The girl closes her eyes and sits back in her chair.

“My wife is what kind of people?” Bobby asks, lifting one eyebrow.

“Bobby,” Sandy cautions him. “I’m fine. I’m not bothered.”

“I didn’t ask if you were bothered. I asked this gentleman what kind of people he thinks he’s talking about.”

The Jew has hectic red blotches in his cheeks. “People who are cruel, smug—and ignorant.”

He turns away, trembling.

Bobby kisses his wife’s temple and then unbuckles his seat belt.

MARK VORSTENBOSCH IN THE COCKPIT

Vorstenbosch is ten minutes calming people down in coach and another five wiping beer off Arnold Fidelman’s head and helping him change his sweater. He tells Fidelman and Robert Slate that if he sees either of them out of their seats again before they land, they will both be arrested in the airport. The man Slate accepts this placidly, tightening his seat belt and placing his hands in his lap, staring serenely forward. Fidelman looks like he wants to protest. Fidelman is shaking helplessly, and his color is bad, and he calms down only when Vorstenbosch tucks a blanket in around his legs. As he’s leaning toward Fidelman’s seat, Vorstenbosch whispers that when the plane lands, they’ll make a report together and that Slate will be written up for verbal and physical assault. Fidelman gives him a glance of surprise and appreciation, one gay to another, looking out for each other in a world full of Robert Slates.

The senior flight attendant himself feels nauseated and steps into the head long enough to steady himself. The cabin smells of vomit and fear, fore and aft. Children weep inconsolably. Vorstenbosch has seen two women praying.

He touches his hair, washes his hands, draws one deep breath after another. Vorstenbosch’s role model has always been the Anthony Hopkins character from The Remains of the Day, a film he has never seen as a tragedy but rather as an encomium to a life of disciplined service. Vorstenbosch sometimes wishes he were British. He recognized Veronica D’Arcy in business right off, but his professionalism requires him to resist acknowledging her celebrity in any overt way.

When he has composed himself, he exits the head and begins making his way to the cockpit to tell Captain Waters they will require airport security upon landing. He pauses in business to tend to a woman who is hyperventilating. When Vorstenbosch takes her hand, he is reminded of the last time he held his grandmother’s hand—she was in her coffin, and her fingers were just as cold and lifeless. Vorstenbosch feels a quavering indignation when he thinks about the bombers—those idiotic hot dogs—blasting by so close to the plane. The lack of simple human consideration sickens him. He practices deep breathing with the woman, assures her they’ll be on the ground soon.