The Show Must Go On

Chapter Three: Black Coffee Morning

Chapter Three Soundtrack: Black Coffee Morning by Bluebiird

'Ma'am, our scanners are showing an object shaped like a grenade. Do you have a grenade?'

'I wouldn't even know where to get a grenade,' I insist, stupidly, at the tall man with a large gun currently glaring at me.

The security officer is unamused by this. This is why I shouldn't speak without thinking. I am very nearly being arrested.

Around our little crime drama, Heathrow is already humming with life, though it's only six in the morning. I fell asleep on the tube, only waking when it terminated at the airport, and I have an eerie feeling that my mascara is smeared down my face. Luckily, I have a mirror in my—

In my bag, which the security officer has just threatened to detonate. 'We are detecting an item that our scanners' light cannot pass through,' he is now telling me.

'It could be a mirror?' I offer.

The officer confers with his colleagues. They stop and stare at me. Evidently, they decide that I am more likely to have a mirror than a grenade. This is promptly confirmed and my bag is returned. A queue has formed behind me.

I am finally through though, to the sprawling atrium of the airport terminal. I yawn so loudly that a mother herds her children away. As I walk through duty-free, I send two texts.

To Nas: I'm through security. Meet you at the gate?

To Mei: Security thought I had a bomb. They must know a flight with Nas will make me suicidal.

My next yawn is so loud that several people turn to stare. What, they've never creaked before? Still, I am clearly under-caffeinated, I am possibly a security threat, and I am certainly not pleasing to my fellow passengers. Time to sort myself out.

I seek out coffee. The queue crosses the lounge for a Pret but it will earn me a few more blissful minutes before I have to meet Nas. But, as I trudge through the line, my luck runs out. Nas is striding out of duty-free.

It is 6 am at Heathrow Airport, for Christ's sake. It is not Milan Fashion Week. His annual bonus is not based on how carefully he musses his hair. But somehow he is gorgeous. Three women turn to stare as he walks past.

Even I am staring and I hate him.

He's wearing grey sweats, a fleece, a baseball cap, and of course his glinting glasses, and behind them, his eyes land on me. My stomach flips. I hate him so much that it's making me physically sick. I twirl my engagement ring.

He holds up two fingers. Of course I will buy him a coffee too, if it buys me a few extra minutes alone. He nods and walks away, presumably to find the gate. There's a hickey on his neck.

I will not compare this to my evening alone on the couch. Not everything is a competition.

A few minutes later, coffees precariously balanced in hand, I start to look for Nas.

I stop.

Nas has never, ever looked for me. Nas has ignored every suggestion I have ever made. Nas has invented a new game where he hummed when I was on the phone, so quietly that I thought I was imagining it, until I was tested for hearing aids and he laughed so hard that he snorted his coffee from his nose.

Nas can wait.

Instead, I try every perfume in duty-free until the attendant herds me away and a trail of cotton candy sweetness follows each step. Then, I ride the escalator up and down four times, trying to spot our plane on the tarmac. I buy an enormous Toblerone, break it into smaller pieces, and hide them in my pockets for when I need courage (I will forget this and spend weeks finding melted chocolate clumps).