penny.”
She turned slowly, like a rotisserie.
Then she sat down and flung the whole thing back over her seat like laundry on a line.
It landed on my tray table, down my armrest and, one strand at a time, across my forehead.
“Not now. I’m live.”
“I’m sure your viewers are impressed. I’d be more impressed if it stayed on your side.”
“Oh my God. It’s hair.”
Harold leaned in. “Eight hundred dollars. I paid less for my first car.”
“Did it come with a steering wheel?”
I laughed. It helped, for a while.
But an hour later, I was ready to launch myself into orbit from sheer rage.
“Seriously, why are you so obsessed with my hair?”
“I’m not obsessed. I’m simply sitting behind it.”
My hair is short and silver now, and I don’t miss the old kind.
I raised three children and buried a husband, and I’m not apologizing for a single year.
“Actually, I had rather lovely hair during the Reagan administration.”
She laughed. “See? Ancient history.”
Then the lunch cart arrived.
The flight attendant’s badge said Kelly.
Brittany flung her hair back to take a selfie with her tray, and the ends went straight into my rice.
She didn’t even turn. “Then don’t eat it.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Problem solved.”
“Lady, you’re making a huge deal out of nothing.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have my fork up there, would you? It seems to have disappeared.”
Across the aisle, a teenage boy snorted. His mother pinched him. Her own mouth was twitching.
I pressed the call button. Kelly took away my tray and asked Brittany to keep her hair on her side.
Kelly left. Brittany turned to her phone.
“Guys, apparently I’m not allowed to have hair on this plane.”
Then she flung it straight back.
“Oops.”
My replacement lunch arrived.
I ate in peace for exactly two minutes.
I don’t like flying, and I’d ordered a small glass of white wine for my nerves. When the plane shook, I held it with both hands like a chalice.
Then the hair went in.
Not near it. In. The ends swirled in my wine like a paintbrush in a jar.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
“Your hair is in my wine.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be drinking at your age anyway.”
“I beg your pardon?”
She lifted the phone over the seat.
“Guys, she’s giving me the angry grandma look!”
“Relax. I have eleven hundred people watching. You’re, like, a sidebar.”
“Shall I call Kelly again?” Harold asked quietly.
I looked at the wine I no longer wanted to touch.
“No, Harold. I think I’ve had enough.”
I reached under the seat for my bag.
Brittany kept streaming.
I took a hundred-dollar bill from my wallet and let it flutter down beside Brittany’s feet.
She looked down, folded forward, snatched up the bill and stuffed it in her purse.
“Guess you’re not completely blind after all. Thanks.”
Of course she took it. In her world, everything that fell near her was hers.
But the hair was long enough to be in two places at once. The rest of her went down.
The hair stayed draped over her seat, the ends heaped on my tray.
I opened the present.
I took a generous handful. I worked it into the ends, then twenty inches up the length for good measure.
I’d meant to leave a small reminder.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Harold murmured.
“Then keep your hair to yourself.”
Brittany sat up.
The boy across the aisle saw it first.
“Mom! Look!”
“Don’t stare.”
“What? What are you all looking at?”
Nobody answered. The boy had both hands over his mouth.
She flipped her phone around to use it as a mirror.
The stream was still live, so eleven hundred people got the view with her.
Pink. Glittering. Sitting on her shoulder.
She poked it. Her finger came away connected to it by a thread.
“IS THAT SLIME?!”
“Slime, sweetheart. It was meant for my granddaughter. You’re an early adopter.”
“Your hair was in my lunch. I thought we were exchanging things.”
“THESE EXTENSIONS COST EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS!”
“Yes, dear. You’ve mentioned that. I’d keep my hands away from it.”
“DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”
The slime didn’t tear. It stretched, a long glittering rope from her head to her hand.
Her acrylic nails sank in like forks into spaghetti.
When she pulled free, pink slime stretched between her fingers like melted cheese.
She wiped it on her jeans, then the armrest, leaving some on both.
She shook her head, and a sticky strand slapped her cheek and stayed there.
I felt like I’d taught her a lesson, but I had no idea what it might cost me once we landed.
She grabbed at it with the hand holding the phone. The phone stuck to her palm.
“Mom, she’s making cotton candy!” the boy shouted.
