“This is a non-stop flight to Baltimore Air Lines. Please make sure your seat belts are fastened and that your seats are in their upright position for take off. Thank you.”
Toran seized her hair up in a brown claw clip as she leaned back in her blue seat, surprisingly not nervous about her first flight, only nervous and upset about Billy, well, that’s a different story. She reached down into her black Kate Spade bag for her cigs and lighter, but then caught eye of the red ‘No Smoking’ sign blaring at the front of the plane. She grunted slightly.
Toran shut her bronze-dusted eyelids as she searched blindly for her open bag of salty peanuts with her hand. She was amazed how they gave the bags away for free. She thought you should pay extra to get peanuts on your flight. They were like drugs, so addicting. The plane was a little jumpy as it sailed up turbulently into the velvet blue sky, Toran’s peanuts rolling from her ivory pull-down tray and plummeting backwards on the maroon rug to the bathrooms, Toran’s hands gripping the ivory armrest a bit harder than she intended, her fingernail imprints embedded into the soft material when she let go, the plane sailing smoothy through the sky like a ship on the open seas. No one sat in the window seat next to her, but she didn’t want to get too comfortable, Toran’s mind rolling over and over about Billy for the past few days. Billy was torturing her, not returning her phone calls, not answering her emails, cutting her away from him like some unwanted appendage. She took a chance and called Benji, who was reluctant at first to talk to her, but told her that Billy went home for a week before he’d be back in New York for the album release. She couldn’t wait a week. She couldn’t wait a second.
She begged Matt, her boss, to give her a few days off even though it was such short notice, literally falling to her knees and groveling that she’d make it up to him in any way before Matt grudgingly gave in, saying he’d give her 3 days off but not a minute longer. Toran tried to convince Krys to join her, but Krys was two months behind on her rent and needed to make some cash. Krys didn’t seem very enthusiastic when Toran told her of their destination, anyway. So here was Toran, a lone crusader trying to fix what has been broken.
Toran popped a few more peanuts into her mouth like pills and crunched away, salty extracts falling onto her white tank top and jean jacket like early snowflakes, before she reached for a set of airline headphones. She didn’t need to think about her and Billy’s situation, think of the future, think of what she would say to him, God, she’d done enough of that these past 72 hours. She wanted it to all come pouring out with real emotion when she saw him, without second thought. New Found Glory began to drown her many thoughts as she wafted away to sleep.
~*~
Billy looked up at the black clock in his basement apartment and saw it was 12:53AM, and he was doing laundry. Most people would be clubbing or going to bars or watching TV for Christ Sake, and here he was fuddling with his new washer machine and listening to Frank Sinatra. Wow, he was cool.
Billy heard thunderous knocks at his rickety oak front door as he closed the washer. He weaved between piles of clothes and his treasured second-hand patched furnature towards the front, his 25 inch TV emitted static instead of pictures on the right, his bedroom was to the left, small but cozy, his chincy dining room table on the right holding left-over Chinese food underneath a single light bulb. He may be in a band and they may have a following, but he didn’t need to live extravagantly, considering he was barely ever home. He wanted to stick to his roots when he was a confused, belittled 18 year old trying to make a name for himself.
He cautiously looked through the black drapes, curious to who would be banging on his door so late. All he saw was the scar and the door bolted open, Toran staring up at him with fright with his suddenness, a black duffel bag slung over her shoulder.
“Don’t speak,” Toran warned him, holding one of her fingers to his lips as she forced her way in and slammed the door with her foot. “I don’t want to regret what I have to say to you.” She dropped the bag next to the broken coffee table and pushed Billy on to the couch. Toran climbed on top of him and straddled his waist, Billy utterly confused at this method of making up, but enjoying it.
“First off,” Toran began fiercely, releasing her hair from her clip as it sliced in front of her eyes, “I wanted to tell you how much of a dick I think you are with the way you acted the other day. You treated me so harshly, like I wasn’t worth the time of day. You made me feel cheap, little, just like some of those other guys do and you’re so much more to me than that, Billy. I could always count on you, and I felt, in a way, you let me down the other day. You’re not all to blame. I shouldn’t have shut you out so quickly, hiding behind my ‘façade.’ And why the hell haven’t you been answering your cell and email?! You’d marry those things! Anyway, I was just trying to be honest…”
“And I appreciate that,” Billy interrupted, grazing his hand up her arm, Toran lowering her head from his touch. “But you can’t tell me you feel nothing for me. God can strike me dead if I’m wrong.”
