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1
Unfriendly Skies
“Once again,we’d like to thank you for flying with us today.”
The flight attendant’s bored voice clicked off, and I looked around, waiting for my chance to stand. Regardless of whether I was in first class or not, I always found airplane seats just short of torture. Part of it was, of course, that I always thought the plane—any plane, on any flight I ever took—was only moments away from a fiery crash where not only everyone on board would perish, but also lots of people on the ground including homes full of happy families just sitting down to dinner. But, in spite of my whacked imagination and many neuroses, my profession demanded that I use airplanes. So, I did.
The commercial 777 wasn’t fully packed, but that was on purpose. In fact, of the sixteen seats in the first-class section of the plane, only five were occupied. There was mine, one for Oliver, my business manager, one for his assistant, and two seats for my security team. The rest, someone on my team had purchased just to keep them empty.
“Hey, I just got the numbers,” Oliver babbled, clicking through his phone as we waited for the passengers in the back three quarters of the flight to get off. “Advance ticket sales in London are off the charts. The Illusions Worldwide Tour is going to be huge. Here comes Lacey Connor, world,” he said with a shimmy of his shoulders.
He was beaming because he was going to make a fuck load of money.
I twirled one finger in the air, unimpressed. While touring was the way I made most of my money, it wasn’t like I had any sort of control over how many people bought tickets at that point. The machine was built, the key was in the slot. All I had to do was wind it up and play my role like a little marionette.
“Yay,” I mumbled.
Seriously, at that moment I gave exactly zero fucks. I’d just finished a four-month, twenty-five city American tour for my latest album, Illusions. Twenty-five cities in sixteen weeks was pretty much any touring musician’s definition of hell, with sleeping in strange places far away from friends and family, eating unhealthy food, rehearsing all the time, and doing multi-hour performances.
And in my case, not getting laid. Like at all.
I didn’t mean to sound like an ungrateful little bitch. A lot of people would kill to be in my position. And I had a team of people to help me with the inconveniences of being on the road. They took care of most all details including making sure my laundry was done, I had something to eat, I gargled with whatever crap some vocal coach decided I needed, and that I remained safe, out of the hands of any crazies or even just overzealous fans. Seriously. At one stop, back in the early days when I was stupid and thought all fans were nice, some girl grabbed a fistful of my hair. Lucky for me, all she came away with was a handful of extensions. No real harm done. I asked that no charges be filed. Not sure what the security team did with that one.
But the travel schedule, well that was something no amount of staff could make easier. I mean, they were traveling with me, so they faced the same hassles—if not more. But it didn’t matter. By the end of a tour I was a miserable, homesick shell of myself, wanting only to lock myself in a room for several months with my cat and dog, write some new music, and not face anything or anyone even remotely human.
But I was exhausted for another reason. It was why I had to sit on the plane until everyone but the flight crew was off.
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