is, how insane it is to lust, that’s right, lust after Jacob. I think my head is a dandy residence. There are locks on the door. Keep out!!!!
*AUNT JOYCE E-MAIL* 2/28
E-Mail #5 from an Apologetic Aunt Joyce
Sweet Danielle,
I am sorry if what I said was not what you wanted to hear. It’s fine. Keep up residence in that head of yours. When you get tired of the property tax you will move into a more desirable location. Until then, I will love you as is. See you Saturday!
I just love you.
Your Adoring Aunt Joyce
*AUNT JOYCE E-MAIL* 2/28
E-mail #6 to Aunt Joyce
Joyce,
Good job extending a lame metaphor.
Danielle
*AUNT JOYCE LETTER*
Letter I give to Aunt Joyce at the airport just in case I die in a plane crash. She takes a billion pictures to go along with this letter. I feel like James and the Giant Peach—me being the peach—dressed in the orange sweater my mom made me wear on the plane. The Union Jack Chucks don’t match the sweater at all, but I still wear them.
Dear Joyce,
If I come home alive from this trip, then everything I write in this letter is null and void and our rift will continue. In the unlikely event of a water landing . . . I want you to have these words.
You have been the truest, lovingest (made-up word, but works in this case), most important person in my life. I am so grateful for you. I forgive you for not letting me stay at your condo even though because you wouldn’t let me stay at your place I was killed in a terrible plane crash. I hope you don’t spend too many years hating yourself for that decision. Fate is fate. Mainly, I just want you to know that you have helped me so much, and I will find every way possible to visit you from the afterlife. It is my hope that from that realm I will have a greater understanding of how to live from my heart and not my neurotic, OCD head.
I love you no matter what.
Danielle
*JOURNAL FROM A PLANE* 3/1
#1 Airborne journal . . . can’t believe the drama going on around me . . . am writing at a feverish pace . . .
We’ve been in the air for over four hours. I am sitting right across the aisle from the bathroom. This is the worst possible seat for an twelve-hour plane ride because by hour nine the stench will be unbearable. I know this because I’ve been on a thirteen-hour flight to China and after people eat and drink for a few hours they let go of any and all decorum, especially the men. This one guy I saw puked all over the bathroom door while he was trying to hit on this totally uninterested and brain-dead woman in line behind him, who was like a size zero with really huge fake boobs. After he puked he just kept complimenting her on all her junk. It was beyond gross. Danielle, stop thinking about that and get back to the drama at hand.
Something terrible has happened, and it’s psycho how great I think it is. Sara is super sick! First, she took a bunch of Advil because she has cramps. Keira was walking the aisles looking for more Advil for Sara because she was in so much pain. Keira is a good friend. (Probably another reason Jacob likes her. Shut up, Danielle.) Sara whined about the pain all through check-in and even her own boyfriend, John, was rolling his eyes at her. Jacob wheeled her giant suitcase through the long line because (I want to believe) Sara is just so annoying because of her low tolerance for everything, and Jacob wanted her to shut up about how much her cramps hurt and how hard it was to maneuver her oversized leopard-print suitcase through the line. (Jacob is a saint. Self, stop thinking about Jacob.)
After Sara took all that Advil, I guess she ate a bunch of stuff. I don’t know what, but now she is “having some sort of reaction” according to one of the flight attendants who ran by.
I can see Sara up ahead of me just a few rows. She keeps falling out of her seat and tossing things from her lap onto passengers next to her while all these people are coming and going trying to figure out what’s wrong with her.
A bunch of tampons just fell out of her purse and rolled down the aisle. Some