Seat Mates

Chapter 1

“What the hell, asshole!” I smash my foot onto the brake of my Mini Cooper as the BMW that just cut me off swerves and then rights itself. The traffic is heavy as all get-out, and I’m already late for my flight.

“Not today, Satan,” I grumble with a glance at the large red-eyed statue of a stallion that greets me as I approach the Denver airport. That thing has always given me the creeps. I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to greet travelers with a demonic horse on their way in and out of our city, but whoever it was is in desperate need of PR training.

The douchebag in the black BMW holds up their hand for the universal courtesy wave of apology. I’m not having it. I’m already late for my flight. A flight I really don’t want to be on in the first place.

“Oh no, I don’t think so,” I growl and flip the bird at the car in front of me. It’s not like they see me anyways. Traffic is hectic, and they aren’t looking. But the BMW taps its brakes twice and pulls back into the lane next to mine and slows down, hard.

“Oh, shit.”

I look to my right and see a man’s profile. He turns his head as his window comes down, and he hangs his hand out, middle finger aloft. In the span of a moment I register dark hair, a straight nose, the shadow of a beard, and a cocky grin.

I shrink in my seat as a spike of fear shoots through me. He really wasn’t supposed to see that.

“BMW douchebag,” I mumble as I hit my turn signal and pull my tiny car off the road and into a parking lot designated for compact cars only.

I look around me before I get out. This day has been bad enough already. The last thing I need is a road-rage idiot suffering from affluenza coming after me in the airport parking lot.

Alright, no time to lose. I jump out of my car and haul my suitcase out of the trunk. It barely fit in there. It’s way too big. I’m only going to be gone for a week, but I’m equipped for at least a month. Some people overpack. I pack like there might be some sort of a natural disaster and I’ll have to stay forever.

After hauling my monstrosity behind me and catching the bus to the airport terminal, I go through the ridiculously complicated check-in process. All those automated machines are supposed to make things faster, but I can never get them to do what I want them to, and it ends up taking me twice as long. The terminal is packed today. It’s Thursday, the very beginning of Labor Day weekend, and everyone, I mean everyone, has someplace to be.

The line stretches, zigzagging across the white linoleum floor. Harried travelers stare at their phones, leaning on one foot, then the other, sighing with impatience. Dammit. I might really miss my flight. Which might not be a bad thing. If I miss it, I won’t have to go. I shouldn’t be going, as Cara has told me repeatedly over the last several months.

As if she’s reading my thoughts, my phone pings, and I see a text from my best friend:

Are you at the airport? I’m so so soooooo sorry I couldn’t make it! I’m there with you in spirit! You can do this!

I smile at the screen. Cara was supposed to be here with me as moral support, but her grandmother got sick and is in the hospital with pneumonia. So, when Cara showed up at my apartment apologizing profusely, I gave her a hug and told her that she should go be with her family and not to give it a moment’s thought.

The line inches along. I crane my head, up on the toes of my sensible airport ballet flats. Easy to get on, easy to take off. I double-check that my computer is ready to place in a bin, and my phone is already in my hand, slippery with sweat from my nervous fingers. I tap out a quick message:

I’m here. Security is a nightmare. If I miss my flight, I’m not going.

The phone immediately pings in response:

In that case, I hope you miss your flight!

Ahead of me, I watch as some lady works on the tiny buckles of her stilettos. I suppress a groan. Who wears stilettos to the airport? What the hell is she trying to prove? Although they do make her legs look killer, and her outfit is perfect. But never mind. There’s no excuse for this. Airports are a place for efficiency, and I’ve got this down to a science. I traveled nonstop as a kid, and I still travel all the time for work.

The line shuffles forward again. I look with envy next to me, where the swift pass, or the pre-check or whatever that line is called, moves right along while the rest of us undress for the TSA. I should have gotten the pre-check. I meant to. I keep meaning to. Every time I’m at the airport I go through this inner monologue, but then I never do it, because I’m the sort of person who procrastinates, and overpacks, and has a to-do list as long as a CVS receipt. But at least I’m ready for the TSA.

