The Helpful Manager

Hugh Vandermeer stepped through the cabin door with both palms raised. Charcoal suit, gray mustache, a black lanyard swinging from his neck. Behind him came a slim man in a navy blazer with a green review badge, Dev Malhotra, and an airport security officer.

"Folks, folks," Vandermeer said warmly. "A small system hiccup. Nothing to worry about." He introduced himself as the station director, shook Captain Rourke's hand, shook Pruett's, and then found me with a kind smile. "And this is our young traveler. What a poised young lady."

Malhotra skipped the small talk. "Mr. Pruett, who told you to sit in 3A?"

"Nobody told me. It's a printing mistake." Pruett shifted. "A friend at the airline said it would be handled."

"Which is it? A mistake, or a promise?"

Pruett's ears went red. "I don't remember."

Vandermeer chuckled and put a hand on Malhotra's sleeve. "Dev, this is the usual noise. A gate agent's terminal fat-fingers a reseat order and we all lose a morning."

Malhotra tilted his head. "Which order?"

"The one on the tablet."

"Captain Rourke hasn't shown me the tablet."

A pause the length of a held breath. Vandermeer smoothed his mustache with one knuckle. "Well, there's always one. Twenty years in this job."

Malhotra let it go. I didn't. Nobody in this cabin had said gate agent. Nobody had said terminal. The order on the tablet showed no station name and no desk. He had told us where it came from before anyone had opened it.

I filed it away where my father taught me to file things, in a notebook I never write in.

"Mr. Pruett," Malhotra said, "is there anything in that newspaper I should see?"

"It's a newspaper."

"Then you won't mind setting it on the tray table."

Pruett smiled at him. Then he shifted his weight, and the pink paper slid quietly under his thigh, a thin white edge sticking out of its fold. Malhotra had a request, not a warrant, and no reason yet to make it an order.