The woman behind the desk began typing furiously on her computer keyboard.
“Oh no, your suitcase! It’s too late to check it . . .”
Mia knelt down to whip open her suitcase, took out her toiletry bag and a few other things, and jammed them into her purse.
“You can keep the rest!”
“I’m sorry, I really can’t,” the woman said, leaning over the desk.
“Yes, you can!”
“Which hotel are you staying at?”
“I have no idea.”
The woman, who was now beyond being surprised by anything, handed Mia her boarding pass.
“Now run. I’ll ask them to hold the doors for you.”
Mia grabbed her ticket, took off her heels, and ran toward security, shoes in hand.
She arrived at the walkway out of breath, spotted the gate, screamed at the staff to wait for her, and did not slow down until she was on the boarding bridge.
Before getting on the plane, she tried to regain some semblance of composure, then handed her boarding pass to the flight attendant, who welcomed her with a big smile.
“That was one close shave,” he said, pointing to an empty seat. “You’re in 2A.”
Mia walked straight past her seat and continued up the aisle.
The flight attendant called her back, but she pressed on until she found the row she was looking for, gave her boarding pass to the passenger, and told him he had been upgraded to first class. The man didn’t need to be told twice, and gave up his seat.
Mia opened the overhead luggage compartment, squeezed her purse between two cabin bags, and collapsed into her seat with a huge sigh.
Paul didn’t even look up from the magazine he was leafing through.
The flight attendant announced over the intercom that the doors were closing. Passengers were asked to fasten their seat belts and switch off all electronic devices.
Paul put his magazine in the seat-back pocket and closed his eyes.
“Can we talk or do you plan to sulk for eleven hours?” Mia asked.
“Right now, we keep our mouths shut and wait to die. A massive three-hundred-ton steel tube is about to attempt flight. And no matter what Bernoulli says, that is against the laws of nature. So, until we are up in the air, let’s just breathe, stay calm, and that’s it.”
“Right, then,” Mia replied.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any anesthetic, would you?”
“I thought we were strictly prohibited from conversing.”
“Valium?”
“Sorry.”
“A baseball bat? Any blunt object, really. If you’d be so kind as to knock me out cold, then not wake me until we’ve touched ground in Korea, that would be ideal.”
“Calm down. Everything will be fine.”
“So now you’re a pilot.”
