Lady Luxe stretches in her airplane seat but after almost seven hours of sitting in one place (with the occasional trip to the toilet which certainly shouldn’t count as exercise) she feels like bounding out of her seat and launching into a Jane Fonda aerobics routine. She smiles to herself, certain that the cute British guy beside her who is clearly bent on impressing her would join her if she did.

Before she persuades herself to test out her theory, she finds that crossing her legs in a Buddha like pose stretches out her muscles adequately, and sinks back into her seat in relief. She can imagine the expat newspaper headlines the next day if she had decided to make a spectacle of herself – ‘X heiress loses the plot,’ and the Arabic ones not as colourful – ‘Daughter of X has publicly shamed herself and her family.’ She sighs, already missing London’s grey skies, cool breezes and the beautiful fragrance of freedom.

In London, Lady Luxe doesn’t need to don a blonde wig over her thick, dark brown hair whenever she decides to have a little fun. Nor does she bother with the blue contact lenses that mask her own hazel eyes, giving them an ethereal look. In London, her abaya is carefully hung in her South Kensington closet, acquiring the slightest sheen of dust until it’s time to board an EK flight back to DXB. Her sheila lies discarded somewhere close by and her name is definitely not Lady Luxe. She isn’t the daughter of X, granddaughter of X and niece of X either. In London, she is just plain Jennifer. She struggles to board the tube with everyone else, she stands squashed against sweaty commuters with everyone else and in every restaurant she is served just.like.everyone. else. She is completely anonymous; an ordinary, twenty-something girl living an ordinary(ish) life.

 

To read the rest of this chapter and others, please visit: http://desperateindubai.blogspot.com