Chapter One
Splat! The vomit narrowly missed her left shoe, an Italian sling-back she’d bought three weeks ago in Paris. The return trip had so far been a boot camp for patience. First, the airline had bumped her out of her first class seat and put her in business class. Then, the airline had seated a child right behind her, ordinarily not a problem, but it had been tough falling asleep on the eight hour flight with the squalling child having tantrums behind her. The gentleman seated on her left was air sick, or something worse, she feared. If she was lucky it wasn’t the flu. Either way, there was no where else to sit on the plane. She was stuck.
She had consulted her Palm pilot frequently over the course of the flight, jotting down notes about the upcoming wedding and writing notes about ideas that had come to her in Paris. She had tried reading a book, but between the green fish on her left and the irate child behind her, she was extremely distracted. After reading the same page for the tenth time, she finally put the book back in her carryon bag.
The co-pilot announced their impending arrival at O’hare International Airport and made mention of the customs documents that the flight attendants were distributing.
“Excuse me, miss,” said the gentleman across the aisle and up a row. Reagan’s head popped up and she smiled at the young man’s friendly countenance.
“Yes?”
“Do you have a pen I can borrow? I must have lost mine somewhere.” He held up the customs form as evidence of his need.
“Of course. Here.” She said handing her Mont Blanc to the man and started filling out her own form.
The child behind her began wailing again as the plane began its decent. The man sitting beside Reagan seemed to finally have found some peace from his bouts of sickness and appeared to be taking a short nap. As the wheels touched down, she felt a burgeoning sense of relief. Finally she was home, now, if only she could deplane as quickly as possible.
As the seatbelt sign turned off, she reached under the seat in front of her and pulled out her carry-on. She arranged her customs forms inside of her passport and slipped them into the top of her bag. She gently woke her seatmate to alert him of their arrival and stood up to take her place in the line that was forming.
The line began to move forward and she stepped past the friendly young man who had borrowed her pen. He appeared to be wrestling with a laptop computer case’s zipper. He looked up and smiled at her. She walked on and quickly found her way to a customs agent and then to baggage claim.
As she waited for the carousel to start up, several of the other passengers from her flight began to find the carousel. Someone tapped on her shoulder. She thought it might be Megan Jones, her assistant come to pick her up, but found the same smiling young man from the plane when she turned.
“I’m sorry. I forgot to return your pen,” he said handing over the burgundy instrument.
“Oh, thank you. I nearly forgot it myself!”
“Are you here on business or pleasure?” he asked with something like speculation in his eye.
“Oh, neither actually. Chicago is home. I’m returning from a business trip. You?”
“Business, I’m afraid. Well,” he seemed to be getting agitated, “welcome home then! I’d better go find a taxi.” He hurried off toward the car park. Reagan briefly wondered about his bags before spotting her two big cases. She rolled them off and found her own taxi to settle in to the 25 minute ride home.
