by Melissa Hill
But there wasn’t the slightest response to his attempts at friendly humour and the man eventually handed back their passports without comment.
“Crikey,” Ben said to Robin on the way down the gangway. “Do none of these guys have a sense of humour anymore? I know that things have to be tight, but it’s only a short hop down the road.”
“Well would you prefer they weren’t so particular?”
“No, but –”
“Well then button it, and let’s start enjoying this little break of ours.”
As they reached the door of the aircraft, Ben hugged her to him. Robin was really looking forward to this. She and Ben hadn’t had a holiday in ages. OK, it was only a short few days in Washington, and they wouldn’t get to do or see all that much, but still she was really looking forward to her first visit to the capital. Manhattan could be claustrophobic sometimes, and things had been so hectic at work for both of them they could do with this break.
Yet Robin felt a familiar feeling of discomfort as she handed in her boarding card.
“Straight down on the left-hand side – seats 10B and C,” the stewardess informed them pleasantly. Robin smiled as she passed by; relieved the girl hadn’t made any comment. Still, she remembered then, it was unlikely there was any indication on her boarding card.
She and Ben made their way slowly down along the aircraft, bumping past people who were shifting their luggage about and trying to get settled.
Robin reached Row 10 and was about to take her seat and let Ben stow their bags overhead – as was their routine – when a familiar scent hit her nostrils. Instantly, she turned around and motioned for Ben to follow her back up the aisle.
“What is it, hon?” Ben asked but, with a quick glance at the seats directly behind theirs, he soon saw what was bothering his girlfriend. “Ah – not again,” he said, his voice tinged with annoyance. “Don’t these people ever listen?”
“You sit down for a minute – I’ll talk to them,” Robin looked around for a stewardess.
“Are you sure? I’ll go with you if –”
“No, I don’t want to make a big fuss,” she said grimacing.
Seeing a stewardess approach from the other end of the plane, Robin waylaid her. Trying to keep her tone low so as not to be overheard by the passengers in the immediate vicinity, she outlined the problem.
“Let me look into it, ma’am,” the stewardess said a little warily, “but, as you can see, the aircraft is almost fully boarded – it might be difficult now to reassign the seating.”
“I understand that, but when I made the booking I specifically asked that provision be made –”
“Yes, but you are seated a row in front – surely it can’t cause that much of a problem?”
“Look,” Robin said softly, trying her best to sound reasonable, “I know it’s probably difficult for you to understand but yes, it can cause that much of a problem. Please understand that I’m not blaming you, but I did make the request at the time of booking and I was assured …” She trailed off, spotting a woman seated in the row next to them blatantly trying to eavesdrop. “If you could just take a look at the seating arrangements, and find out if they have earmarked a zone for me, I would really appreciate it. Or perhaps we could just change seats with someone else?” Robin smiled graciously, hoping her polite approach would work.
“I’ll see what I can do,” the stewardess said, heading for the top of the aisle.
Robin felt all eyes on her as she stood there waiting for the other woman’s return, and despite her protestation that she could deal with the matter herself, she was relieved when Ben joined her.
“What’s happening? Are they going to move us?”
“We’ll soon find out,” she said, seeing the stewardess approach. But by her expression, Robin knew immediately that her booking request had been ignored. It was the same old story.
“I’m afraid that an area hasn’t been assigned, ma’am,” the stewardess said apologetically. “I really don’t know what happened at reservations. Obviously they didn’t pass on the request to the check-in desk. And as this is such a small aircraft …” She trailed off as if to imply that in such a cramped space, an assigned zone might not make much of a difference anyway.
“I can’t believe this,” Ben interjected hotly. “It’s the same thing every time we fly with this lot – how come AA can get it done, Delta can get it done, but your crowd –”
“Ben calm down,” Robin soothed, although she was just as frustrated as he was. Trust her issues to ruin their weekend away – again. She really didn’t know how he put up with her sometimes. “Look,” she said to the stewardess, “I specifically requested it when booking and they assured me it would be fine.”
“I think they may have misinterpreted things,” the stewardess said. “What if I just ask the passenger in question to put them away for the duration of the flight? We don’t serve them as a rule anyway these days. Would that help?”
Robin hated the way people looked at her as if she was an over-hysterical hypochondriac of some sort – the way the stewardess was looking at her now. But people didn’t realise that she wasn’t just looking for attention or some kind of special treatment. “That’s all we can do at this stage, I suppose,” she said wearily, but one look at Ben as they followed the stewardess back down towards their seats told her that he was fit to burst. Robin kept her distance as he and the stewardess approached the occupants of the seats behind Row 10.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” the stewardess said pleasantly to a middle-aged woman, accompanied by what must be her husband and their young son. “Really sorry to inconvenience you, but I wonder if I could request that your son put his snack away for the duration of this flight, or if maybe we could move you all to another seat near the front? We have a particular passenger onboard today –”
“Whaddya mean?” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I booked this seat ‘specially ‘cos with my kidneys I have to be near the little girls’ room. Anyway, what’s the problem? National security mean no-one’s allowed eat on these things anymore?”