Ahead of me, in the fast lane, I see the guy in the Beamer. I grit my teeth as I inspect him. He’s frowning down at his phone, typing in hyper speed. He’s wearing sleek charcoal slacks, cleanly pressed with a crease down the front so sharp it could give you a paper cut. His black knit top looks soft. Not the slouchy comfy sort of soft, the expensive sort. He’s wearing the right kind of shoes. Loafers. Easy to slip off, easy to put back on. Not that he’ll need to. Nor will he have to take off his belt or remove all his worldly possessions to place in separate bins.

With a huff, I turn my focus back to my own lackluster reality. When it’s my turn I lay my computer into one bin, my shoes in another. My leggings don’t require a belt, and I have no pockets to empty. My backpack contains only a book, a sandwich, a spare pair of underwear (just in case), and my crochet tools. I’m making a baby blanket for Cara, who just announced that she’s expecting her first with her unbelievably sweet husband, Billy. I’m thrilled for them. I really am. I can’t wait to be Aunty Daisy. I’m going to be a kick-ass aunt. I even bought a book on babies, just in case Cara needs me to know something about her newborn, as if she doesn’t have three actual, biological sisters ready to dote on her.

I walk to the machine that takes nude pictures of you and stand with my arms up in the air, and proceed to hustle my shoes back on my feet and sling my belongings into my backpack, and then I’m off, storming towards the terminal like a woman possessed. The image of the man from the Beamer taunts me. He’s probably already relaxing in business class, sipping a glass of champagne, and purchasing an overpriced watch from SkyMall . Ugh. I should have just accepted the apology wave, so I wouldn’t be ruminating on him like he’s the source of all my problems.

I get to the gate just in time. The last of the passengers are lining up with their tickets and phones ready to scan, and the flight attendant directs them down the ramp towards the plane. Some small part of me, the part I have been resolutely ignoring since I got that invitation six months ago, groans regret. Once I get on that plane, there’s no going back. I sigh. At least I have a stay in a plush hotel room to look forward to. And room service, and access to a pillow menu that I absolutely plan on abusing. All paid for by Michael, my mother’s soon-to-be husband.

I make my way down the aisle of the crowded plane. First past the smug faces of the business class passengers, comfortably lounging with drinks already in hand, then to the back, with the normal people with normal problems—like being seated next to a screaming toddler, or trying to film the person flipping out because they had one too many at the airport bar and forgot we live in a society. They’re all in various states of disarray. Shoving slightly too large carry-on bags into overhead bins and making awkward introductions to their seat mates.

I head down towards the back of the plane. I have a middle seat because of course I waited until the last possible moment to book my ticket.

I find my row, and look to the right and then to the left. My stomach plummets through the floor, right down to the cargo hold.

The man who wagged the middle finger at me like he enjoyed it, and smugly strolled through security without a care in the world. He’s on my flight, and because I must have done something terrible in a previous life, he is seated next to me.

The word pops out of my mouth before I can stop it.

“Beamer.” It comes out like an accusation.

He looks up from his laptop abruptly, where he’s typing like he must get this email out or calamity is imminent. He looks startled for a moment, and an awkward pause ensues as recognition lights his eyes. Then his mouth curves up in a slow smile. Not a smile. A smirk. It’s a rather appealing mouth. He doesn’t say anything, only stands, to let me get past and take my seat in the middle. To my left a middle-aged woman is already lightly snoring, her head slouched against the window. I look around frantically, just to make sure the plane really is full, which it is. No empty seats anywhere. I quietly damn Cara for having the foresight to book herself a refundable ticket.

I slide my backpack under the seat in front of me and sit. My heart is jumping in my chest at what just came out of my mouth. I cannot believe I said that. He takes his seat next to me, and I am excruciatingly aware of the fact that I just called attention to myself, and now he has clearly recognized me as the unhinged woman who gave him the finger instead of just accepting the courtesy wave. This is the universe punishing me.

