Crazy for You Read Free

she felt as if she were lumbering.
But she made it, bursting through the door and startling the flight
attendant, who then glanced quickly at her ticket and pointed down
the aisle.
    “We’re nearly ready for take-off. A few
people have changed seats. Just sit wherever you want. There’s a
nice window seat in first class. It’s yours if you want it.”
    Since Tasha’s ticket was clearly marked
“coach” she thought she’d for once take advantage of what was
handed to her and accept the business class seat. “Cool,” she
responded as she made her way down the aisle.
    She spotted the lone seat immediately,
puzzled as to why anyone would leave the window open and choose the
aisle. She always wanted the window. Not that she was a world
traveler or anything, it was just that when she flew, she’d always
loved to look out over the postage-stamp view below.
    As she neared the seat, she spotted the man
on the aisle and the word stuffy immediately came to mind. He was
dressed in a tie, starched white shirt and suit pants, with
wire-rimmed glasses perched low across his nose. His darkish hair
was conservatively cut. Definitely a nine-to-fiver, she decided.
Maybe a nine-to-niner, or worse. A shame. He was probably not that
much older than herself. She’d always likened a business man with
the ugly duckling. A free-spirit trapped inside a suit, secretly
dying to get out. To her, the concept of suit-and-tie seemed
so...unnatural.
    A laptop was open on top of his briefcase;
his fingers flew across the keyboard. She had to wonder about a man
who couldn’t stop thinking about business long enough to stop
working during a brief layover. To her way of thinking, something
was definitely wrong with that scenario. Oh, well, none of her
business. Perhaps he’ll get off in Dallas, she thought, then
realized that even at that, it was a three hour flight.
    Tasha stopped beside his seat, glanced
overhead, then dropped her carry-on bag to the floor. She grazed
her fingers under the compartment above his head to find the latch
so she could stow her backpack inside. At that point, the flight
attendant came over the speaker to remind everyone to buckle up.
Tasha glanced at the attendant and caught her stern gaze as her
hand tripped the switch. Mr. Laptop was oblivious to everything as
the compartment door swung vigorously upward. Then quite suddenly,
a blanket, a small make-up bag, and two pillows rained down on the
man in the seat.
    Tasha cried out. The flight attendant stopped
talking. Mr. Laptop stared straight ahead, his fingers frozen over
the keyboard. A woman three seats back shouted, “That’s my
bag!”
    Finally, Tasha moved. “Oh, I’m so sorry.
Here, let me get that.”
    Dropping her backpack to the floor with her
carry-on, Tasha grabbed one of the pillows and tossed it back up
above. She heard the flight attendant drone on again in the
background and nervously glanced around at the other passengers.
They weren’t paying a bit of attention to her or the flight
attendant. She still hadn’t looked Mr. Laptop in the face yet.
Grabbing another pillow, she tossed it upward as well.
    By now the owner of the makeup bag had come
forward. The man in the aisle seat was removing the blanket from
his lap and handing it to her, still not looking up. But when Tasha
reached for the handle of the makeup bag and lifted it, the latch
sprung open, and the entire contents spilled into his lap. Tasha
gasped; the man exhaled in disgust. Mr. Laptop looked up then—dead
on—and stared quite sternly into her face.
    “Are you finished?” he finally asked.
    Tasha grinned nervously. “Uh...well, I think
so.” It was then that she looked down and saw the sticky mass of
dark brown liquid makeup oozing into the cracks around the keys of
the laptop. “Ohmigosh!”
    Stuffing the blanket into the compartment,
she then picked up the make-up bottle, capped it and thrust it at
the woman behind her. Then, she snatched eyeliner and lipstick and
brushes and