Storytime Saturday: Seatmates

I wrote a partial draft of this during the last session of the writing class I've been teaching, then realized I needed a different approach, so I rewrote it, cut it down by several hundred words (it's still too long, at 1140 words), and here it is. 

 

Seatmates

Keri James settled into the window seat at 47A with an air of excitement that drew cynical smiles from her fellow-passengers. A sixteen-hour flight in economy class wasn’t going to be fun for any of them.

Keri knew that. They’d have to use a crowbar—or a crane—to get her out of her seat when they reached Aukland. She’d drooled over the business-class seats, with their little cubicles and seats that made up into beds. On her budget, she’d have to settle for airsickness meds that would put her to sleep.

Keri occupied herself with setting up her little space, everything she might want during the flight within reach. She’d change to slippers once they were airborne. Earbuds, e-reader… she knew what she was doing. It was New Zealand that had her so excited, not the flight.

Another woman, of a similar age but blonde, shapely, and rolling the luggage of a businesswoman, worked her way down the aisle. It took forever to load these big planes. Everyone with all their carry-on bags to stow and never enough space.

At row 47, Amy Carlson said, “Forty-seven B?” as she hoisted her rolling bag to the overhead bin. She didn’t look at the nondescript woman in the window seat.

Grunting as she lifted the heavy bag, she didn’t hear the sharp intake of breath from the other woman. By the time she turned, lifted her Personal Item from the seat, and sat down, her seatmate was engrossed in her sleek little e-reader, a little turned away from her.

Amy glanced again at the other woman, eyebrows puckered. Of course she didn’t know her. If you traveled enough, everyone got to looking alike.

Amy was too wound up to read—not with excitement over the trip to Aukland, but with annoyance at everything about the flight.

“I swear, these seats get smaller and the overhead bins higher off the floor every year,” she said as an opening gambit. “I ought to learn to pack lighter, I guess, but who even knows what the weather is like in Aukland this time of year?”

Despite her best intentions, Keri couldn’t let that pass. Keeping her face turned away she said, “It’s summer there. Average daytime highs in February are in the mid-70s, lows in the 60s. There’s about a one in six chance of rain on any given day.” She’d done her homework, to bring everything she needed and nothing she didn’t.

“Oh.” Amy discretely shoved her puffy jacket farther down into her tote bag. “I’ll be flying on to Dunedin in a few days. I guess it’ll be even warmer there?”

“It’s closer to the South Pole and about ten or twelve degrees cooler. You may be glad you have that jacket.”

Amy smirked. Okay, maybe she hadn’t overpacked.

She remained quiet for a few minutes, while the little movie about seatbelts and life preservers played. Once they were in the air she turned to her seatmate again. “I’m flying for business. Meetings. What about you?” She glanced pointedly at the hiking boots on the woman’s feet.

“Pleasure.” Keri also glanced at her boots and refrained from adding, “Duh.”

“I really should be flying business class, but my darned boss got a frugal fit just when I was booking my flight. He said economy had always been good enough for him, so it should be good enough for me. Of course, he never flew farther than Denver to New York.”

So she still lived in Colorado. And still liked to make herself important. Keri kept her eyes on her book, though she couldn’t have said what she was reading. Still the same Amy—a butterfly with wings of steel. Someone who could steal her best friend’s boyfriend—and laugh about it.

Amy finally looked squarely at Keri. She ought to get a blonde rinse, and maybe use some face cream once in a while. But there’s something familiar…

“Do I know you?” Amy blurted.

“Middletown High, class of ’99.”

Amy’s face scrunched up, the way it always had when she was thinking. “But—” She stopped herself just in time from suggesting the other woman was too old to be her classmate. “But—who are you?” That was more acceptable.

Only, it wasn’t. Keri laughed humorlessly. “I guess you wouldn’t remember me.” We were only best friends for eight years. “Keri James. I moved away after graduation—summer jobs, college, then I got a job and got married.”

That gave Amy time to get over her initial shock, not that she’d hidden it well. Certainly Keri knew what she was thinking about her outdoorswoman’s face. “Keri? Keri James?! Good heavens, after all these years!”

To Keri’s horror, Amy leaned over and gave her a big hug, as best one could with seatbelts fastened. “Oh, Keri, I’ve missed you so much! You just—vanished.”

“I had my reasons.” Like Amy laughing about stealing the boyfriend. And worse, laughing when she dumped him, coming back to tell Keri he was a rat and she, Amy, had saved her, Keri, from heartache.

Amy’s face fell, then reddened as she read it all in Keri’s face. “I—I’m sorry. I was sorry all along, you know.”

“No, Amy. You never once said you were sorry. You laughed at me when I got mad at you, and you told me I was an idiot to care so much for anyone, especially a fickle boy.” Keri  couldn’t remember the boy’s name. He didn’t matter, it was the principal of the thing. “You still think it’s stupid to love someone, don’t you? But I’m telling you, you’re wrong.” She turned, prepared to ignore her one-time BFF for the next sixteen hours.

Amy’s hand touched her arm. Keri shook it off.

“Keri…”

Things that had been waiting a quarter of a century to be said burst out of her. Keri hadn’t known she had this much anger in her.

“I’m a widow, and my heart is broken for real, but I’ll tell you something: I had it. I had that love you don’t think exists. And I’m short of cash, but I’m a hell of a lot richer than you are with your diamond ring and cold heart.”

Amy made a strange choking sound. Keri looked at the hand that had rested on her arm. A wedding ring. But instead of laughing at Keri and telling her how wrong she was, Amy’s face crumpled and tears began to fall. Not the kind of tears you carefully dabbed away to avoid messing up your makeup. The kind that flooded your face and washed your mascara away.

“Oh, Amesy! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I suppose not,” Amy got out between sobs. “But it’s true. Oh, God, it’s true!”

A quarter century evaporated. “Tell me about it, Amesy. We have sixteen hours.”

~~~

 

Aukland, NZ

 

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 ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2026 

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