EPISODE 2 THE JUMP START

The perks of my mother being a flight attendant meant that even though we had little spare cash, we were able to travel for pennies. She took my brother and me with her on transatlantic flights quasi-regularly, and one year we even got to spend Christmas in New York. Literally on the set of Home Alone 2, there was an undeniable magic to the city. Pizza slices as big as my belly, spending Christmas Eve wandering FAO Schwarz and ice-skating in Central Park—I fell in love with America there and then.

When my mother offered to take me to Boston a few years later, I jumped at the chance. Generally, flight attendants get an allowance for each day they’re in a particular destination and Mom would usually spend hers on my brother and me. She had saved up her per diems over several trips so I could pick out some clothes. I always felt a bit special getting my clothes from America. I might as well have been wearing Gucci for how fancy I felt sporting a new hoodie from The Gap.

I was ten years old and my, ahem, “growth spurt,” shall we say, had me bulging out of my trousers in all directions, so naturally it was time to invest in pants of the stretchy variety. Boston wasn’t quite as awe-inspiring as Manhattan at Christmas, but the shopping was great. We had walked the length and breadth of the city, it seemed, when my chunky little legs couldn’t take any more and I wanted to stop for some food.

“Can we go to McDonald’s?” I begged like most red-blooded ten-year-olds, and I was delighted to be answered in the affirmative.

Upon arrival, I waddled up to the counter and radiated anticipation.

“May I get a Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, please?”

“Medium or large?”

“Make it a large,” I said. This was my time and I was balling.

“Would you like to supersize it?”

“What does that mean?”

“Bigger drink and more fries than a large.”

What in the world? I thought, You bet your ass I want to supersize it!

“Wow!” I gasped as the spotty teenager put my meal on a tray and pushed it towards me.

I had never seen such a triumph of delicious golden fries in all my days. I took my tray and swaggered to a seat near the window, chuffed with my gluttony.

I was so engrossed in my food and the conversation with my mom that I didn’t think it weird when a man came in without ordering anything and just sat across from us.

“Show me the jeans you got!” my mom enthused.

I bent over to look in the bag when my eyes landed upon the strange man. That guy has a weird-looking thumb, I thought, and why is he stroking it?

I resurfaced with my new jeans in hand when it dawned on me: that might not be his thumb!

“How about the top you got?”

I leaned over again and caught a second glance.

Yep, definitely not a thumb!

“I’m not hungry anymore!” I exclaimed as I jumped from the table and ran to discard my previously coveted food.

My sudden movement startled the man, making him jump up and run out the door.

Throwing out food was out of character for me, so my mom followed quickly behind asking “What’s wrong?”

“That man was stroking his…” I whispered, “penis.”

That event soured my view of Boston for a while. And penises even more so.

Maybe my mom’s good looks weren’t all they were cracked up to be.

Despite my negative Bean Town experience, I jumped at the opportunity when my mom suggested a trip to New York a year later, just before my eleventh birthday.

This time we went post-Christmas, and the cold rain and absence of fairy lights illuminating every tree made it a lot less magical than before as we spent our time wandering around in a jet-lagged haze, our feet soaked from puddles. On our final day, after breakfast, we came back to our Times Square hotel, exchanging the bright billboards that overwhelmed our senses for our darkly lit room with its mustard-yellow walls and old must, like the sheets and walls had been stained with years of cigarette smoke.

“I have something to tell you,” my mom began.

This isn’t good, I thought. No one says “I have something to tell you” before delivering good news. My mind raced with a plethora of possibilities. First to my brain was that she and my dad, in a strange turn of events, had been getting along lately, talking and even laughing. Very weird behavior for them altogether. What if she is going to tell me they are getting back together? Even at ten I knew that would have been a terrible, terrible mistake.

“I’ve started seeing someone,” she continued.

Well, shit, this isn’t what I wanted to hear either!

I stared at her blankly, trying to fight the tears that would soon roll down my face.

“His name is Chris and he’s a pilot.”

“Do Dad and Richy know?” I asked, bereft of any other questions. I didn’t want details.

“Yes, they’ve both taken it well. Your dad said he was happy for me and I deserve it.”

She did deserve it, but that didn’t stop me being upset! Our whole lives, my brother and I had been the sole beneficiaries of all her love and affection. I wasn’t ready to share it. I had never even known her to go on a date. She actually used to wear her wedding ring so people wouldn’t ask her out. Clearly, that didn’t deter this Chris fella.

“You actually answered the phone when he called around Christmas,” my mom admitted.

This asshole was calling around Christmas?! What a homewrecker, I thought as I immediately searched for any reason not to like him.

“He’s divorced; he lives in Bayside; he has two boys, Alistair and Kenneth. Alistair is two years older than Richard and Kenneth is two years older than you.”

She took a deep breath before cooing dreamily, “He’s the one.”

Well, fuck.

“But nothing’s going to change around here,” she promised.

A promise she couldn’t keep.