A few minutes pass while the flight attendants begin closing the overhead compartments. Maybe he will ignore the ridiculous nickname I just gave him, and we will sit in silence for the entire three and a half hours it will take to get from Denver to DC. But fate is not on my side today, and from my right, where Beamer is still making a show of doing very important things on his laptop, I hear his voice for the first time.

“Mini Cooper.” The words are smooth, like a Bond villain who’s been expecting his nemesis to arrive at any moment, informing me that, yes, he is aware of precisely who I am, and no, he’s not going to let it go.

I huff at him and rummage through my backpack at my feet until I find my crochet hook and ball of yarn. The baby blanket will be green and yellow—gender neutral, since Cara has decided she wants the sex of the baby to be a surprise.

The flight attendants are now instructing all passengers to put their devices into airplane mode. Beamer closes his laptop and slides it into the seat pocket at his knees. The watch on his wrist flashes at me, like it needs the world to know it was expensive. This is when he notices the canary yellow yarn in my lap.

“Go ahead, Mini, and be more cliché. The world didn’t think you were cute enough with that ridiculous car you drive.”

I look at him, my jaw hanging open. “Excuse me?”

He nods at my baby blanket. “You knit? What are you, a sixty-year-old woman?”

“It’s crochet,” I correct him, hooking my needle aggressively through the yarn.

“Tomato, tomahto,” he says with an indifferent shrug.

My lips press into a flat line, and I exhale hard through my nose like a dragon. I can ignore him. I can just ignore him for this entire flight. I don’t have to even reply to him. But of course I do, because he basically just called me a nerd, and now my temper is officially up.

“What, are you in high school?” I spit back at him.

“You started it, Mini.” The smirk returns as he pulls out his in-flight magazine and begins leafing through it. A full-page ad alerts us to the existence of Montana. I examine him for a moment before I reply and realize that the smirk has subtly transformed into a quiet sort of smile. This is entertaining to him. He’s trying not to laugh.

“At least I have a hobby, and I’m not glued to my work computer.” He might find this funny, but I’m not laughing.

“How do you know it’s work?” he asks lightly. He turns a page, eyes still on his magazine. “I could be a poet. I could be writing the Great American Novel.”

The plane begins taxiing the runway.

“Oh, I highly I doubt that.”

“Why does that seem so unbelievable?” He looks at me as though affronted.

“Because poets don’t cut people off at the airport,” I explain.

“I apologized for that. Didn’t you see me wave? It was an accident.”

I ignore him. “And poets don’t drive BMWs.”

“Successful poets might,” he points out. “And let’s not forget, Mini, you gave me the finger first.”

I set my crochet down and turn to look at him squarely. “I was late for my flight, and you”—I jab a finger towards him, nearly touching his arm—“almost killed me.”

“Well, I was late for my flight too. I apologized. I gave the wave.”

I should just say sorry for the middle finger, but as is easily displayed by my packing tendencies, I lack self-control.

“Yes, well, we don’t all have the TSA fast pass.”

He looks momentarily startled before he laughs. “So, you’ve been stalking me through the airport? You should learn to control those anger issues.”

“You aren’t going to let this go, are you, Beamer?”

He looks at me and gives me an evil grin with his very nice mouth, and a single dark eyebrow raises. “I’m afraid not, Mini.”

“Well, I’m not sorry for flipping you off, because now I can tell you deserved it. I’m a good judge of character.”

“Are you? And what is my character like?” I swear he’s really enjoying this. His eyes are literally bright with mirth. Something about that fact—the fact that my harried stress and borderline mental break on the roadway is funny to him—makes me dislike him even more.

“You wear expensive clothes.” I nod at his slacks. “You have a fancy watch. Why don’t you make your way up to the front of the plane where you belong? Doesn’t your poet’s salary pay for that?”

The plane swoops up into the air with a roar of the engines and my stomach dips a little.

“All booked up,” he says easily as he reaches for his computer.

He pulls down his tray table, and the screen lights up, revealing a wall of text in what must be nine-point font. Good God, whatever this man does for a living seems horrible.

