Airplane

“If you had a window seat available, and as near as possible to the front”, the girl was at the next counter, and this near she was still more gorgeous. I thought of telling the woman behind the counter to move me to an aisle seat, but I was too concerned about the mistake they had made writing my name on the ticket.   I pictured myself held at the migration post, a helpless victim of the cruzade for total security on the planes.

Anyway, I had never brought myself to act on the Don Juan fantasies that cross my mind before boarding a plane: I usually spot a woman from the waiting line.   I study her movements, make sure that she is not accompanied by a husband or boyfriend (all the power of a fantasy arises from the possibility that it may be fulfilled, as slim as this possibility may be). If I come across her a few times before boarding, I take note on what she is reading in the lobby. 

Aunt Yuli always tells the story on how she met her second husband, to which she is still married, during a trip from Mexico City to Mazatlán. She says, with a conviction that is almost comic, that people who prefer a window seat are selfish, while those who ask for an aisle seat are generous because they are willing to stand up once and again if requested by the others in the row.  The fact that two persons seat side by side then means that they are prefectly compatible. I have endlessly heard the story at family gatherings, baptisms, funerals, etc., and, although it may be said that its sappy ingeniuity bothers me, I must admit that deep inside its soap opera romanticism nourishes my air travel fantasies.

This girl seemed to be of Russian origin. I am not sure if I should call her a girl, since she was one of those women who at times look very mature, even mothers, and then they look like schoolgirls.   But in any case attractive.   Besides her features and aspect, I caught a glimpse of her name in her itinerary when we were at the counters: ‘m’ and ‘sh’ were common although the last name was Mexican. I saw her again at the snack bar, accompanied by a lady who I decided was her aunt, a plump lady with short, bright hair who most certainly used a version of her niece’s name ending in ‘oshka’ to refer to her.   No doubt, she had Russian ancestors.

I saw her again reading at the lobby and for a few seconds I tried to catch a hint about the book, but she held it folded in such way that the covers touched.  I finally caught the author’s name which sounded vaguely familiar, and I recognized the design of an Anagrama collection. Now I did regret not telling the lady at the counter to give me an aisle seat. Normally, my hypothetic romance lasts until the woman in question produces her reading material and a celebrity gossip or beauty magazine pops out, or at best some dull bestseller.    Then, the heartbreak sinks in just in time to mitigate the disappointment of discovering that we were not even close to be seated together on the plane.    But, this did not happen with the Russian girl, who read Anagrama novels (and wore a yellow sweater that looked lovely on her). This time I actually felt a bit desperate, I knew we both had window seats but I started to imagine a mistake in which we were both assigned the same seat and I, very gallantly, offered to take the very uncomfortable middle seat, and if someone claimed it I would fake indignation and would firmly state that I would not move for any reason. So immerse I was in my speculations that I did not notice when my row was called for boarding, she had not stood up so the possibility of the miracle was still alive.

The Russian girl stood up and, not too look to obvious, I waited for some persons to go by before entering the tunnel to the plane, to our date with destiny (please forgive my mellow tone). While I waited at the entrance of the plane, some travelers, the kind who swarm all over Mexico, kept on talking idiotically about their travel experiences and started to make me nervous. One of them called himself a journalist and I am certain that he wrote for some magazine read by the girls who disappointed me with their reading materials. I felt a slight hit on my foot, which actually did not hurt, but I was so sick of these phonies that I decided to let out a slight but audible “ouch”, followed by “you dropped your bottle of water”. The nearest phony turned, he was a bit chubby and on his way to baldness, accompanied by his wife (a more than dull brunette), and his outfit and movements he seemed like those crappy graphic designers who get married with the first girl they come across due to their fear to come out of the closet. “Did it hurt?”, asked the crappy gay designer in an ironic tone. “A bit”, I answered sarcastically (a few seconds later I thought it would have been better to answer something like “it hurt more that you did not apologize”, again, too late).

I entered the plane and, as would be expected, the desired error did not occur. I passed by the Russian girl, giving her a last glance, before taking my seat four rows behind.  A young man wearing one of those spray-sculptured hairstyles commonly used by altar boys or soccer commentators sat beside her. I noticed that they immediately started a conversation and my sorrow kept growing.

A woman in her fifties sat beside me. I had already seen her in the waiting line chatting about some skin-firming lotion for eye bags that she planned to purchase at Sacks. The lady was pleasant, she asked some hip-hop type youngsters who were at the other side of the aisle if they belonged to a gang. I did not catch their answer, but I believe they were “sonideros” (a special kind of Latin DJ). Then she turned to me and started a typical chat: Where do you live? Why are you traveling? How much time will you stay? What is your job? I told her my line of work and she gave me an “it is good that young people do things” that sounded surprisingly sincere.  I caught a slight smell of whiskey in her breath and when I turned again towards her she was asleep.

We had not taken off yet when a man in a grey suit stood up with some cards, each one with a pen. For one moment I was amused by the idea that “street vendors” had now reached planes, but it turned out that he was a representative of the aviation company distributing surveys on the quality of food on their planes. When he approached my row, I signaled him to keep quiet before he gave us the prewritten speech to ask us if we wished to respond the survey.  I pointed at the lady in her fifties who was still asleep, indicating him not to speak and awaken her. I believe he thought this was a cute gesture, because the man in the suit smiled and moved on to the back of the plane. He must have thought that she was my mother and for a few moments I was amused imagining that this very sociable and easy-going lady could be my mother (but then I thought that for those who are not her children my own mother must seem a socable and easy-going lady in her fifties).

I glanced again towards the Russian girl’s line and caught a glimpse of her blouse (also yellow) through the small space between the backs of the seats. She was no longer speaking with the guy wearing the altar boy or commentator hairstyle (the jackass had put on the headset to enjoy a Robin Williams film). However, regret was still eating me from the inside.  When I felt like I was going to burst (to grab my emotional state, it shall be noted that I had suffered a couple of heavy sleepless nights), I decided to write a story pathetically based on all these events, and for the first time I committed the extremely jerky act of grabbing my laptop while on the plane.  I believe that the Russian girl had just stood up and, oddly, I also felt an urge to go to the toilet.