Interesting flight. Nonstop, Singapore to Heathrow. At one point, 361 cellphone conversations under way all at once. Seventeen arraignments on assault and battery charges before the magistrate in the tiny but sumptuously appointed court chambers on the lower deck between the Baccarat Lounge and the Raquetball Court.
But now the captain brought the superjumbo Airbus 380 to a full and complete stop at the Heathrow gate and 800 passengers rose as one to collect belongings from overhead bins.
At the back of the aircraft, Laura, in Seat 221-T (aisle), made eye contact with Tommy, in 223-W (window). The airplane’s vastness made it possible for them to stand upright, even beneath the overhead bins, and Tommy could readily appraise Laura’s bosom, as her eyes surveyed his lean jaw and wide shoulders. Though her bin was above Row 219, Laura glanced up at the bins over 223, the last row in the aircraft, as if her belongings were there and so the reason for her maneuvering back to 223.
In the silence typical of passengers waiting to deplane, but made distinguished by their number, like 800 people riding one elevator, Tommy whispered to Laura: “Hello.” She smiled at him and said “Hello.” Several hours later, they were holding hands and could speak at conversational level, the silence having dissolved into numerous conversations between and among passengers discovering mutual backgrounds, making business deals, comparing childhoods, starting novels, falling in love. And for a time there was the thrum of cellphone conversations until batteries steadily began to go dead.
At the front of the aircraft, passengers struggled with overstuffed luggage, skis and ski poles, baby carriages, musical instruments in their hard cases, exotic Malaysian totems, disassembled rickshaws, office equipment, computers, mystery crates strapped in duct tape and yellow “Police Control” ribbon, etc., until one by one the items yielded and fell heavily to the aisles, making room for the next passenger’s struggle. With each success, the victor joined the queue at the stairway descending to the metered ramp for merging into the queue of passengers moving forward from below.
Just as they detected the first deplaning motion far ahead, Laura and Tommy shared their first kiss. It was at Row 207 that Tommy said, “Laura, will you marry me?”
“I need time,” Laura said, smiling and pleased, but confused. Eddie was waiting to meet her, out on the concourse. Yet she had never known the pleasure of lovemaking such as she and Tommy had shared at Row 214, where they had paused to watch a movie.
At 199, Laura embraced Tommy and said, “The answer is yes.”
“I’ll make your wedding dress,” said a kindly woman behind them. “My Singer is in the overhead bin, and several bolts of Javanese silk.”
At 171, Laura’s dress was ready. The magistrate married them in Row 167, and they drank champagne and danced at their reception in the galley between Rows 165 and 164 while the London Chamber Orchestra (flying in from Sydney) played.
They honeymooned at 143 and enjoyed the birth of twins behind the curtain separating Coach and Business Class. The children, Full and Upright, completed first and second grades in the 20-seat elementary school below First Class and emerged with their parents from the jetway into the concourse happy children well adjusted to the new age.
Furtively, Laura searched for Eddie and actually walked right past him but didn’t recognize him for the beard.
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