"I'll see that she gets it," Billie said.
When the cabin was empty and Tomasz and Amberly were walking the aisles picking up blankets and newspapers and someone's single child's shoe, Gunnar came out of the flight deck with his flight bag and his roller and his hat. At 2A, where there was nothing now but a white paper headrest cover with a smudge of somebody's makeup, and a plastic water glass, empty, that Laverne had set very carefully in the cup holder of the armrest so that it would not tip.
"I called the duty manager," he said. "I told him the complaint was about me. Not you. I told him I tried to remove a passenger who had every right to be in her seat and that I'd put a statement in the system tonight, before I go to sleep. I've already taken myself off the trip. Scheduling's deadheading somebody up from Charlotte for you in the morning." He paused. "I'm also going to call the chief pilot's office when they open. About Houston."
Billie looked at him.
"I don't remember it the way you do," he said. "I want to tell you that, because it's true. I remember a man with a bag. I remember thinking he was a problem. I've been standing in the flight deck for the last three hours trying to remember why I thought that, and I can't find a reason, Billie. Not one. I can't find anything except the way he looked." He turned his hat over in his hands. "I can't find anything. And I thought, that's the reason. That's what the reason was."
"Write that down," she said.
"I am going to." He nodded at the clipboard on the galley counter, where her Cabin Event Report lay with its pages filled from edge to edge in her small slanting hand. "Write yours. All of it. Houston too. If they ask me, I'll tell them it's true."
"They'll come after me for the old one."
"I know." He looked at her. "I'll tell them I wrote it, and I told you to sign it. That's true too."