Letter to a Stranger

Letter to a Stranger

To the Business Woman on the Plane to the Place I Can't Remember

By Victoria Juniet

I’m not sure which trip my parents and I were on that day. Cheap tickets had gotten us a flight to a layover somewhere. Jacksonville International? Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta? Newark Liberty?

I do know: it was one of the trips my family took during my bracey-faced, acne-prone high school years.

I remember, to my anxious flyer’s dismay, that this short flight happened to be on a puddle jumper. Two seats were on the left side and only one on the other side. A tall person could have stretched across all three seats with the aisle in between, and would have just been able to fit. With the engines so big in comparison to the overall size of the aircraft, everyone on board was lucky enough to get an engine seat. The only humidity offered in the cabin was brought on by the sweat of previous passengers and evaporated tears of once-wailing infants hanging in the thousand-times circulated air.

I preferred to be sandwiched between my parents on flights, but that wasn’t going to happen on this little excursion. The third seat we booked was apparently not even in the same row. With the understanding that I would sit with my dad in the double-seater situation, we thought we would try to get my mom seated in the single across from us.

I think you were wearing a simple, neutral-colored blouse and a light sweater. Your pin-straight blonde hair was pulled back into a relaxed ponytail. Based on your quiet demeanor and put-togetherness, you seemed a non-confrontational candidate to ask to switch places with my mom. My dad squeezed past me and stepped out into the aisle to stand by the seat in front of you. He rested an elbow on the back of the worn blue pleather and stood to the outer edge of the 12-inch-wide strip of carpet-- a futile effort to stay out of the way in an already tight aisle.

“Excuse me, my wife is seated over there, would you possibly mind switching with her so she could be in the same row as us?” he asked.

I assumed you would say yes. It was a no brainer! You obviously weren’t traveling with anyone, and you didn’t seem like the type to say no.

“Actually I do mind, I’m sorry. I get airsick, so I would prefer not to be next to anyone.”

“Oh ok! I understand, no worries,” he replied. Having retraced his single step back to our side, he gave me a sympathetic “We tried” kind of look. He motioned to my mom behind us that the arrangement would have to stay the same.

You turned to face us once more.“I’m sorry again, I always get airsi...” you began.

I nodded and smiled, while only bits and pieces of your conversation with my dad made its way to my ears.

“No problem, we...” I heard him start to reply.

“I fly a lot for work so...” you explained, and on the conversation went.

You should know, I hate getting stomach sick. It’s one of the things I detest most in life. So I was not happy about the prospect of having to sit near you while you tossed your cookies into a paper bag, present for all the hunching over, retching, groaning, and week-old-remnants-of-a-baby-bottle smell. I was hoping beyond anything that the flight could somehow just be over with. I’m sure you were, too. It must be terrible to have a job that makes you travel when flying is the very thing that gives you one of the worst feelings in the world. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

Settling down in my seat, I tried not to think about the impending ordeal. Dad wrestled with the window, trying but failing to get it open past a couple of inches.

“Well, so much for a view, eh?”

I nestled next to me the petite, hot pink purse that my fifteenish-year-old self thought was stylish and focused my attention on my Kindle Fire game of solitaire to pass the time while people were seated. The flight attendant was a Charlie Brown teacher to my preoccupied mind, barely beating out the whirring of the engines and last-minute snapping shut of overhead bins. I flicked the button to turn on airplane mode and went back to the game.

I couldn’t help but glance over at you, so calm and stoic.

Thump.

You slid the shade down, stifling the morning glow pouring in from our nearest window.

How soon was this airsick thing gonna happen? Would turbulence set it off? Or are we coming out of the gate running with takeoff? Would the flight attendant have to dispose of your sac full of filth? Bless their soul.

I breathed a quick prayer, “Lord, please don’t let her get sick. Let it be a smooth flight and her stomach stay settled the entire ride. Give us both peace. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

The plane began to taxi and I could tell you seemed to tense up a little, mirroring my own feeling. My least favorite part had arrived-- lift off. I squeezed my dad’s hand as our tin box with no windows picked up speed and altitude down the runway, hunkering down even more to intensely focus on the virtual cards. Darn my ability to win those games so fast. How dare the cards flip around in celebration like I was in any condition to watch such a frivolous thing! I had takeoff and a potentially airsick lady to distract myself from! I immediately tapped it away to start another round.

When I felt comfortable enough to stop white-knuckling my dad’s hand and sit up better in my seat, I looked over at you. You had placed a tissue over your mouth and leaned your head over to the side nearest the gray wall that used to be a window, eyes closed while you concentrated on breathing deeply.

“Lord, please don’t let her get sick. Please just let it be a smooth flight.”

Every so often I would look over to see you still in the same position, absent to the outside

world, still just focusing on breathing.

The air was smooth. No bumps so far. A glimmer of hope.

I stretched around my seat to look at Mom. She was facing forward staring into the distance peacefully, perfectly content just being on an airplane. One of her favorite things in the world.

She caught me looking and blew me a kiss.

I blew one back.

It was about halfway through the trip when I glanced over to see that you had, in fact… fallen asleep. The tissue you once held over your mouth was still clutched in your hand, but your arm relaxed in front of you. Your arms folded over one another, keeping your cardigan in place around your torso. The glow had returned, despite our still-closed windows. Beams of light intensified through surrounding portholes, casting a warm ambiance about the cabin that spilled over into our little row.

I breathed a sigh of relief and a thank you to God. You said you always get airsick, but not this time. Jesus came through for both of us that day.

Finally, the landing gear clunked beneath us, signaling the beginning of the end. We slanted this way and that, closer and closer to our anonymous destination.

Somewhere amidst the slanting I realized you had awoken without a sound, resituating yourself, though nothing was out of place.

The plane lowered to a teasing hover above the ground that makes us think we’ve smoothly landed until a jarring jolt reveals the tires’ true contact with the tarmac.

I peeked intermittently as you readied yourself to exit and gathered your belongings, before remembering that I had to grab mine, too.

I watched you move out into the aisle, where my dad once stood, as a line of passengers filled in behind and in front of you.

“We’ll wait here for a minute,” my dad said. He propped an elbow on the seat in front of him and a hand on the back of his own, keeping an eye out for my mom while devising a strategy for acquiring our overhead luggage upon a break in the line.

Among the shuffle of passengers, you made your way down the single-file march off the plane without another word to me or my family.

My fellow anxious flyer, I’ll never see you again. You’ll never remember me.

I guess my prayer for you that day may have been selfishly motivated, but I hope you had a better day because of it. I hope you were relieved that you fell asleep instead of getting sick. I sometimes wonder if you still have that job, or if you’ve since moved on from work that forces you to travel.

I hope one day you learn that the same God that heard me that day hears you, no matter how small the request may be. His love reaches across any distance, even across the aisle of a puddle-jumping plane.