“Thank you,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “I was beginning to think that bag weighed more than I did.”
“Perhaps it has more years left in it,” I replied.
He laughed.
“My name is Harold.”
“Martha.”
We settled into our seats and exchanged a few polite remarks about the flight.
Harold was traveling to visit his sister. He had been widowed for several years, and he spoke about her with the affectionate impatience of someone who had spent a lifetime loving a person who knew exactly how to annoy him.
I liked him immediately.
Then I smelled the perfume.
It was sweet, overpowering, and unmistakably familiar.
A voice rang out a few rows ahead.
“Okay, guys! We’re finally boarding. Let me show you my seat!”
Brittany stood in the aisle, holding her phone behind her back while filming the cabin.
She turned suddenly.
Her enormous hair followed half a second later, swinging across the face of a man trying to store his luggage.
