The dismissal was so flat, so polished in its casual arrogance, that for a fraction of a second, I wondered if I had misheard her.
“Ma’am,” I pressed, keeping my baritone steady as the girl struck the seat again with an audible CRACK:
“She has been doing this continuously since we crossed the Japanese coast. It’s been nearly twenty-five minutes. My seat is violently shaking.”
The woman finally took out one ceramic earbud, turned her head slowly, and looked at me.
Her gaze was cold, aristocratic, and soaked in that particular brand of high-society venom that views other human beings as landscape obstacles. Her eyes swept over my rumpled dark-blue surgical scrub top, my faded field jacket folded across my lap, and the worn leather watchband on my wrist with withering, unmistakable disgust.
“If the movement of an international flight bothers you, mister, you should have purchased a private charter,” she drawled, her voice loud enough to carry across the three adjoining rows:
