Part 2: Bubblegum Galaxy
Her eyes went wide.
Then she clapped both hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Her whole body shook. Her silver braids bounced. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Oh,” she whispered through her fingers. “Oh, you’re actually doing that? You’re my queen.”
She winked at me.
I smiled.
I reached down, slowly, and pulled the purple gift bag out from under the seat in front of me. I nudged the tissue paper aside, careful not to crinkle it.
Unicorn Sparkle Deluxe.
I opened the box.
Six little bottles. Rainbow colors. Glittery.
I chose the pink one.
Not just any pink. Bubblegum Galaxy. That’s what the label on the bottom said. Hot pink with silver and purple glitter hanging in it like stars. The kind of pink you can spot from across a parking lot. The kind a ten-year-old girl would love more than anything in the world.
I took out the quick-dry top coat too.
And the sheet of tiny stickers.
Bernie shifted in her seat. She leaned forward and angled her body toward the aisle, so that if he opened his eyes, the first thing he’d see would be her silver braids and reading glasses.
She pulled out her phone and pretended to scroll through pictures of her great-grandson.
“Go,” she whispered.
I turned around in my seat. I got up on one knee, facing backward, as if I were searching the overhead bin.
The man was still snoring.
His foot was right there. On my armrest. Relaxed.
I unscrewed the cap of Bubblegum Galaxy.
My hands didn’t shake. They never do when I’m painting.
I started with the big toe.
One stroke down the middle. Then one on each side. The same way I’ve shown a hundred thirteen-year-olds how to fill in a shape. Smooth. Even. Bright.
The glitter caught the reading light above his seat and sparkled.
He snored.
Second toe. Three strokes.
Third toe.
Fourth.
The little one, tucked under the others as if it were hiding. That one took care. I used the very tip of the brush.
He shifted in his sleep. Made a sound. A little mmph.
I froze.
Bernie froze.
He settled back down. Snored again.
I let out my breath.
Then the top coat. Quick-dry. Thirty seconds to set, the bottle promised. I brushed it over all five toes. Fast. Smooth.
Then the stickers.
I peeled off a tiny silver unicorn head. I pressed it gently onto the middle of his big toenail. Right over the pink glitter.
I peeled off a little silver star. I stuck it on the second toe.
A heart on the third. Another star on the fourth.
And on the little curled-up toe, the tiniest sticker on the whole sheet. A rainbow.
I sat back on my heels and studied my work.
It was the best thing I’d ever painted.
The whole thing took under a minute.
I capped the bottles. I set them back in the box. I put the box back in the gift bag. I tucked the purple tissue paper over the top.
I slid the bag under the seat in front of me.
I turned around and sat down.
I folded my hands in my lap.
Bernie was shaking so hard with silent laughter that the whole row vibrated. Tears streamed down her face. She held her phone up in front of her like a shield.
“Lord,” she whispered. “Lord, Lord, Lord. Forty-one years in the ER. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
I leaned back.
And I waited.
It was the longest forty minutes of my life.
Whenever he shifted in his seat, my heart leapt. Whenever his snoring changed, I held my breath.
The foot stayed on the armrest. I could see it from the corner of my eye. Glittering under the reading light. Pink as a flamingo. With a tiny silver unicorn on the big toe.
The quick-dry coat had set. I’d checked. It was rock solid. It wasn’t coming off without nail polish remover.
And I had no nail polish remover.
I’d left it in my checked bag. Because it’s a liquid. And it was over three ounces.
Nobody else in row 23 had any either. Bernie checked her purse just in case.
“I’ve got Band-Aids, Tums, a rosary, three butterscotch candies, and a picture of Denzel Washington,” she whispered. “No remover.”
“Why do you have a picture of Denzel Washington?”
“Honey, I’m seventy-one,” she said. “I don’t owe anybody an explanation.”
Kiara came down the aisle with the drink cart about twenty minutes later.
She stopped at our row. Her eyes drifted to the armrest. To the foot.
To the glitter.
She halted. She stared. Her mouth dropped open a little.
She looked at me.
I looked back. Very innocently.
Kiara’s face cycled through about six expressions in two seconds. Surprise. Confusion. Disbelief. Understanding.
Then something that looked a lot like joy.
She bit her lip so hard I thought it might bleed.
“Can I,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “get either of you ladies something to drink?”
“Ginger ale, please,” Bernie said, very seriously.
“Same,” I said.
Kiara poured two ginger ales. Her hands were shaking. She passed them to us.
Then she bent down, very close to my ear.
“I didn’t see anything,” she whispered.
“See what?” I said.
She pushed the cart on down the aisle. About three rows later I heard a noise that sounded a lot like a sneeze. But wasn’t.
About forty minutes after I’d capped the bottle of Bubblegum Galaxy, the man woke up.
