The Lady in 22C

Middle seat, middle section. The least desirable place to endure a transatlantic flight is where I find myself, flanked by strangers in the main cabin of an Airbus. Having no intention of engaging with either of them, I withdraw my laptop and open a document.

“What you working on?” The woman in 22C peers across our shared armrest.

“I’m a writer.”

“My husband was a writer.”

I nod.

“He was very famous.”

I become slightly curious.

“What was his name?”

Upon hearing it, I cite the title of the novel he is most famous for.

“The first Broadway musical I saw as a child was based on that book.”

I recall my annual family trips to the theater. Every December, my parents got tickets to a show. We had dinner at a steakhouse on Lexington Avenue. The charred sirloin was stabbed by a plastic pick featuring a muscular bovine branded with a word or two identifying how the sizzling meat was cooked. Mine was always well done. That meal was the highlight of the night for me. I used to keep the steak marker as a souvenir.

The Lady in 22C is surprised at my familiarity with the story of a manipulative opportunist in 1930s Hollywood.

“Why would they take you to see that?”

The tale of a poor young man who rises from newspaper copy boy to the top of the screenwriting profession by backstabbing others might seem an unlikely choice for family fare with a 6 year old in tow.

“They liked the songs.”

I still hear the tunes my father spun on his hi-fi during weekend afternoons when he would relax to a mixture of Big Band music, original cast albums and classical sonatas. I admit to having one of the breakout hits on my phone among my playlists and even manage to cue it up. Steve Lawrence croons in my Airpods as we soar 30,000 miles above sea level in our bulkhead seats: A room without windows, a room without doors / A room where no guy but I can spy the charms that are yours….

As license holder of her late husband’s copyrighted material, this widowed third wife is currently consulting on a musical adaptation of one of his celebrated screenplays. My septuagenarian seatmate was just in London to see the limited run of its off-West End production. She butt heads with the playwright, the director and the composer she never heard of yet everyone seemed to fear.

“Do you know this Elvis Costello?”

I refrain from cuing up Alison and Waiting for the End of the World.

“They just think I’m an old lady who doesn’t know what I’m talking about. But I know better. And I’m not afraid of any of them. I hold the rights.”

Meanwhile, she fumbles with the touch screen controls for the overhead light and is challenged at extracting her tray from the armrest and finding the button for her seat recline. I attempt to help but we inadvertently page a flight attendant instead.

In subsequent snatches of conversation between in-flight interruptions for pretzels and ginger ale, I learn this woman in 22C once played a minor role in a Fellini film for which she had to shave her eyebrows. A regretable act she would never have consented to had she known how long it would take for them to grow back.

“I should have said no. I didn’t know better. I would never do that again.”

“You were an actress?”

Not quite. It was her friendship with Carlo Ponti, famed Italian director and husband of Sophia Loren, that led to her incidental casting in Satyricon. Apparently, once Fellini saw her eyes, he had to have her in the shot.

The screen facing the man in 22E displays an image of Muhammed Ali. She catches a glimpse but with no sound or subtitles there is no context for this report on a channel we cannot identify. Nevertheless, 22C warms at the sight of the GOAT.

“I knew Ali. We were friends.”

She recalls how gentle the heavyweight champion was outside the ring and away from the spotlight while conceding she didn’t know him in his declining years.

She peppers our conversation with casual references to other notable figures without actually name dropping. The aunt who wrote The Guns of August, the classmate who was daughter of the founder of the Columbia Broadcasting System, the cousin who was United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Credible yet elusive, this fellow passenger turns out to be a character worthy of a story herself.

“I’m sorry to keep you from your work. What was it you were writing when we took off?”

“I was just sifting through notes that could become topics for blog posts.”

“Don’t let me stop you.”

“On the contrary, you inspire me.”

She tries to conceal a modest smile.

I consider the piece I might write up in the days to come and run a working title by the central figure to my left.

“The Woman in 22C.”

She scoffs. I fear she objects to being such a focus until she sets me straight.

“I’m no woman,” she insists. “I’m a Lady!”