“No no, that’s not it at all, ma’am,” said the stewardess soothingly. “We’ll be serving a variety of refreshments once airborne and some complimentary snacks, so if you could –”
“They better be complimentary – and not at those darn New York prices!” the woman’s husband butted in rudely. “Anyway, the engine hasn’t even started runnin’ yet and my boy here is hungry.” He glared at the stewardess. “I don’t see any signs around here saying you shouldn’t eat when you’re hungry.” With that, he reached forward and took a packet of peanuts out of his seat-pouch. Instinctively, Robin shirked backwards.
“I’m just making a polite request for you to put those away, sir,” the stewardess repeated her plea. “I understand your confusion but you’ve refused to move, and we have a passenger with a medical condition seated in front of you today.”
The man leaned forward and looked up at Ben. “What, you addicted to junk food or somethin’?” he sneered.
“No my girlfriend’s allergic to peanuts,” Ben announced loudly. “Your peanut dust can bring on a reaction and the airline,” he said, turning to the stewardess, “like most airlines these days is obliged to provide a peanut-free zone for sufferers like her.”
“Ben, calm down,” Robin said mortified, as everyone in the immediate vicinity turned to look. Further down the plane, heads began to pop up here and there, trying to see what all the commotion was about. Sensing an escalation of the scene, another stewardess moved towards them.
“Well, I ain’t offering her no peanuts, am I?” the man asked, puzzled.
“That’s not it,” Ben explained. “She’s hypersensitive. She can be affected simply by being as close to them as I am now.”
“Well, it ain’t my fault if people can’t control themselves,” the man went on, unmoved by Ben’s pleas. “I paid my fare same as everyone else, and nobody’s gonna tell me what I can and can’t do.” As
if to prove his point, he opened the fresh bag and put a handful of peanuts in his mouth.
“Please, sir, we’re about to take off and again, I’m really sorry for the inconvenience but –”
“Hey,” he said, raising his voice and looking nastily at the stewardess.
Ben reddened in anger and Robin could see him struggling to control his temper.
“Me and my family ain’t had nuthin’ to eat since this morning and we’re hungry. We’re not movin’ and I ain’t puttin’ away no peanuts, my wife ain’t puttin’ away no peanuts, and my son ain’t puttin’ away no peanuts for some stuck-up Park Avenue Princess – so there.” He sat back, and his wife looked at him approvingly, apparently satisfied that her husband was the right man to put these troublesome city-slickers in their place.
“She could have a serious reaction, you idiot,” Ben hissed at him, unable to keep his temper in check any longer.
“Hey, who you callin’ an idiot, son?” the man said, standing up and dwarfing Ben with his huge frame.
Ben didn’t flinch. “You heard me.” His chest rose as he squared up to him.
“Sirs, I really must ask that you –”
“Ben leave it, please…” Robin was upset now, having experienced embarrassing scenes like this many times before, although none as confrontational as this one.
“No Robin, this guy is totally out of order. Who the hell does he think he is?”
“It’s not his fault.” She looked at the man’s wife imploringly, but was afraid to come any closer for fear of what she held in her hand. “I’m sorry – I know it’s not your fault.”
The wife seemed to see the genuine fear in Robin’s eyes, and immediately she closed the bag of peanuts and put them away. “Sit down, Max,” she said sternly to her husband, who amazingly after a few seconds complied, though he and Ben were still glaring angrily at one another.
“We didn’t mean any harm,” the woman said to Robin and then to the stewardess. “But my boy here, he gets antsy when he’s hungry and so does Max. We got these peanuts in the airport. We really didn’t mean any harm. And with my kidneys, we really can’t move seats.”
“That’s OK ma’am, but we need to take off soon. Now if you and your husband could just put those away there shouldn’t be any more problems.”
“If you people had assigned a peanut-free zone like you were asked, there wouldn’t be a problem,” Ben said, his voice shaking with anger. “But you just don’t care, do you? You just pack in as many idiots are you can fit – who cares if one of them becomes seriously ill because of your negligence?”
If there was one thing that struck fear into the heart of every airline, it was the suspicion of negligence.
“Sir I appreciate your distress,” the other stewardess spoke up then, “but really we must get going –”
“But really nothing,” Ben was in full flight, which is more than could be said for the rest of the passengers on Flight 81268. “It’s totally unacceptable and I won’t have it.”
He stood up and, to Robin’s horror, opened the overhead locker and removed their luggage. “Come on, Robin, we’re going,”
“What?”
“Sir, if you could just –”
“I said, we’re going. I’ve had enough of this – why should we have to put up with it? She made a request, she explained the danger and they ignored her. So forget it. You can bet this is the last time I fly with this godforsaken airline!”
Robin looked from Ben to the stewardess, to the peanut-crunchers and back to Ben again, but at that stage she didn’t care where they went as long as it was out of here, away from all the staring, the pointing, the whispered remarks.
“Come on love,” Ben said, leading her along the aisle towards the doorway. “We don’t have to put up with this kind of carry-on.”
“Really sir, there’s no need …” The voice of the stewardess trailed off as she realised that Ben wasn’t to be placated.
