THE FLAPPER'S FAN

prologue

I closed my eyes as the aircraft reached cruising altitude and felt a sense of peace crawl over me. Only a sense of peace. Peace itself would be a longer time coming, but distance, even vertical, made me feel safe, and closer to finding the real me, the me that had existed before Wayne. I was lucky the flight was nowhere near full and the two seats beside me were empty. I really wasn't up to being squished up against some random stranger today. Across the aisle, the man with the alligator briefcase who had stood in front of me in the check-in queue also had three seats to himself. He sat in the centre, his laptop open on the tray table, tapping away with purpose. I preferred the window, so I could watch the earth disappear below, and wedge my pillow against it when I wanted to sleep. My backpack was on the seat beside me, and through the unzipped opening I could see my shiny new passport. I pulled it out and opened it. The photo looked like a mugshot, it was just missing me holding a board with my name and prisoner number. I had scraped my hair back into a ponytail and wore no make up and a grey unzipped hoodie. In those days, I was lucky to even get out of bed, was having trouble even finding the energy to want to. My eyes looked dead, which is what I wanted to be about then. Sometimes, I still did.

I looked at the name. Edith Ellen Ryan. I used to cringe at my name when I was younger, it was so old-fashioned. Somewhere during my early years at high school someone started calling me "Eddie", and suddenly my name had become cool. I had become Eddie and Eddie was me. It sat comfortably on me. I liked it. Wayne hadn't liked it though, he had called me Elle, a shortened version of my middle name, and he had insisted everyone else do the same. "Like the girl in Legally Blonde," he had laughed. Laughed because I looked nothing like Reese Witherspoon. I was taller for one thing, but only average height really. Average everything. Average weight, if average was on the slightly more voluptuous side, which it seemed to be these days. Average looks. My straightened hair now swung at my chin in it's natural, very average, brown but when I was married it had been long and bleached blonde. I had looked in the mirror some days and wondered who that was. I had been thinner then too, way too thin according to my mother who had muttered about eating disorders and sent me home with trays of lasagne and Tupperware containers full of canoli, that Wayne had consumed with relish, keeping it way out of my reach. Sometimes I would have a small serve, but that meant an extra session in the gym and the cold shoulder treatment from Wayne.

That girl, Elle with the tiny waist, well-muscled arms and long blonde hair, seemed like a stranger I once knew, and not very well. I settled back in against the window and closed my eyes, letting the ever-present hum of the engines lull me to sleep. When I woke, the flight attendant was placing a meal on the centre tray table for me with a smile. She offered me wine, but I declined. I didn't need the fuzziness alcohol gave me any more, I needed my edges sharp, not blurred like they had been for months now. I flicked through the channels offered on the in-flight entertainment module and found a video on our destination. I had known I wanted to get away, and London was the last place I remembered being happy. My time in the UK and France in those years before I met Wayne had been the happiest of my life. Not that my childhood wasn't happy, it had been, like everything else, just average. I had excelled in French in high school and decided to spend an immersive year in France. My parents had thought it all a waste of time, but it had led me to my job as an interpreter, and then as a French teacher, both of which I had loved. Away from the apron strings of my parents, I had blossomed, moving to London eventually and working there for three years, travelling whenever I could throughout the UK and Europe.

It was Dad's cancer that had brought me home. It was supposed to be a visit only, but when he had passed I realised I was all Mum had left. I couldn't leave her, so I got a job at the local child care centre, and I helped her get back on her feet. It was at a party held by one of my colleagues that I had met Wayne. I used to tell people he brought out the best in me. What had they thought, watching me change so completely; in looks, personality, even name? I cringed a little thinking about it. I remember the day I had first had misgivings about marrying him. We hadn't been married long, he had gone out with his friends and hadn't come home all night, hadn't even rung or texted me to let me know. I had rounded on him when he walked in, shaking with worry and rage. He had made me feel like a fool, telling me he hadn't thought marriage would mean handing me his balls. If he wanted to go out, he would, he didn't answer to me, he hadn't signed up for that. Funnily enough, it didn't work the other way. He didn't like it when I met a girlfriend for coffee or lunch, or wanted to go out for a few drinks or a movie after work with my old friends. It ended in a fight every time so I stopped doing it. That particular night, he had flicked on the TV and fallen asleep on the couch with the football on. I had stormed out and gone to Mum's, but she had just pursed her lips and turned away. My mother didn't like to speak ill of anyone, but I told her to tell me what she was thinking and, well, it all tumbled out of her. I got defensive, told her she didn't understand, told her about everything he did for me, how good he was. She never gave me advice again after that.