I Do What I Do » John Taylor

X

November 11th, 1983

ERIN

The day is finally here.

I'm walking out on the runway with Julie toward the plane. She spots Nick and runs for him.

I haven't seen John since I went to visit him in June. I've missed him.

I spot him loading his bags on the plane. His back is turned to me.

"John!" I yell.

He turns around and a smile appears on his face.

I run over. I'm about to give him a hug when I spot Janine in the corner of my eye and stop short.

John looks down at his feet and sighs.

"Hi!" I say, trying to lift the mood.

He looks back up. The corners of his mouth tug upward into a little smile. "Hi. How've you been?"

"Great! I've been doing really well with my shoots recently. I think I might have a cover soon enough," I explain.

His eyes widen. "That's wonderful! I'm happy for you."

"Thanks! I've been working really hard."

He looks around. "Why don't we head into the plane, yeah?"

"Yeah!" I reply, handing my bags to the crew.

He leads me to the seats. I sit next to him. I realize Janine's already on the other side of him. Delightful!

You know what? Who am I kidding? I'm on a plane. To fucking Australia! Who cares about her?! I never could've imagined I'd end up here, joining a tour with Duran Duran. But here I am.

"Hey, Erin," Janine says, an obviously forced smile plastered on her face.

"Hey," I reply. "Fancy meeting you here," I laugh.

She laughs but again sounds forced. Weird.

John clears his throat. "So," he turns to me. "Are you excited?"

I smile. "Excited? That would be the understatement of the year. The whole idea of this is crazy!"

"Really?"

"Are you kidding?" I scoff. "Uh, yeah. You could say that."

He chuckles. "I didn't think that it would be all that exciting to you. You're pretty calm about most things."

"I am, you're right. But this? This is insane," I reply. "I've never even been out of the country before!"

John looks over. I look past him and see that Janine has reached over and grabbed his hand. She looks up, shoots me a glare, and then smiles.

I lay back in my seat. It's only 7 at night, and I know I'm going to be incredibly jet-lagged. I try to get some sleep.

-

When I wake up, John is no longer seated next to me. I see that Janine is still sitting there.

"You know," I say, turning to her. "You don't have to act all possessive. I'm not trying to steal your boyfriend. This isn't high school."

She scoffs. "Yeah, right. It's so obvious."

"What is?"

"That you want him! You're just like all of the other ones," she says, staring forward.

I roll my eyes. "Oh, shut the fuck up, Janine. I'm not some whore he picked up off the street. Don't get your panties in a twist over me, okay?"

"You have no right to just come in here and spend all of this time with him. You shouldn't even be on this plane right now."