His mother tried to shush him. She was laughing too hard.
“YOU OLD WITCH! LOOK WHAT YOU DID!”
Kelly came hurrying down the aisle.
“Ma’am, please sit down!”
“I WANT OFF THIS PLANE!”
“Ma’am, we’re at thirty-five thousand feet.”
And that brings us back to the screaming. One woman, one cabin, and my crime on her head.
Kelly got her into her seat. The phone was still glued to Brittany’s palm, screen out, pointed at her own face.
“Somebody turn it off! The stream! I can’t, my fingers are stuck!”
“Hold still.”
I took the phone by its edges with a napkin, found the red button and pressed it. It took three tries.
The screen was slimy.
I couldn’t help seeing the last screenful before it went dark.
LMAOOO
somebody get her some oil
why is nobody helping her
bro she literally threw her hair in grandma’s lunch for an HOUR
grandma is my hero ngl
“What are they saying?” Brittany asked.
“Really?”
“Mostly.”
Kelly crouched beside my seat. “Ma’am. Did you do this?”
I’d had my childish fun. Now it was time to act my age.
“There’s an empty seat next to her. Please fix it quietly.”
Big trouble was probably waiting for me.
Harold passed my salad over the seat back and held out the little bottle of olive oil.
“Why would I let you touch my hair again?” Brittany said.
I tested one strand. A drop of oil, a patient thumb, and the slime let go.
“Don’t touch the clips,” Brittany said.
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I raised three children, and one of them had a gum problem. This was easier than gum.
Kelly came back, bending low.
“Yes!” Brittany snapped. “Absolutely!”
Kelly looked at me.
“I understand,” I said.
But I didn’t expect that this brazen blonde would manage to surprise me even more.
“I’ll need to document what happened,” Kelly said. “I’ll check back with you before we land.”
She left.
“My extensions cost almost everything I had left this month.”
“Because I wanted to look good.”
“You already did.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Try me.”
“Everyone online looks perfect. Perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect everything.”
“And you think buying all that will make you happy?”
“That’s an expensive maybe.”
“I couldn’t afford the perfume either. I’m twenty-eight. I already feel old.”
“Oh, sweetheart. You’re talking to a seventy-three-year-old.”
“And I’m having a perfectly lovely time. Apart from this flight.”
She almost smiled.
I didn’t lecture her. Hands are better than speeches.
“Your hands look like my grandma’s.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Does she still?”
“No. She passed a few years ago.”
I picked up three clean strands.
“Well, I haven’t forgotten how.”
The slime was gone. What was left was a very oily, perfectly intact head of extensions.
I braided it into one plain braid, so nothing could catch on the seat again.
“It’s a salad. Wash it twice and you’ll be fine.”
“I haven’t worn a braid in years.”
“It suits you. You’re a pretty girl, Brittany. You don’t need eight hundred dollars of upgrades to prove it.”
“I’m sorry I kept throwing my hair at you. And for what I said about your age.”
“I know.”
I tied off the braid.
“And I’m sorry I put slime in your hair.”
“Yeah. That was pretty mean.”
Brittany looked at her braid.
“Thank you for fixing it, though.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
Kelly returned a few minutes later.
“Ma’am, about the police. Do you still want us to request that they meet the aircraft?”
Brittany hesitated.
“No. I changed my mind.”
Kelly nodded.
After she left, I turned to Brittany.
“Why did you change your mind?”
“Because I know what the video looks like,” she mumbled.
“What does it look like?”
“Like I had it coming.”
“I’d have put it more kindly. But I wouldn’t have put it differently.”
She gave a small laugh.
I didn’t know whether I should tell her the rest.
“And, sweetheart, I believe you picked up something of mine.”
“A hundred dollars.”
“That was YOUR money? I thought it was mine!”
“Of course you were, dear.”
I pretended to believe her. It was the kindest thing I could do for both of us.
She dug out the bill and handed it over.
“Apology accepted.”
I went back to my seat. Harold had kept it warm, or at least unoccupied.
“Would you like to get coffee when we land?” he asked.
“Are you always this forward with women on airplanes?”
“Only the dangerous ones.”
The captain announced our descent.
Emily would get a check instead. We’d buy a replacement together that weekend.
