She drank her coffee and looked out at the gray sky and thought about Olivia, and about a baby who would be born in March, and about what she would say on Wednesday at lunch, and how she would say it, and whether she would be able to say it at all.
* * *
At 7:52, Naomi's phone buzzed. It was Lena.
"You still on the ground?"
"I'm in the lounge."
"Peter Lindgren just sent me the revised board deck. He's moved the customer experience section to the appendix."
Naomi closed her eyes for a moment. "Did he say why?"
"He said it's to keep the main presentation focused on the expansion case. He said the board can read the appendix if they're interested." Lena paused. "He also said, and I'm quoting, 'Naomi will want to talk about it anyway, so let's not give Harold a reason to think we're padding.'"
"That's not unreasonable."
"I didn't say it was unreasonable. I said he moved it to the appendix." Another pause. "You want me to move it back?"
Naomi thought about it. Out the window, the jet at the gate below had closed its forward cargo door. A catering truck was pulling away from the right side of the aircraft, its scissor lift folding down. The bridge was attached at the second door on the left. She could see figures moving behind the cockpit windows.
"Leave it," she said. "I'll decide in London."
"Okay." Lena was quiet for a moment. "How's it going so far? Anyone ask you if you're lost?"
Naomi almost laughed. "Once."
"Only once? Before eight a.m.? That's a good day."
"It's early."
"Naomi." Lena's voice changed slightly. "Seriously. If something happens on that plane. If something happens that you don't like. Don't do anything until you've called me."
"Nothing is going to happen," Naomi said. "I'm going to sit in my seat."
"Uh-huh. Text me when you board."
She hung up. Boarding for Flight 247 was called at 8:05, a soft chime and a calm recorded voice in the lounge, and the room began to stir. People stood up, collected coats, closed laptops. The blonde woman in the teal jacket was among the first to rise; she gathered her things without hurry, a small leather tote and a camel coat over her arm, and walked toward the lounge exit with the unhurried certainty of someone who knew that the boarding process would not begin in any meaningful sense until she had arrived at the gate.
Naomi stayed in her chair. She had decided, the night before, that she would board in the middle of the Signature group, not at the front. She wanted to see the cabin when it was already partly full. She wanted to see what it felt like to walk into it the way a stranger would. She finished her coffee, which had gone cold, and answered two emails, and at 8:14 she stood, buttoned the single button of her blazer, picked up her bag, and walked down to the gate.
* * *
Catherine had boarded at 8:07, the second passenger on the airplane after a man in a gray overcoat who went immediately to 1A and put on noise-cancelling headphones and closed his eyes.
The purser was standing at the forward door. She knew him. Everyone who flew Signature regularly knew Graham. He was in his late forties, tall and silver-haired and impeccably pressed, with a warm, resonant voice and a gift for remembering names, drinks, children, and the specific way each passenger liked to be greeted. He had been flying the London route for as long as Catherine had, and she had always thought of him, in a vague, unexamined way, as part of the furniture of her travels, like the lounge in Heathrow or the doorman at the Connaught.
"Mrs. Ashworth," he said, and smiled. "Welcome back. It's been, what, since September?"
"August," she said. "It's lovely to see you, Graham."
"And you. Now, I see you're in 2C today." He said it lightly, as if mentioning the weather.
"I'm aware," she said. "I spoke to the lounge. They said the gate would see what they could do."
Graham glanced at the passenger list on the small tablet in his hand. He looked at it for a moment longer than he needed to. Behind him, in the galley, a younger flight attendant, a woman in her late twenties with dark hair pulled into a neat bun, looked up from the coffee service she was setting out. Her badge said TESSA. She watched Graham without saying anything.
"Well," Graham said, and lowered the tablet. "The window's not occupied yet. Why don't you settle yourself in wherever you're comfortable, and if the other passenger has a strong preference, we'll sort something out. I'm sure it won't be a problem."