Harold was traveling to visit his sister. He had been widowed for several years, and he spoke about her with the affectionate impatience of someone who had spent a lifetime loving a person who knew exactly how to annoy him.
I liked him immediately.
Then I smelled the perfume.
It was sweet, overpowering, and unmistakably familiar.
A voice rang out a few rows ahead.
“Okay, guys! We’re finally boarding. Let me show you my seat!”
Brittany stood in the aisle, holding her phone behind her back while filming the cabin.
She turned suddenly.
Her enormous hair followed half a second later, swinging across the face of a man trying to store his luggage.
His glasses slipped sideways. His bag nearly fell.
Harold caught the bag while I reached for the man’s glasses.
“Thank you,” the man muttered.
Brittany barely glanced at him.
“Sorry! It’s a lot of hair.”
Harold settled back into his seat.
