Satisfied with the camouflage, Eva picked up the carrier. She took a new seat in the waiting benches for her gate. She quickly pulled out a much more benign book than the one she had been reading in the bathroom and buried her nose in it. Hopefully the people around would see a girl involved in her book and not try to make small conversation.
Her plan seemed to work. Not a single person approached her between sitting and her flight being called for boarding. The attendant checking her ticket questioned the cat carrier, but Eva just tilted it back to show the two books carefully pressed against the door. The attendant smiled and waved her through.
The plane was much smaller than Eva anticipated, but much fancier looking. She had seen images of jets before on television or at school or the library and they were nothing like this. She expected rows and rows of seats. Instead she got couches.
There were seats closer to the front than the couches, but they looked more like someone took two recliners and cut off the arm rest in the middle. Definitely not what she thought airplane seats should look like. There were four sets of two, all facing the front of the airplane. A little table was set out a decent space in front of each pair of seats.
Eva could see a second compartment similar to the one she was standing in through a small doorway.
She stood right at the front, hesitating. No flight attendant had led her to her seat. Her ticket didn’t have a seat number on it. She doubted the seats even had numbers. Numbers would just blemish the lounge atmosphere.
A small group of teens around her age sat at the couches. Two girls and two guys. There was clearly space with them, but they hadn’t even looked up when she entered. They quietly chatted away with each other.
A young girl sat in the window seat of one of the pairs of recliners nearest to the couches. The girl’s blond hair was almost as long as Eva’s own black hair. It came down to just above her waistline. She wore a lavender sundress with a light floral pattern.
Eva didn’t want to walk past the group on the way to the rear compartment, but she didn’t want to appear entirely unsociable either. Not if these were going to be fellow students. So she chose the paired seat next to the girl.
In contrast to her bright aesthetics, the girl was downright depressed looking. She had her feet up on the seat with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head buried in her arms.
“Is this seat taken?” Eva asked.
She lifted her head just long enough for a quick glance at Eva. Her bright green eyes were marred by the heavy circles of sleep deprivation.
A moment after Eva sat down, another teen about her age walked aboard the plane. He had a big smile on his face and walked right past Eva without even a glance in her direction. Eva didn’t bother to look to see if he moved to the couch or to the cabin beyond.
The overhead speakers crackled to life. “This is your captain speaking,” a gruff voice said. “We have three more stops to pick up students. A light lunch will be served around one o’clock. If we happen to fly over a time zone and skip one, well you’ll just have to starve.” Eva heard the group behind her give some polite chuckles.
“We’ll be arriving at our final destination by six o’clock mountain time. In the mean time, get yourselves comfortable. We’ve got a long trip from Florida to Montana. Doubly so with our extra stops.
“It is a long flight but you’re free to move about the cabin when we are in the air. We might be on the ground for a while on our stops, but I ask that you do not leave the plane. We might just leave without you. There are drinks and snacks available from our flight attendants and bathrooms between the compartments.
“With all that said, we’ll be taking off shortly. Enjoy your flight.”
The speaker crackled again and cut off.
Eva glanced around the cabin. The group of students resumed their talking, or maybe never really stopped. The blond next to her never even moved a muscle during the captain’s entire speech.
A flight attendant came out and began pointing out exits and showed how to use oxygen masks in the event of an emergency.
Eva wasn’t sure what kind of emergencies were common on flights, but felt that oxygen masks were probably more of a placebo than anything. The fact that seats doubled as flotation devices might have been comforting if they were going to Europe or somewhere, but there just wasn’t that much water between Florida and Montana.
After her speech, the flight attendant went behind a curtain up front. A few minutes later and Eva felt the plane jerk forward.
