show her nervousness as she greeted the passengers with a confident ‘good morning’ and a pleasant smile so that they felt personally welcomed on board.
She’d noticed him initially because he didn’t have his boarding card ready when he arrived at the door to the plane. If there was anything that was guaranteed to put a passenger in Grace’s bad books it was not having their boarding card ready and consequently holding everyone else up as they searched through everything they possessed to find it.
As he tried his inside jacket pockets and then the battered leather satchel that was slung over his shoulder, she reminded herself that he could be one of the many people who were heading to the States in search of work that simply wasn’t there in Ireland, and that he might be distracted and upset, the boarding card the least of his worries. She had sympathy for the emigrants, who she normally identified straight away – young men and women with resigned expressions on their faces. But Ken didn’t have their broken air of despair. He was quietly confident, if somewhat distracted over the disappearance of the boarding card, and he frowned and rubbed his beard in frustration while he wondered aloud where it could be. Unlike his hair, which was dark brown, the beard was liberally sprinkled with fiery red.
‘Perhaps in the pocket of your jeans?’ she suggested.
‘Oh God, yes. Sorry.’ He found and handed her the boarding card. ‘I’m not good on details,’ he added.
She bit back her riposte that the boarding card wasn’t a detail and directed him to his seat before turning her attention to the queue of passengers behind him.
When everyone was finally boarded and the plane was being pushed back from the stand, she did her walk through the cabin to make sure that seat belts were fastened and table trays up. She generally divided the passengers into two categories. Those who buckled up as soon as they took their seats and who watched the safety demonstration intently before checking out their nearest escape route; and those who rebelled by not bothering to do either and who sighed theatrically when she asked them to fasten their belt and secure the tray in the seat-back in front of them.
Ken Harrington, seated in 35D, was a rebel, having neither fastened his belt nor put up his table tray, on which he’d propped a large bound manuscript that he was studying intently from behind his black-rimmed glasses. He didn’t respond when she first spoke to him, and she had to tap him on the shoulder to get his attention.
He looked up at her with big brown eyes that in other circumstances might have melted her heart. But she needed to complete the cabin check and she didn’t have the time or the patience for rebellious passengers.
‘Seat belt,’ she said. ‘Table tray.’
‘Huh?’
‘Seat belt. Table tray.’
‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I suppose I should be grateful to have Hippolyta looking after me so assiduously.’ He put the manuscript into the seat pocket in front of him and winked.
She glanced at her name badge, even though she knew it said ‘Grace Garvey’.
‘Hippolyta was an Amazon queen,’ he said. ‘You remind me of her.’
A smart-arse as well as everything else, she thought.
The broad smile he suddenly flashed at her was genuine, and this time her heart did melt a little. ‘I really am sorry,’ he said. ‘I get caught up in stuff, you see.’
‘I understand,’ she told him. ‘But you have to listen to the instructions of the cabin crew. It’s for your own safety.’
‘Of course, Hippolyta,’ he said.
‘My name is Grace.’ She touched her badge. ‘If there’s anything I can do to make your flight more comfortable, don’t hesitate to ask.’ And then she continued down the cabin.
She’d half expected him to be one of those demanding passengers who spent their time pressing the call bell, but he stayed engrossed in the manuscript for most of the seven hours it took to get to New York. It was only when she came around to check the cabin for landing that he stopped her and asked if she’d like to meet him for a coffee while he was in the city.
She looked at him in astonishment.
‘If you’ve nothing better to do,’ he added.
‘Thank you for the invitation,’ she replied when she’d recovered her composure. ‘But I’ll be overnighting with the crew and heading back tomorrow.’
‘I’d like to see you again,’ he said. ‘Perhaps after your next flight?’
‘I’m not an