I heard the snoring stop. I heard him smack his lips. I heard him stretch. A long, satisfied groan.
He pulled his foot off my armrest.
I didn’t turn around. I kept facing forward. I sipped my ginger ale.
Bernie held her phone up in front of her face. Pretending to look at pictures of baby Isaiah. Her shoulders were already trembling.
I heard him shut his laptop. I heard him shuffle around. I heard him stand.
He stepped out into the aisle.
Barefoot.
He didn’t put his loafers back on. Why would he? He’d been barefoot for two hours. He was only heading to the bathroom.
He stretched again. Arms over his head. Watch glinting.
And he started toward the back of the plane.
He made it only a few steps.
Across the aisle in 24C, a teenage boy in a hoodie and a Mariners cap sat with his phone in his hands. He glanced up as the man passed.
He looked at the man’s face.
Then he looked down.
He did a double take.
His mouth fell open.
And then he burst out laughing.
Not a small laugh. A huge, honking, uncontrollable teenage-boy laugh. He doubled over in his seat. He slapped his knee. His phone dropped to the floor.
Someone else turned around.
A middle-aged woman in 25D. She glanced up from her book to see what was so funny.
She saw the man’s feet.
She gasped. She covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes went huge.
Then another.
A businessman in 26A. An older couple in 26B and C. Two college girls in 27D and E.
One by one, people turned around. One by one, they looked down.
At the man’s right foot.
Bare. On the gray airplane carpet.
With five hot pink glitter toenails, sparkling like a disco ball under the cabin lights.
With a tiny silver unicorn on the big toe.
And a rainbow on the little one.
The laughter rolled through the cabin like a wave.
Row 24. Row 25. Row 26. Row 27.
People laughed until they cried. The teenage boy in the Mariners cap was making a noise like a seal. One of the college girls pounded her tray table. The older woman in 26C laughed so hard she had to take off her glasses.
Even the flight attendant gave in.
Kiara was standing in the galley at the back of the plane with a coffee pot in her hand. She saw the man coming. She saw his feet.
She set the coffee pot down with great care. She turned around and faced the wall.
Her shoulders were shaking.
The man frowned.
He’d stopped in the middle of the aisle. He looked around at all the faces. All the laughing.
“What?” he said.
Nobody answered.
He looked at the teenage boy in the Mariners cap. “What’s so funny?”
The boy couldn’t speak. He only pointed. Down.
The man looked down.
I’ve watched a lot of faces change color in my life.
I’ve seen thirteen-year-old boys flush when their crush walks into the room. I’ve seen my own face go red in the bathroom mirror after Doug corrected me in front of his friends. I’ve seen Bernie’s face turn the color of a beet from trying not to laugh.
I’ve never seen anyone turn as red as that man.
It began at his neck. Above the collar of his navy golf-club quarter-zip. A dark, blotchy red. It crawled up his jaw. Across his cheeks. Up his forehead. All the way to the roots of his expensive salt-and-pepper hair.
He stared down at his right foot.
At five glittering hot pink toenails.
He lifted his foot off the carpet. He held it up in front of his face. He turned it side to side. The glitter caught the light.
The little silver unicorn winked at him.
The back half of the plane erupted in another roar of laughter.
Then he whirled toward me.
His face was crimson. His eyes were wild. He was still holding his foot in the air, balancing on one leg in the middle of the aisle like a flamingo.
“What the hell did you do?!”
I set down my ginger ale.
I turned in my seat. I looked up at him. Calmly.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.
“Don’t you play dumb with me!” He pointed at his foot. “You did this! You painted my toenails!”
“Your feet needed to breathe,” I said. “I thought they might like some color too.”
Bernie made a sound like a teakettle.
“This is assault!” he said. “This is… you can’t just… you touched me! While I was asleep! I could have you arrested!”
“You put your bare foot on my armrest,” I said. “Next to my arm. For two hours. After the flight attendant asked you to move it. After I asked you three times.”
“That’s completely different!”
“Is it?” I said.
He opened his mouth. Then shut it.
“You told me it was just a foot,” I said. “You told me I was acting like you put it on your dinner plate. You told me we’re all sharing space.” I shrugged. “So I shared. I had some nail polish. You had some toenails.”
The teenage boy in the Mariners cap applauded.
Kiara came up the aisle. She’d pulled herself together. Mostly. Her face was very red. Her lips were pressed together very tightly.
“Is there a problem, sir?” she asked.
“Yes, there’s a problem! Look what she did!” He thrust his foot toward her. “She painted my toenails! While I was sleeping!”
Kiara looked at his foot. She looked at the unicorn.
She drew a very deep breath.
“I see,” she said. Her voice wobbled a little. “Sir, earlier in the flight, I asked you to please keep your feet in your own space. Did you keep your feet in your own space?”
