Andrew shook his head, his smile growing. ‘You were honest. You say what other people are thinking but are too afraid to say.’
I didn’t respond. I’d heard that a few times in my life before, but usually I interpreted that as negative. But this time, that wasn’t how it felt.
Alcohol has always done one of two things to me. One, it makes me want to run away, find a soft corner, curl up into it and drift into a warm, relaxing sleep, or two, it knocks down all my social inhibitions, all my awkwardness, and suddenly, like a butterfly emerged from a cocoon, I turn into a social creature who moves and glides through the crowds with an ease I do not possess in a sober reality. I’m not sure how I feel about this socially lubricated version of myself, though. I find her somewhat embarrassing, but others seem to like her. They certainly want to talk to her more than they want to talk to me under normal circumstances, where I’ve been described as ‘prickly and standoffish’.
But today I was none of those things. I’d become the most socially amenable version of myself that had ever existed.
‘Why didn’t we ever hang out at school?’ Palesa asked me. She’d draped an arm through mine after the wine-tasting incident and seemed to have attached herself to me. Normally, I would have hated this, but today, social Pippa was going with the flow.
‘I guess we moved in different circles,’ I offered.
She let go of my arm and stood in front of me. ‘Isn’t that so stupid? How we all did that? Cluster into these little groups and never get to know anyone outside of them. It’s so ridiculous, looking back on it ten years down the line.’
A few others joined in the conversation and agreed.
‘I’m going to be honest,’ Yanilla said to Larissa, who had also joined us. ‘I was always so intimidated by you at school.’
‘What?’ Larissa looked taken aback. She and Yanilla had shared a dorm room.
‘You always seemed so sorted. Nothing ever fazed you. I remember, my first night there, I went to hide in the bathroom to cry, and you always seemed so strong. I never wanted you to see how much I missed home.’
‘Oh my God, seriously!’ Larissa pulled Yanilla into a hug, and the hug seemed to grow as more and more people joined in and agreed with the sentiment, that we’d really not gotten to know each other properly at school. Everyone, including myself, started promising all sorts of things out loud that I knew I wouldneverbe able to deliver on, like keeping in touch and getting together more often. In that moment, though, I’m sure Ireallymeant it.
As more wine flowed, so my lips loosened. I retold the story of the emergency landing that I’d had to deal with, much to the delight of all the people at the table. Andrew and I fielded questions about how many times we encountered emergencies. And when I’d told them just how many planes I handled in an hour, how many planes were up there all at once and how close they were to each other, they all gasped, shook their heads and vowed that flying would never be the same again. Andrew and I had become somewhat of a fascination, and for a moment I felt what it must have been like to be one of the popular kids at school. God, it was utterly exhausting, and I’m sure even more so when one didn’t have a spiritous liquid running through one’s veins.
But my new-found social freedom didn’t stop there. I laughed at their jokes – even though I didn’t understand most of them – I engaged in conversation about their children, congratulating them on their amazing ability to juggle the pressures of motherhood and work, and shaking my head and saying things like ‘I just don’t know how you do it all.’ They congratulated me on my amazing career and marvelled at how, on top of being an air traffic controller, I’d received my Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and Aviation Management and wanted to run my own airport one day. They said things like ‘Well, you were always the smartest at school,’ and Katie even admitted to sitting next to me in maths so she could copy my work. In fact, she’d thanked me profusely, as I was the only reason she’d passed maths.
Sober, I would have found this admission appalling but, like this, alcohol surging through the wiring of my brain, I only laughed and held my glass up for her to clink. We toasted and laughed and reminisced about things I could not remember but laughed along to anyway, because I was that way inclined. And Andrew played his role to perfection, like an actor delivering just the right lines at just the right time. He’d pulled my chair out when I’d gotten up to go to the toilet, and picked my bag up when it dropped off the table – all the things I imagine a real fiancé might do. And I was so grateful he was here with me.
With Andrew by my side, who had such an ease and lightness around people, I felt like I could be some other version of myself, and for those few hours while there, I quite liked this version, even though I knew I would pay the price of exhaustion afterwards for all this socializing. Socializing had that effect on me. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it all the time; sometimes (in small doses), it was enjoyable. But it was the after-effects that were hard to handle. Socializing left me with an energy hangover that could last anywhere up to a week.
At the end of what had turned out to be a very, very long afternoon, we began walking back towards the Uber. My head was spinning, especially when I closed my eyes, and my legs flapped about and wobbled like . . .
‘Sheets in the wind!’ I stopped walking and said triumphantly.
‘What?’ Andrew asked.
‘I am like a sheet in the wind! Well, three sheets, to be exact.’ I burst out laughing – I finally got it. I had a sudden urge to call my mother and tell her that I finally understood what she’d been talking about when she described Aunt Lulu as someone who was always ‘three sheets to the wind’, but didn’t.
‘I think it’s best to get the sheets home then,’ he smiled, supporting me by the elbow as I navigated the uneven paving of the driveway.
‘Was this driveway like this when we got here?’ I asked, astounded that I hadn’t noticed how uneven it was before. ‘I think I might have drunk too much,’ I said, my neck feeling less like it was able to support my head. ‘But it’s very deceptive. They bring you so many of those big glasses with tiny sips at the bottom and you don’t think you’re drinking that much until—’ I hiccupped mid-sentence, and Andrew laughed.
‘You’re a hiccupping sheet in the wind?’
‘Exactly!’ I stopped walking and looked at Andrew as seriously as I could, although there did seem to be two of him. ‘I feel bad for lying to them all. They were all so nice, and I was lying to them the whole time.’
‘That was kind of the point,’ he said.
‘I know. But now I just feel terrible. I hate lying in general, and I just lied to everyone there. And they were all soooooo nice.’
His lips curled into a small smile. ‘You’ve had a lot to drink.’
‘You know what I have to do . . .’ I pushed past him with a sense of purpose.
‘Wait, where are you going?’ Andrew followed me.
‘I have to tell them all. I have to go there and tell them all that I was lying, that we were lying, that we don’t even know each other, that this was all a giant deception.’
