Two Pairs Per Pack

Janet Towle

The woman in the seat on my right kept coughing. She had one of those miniature, plastic-wrapped packs of tissues sitting out on her meal tray, and every time she coughed she’d nimbly tug one out and press it to her lips, just in time. Sometimes strings of phlegm clung to the corners of her mouth as she pulled the tissue away. Then, businesslike, she’d fold the grimy thing into a tiny bundle and hide it in her airsickness bag, which she kept stowed securely between her feet.

The man on my left was reading A Tale of Two Cities, or at least, he was trying to. Every time the woman coughed, he’d flinch and lean a little closer to the window, as if he thought that air was germ-free.

Once, the woman coughed as a flight attendant was passing by. The flight attendant hesitated, then leaned down and said, “Ma’am, can I offer you anything? Would you like some water, or some more tissues?”

“No, no, I’m fine, thanks,” the woman said, and her voice was both rattling and hoarse. She held her purse open for the flight attendant to see: layer upon layer of the tissue travel-packs were jumbled inside.

Two hours in, they dimmed the cabin lights, and most of the passengers slid the covers over their windows, the man on my left included. Out came the pillows with the size and texture of a paper towel, and the blankets that couldn’t keep anyone warm. I wondered whether the airline had deliberately made the blankets feel like wool, to help the passengers make-pretend they had no reason to be chilly.

The man on my left bookmarked his page and stowed the book in the pouch of the seat back in front of him. He put up his meal tray, reclined his seat as far as it would go, and carefully positioned the airline’s complimentary cloth eye-shade.

About ten minutes later, the woman coughed, of course. I had seen her convulse a few times, as if she were trying to suppress it, but eventually it came out. Cough, long silence, cough, cough, silence, small cough – then a full blown fit. Five minutes later, it happened again. The man ripped off his eye-shade and pressed the service button.

“Can I help you?” the flight attendant asked.

“Do you have any ear plugs?”

His voice was much louder than it needed to be. He wasn’t shouting, but the people in the surrounding rows all heard him. Someone behind us giggled.

In a much softer voice than he had used, the flight attendant told him the price.

“All right, I’ll take a pair.”

“They come in packs of two pairs.”

The man was temporarily flabbergasted. “Why?”

“Why? Oh, well, I guess so you can save some for your return flight.”

“Hopefully I won’t need them on my return flight. Hey, you, do you want my extra pair?”

I stiffened a little in my seat. There wasn’t a good answer. The woman was pressing herself firmly against her seat back to give the flight attendant and the man room to talk. She was looking down at her lap. She gave a very tiny cough, blushing slightly.

“Um, that’s alright, I won’t be sleeping,” I said to the man.

“I’ll take your extras,” said a woman with dark hair from the row in front, raising her hand high.

When the man on my left slid back the cover on his window, little webs of frost ringed the blank view. We knew that breakfast was going to be served soon. We could see the flight attendant and her cart up the aisle, off in the distance. The man got up, so I hastily put up my tray. The woman had more difficulty with hers; she had to move her tissues, and pull the nearly-full airsickness bag full of used ones up to her lap. She smiled apologetically at the man. I couldn’t see his face.

He walked away back toward the restrooms. I sighed and let my shoulders slump a little, widening my eyes at the woman. She laughed gratefully – she tried to. It didn’t sound like a laugh. “Could you–” she began, and then coughed. “Would you mind giving me your barf bag? If you don’t think you’ll need it?”

“Help yourself,” I said, pulling it out from behind the safety manual and handing it to her.

“Mine’s pretty full,” she said ruefully, as she started to unwrap a fresh pack of tissues.

Abruptly, I became aware that the man was talking, somewhere behind us. I couldn’t help craning my neck to see him, pretending to be stretching. He was talking in the aisle to a black-haired woman who was holding a pair of earplugs.

“. . . quite welcome. I’m surprised no one else wanted any.”

“Maybe they thought it was impolite.”

“Impolite?” the man said, indignant. “I’m here on business. I’ve got several extremely important events to attend in the next few weeks. I can’t afford to catch cold.”

“To be honest, I think you’re right. It isn’t fair, especially when you consider how much flying costs these days.”

“They should make people with colds wear those masks . . .”

I turned back around, with a hot tautness in my stomach. The flight attendant was almost at our row. The black-haired woman rushed up a moment later and slipped back into her seat just in time to be served.

“Excuse me,” said the woman on my right in a kind of coarse whisper. “Would you throw this away for me?” She held out the airsickness bag full of tissues to the attendant by the cart.

“Of course, ma’am.”

The businessman had tried to slip back into our row at just that moment, and the woman on my right accidentally bumped her bag of tissues against his leg.

“Oh, sorry,” she rasped immediately.

“For Christ’s sake!”

We finally landed, half an airsickness bag later. In all the bustle of getting the carry-on luggage out of the overhead compartments, I lost track of the woman who had been sitting on my right. She disappeared before I had the opportunity to wonder whether I should say goodbye.

I didn’t lose track of the man who had sat on my left or the black-haired woman. They walked together, in front of me, all the way out, through customs and the luggage collection racks. They were talking, and occasionally laughing – much happier now that they had escaped the woman who had sat on my right. The two of them discovered they were staying at the same hotel.

The businessman and the black-haired woman eventually got married. At their wedding, they told the story about how they got together – about the earplugs, two pairs per pack. “How sweet,” the guests all said.