BUILT PLUMB. HELD TRUE.
I stepped back into the aisle, returned to seat 14A, sat down, and pulled my seatbelt tight across my lap.
Three minutes later, the blue curtain parted.
Melissa Vance strolled down the aisle, holding her daughter Chloe by the hand, adjusting her cashmere cardigan with that breezy, untouchable arrogance.
She reached row fifteen.
She stopped dead in her tracks.
Her jaw dropped open. Her face flushed from ivory porcelain to an apoplectic, violent crimson that reached her throat. She stared at the back of my seat, which was now wedged four inches from her stomach, completely eliminating her legroom, pinning her designer bag to the floorboards.
And then her eyes landed on the vellum brief taped to her tray table.
She saw the red-wax dry seal of the Department of the Navy.
She saw the handwritten inscription: BUILT PLUMB. HELD TRUE.
Her breath hitched in her throat with a dry, spastic, uncoordinated rattle:
