I had intended to sleep on the plane. I was absolutely exhausted and didn't think I would be able to stay awake whether I felt like working or not. I had been traveling for ten consecutive days and this next flight was my flight home. It had, of course, been delayed several hours as it seemed all flights home were, but I was too tired to care.
I had sat in my chair waiting with my laptop resting comfortably on my knees while I read over my notes from the meeting that morning. But the fact of the matter was that I was reading the same paragraph over and over and not actually absorbing what it said. It seemed my brain was too sleepy for me to actually comprehend anything.
I sighed and turned it off.
There was no use so I packed my laptop into it's satchel and stretched my arms up over my head bringing my left hand down to cover my mouth as I yawned. There was a spot on the floor about fifteen feet from where I sat and I swore to myself if the little man behind the counter said that my flight was delayed any longer than the twenty more minutes he had promised ten minutes ago, I was going over there, curling up into a ball, and going to sleep.
I contemplated getting up and walking down the corridor again to shake the fuzz from my brain and maybe find some more coffee but reconciled myself to waiting when I realized I'd had five cups of coffee thus far and if they weren't helping it was unlikely that another would do the trick.
What I needed was sleep. Preferably a good twelve hours of it.
I glanced out the window and looked at the dark tarmac. There were several men out there chatting while they waited for the arrival of our plane. That was hopeful at least. I was sure that they could find other work to do if they knew that the plane wasn't going to land anytime soon.
As though reading my mind, the little guy behind the counter turned his mic on.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to apologize again for the delay. I do have good news though. I've just heard from the control tower and they are signaling your plane in right now. As soon as we can get the plane unloaded, we will begin boarding all of you. It should only take a few minutes. Again, I'd like to apologize for the delay and thank you all for flying with us."
It was though a collective sigh of relief went through the room. I am mostly sure that it started with the young mother of two sitting on the floor with one child passed out next to her and the other one demanding she read Alice in Wonderland again.
We'd heard Alice in Wonderland no less than four times in the last hour alone. I sent her a sympathetic look and started to gather up my things and trudge my way to where all the other weary travels were forming lines to board the plane.
I glanced at my watch and winced at the time. Three thirty in the morning is not a time I care to be awake for. I tried in vain to figure out if it was 3:30 my time or if the time here was different but gave up after only twenty seconds and chuckled out loud to myself for thinking I would know. I began to mentally recount the last twenty four hours.
I'd woken up at 5:45 this... well, yesterday morning. That of course was 5:45 their time, my time was 4:45. I was then corralled off to breakfast with two of our vendors at 6:30 for a pre-breakfast breakfast where I was unable to consume anything more than some coffee after our post-drinks drinks the night before. After having answered questions for the better part of an hour, I was loaded back into a car and driven to the conference which lasted (painfully) from 8:00 to 5:00 (less a forty five minute break for lunch). There was a small meeting afterwards that ran until 6:30 and then a car called to take me to the airport for my first of three flights home. That had been less than twelve hours ago and yet felt like it could have happened the week before.
I squeezed my way down the aisle looking for the first window seat that no one was occupying as I planned to shove a pillow between my head and the window and pass smooth out before the plane ever even left the ground. About half way through the plane, I found the first of several sets of unoccupied seats and chose one. Storing my bag under the seat in front of me and covering up with my sweater, I put my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. Much to my surprise, I wasn't immediately overcome with sleep.
I tried again.
Nothing.
It simply wasn't fair. I probably would have minded less if it had been Friday. If I were on my way home with the weekend ahead of me and an unlimited amount of sleep, it wouldn't be too big a deal. But as it was, I had to be in a meeting at 11:00 which was only seven hours from now. The very idea of that made me snort to myself. I reached into my bag and took out my cell phone so I could send my assistant a text message.
'Tori - Reschedule the 11:00 for late, LATE afternoon. Flight was delayed. I'll call tomorrow.'
I turned my phone off and stored it back in it's rightful pouch. it was then that I noticed the man who had sat in the aisle seat. He glanced at me for a moment and smiled before turning back to his Dean Koontz novel. That flash of blue eyes had made me feel a little self conscious and I stole a peak at my clothes, or what clothes you could see that weren't covered by my sweater. It wasn't much. I'd opted for a wrinkle free top that morning since I knew I would be flying and one with some fairly decent cleavage since I had that meeting with the account we were trying to snag. I was in slacks since it was something like thirty degrees outside and I'd chosen some practical flats just in case I had to spend a lot of time walking around the airport. I mentally patted myself on the back for that particular bit of forethought. I was sure my makeup was gone or run and my hair was probably standing up all around my head from the static of the seats in the plane. Deciding I didn't care, I looked over at him again and made immediate eye contact. This time I smiled and said, "hi." He stretched his long legs out under the seat in front of him and crossed them at the ankles.
"Hello."
He smiled again and I decided his eyes were not so much blue as they were gray.
"Business or pleasure?" He asked me.
"Does anyone really fly for pleasure any more?" I asked. It came out slightly grumpier than I had intended so I smiled a little to smooth out the edge.
"Ahhh, so business it is then. Me too." He extended his right hand, "I'm Mike."
I took his hand and shook it, "I'm Jane, it's nice to meet you, Mike."
"You too. So are you flying out or home?"
"Home, thank god. This is the last of three flights for me. What about you?"
"Out. I spend about one week a month in Wimberly. I have an account there that I can't seem to unload on one of the new guys."
Thinking about my home and my bed, I sighed to myself. It was a very small and picturesque place. Beautiful hills, lots of trees, one of those places where you could actually see the stars at night. I loved to lay on a lawn chair in my yard and stare at them before I went to bed.
"Well, it certainly isn't a bad place to spend a week. Why are you trying to unload it?"
He chuckled a little at my tone which made his eyes twinkle a little. Or maybe not. Maybe I was just really tired.
"I'm not trying to unload it because I don't like it there, quite the contrary - I think Wimberly is a pretty little place. It's just that it's a week. And it's a little place. I get bored after a few days and end up vegging out in my hotel room reading..." He held up the novel he was currently working on, "mystery novels and eating popcorn."
"I have a hard time believing that you spend an entire week cooped up in your hotel room when there are a bunch of really gorgeous places to hang out."
"'Hang out'? I'm too old to hang out, darlin'."
Darlin.
Damn the chills that sent up my spine.
"I don't mean... I don't mean like that. You know... it's just that there are places." I snuggled back into my chair, as much as you could in an airplane chair and let my mind wander off to the places I loved about where I lived. "There is this place, down by the river... no one ever goes there because it isn't a good swimming spot, but I don't care because swimming in the river freaks me out a little. But, you can take a blanket and a book and there is this great big rock..." I glanced over to make sure I wasn't boring him but he seemed to be listening so I went on. "You have to jump to get to it without getting wet and it looks like you can't quite make it, but you can. Then you are just sitting under all of these trees and no one is there and it is quiet... save for the birds and bugs and stuff, but it is quiet compared to all of this," I motioned around the plane.
He was looking at me. He'd put his book in his lap and had his scruffy cheek propped up on his hand and he was looking at me. It suddenly occurred to me that I most likely sounded like an idiot on account of the sleep deprivation and the way he was looking at me was making me very nervous. I fidgeted with my sweater a little, hoping he would say something.
"See, Jane, those are the kinds of places that they need to have on those damn fliers in the hotel rooms."
I laughed quietly at that.
"Oh no, we can't have all you tourists bringing your books and your blankets and stealing our rocks. Actually, now that I think about it, you'd best just forget that I mentioned it at all." I shot him my good smile, the flirty one.
"Oh no darlin', it's too late for that. I am going to get off of this plane and buy myself a blanket and then I am heading to your rock." He said it and then immediately looked surprised that those words had come out of his mouth.
We spent the next forty five minutes talking about our jobs, our towns and ourselves and I couldn't help but find him intriguing. He was at least fifteen years older than me, maybe twenty, but for some reason this didn't phase me. I still found him to be completely adorable. He was so surprised when he made me laugh and would almost light up from it. The longer we talked, the more I noticed that he was slightly nervous. When there was a lapse in conversation for a few seconds, you could almost see him searching for something to say to keep up the flow. It was so cute to watch that I purposefully held back two or three times just to see him struggle for those few moments before he thought of something else to ask me. And when I answered him, he would have this look of relief mixed with pleasure on his face, like he had just won some small battle. Before I knew it, our captain was informing us that we would be landing in a few minutes and that the temperature outside was fifty five degrees and the local time was 4:55am.
"You're an hour ahead," he said, pointing at my left wrist. I looked at my watch and saw that he was right and slipped it off to wind it back to my time. Once it was back on, I sat back in my seat and looked over at him again. He smiled and then did that thing that people do right before they are going to say something and then think better of it. He instead masked it by clearing his throat and shooting me a lopsided smile. I wondered what he had thought better of saying but didn't ask.
When the plane came to a complete stop, he stood up to retrieve his bag from the overhead compartment and then sat back down with it resting in his lap.
"So, do you have your car here or are you being picked up?"
There was just the slightest of inflections upon the words 'picked up'. Just enough for me to know what he was really asking.
"Oh, my car's parked here. I don't really have any family around and while I have good friends, I don't give out good enough Christmas presents to warrant them coming to the airport at five o'clock in the morning to pick me up. What about you?" I had already checked his left hand and saw no ring so I thought it was a safe enough question to ask.
"I usually rent. The Hertz dude should be parked outside waiting to sweep me off in his limo-van and take me to The Hertz Place where I will become the lucky recipient of a practical, beige, mid-sized sedan of some kind. Then I can drive to The Riverside Hotel and make some popcorn."
I smiled at him and then thought to get one of my business cards from my purse but it was our turn to shuffle into the aisle and off of the plane. We walked side by side to the baggage claim without saying anything and then stood waiting for our luggage making idle conversation about the hour and the weather. Our suitcases came at the same time, right next to each other. We both raised our eyebrows at this but didn't say anything.
"Well, Jane, it was very nice to meet you." He stuck his hand out again and smiled at me, sleepily. I put my hand in his and shook it.
"It was nice meeting you as well Mike."
He stood there for a second longer before turned and walking out to the rental pick up area.
I would be half way home before I kicked myself for not having the sense to give him my phone number.