He didn’t answer.
“Sir,” Kiara said gently. “Was your foot on this passenger’s armrest while you were sleeping?”
He looked at the armrest. At me. At Bernie.
At everyone in rows 24 through 27, every last one of them staring at him.
“That’s not the point,” he said.
“I think,” Kiara said, “it might be a little bit the point.”
“I want it off,” he said. “Right now. Somebody give me nail polish remover.”
He scanned the cabin. “Does anybody have nail polish remover?”
Nobody did.
The college girls in row 27 checked. The older woman in 26C checked. A man three rows up who was clearly wearing eyeliner checked.
Nobody had any.
“Liquids over three ounces,” Kiara said apologetically. “Most people pack it in their checked bags.”
“Then do something! Give me something!”
Kiara considered it.
“I have some alcohol wipes in the first aid kit,” she said. “They might take some of the glitter off. Maybe. Probably not the pink.”
“Fine! Get them!”
She went to fetch them.
He stood there in the aisle. Still on one foot. Everyone still staring.
“Sir,” Bernie said from the window seat. Very sweetly. “You might want to put your foot down. You’re blocking the aisle.”
He lowered his foot. Slowly. Onto the gray carpet.
The glitter sparkled.
Somebody in row 28 whistled.
He returned to his seat. He dropped into it hard. He jammed his feet back into his brown leather loafers. No socks.
Kiara brought him a handful of little foil packets of alcohol wipes. He ripped one open. He began scrubbing his big toe. Hard.
Nothing happened.
The quick-dry top coat was doing its job.
He scrubbed harder. The little silver unicorn didn’t budge.
He tore open another wipe. And another.
After about ten minutes, he’d managed to peel the rainbow sticker off his little toe and rub a tiny bit of glitter from the edge of his big toenail.
The rest was flawless.
He flung the wipes onto his tray table. He leaned his head back against the seat. He closed his eyes.
He said nothing else for a long time.
And his feet stayed on the floor.
I turned back around and faced forward.
My hands were shaking now. Now that it was over. Now that the adrenaline was draining away.
Bernie reached over and took my hand.
“You okay, baby?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think so.”
“That,” Bernie said, “was the single greatest thing I’ve ever witnessed on an airplane. And I once saw a woman give birth in the aisle of a flight to Orlando.”
“Really?”
“Twins,” Bernie said. “I delivered ’em. The airline gave me free flights for a year.”
I laughed. It came out shaky.
Bernie squeezed my hand.
“You stood up for yourself,” she said quietly. “Didn’t you? For the first time in a long time.”
I looked at her.
“How did you know?”
“Because when he told you to use your other armrest,” Bernie said, “you flinched. Like somebody had said that to you before. A lot of times.”
I looked down at our hands.
“Eleven years,” I said.
“Mm-hmm.”
“My ex-husband,” I said. “He took up all the space. All of it. And I just kept getting smaller. And I didn’t even notice.”
“And today you noticed,” Bernie said.
“Today I noticed.”
But here’s the thing.
Sitting there, with Bernie’s hand on mine and the man behind me silent, I didn’t feel the way I’d expected to.
I’d thought I would feel triumphant. Victorious. As if I’d finally won.
And I did, a little.
But something else crept in too.
I felt a little bit sick.
Because I’d touched a stranger while he slept. Without asking. Without permission.
That was exactly what I was furious at him for.
“Bernie,” I whispered. “Was that wrong? What I did?”
Bernie stayed quiet a moment.
“A little,” she said honestly.
I looked at her.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, baby,” Bernie said. “You painted a man’s toenails while he was sleeping. That’s crossing a line. A little line. A glittery pink line. But a line.”
“He crossed a line first.”
“He did,” Bernie said. “A big one. For two hours. After he was asked nicely four times.” She shrugged. “I’m not saying he didn’t deserve it. Lord knows he did. I’m just saying you know the difference. Between what he deserved and what you’d normally do. That’s why you’re feeling sick right now. That’s your conscience. That’s a good thing to have.”
I didn’t speak.
“Forty-one years in the ER,” Bernie said. “You know what I learned? Everybody who comes through those doors is somebody’s somebody. Even the drunk who throws up on your shoes. Even the man who swallows his wedding ring.” She patted my hand. “Even the fool with his foot on your armrest.”
I sat with that for a long time.
The plane carried on over Idaho. The sun was sinking outside the window. Orange and pink and purple, like the inside of a seashell. Like Bubblegum Galaxy.
About an hour before landing, I caught a sound behind me.
Very quiet.
I almost missed it under the roar of the engines.
A sniff.
Then another.
I turned around slowly.
The man in the seat behind me sat with his laptop closed and his headphones off. He was gazing out the window. At the sunset.
He was crying.