He begins typing again, this time in red, making track changes. Tearing up someone else’s work. How very predictable.

I return to my crochet, taking a deep breath, focusing on the thought of Cara’s baby nestled in the blanket. It’s just three hours next to this man. To my right the woman lets out a snort, and then another snore.

“She took a pill,” Beamer says absently.

“What?” I snap.

“The lady next to you. She took a pill as soon as she sat down. I was relieved that I wouldn’t have too much chatter to distract me.”

“You’re the one still talking,” I say, sliding the yarn over the crochet hook and pulling it through the loop.

He doesn’t reply but continues typing away. The flight turns, tipping my body to the right. Through the window the checkered quilt of the Great Plains expands into the distance. Behind us, the flight attendants rummage about with bottles and cups, glass clinking and cabinet doors opening and shutting as they prepare the drink cart. Beamer’s elbow is firmly planted on the armrest between us. My jaw tightens, and I press my elbow against his, still working my crochet hook. He doesn’t budge.

It’s a universal understanding amongst all air travelers that the person in the middle seat gets the armrest. All of us on this journey are trapped in an aluminum tube together, thousands of feet in the air, and only a few unspoken rules separate us from becoming a reenactment of The Lord of the Flies . This is one of them. Beamer and I are locked in an air travel cold war, each of us hell-bent on claiming these few square inches of precious real estate for ourselves. I press my elbow harder against his, but I might as well be working against a brick wall.

Finally, I huff, “Beamer, the armrest is mine.”

“Says who, Mini?” he asks without looking over at me, his fingers working across the keys as smoothly as a pianist.

“Says the laws of nature and every person who’s ever flown. Are you new to air travel? First flight? You must be excited .”

“Those laws only apply to people who are tall enough to ride a rollercoaster, Mini. And who don’t have a woman on a dose of horse tranquilizer sitting on their other side.”

My small stature has been the source of many a joke in my lifetime. It’s not original.

“Way to grasp at the low-hanging fruit, Beamer.”

“I bet you know all about low-hanging fruit,” he says and then grins at his own joke.

I roll my eyes. “Got any other knee-slappers for me? Your work looks boring as hell, by the way.”

“I can go all day.”

“I bet your girlfriend regrets that.”

His lips purse into something like a frown. “Is that jealousy I hear, Mini?”

“Not in a million years.”

The keys clack under his fingers. My crochet hook works with increasing force. Our elbows are still smashed together.

A moment later a flight attendant charges up the aisle with the drinks cart, headed with determination towards the elites in the front.

There’s a grunt of pain, and Beamer rubs his elbow as the cart hits him with a rattling thump, and the attendant moves past as though she didn’t just risk fracturing his arm.

I stifle the urge to cackle at him in vindication. Instead, I sigh. He has broad shoulders. I think about myself waving my finger at him through the windshield of my car, and his apology wave in return, and I relent. Damn conscience. I silently slide my elbow off the armrest. A small show of humanity in an increasingly inhumane world.

A few moments of silence pass between us, and all the bluster has gone out of me.

“Thank you,” he says in a low voice, almost like he regrets having manners.

“Is your elbow hurt?” I ask.

“My professional tennis career is likely over, but beyond that I expect to survive.”

“I thought you were a poet.”

“I’m a man of many talents,” he answers smoothly.

I smile in spite of myself as I hook and loop the yarn.

He sighs then, as though in resignation.

“My name is Charles.” He reaches his right hand across his body in an offer to shake mine. I regard it with suspicion for a moment and look up to meet his eyes. They’re a lovely shade of hazel, gold and green and soft brown. It annoys me that every time I notice a detail about this man’s appearance, it turns out to be something attractive.

I reach up and meet his grip. It’s firm. “Daisy.”

He tilts his head back with a laugh, although it’s good-humored now, rather than sarcastic. “Oh, come on, not Daisy!”

“Why not Daisy?” I say, affronted.

“Because you drive a Mini Cooper, and you knit, and the name Daisy is practically the same as being called Dot.” There’s a twinkle in his hazel eyes.

