Chapter 4: Cruising Altitude
The seat belt sign went off somewhere over northern Texas.
Derek had his laptop open but was not looking at it.
He was watching the clouds through the oval window, the kind of flat gray ceiling that made the ground below invisible.
He had grown up in Oakland looking at skies like that — skies that did not promise anything.
Bradley Mercer ordered a bourbon.
The flight attendant who brought it was not Lauren.
Lauren had stayed in the forward galley since takeoff.
Bradley drank half of it in the first minute.
Then he went back to his phone.
Derek noticed.
He always noticed.
Forty minutes into the flight, Helen Parker unbuckled her seatbelt and stood.
She moved toward the forward galley with the careful, deliberate pace of a woman who had somewhere specific to be.
Derek watched the curtain fall behind her.
He could not hear what was said.
But Helen was in the galley for six minutes.
When she came back, she sat down, reopened her book, and said nothing.
Two minutes later, Lauren came through the curtain.
She stopped beside Derek's seat.
"Mr.
Caldwell." Her voice was different again.
Not careful.
Not professional.
Something underneath both of those.
"May I speak with you for a moment?"
"Of course."
She crouched slightly so she was not standing over him.
It was a small thing.
It mattered.
"I owe you an apology," she said.
"A real one.
Not the airline's apology.
Mine."
Derek waited.
"What I did back there — what I almost did — I've been sitting in that galley trying to find a way to explain it that makes me look less like what I was." She stopped.
"I can't find one."
"Then don't look for one," Derek said.
"I made an assumption about you.
I made it fast and I acted on it and I was wrong." Her jaw tightened.
"I've been doing this job for six years.
I know the rules.
I know what the boarding pass says.
I chose not to follow it."
"Why?"
The question was quiet.
It was not an accusation.
It was a real question.
Lauren looked at her hands.
"Because Mr.
Mercer asked me not to.
And because I thought—" She stopped again.
"You thought he was the kind of passenger whose comfort was worth more than mine."
She did not deny it.
"Yes."
The word cost her something.
Derek could see that.
"I appreciate you saying it plainly," he said.
"It doesn't fix it."
"No," he agreed.
"It doesn't."
She stood.
"If there's anything you need for the rest of the flight—"
"There is one thing."
She waited.
"Tell me what Bradley Mercer said to you before I boarded.
Not what you told Walsh.
What he actually said."
Lauren's expression shifted.
Something moved behind her eyes that looked like it had been waiting for permission to move.
"He called ahead," she said.
"From the gate.
He said there had been a ticketing error and that his seat had been given to another passenger by mistake.
He asked me to handle it quietly before it became a problem."
"And you didn't verify that."
"I looked at the manifest.
I saw his name and your name and I—" She exhaled.
"I made a choice about which one of you was more likely to be right."
Derek looked at her for a long moment.
"Thank you," he said.
She nodded and moved back toward the galley.
Derek turned to his laptop.
He opened a new email.
The recipient field already had an address in it — one he had typed and deleted twice since takeoff.
He typed it a third time.
*To: R.
Holt, CEO, Blue Ridge Airways*
He stopped.
He thought about what Marissa would say.
She would say: *Let legal handle it.
Don't make it personal.
You won the contract.
You won the seat.
Walk away.*
Marissa was usually right.
He closed the email without sending it.
His phone buzzed.
Not Marissa this time.
An unknown number with a Dallas area code.
He let it ring through to voicemail.
Thirty seconds later, a voicemail notification appeared.
He put in one earbud and played it.
*Mr.
Caldwell, this is Patricia Holt.
I'm Richard Holt's executive assistant at Blue Ridge.
Mr.
Holt would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience regarding an incident on Flight 628 today.
He's asked me to let you know he is personally available this afternoon.
Please call back at—*
Derek pulled the earbud out.
He looked across the aisle.
Helen had set her book down and was looking at him with those wire-framed glasses and that expression she had — the one that said she had already read the last page.
"Somebody important?" she asked.
"The CEO of this airline wants to talk to me."
Helen tilted her head.
"Are you going to call him back?"
Derek looked out the window.
The clouds had broken somewhere over Arkansas.
Below, the land was green and brown and very far away.
"That depends," he said.
"On what?"
May you like
He picked up his phone.
"On what Bradley Mercer just sent him first."
