LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS
By Beatle_bum
“Good evening, sir, welcome onboard”.
I nodded an acknowledgment to the stewardess, glanced at the seat number on my ticket and headed down the aisle looking for row 7. Once located, I threw the paperback I had been carrying onto my seat, opened the overhead locker, put my overcoat, jacket and bag in there, and plonked myself down in the window seat.
I looked around and was glad to see the Business Class section of the plane was almost empty, although not everyone was onboard yet. This was the overnight American Airways flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to London Gatwick, a flight of 8 to 9 hours or so, depending on how strong the Gulf Stream wind was, and I hoped I wouldn’t have anyone sitting alongside me for the journey. Business Class was all very nice, but it’s a long flight and I hoped to have a vacant seat next to me so that I could stretch out when I wanted, or worse not have to disturb someone sleeping just to visit the bathroom.
Another group of passengers boarded, most of them heading for the economy seats further back, and the aircraft was filling up more than I had hoped. Still only a very few of them appeared to have Business Class tickets. I watched as one woman came down the aisle, struggling with a large weekend bag, and stopped right next to my seat. ‘Damn,’ I thought, it looked like the seat next to me was going to be occupied. She was, I guessed, in early 40’s, about 5’6”, with an attractive face topped with shoulder-length brown hair, dressed in a full-length coat. She put the bag down on the floor, took off her coat and opened the locker I’d just closed, and reached up to put her coat in it. Now divested of her coat and with her arms reaching up, I was able to appraise her more fully. Beneath the coat she was dressed in a dark-blue pin-striped business suit of jacket and mid-thigh length skirt. It didn’t look like ideal clothes for an overnight flight and I figured she had obviously come straight from the office. She now shrugged off the jacket, carefully folded it and reached up again to put it with her coat. Underneath the jacket she wore a white blouse with a feint blue pattern in it, and a simple, but expensive looking, gold necklace around her throat. I could make out the outline of a white bra underneath the blouse, and the outline of her breasts was accentuated as she reached up. They looked good, neither heavy, nor small, but (at least within the confines of her bra) nicely rounded. Coat and jacket now safely in the locker, she bent down to pick up the bag.
“Can I help you with that,” I asked her.
“Oh, please,” she said looking up, “it’s quite heavy though.”
I rose from my seat took hold of the black leather bag and after seeing that our locker was now full, opened the one behind it and hauled the bag up. As I did so I noticed the address tag attached to it. The woman’s name was Lucinda Warren, and she lived in a place I’d never heard of in Cambridgeshire.
“Thanks very much,” she said, and slipped into the seat behind mine.
I nodded an acknowledgement and slid back into my own seat. ‘Good’ I thought, ‘she’s great looking, but I liked my space.’
She must have been one of the last onboard, because a steward were sealing the outer door, and the stewardesses were coming down the aisles checking that seat-belts were secured, and helping the last of the passengers stow their luggage away. I looked around the Business Class section. It really wasn’t anywhere near as full as I had feared. There was another guy sitting in the opposite window seat to mine, but one row further forward, and a couple sitting two rows directly in front of me, but apart from them and the lady behind me, no other seat was taken. Most of those I had seen entering the plane must have headed further back to the Economy section. Mentally I applauded my company’s policy on business travel whereby Economy was the norm, but you were allowed to fly Business Class if the journey was longer than 3 hours.
It was another 20 minutes before the aircraft engines were switched on and we were pushed back from our gate. During this time we had been served a glass of orange juice and sat through the usual emergency procedures video, but now we were finally moving, the stewardesses took their seats ready for the take-off. Actually they needn’t have taken their seats yet, as it was a busy evening that night, and we had to queue behind four other planes before we were allowed to take our position at the end of the runway. Dusk had been approaching when I had boarded the aircraft, but now it was dark outside, and I watched the lights of the airport and the other craft as the cabin lights were dimmed ready for take-off. A roar of the engines and we were hurtling down the runway, and moments later I could feel the ground fall away as we took to the air. We climbed steadily through the clouds up into the night sky. It was actually lighter up here, the setting-sun visible to the east. The cabin-lights came back on, the stewardesses unbuckled themselves and set about getting things ready for the trip, although the ‘fasten seat-belt’ sign remained on for the rest of us. I flicked through the literature in the seat pocket in front and settled on the menu.
Ten minutes into the flight, the seat-belt lights were switched off as the plane levelled out into what would be its cruising altitude. I picked up my paperback and resumed where I had left off in the Departure Lounge. The book was a detective thriller, but so far had offered little in the way of thrills. It would keep me occupied for a while but wasn’t a huge diversion.
Suddenly I felt a sharp tap on my shoulder and turned round to see the woman behind smiling at me.
“Hi,” she said, “sorry to startle you, it’s just, well, I noticed we’re both flying alone, and I wondered whether you’d like some company over dinner.”
“Hmm, I’d like that,” I lied. Well lied is perhaps too strong. The novel was, as I said, less engaging then had been promised on the cover. Perhaps some pleasant conversation over dinner would help pass away an hour or so. “Shall I join you, or would like to come around here?” I replied.
“Whichever suits you,” she said, “I don’t have any big thing about window or aisle seats.”
“Me neither,” I said undoing my seat-buckle and sliding across and out of my row. I threw the book on to my seat as if to state that I would be returning their later, and slid into the seat next to hers. “Hi, I’m Rob, by the way, Rob Thornton.”
“And I’m…”
“Lucinda,” I interjected, “I saw the tag on your bag.”
“Well most people call me Lucy,” she replied holding out her hand.
We spent the next hour or so chatting about our various lives. I told her about the conference I had just been to, and she told me about her work as a computer consultant, and how she’d spent the previous week giving a course in Dallas. I also learned that she was married and that in their marriage the traditional roles were somewhat reversed. She was out earning the big bucks and often had to go away on business, whilst her husband Paul stayed at home and ran a small farm as well as doing the household chores of cooking, cleaning and looking after their daughter.
.Dinner was served whilst we continued our conversation, and one of the topics we talked about was how to while away the time over such a long flight. Lucy told me she always tried to get a few hours sleep, but never managed it properly and always suffered from jet-lag for a couple of days after, and I told her I played chess.
“How can you play chess on your own?” she asked. “Or do you have one of those chess computer thingys?”
“I play against a friend,” I explained. “We are in the middle of a game that’s been going on for about 5 months now. We make one move a day, sending our move by e-mail. The other one than has until 10 o’clock the following day, or the following Monday if it’s the weekend, to make the next move. That way you can take as little, or almost as long as you want, to consider the next move. I’ve got a portable set with me, and I spend some of the time in the air looking at the various possibilities.
“That’s great,” she said, “I love playing chess, but can never find someone other than Paul to play against, and although I’m not that good I usually beat him quite easily. Men generally don’t like playing against me, because they think it’s ungallant to win, and yet they hate losing to a woman.”
“Well the great thing about it is you don’t have to be facing your opponent. I haven’t seen Eric, the guy I’m playing against, for over 2 years. We used to work together but now we just correspond by e-mail. We’ve been playing like this since I left the company, and he’s currently 2-1 up. He’s a better player than me, so I like to think carefully before making any move.”
