dottielint and more thunderstorms but this time in an airport
Janet jumps as a loud crack of thunder breaks overhead, a growl like those reverberating through the clouds escaping through her curled lips. She has never been particularly fond of storms – lightning, yes, the way the sharp light splits the darkening sky with forked tongues and spitting, jumping lines – but never the loud booming that follows as loud as a horde of children running down the stairs at the same time, loud as the way that sounds sitting in the cupboard under the stairs as they do. Not that she would know what that was like. Her orphanage had plenty of beds. They didn’t like her much, but they’d had plenty of beds.
She stared out at the sky, watching the lightning strike first and jumping when the thunder rolls in – thunder that she knew would follow as surely as she knew another sharp tongue of static would split the storm sooner rather than later. As the thunder boomed yet again, there was the loud – not as loud, generally speaking, and yet it still felt louder to her, not knowing to expect it, not expecting it at all – clatter of someone collapsing into the plastic seat next to her. She turned just as the blonde woman let out a groan, placing the back of her hand to her forehead as though she were some actress from the forties fainting on screen.
“It’s been such a horrible day, and now I’m stuck waiting for this storm to pass before I can fly off again.” The woman opened one light blue eye and glanced at Janet, giving her a wink and a little smile, before returning to her close-eyed, moaning monologue. “What is a poor girl to do?”
“Not bother the other stranded passenger next to her,” Janet muttered under her breath. She crossed her arms and faced the great airport windows, staring out at their empty gateway, as though daring the airplane to be ready sooner would make it so. Her lips pressed together in a thin little line, and she jumped again as another crack of thunder broke overhead.
The woman in the seat next to her sighed and scooted backward, sitting a little more normally in her plastic seat, and flashed Janet a grin that she barely saw out of the corner of one eye. “Dottie Underwood,” she said, sticking out one thin hand in Janet’s direction, even though Janet was trying very hard not to pay her any attention. When Janet continued to ignore her, she tilted her head to one side, pushed her hand through her short blonde hair, and shrugged. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk to me. That’s fine.”
Janet jumped again with yet another peal of thunder.
“But if you talk to me, you might get your mind off of the storm.”
“I’m not scared of the storm,” Janet said, her voice low and thick and annoyed. “I’m tired and—” She jumped again, closing her eyes shut so tight that she could pretend she was in her apartment staring at the city around her and not in an airport staring out at storm clouds and thunder and an airplane that was not coming. The thunder and her jumping felt just like hiccups. “—don’t want to deal with a rowdy stranger right now.”
Dottie gave a half-hearted shrug but didn’t move to another seat. “I’m not rowdy by any means. Over dramatic, sure, but rowdy? That’s liable to get the security after me, and I don’t feel like dealing with them again.”
Janet finally turned to look at the blonde woman next to her. She seemed all angles and lean muscle and bright, sharp, birdlike eyes and drifting blonde waves that must have taken hours to crimp to hold just that shape. Or maybe not hours. She didn’t waste time messing around with putting her hair in certain styles.
It’s not a waste of time, she hears herself say, a small child running barefoot through the orphanage with nothing but a brush and a thick head of hair that refused to be tamed. It’s beauty. I want beauty!
Janet shook her head, rubbed it with one hand, and gave a deep sigh. “Again?”
Dottie’s grin grew – more smug than happy, but it was both, it was full of both. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“On second thought,” Janet said, her eyes drawn to the shape of lightning through the window outside, “I didn’t.” She jumped with another thump of thunder – this one so loud that the windows across from the rattled.
“How about a drink?” Dottie asked, her voice suddenly so much smoother than it had been before, smoother than the sharp edges of her cheekbones, the tips of most of her nails (not that Janet was looking, because she wasn’t). “I’ll pay.” She reached over and patted one of Janet’s hands. “It doesn’t even have to be alcoholic. You don’t look like the type.”
Janet ripped her hand out from under Dottie’s and scooted as far away from her as she could. “Don’t touch me.” She glared at the other woman, her eyes narrowing. There was no please, no maybe, no wavering in her voice, and it held the same growling intensity of the thunder still rumbling overhead, only this time she didn’t jump – Dottie did – and it left a warm, angry, comforting feeling in the center of her chest. “You’re buying,” she repeated, finally meeting the other woman’s eyes.
There was a little light in the back of Dottie’s bright blue eyes that grew even brighter, overcoming the sharp – not fear – but perhaps embarrassment that had scarletted her cheeks as she’d slowly moved her hand from Janet’s chair. “Of course,” she murmured, her voice soft, suddenly demure. Her gaze drifted, glancing down to Janet’s lips, and then back up to meet her eyes again. “I asked, didn’t I? It’s only polite if I pay.”
“Fine,” Janet said. The look didn’t make her near as uncomfortable as the other woman’s touch did. She was fine with her looking, as long as she didn’t touch until she was given permission. She grabbed her small bag and stood, brushing the pieces of lint from her black skirt. “Let’s go.”