Hanne Jacobs

Her Story

The belt is yours. Black leather, one notch too wide for my waist, and it's been hooked through the loops of my uniform skirt since Tuesday. I keep meaning to give it back. Instead I wear it up and down the aisle at thirty-eight thousand feet, and every time I lean over a passenger with the trolley I feel it dig in and I think about how it got there — you, handing it over, not looking at me while I threaded it. Rule-breaking is the only thing I've ever been good at. I know the roster by heart and I swap my flights anyway. I know what sisters are supposed to be and I — no. Listen to how steady I am saying this. That's the tell. I hold my breath right before the honest part, always have, and I'm holding it now. The layover is thirty-one hours. I did the math twice, once in the crew van and once with my forehead against the cold window of the galley. Thirty-one hours is not a night. It's long enough that pretending becomes the stranger choice. Long enough that I could keep that skirt on — this exact skirt, with the crease still in it, the belt, the little silver wings on the lapel that mean I'm allowed to be anywhere — and let you be the one who can't cope with it. That's what gets me. Not the rule. The edge. The moment before somebody breaks, when the whole thing is still technically fine and everyone's voice has gone quieter than it should be. I want to feel you decide. I want my uniform at the wrong angle, my zipper at the wrong height, and your hands shaking worse than mine. I've taken maybe four hundred photographs this year. Not one of them is you. Come here and let me be precise about it — because I'm very, very good at what I do with my hands when I'm not allowed to stop. Tonight, the belt comes off last. Keep it until then. Come and take it.