As Vinnie smiles to herself, recalling remarks made by her London friends about the American press, the cabin crew begins to serve lunch-or perhaps, since it is now seven o’clock in London, it should be considered dinner. Vinnie purchases a miniature bottle of sherry, and accepts a cup of tea. As usual, she refuses the plastic tray upon which have been arranged mounds of some tasteless neutral substance (wet sawdust? farina?) that has been colored and shaped to resemble beef stew, Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, and lemon pudding. It does not deceive her any longer, though once she assumed that the altitude, or a mild anxiety condition when airborne, was responsible for the taste of airplane food. But the homemade lunches that she now brings with her are just as nice as they would be at sea level.
“Hey, that looks good,” her seatmate exclaims, regarding Vinnie’s chicken sandwich with a longing she has seen before in the eyes of other travelers. “This stuff tastes like silage.”
“Yes, I know.” She gives him a perfunctory smile.
“They must do something funny to it. Radiate it or something.”
“Mm.” Vinnie finishes her sandwich, folds the wax paper up tidily, unwraps a large shiny Mcintosh apple and an extra-bitter-sweet Tobler chocolate bar, and reopens her novel. Her companion returns to his silage, chewing in a slow, discouraged manner. Finally he shoves the tray aside and picks up Little Lord Fauntleroy.
“Guess you’re glad to be getting back to England,” he says presently, as Vinnie accepts a second cup of tea from the steward.
“Mm, yes,” she agrees, without looking up. She finishes the sentence she is reading, stops, and frowns. Has she been talking to herself out loud, as she sometimes does? No; rather, misled by her New England accent and her academic intonation-plus, no doubt, her preference for tea-this western American believes that she is British.