Chương 5
At the first-class curtain, the forward flight attendant stopped me.
Victoria was in 2A, scrolling through her phone with one leg crossed over the other.
She glanced up.
“You finally come to ask for your seat back?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I passed her.
She called after me.
“You’re welcome, by the way.”
I stopped.
“For what?”
“Teaching you that the world doesn’t rearrange itself because you feel entitled to something.”
I turned and looked at her.
Behind the arrogance, I saw something I had missed earlier.
Her left hand was shaking.
Not much.
Enough.
Her phone screen showed a banking application.
A red notification banner disappeared before I could read it.
She locked the screen immediately.
“Victoria,” I said, “did someone contact you before you boarded this flight?”
Her expression froze.
“What?”
“Before you came to Gate B22.”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Because I’m asking.”
She stood.
“I don’t answer to you.”
The forward flight attendant moved closer.
I kept my voice low.
“I’m not accusing you of anything.”
“You’re certainly acting like it.”
“Did someone tell you Seat 2A would be available?”
The color left her face.
Not completely.
Just enough.
Then she smiled too quickly.
“Chad takes care of me.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her phone vibrated.
She looked down.
The name on the screen was RICHARD.
She rejected the call.
A second later, it rang again.
This time she answered.
“What?”
I could not hear the voice on the other end.
Victoria listened.
Her posture changed.
“What do you mean, don’t talk to anyone?”
I stayed still.
The flight attendant looked at me.
Victoria turned away.
“No, Richard, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Another pause.
Then her eyes moved to me.
For the first time since Gate B22, there was no contempt in them.
Only fear.
She whispered into the phone.
“She’s standing right here.”
The call disconnected.
Victoria stared at the dead screen.
Then she looked at me.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Eleanor Vance.”
Victoria stared at me as if the name should have meant something and she resented it for not doing so quickly enough.
Then recognition arrived in pieces.
Her eyes moved from my face to the wine stain on my cardigan, then toward the cockpit, then back to me.
“Vance?”
“Yes.”
“As in Vanguard?”
“Yes.”
She sat down without seeming to decide to.
The flight attendant beside me stopped breathing for a moment.
Victoria looked at Seat 2A beneath her as though it had become unstable.
“You own the airline.”
“Not personally.”
Her mouth opened.
I raised a hand.
“Please don’t make me correct the percentage again.”
Under different circumstances, Marisol might have laughed.
Victoria did not.
She held her phone in both hands now.
“Richard never said anything about you.”
“That concerns me.”
“Why?”
“Because he just told you not to talk to anyone after learning I was standing beside you.”
Her face hardened defensively.
“You were listening to a private conversation.”
“I heard your half of it while standing three feet away.”
“You had no right.”
“You’re correct.”
That stopped her.
I had learned long ago that people prepared for resistance were often more confused by agreement.
“I wasn’t trying to overhear your husband,” I said.
“Then stop acting like this is some interrogation.”
“It isn’t.”
“You’re asking me questions.”
“You can refuse.”
“I am refusing.”
“Then we’re done.”
I turned toward the forward galley.
Victoria stood again.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
She looked at the other flight attendant.
“Can she give us a minute?”
“No,” I said.
Victoria frowned.
“I’m not discussing anything privately with you.”
“Why?”
“Because right now neither of us knows what your husband is involved in, if anything, and I don’t want a later disagreement about what was said.”
Her face changed at the word involved.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what I said.”
“You know something about Richard.”
“I know his name appears in material being reviewed by people who are qualified to review it.”
“What material?”
“I can’t discuss that.”
“Oh, that’s convenient.”
“It’s inconvenient for both of us.”
She laughed once, sharply.
“You think because you own this company you can scare me.”
“I don’t need you scared.”
“Well, congratulations.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“You managed it.”
The forward flight attendant shifted uncomfortably.
I glanced toward the cockpit door.
“The captain is waiting for me.”
Victoria stepped into my path.
“Did you freeze my accounts?”
“No.”
She searched my face.
“Richard said something about the bank.”
“I have not frozen your accounts.”
“Could you?”
“Not lawfully by myself.”
“Could your company?”
“Not because someone poured wine on me.”
Her cheeks flushed.
“I told you that was an accident.”
“No, you didn’t.”
She stared at me.
“You said it slipped.”
“That means accident.”
“It means you chose a word.”
The flight attendant looked away.
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The superiority.”
“I’m not feeling superior.”
“You look at people like they’re evidence.”
That one reached somewhere unpleasant.
For a second, I saw my husband at our kitchen table twelve years earlier, pushing untouched pasta around his plate and telling me I had turned every disagreement into an interview.
I had accused him of being dramatic.
He had gone upstairs without finishing dinner.
Three months later, he began sleeping in the guest room.
I pulled myself back to the cabin.
“You may be right about that,” I said.
Victoria seemed disappointed again.
She wanted combat because combat would make her position simpler.
“Sit down,” I said.
“Don’t order me.”
“Then consider it advice.”
“I don’t take advice from strangers.”
“You took a seat from one.”
Her expression sharpened.
That sentence had been too satisfying.
I regretted it before the silence finished.
“Eleanor,” Marisol said quietly from behind me.
I nodded.
“Captain.”
I moved around Victoria.
May you like
This time she let me pass.
The cockpit door remained closed, but the captain was waiting in the galley with the first officer’s headset cord hanging over one shoulder.