“I’m so sorry,” Robin said, mortified, as another stewardess had to be called to open the aircraft door. “I’m so sorry.”
Providing a peanut-free zone for passengers like Robin was at the discretion of the individual airline, so really Ben had no right to be so hard on them. But she suspected he was tired of the fact that the condition could be so all-pervading when it came to their lifestyle.
Sitting in the taxi on the way back from the airport to their Lower East Side apartment, yet another weekend ruined, Robin smarted with the embarrassment of it all.
“I made it clear when I made the booking, Ben, really I did,” she said, looking miserably at him and trying to convince herself more than him.
Ben turned to her and took her hand in his. “Hey, don’t you be feeling guilty about this. It was my decision to get off that plane. Anyway, I didn’t want all those people staring at us all the way to Washington, did you?” he grinned. “So don’t be silly,” he added ruffling her hair. “There’ll be other weekends, and anyway it’s not your fault.”
But Robin thought sadly, there was no getting away from the fact that without her allergy, there wouldn’t have been a problem at all.
So of course it was her fault – it was always her fault.
2
Leah Reid took a deep breath – a very very deep breath. This was easily the most terrifying experience of her life. She had done many frightening things over the years – bungee-jumping in France, white-water rafting in Belgium, not to mention going through the very scary motions of setting up a business in Ireland – but this, this was the most terrifying of all.
The night before, she hadn’t been able to sleep, she was so sick with nerves, and she had spent much of the night in her kitchen experimenting with new recipes for her handmade chocolates. It hadn’t been a wasted night either she thought with a grin, as she’d come up with a raspberry and fluffy white chocolate truffle combo that was absolutely delicious – Berrylicious actually, which was just what she intended to name the new creation.
She took another deep breath and sat for a few moments more in her little Fiesta before getting out. You can do this, she told herself. You’ve succeeded in your career and you will succeed in this – you can do it. Unfortunately, the message wasn’t being relayed to the butterflies in her stomach.
Despite her student ambitions to become a pasty-chef, Leah found that time abroad after her degree had unexpectedly led her catering career in a totally different direction.
Having qualified and eager to further her knowledge and experience, she had spent a few years in France working under the stewardship of a renowned Belgian dessert chef and chocolatier. Her own speciality at college had been pastries and desserts, but working alongside such an artisan and master of his work, Leah unexpectedly fell in love with the intricate handmade chocolatier craft. In order to hone her growing skills, she spent a further eighteen months away in Brussels. While there she approached with gusto the challenge of marrying delicious and unusual flavours with the finest chocolate; the sheer pleasure of creating something that looked irresistible and tasted like pure heaven.
By the time the initial apprenticeship was over and her own skills were polished to perfection, Leah was hooked on the artistry of chocolate-making. There was no doubt in her mind as to where she wanted to go with her career, and when she returned to Ireland she immediately set about going into the confectionery business.
At the time of her return two years before the country was still in the throes of the economic boom and, following a huge leap of faith (and an equally huge start-up loan from her bank), Leah began her own specialised handmade chocolate company. She named the business Elysium, the Greek translation of which meant ‘a condition of ideal happiness’, which she felt went some way towards doing justice to her handmade creations.
She did her research beforehand and discovered that while the handmade chocolate business was a thriving Irish industry, there was little in the way of high-end artisan gift chocolates. Having experienced various selling-
methods and chocolate boutiques during her time in Belgium, she eventually decided that the packaging and presentation of Elysium chocolates should be equally as important as the chocolates themselves. Her signature use of rich purple and gold-coloured ornate boxes, beautifully covered in beaded silk and wrapped in delicate muslin, soon became hugely popular with card-and-gift stores and tourist retailers.
From humble origins in her own kitchen to eventually securing a tiny shoebox in the local Enterprise Centre, Leah worked hard to supply her growing number of trade customers. It was true what they said about finding something you loved and never working a day again she thought, because she absolutely adored her job. Josh, her boyfriend, often complained that she worked way too hard, but as far as she was concerned it was the best job in the world.
Recently she and Josh had set up home together in a one-bed luxury – but rented – apartment on Dublin’s southside. Their relationship was going great, the business was going great, Leah was a few months away from her thirtieth birthday and life was great.
But, she thought finally getting out of the car, if she could just get today over and done with, then life would be even better. As Josh had pointed out before leaving for work that morning, all she could do was her best. Unfortunately, Leah knew from experience that her best would probably not be enough.
She jogged up the steps and into the building, her dark ponytail swinging as she went. She felt strange wearing her hair like that outside of the kitchen, always thinking that the style looked particularly childish on her, probably because of her huge brown eyes and round face. The ponytail had been Olivia’s suggestion – apparently it never failed. And seeing as the ponytail trick had evidently worked for Olivia, Leah was prepared to take her word for it. She was prepared to try anything if it helped her through today’s ordeal.
She gave the rather dour-looking receptionist a friendly smile. “Leah Reid,” she said by way of announcement when the other woman didn’t reciprocate. “My appointment’s at ten o’clock.”