Toran hesitated, leaning her elbows on Billy’s shoulders, her hair dangling above Billy’s eyes like leaves from a willow tree as she sighed. “I do feel for you, Billy,” Toran admitted, leaving a baby kiss on the tip of his nose, “But…it’s just so hard…to trust what you feel, you know?”
“Yeah,” Billy agreed, gently tucking her hair behind her ears as she smiled a little. “All I’m asking is to take it slow. Hell, I’ll show up at your door with roses and a cheesy smile and introduce myself to you if I we have to take it that slow! I just want to try. We will see where it goes from there.”
Toran’s eyes became wide with anticipation, her smile beaming through the dimly-lit apartment. “Then you don’t care anymore that I strip?”
“Of course I do,” Billy demeaned, causing Toran to shrink back a little, Billy taking hold of her elbows and then her hands, “But if I need to share you with 100 guys, I guess I’ll have to deal. I care for you that much. And you will always know that I’ll be here waiting for you. Just…”
“What?” Toran asked, placing her hands on the hips of his red plaid pajama pants and smiling seductively.
“Please,” Billy began, his eyes pleading, “Try to stop escorting? That’s all I ask. I want to be the only one you sleep with, the only one who feels what other guys are missing. Until you agree to that, Mount Saint Billy won’t erupt for you. You can strip from here to L.A. if you want, just don’t…”
“I here you, Billy,” Toran interrupted with a giggle, brushing her hands genially through his black hair, “I’ll try to be good for you.”
~*~
The night progressed well from there. It was 2 AM and they were both cladded in their pajamas, a bowl of popcorn between them, ‘Clueless’ playing on HBO, and Billy was getting down to the nitty gritty about Toran’s past. It was an enlightening night, and Billy was glad to be the shoulder Toran cried on.
Toran’s dad ran off on her and her mother, Patricia, right before Toran was born. Toran though her mom, Nana, and herself were happy, never a ‘broken’ family, always made the best of Father’s Day and Christmas without a man in their lives. Then 1989 came around, and Toran’s world crashed around her. She happily walked into the bathroom one night to show her mom her art project and found her mother in a bloodsoaken tub, her hazel eyes icily staring at the ceiling, a glass of red wine shattered and spilt over the bathroom tiles like thinned blood, Gloria Gaynor belting through the CD player about how she would survive. That was only the beginning.
After 4 years, Nana didn’t have the strength to take care of an active, rambunctious 12 year old because of her osteoporosis. Toran wasn’t mad at Nana, but felt a little resentment as she was shipped to a foster home 3 hours away, and several after that, about 6 in total. There were good times, and then there were bad times, just in any “family,” but Toran never felt like she belonged thrusted into the middle of some other people’s “movie.” One of her stepfathers abused her physically, one of her stepsisters abused her psychologically, and the rest abused her emotionally, feeling that she would never belong or amount to anything. Every few days she would cry in the comfort of her own sanity, knowing she would be her own boss someday, that she wouldn’t have a stepmother to give her homemade haircuts that would give her never-ending ridicule in school, knowing she wouldn’t have a stepfather who yelled and slapped her around when she didn’t clean off the table in time, knowing she wouldn’t have a stepsister and stepbrother who would make up stories to get her punished, knowing she wouldn’t have stepparents who stayed out all-night at fancy dinner parties and couldn’t give her a minute to hear she got an A on her Math test. She didn’t owe those people shit and kissed the ground when she turned 18.
~*~
“So are you up to speed now?” Toran asked with a tiny smile, raking away excess salt hugging her cheeks.
“Toran, I…” Billy started softly and guiltily, wringing his hands together and downcasting his face, flabbergasted at all she told him. “I’m…I’m sorry I wasn’t there. It sounded like you needed a friend.”
“It takes two to tango, Scratchy,” Toran informed Billy, munching on some popcorn from her cupped hand. “But I have a friend now, an amazing friend.”
“And maybe something even more,” Billy responded, leaning over and gently tasting her lips…