“Please tell me we’re not back to that.” I want to continue being angry, but I’m finding it difficult. “I get it, I’m short and I crochet, ” I correct him. “And besides, it’s not like you aren’t a walking cliché yourself, with your very important laptop and your fancy car and country club name.”

He’s twisted towards me now, his broad shoulders turned in my direction, “Hey, I go by Charlie, and I could be sitting up front, and I’m not. So that blows a hole in your whole cliché theory.”

“Because they were all booked up,” I say pointedly.

He turns back to his computer. “The point still stands. A lesser man would have taken the later flight.”

I huff a laugh and shake my head.

“I didn’t mean to cut you off, Daisy,” he says softly.

Finally, I give in to the urge to offer an apology, “I’m sorry I flipped you off. This just hasn’t been my day. Or my year, actually.”

I grimace inside at this little slip of vulnerability, and all at once I remember exactly why I’m on this flight and what I’m flying towards, and the desire to talk leaves me. I move to put my crochet away and take out my book, but Charlie interrupts me, his eyes back to me, his computer seemingly forgotten, his expression sincere.

“I take it this isn’t a trip for pleasure, then?” he says.

The way the word pleasure comes out of his mouth makes me nervous. “It’s not, exactly. It’s more of a chore, to be perfectly honest.”

“I’m sorry it’s not a happy trip.”

It’s a platitude, but I’m struck by a brief moment of insanity during which I think I could tell him everything. I could tell this stranger the whole ugly backstory and then waltz off the plane unburdened, never to see him again. Instead, I reach for my book and open it, signaling the end of the conversation.

We sit in silence for a while as I attempt to read through the distraction of Beamer’s presence beside me. He works diligently, making progress in whatever it is that he does with his life. Periodically, he murmurs under his breath. Sometimes he snorts derisively. Finally, he mutters, “Jackass.”

I look at him with concern. “Are you okay?”

I shouldn’t have issued commentary of any sort. Why I decided to reopen the door to conversation isn’t something I fully understand, beyond the fact that when I’m talking to him, I’m not thinking about anything else, and my novel isn’t putting any effort into holding my attention.

“Sorry.” He looks sheepish. “Just this guy I work with. Everything he does just sounds so… pretentious. And overblown. He uses a paragraph to express something that could be said in just a line.”

“Like he likes the look of his own writing? Likes the thought of someone hearing the sound of his voice?”

“Yes.” He points at the screen. “Exactly like that. And I happen to be one of those people who hears what they read in their head, so unfortunately, I’ve had his voice in my ear this whole flight.”

“Except when you’ve had my voice in your ear,” I say.

“Yeah.” He tilts his head slightly, as though weighing his words. “But you have a nice voice, Daisy. I don’t mind it at all, it turns out.”

All at once, my cheeks feel warm, and I turn my head back to my book.

When the plane lands, Charlie does not stand up right away. In my mind, that receives brownie points. I’ve never understood the people who stand up the second the wheels touch the ground, as if they will suddenly be free to sprint towards the front of the plane and jump out of the hatch.

“Do you have anything in the overhead?” he asks when we finally stand and it’s our turn to head down the aisle. The show of consideration surprises me.

“Nope,” I answer, “but thanks.”

He nods and slings his laptop case over one shoulder. He, also, is carrying nothing else.

He holds an arm out. “After you.” The gesture is oddly sweet, coming from a man who spent the first half an hour of our acquaintance blithely enjoying making fun of me.

I walk ahead of him, and at baggage claim we do the thing where we stand in proximity to one another, but not exactly next to one another. As though we are unsure what the etiquette is for people who have become sort-of pals on a flight after being sort-of enemies.

My obscenely large suitcase, in an undignified shade of purple, is dumped onto the carousel and as I haul it off, I catch him out of the corner of my eye, chuckling with one hand over his mouth, shaking his head.

And that’s that. Beamer is now filed away in my mind, as a funny story about the time I gave a hot guy the finger on my way to the airport.