Billie went up the jet bridge to the podium at 3:50 to talk to the gate agent, because standing in the galley watching the clock was a way to make the clock run slower. The gate area at A41 was a sea of people sitting on the carpet. Every seat was full, and there were people standing along the windows,. The departure board said DELAYED and then, under it, NEW TIME 5:10P.
The gate agent was Esperanza Tovar, who had worked in Denver for nine years and whom Billie liked because she did not lie to passengers and did not lie to crews and had the same voice for both. Esperanza had her reading glasses on top of her head and another pair on her nose. She held up one finger toward Billie without looking at her, finished with the passenger in front of her, and then let the finger fall.
"Tell me something good," Esperanza said.
"The coffee maker in the front works if you hit it."
"That's not good. That's just true." She clicked something. "Okay. You're going to be full, plus I've got eleven on standby and four on the upgrade list for one seat that doesn't exist. I've got a wheelchair, two lap infants, an unaccompanied minor, a service dog that's an actual service dog, and a courier." She said the last word in a slightly different tone, and when Billie raised her eyebrows, she pulled a sheet of paper off the printer and held it out. "Medical. Human cells for transplant. Hand-carry. She's got the letter from the registry and the hospital and a TSA hand-inspection sticker. She can't let it out of her sight, can't put it in the overhead, can't put it under the airplane, can't X-ray it. It goes under the seat in front of her and she goes with it."
"Where's she sitting?"
"That's the good part." Esperanza took off the glasses on her nose and let the ones on her head fall into their place, as if the next part deserved its own pair. "She was booked in 33E. Middle seat, back of the bus. The cooler's about the size of a lunch cooler for a big guy, she'd never get it under a middle with the box they've got under 33D. And the coordinator wants her near the door at the other end, because she's got a car waiting at BWI and they're on a clock. So I was trying to figure out if I could move somebody, and there's a man sitting right there"—she pointed with her pen at an older white man in a red Nebraska windbreaker sitting by the window with a crossword folded on his knee—"and he's listening to me tell her I've got nothing, and he gets up and comes over and says, I'm in 2A. Give her 2A. I'll take hers."
Billie looked at the man in the windbreaker. He had a sunburned neck and big flat hands and was filling in the crossword with a golf pencil.
"He paid for 2A?"
"Paid cash for 2A. Not an upgrade. He said it was his birthday present to himself and his knees. Then he gave it away in thirty seconds." Esperanza shook her head. "I did the swap through the seat map. It's a straight exchange, both of them reissued. She's got a new boarding pass, he's got a new boarding pass. I'll tell you what, though, it took the system three tries, because the flight was already in final from the first load closeout before the hold, and it kept bouncing back. I had to reopen it. Some of the downstream stuff may not have caught up yet. If anybody in the front gives her a hard time—"