“For those of you getting off at Raleigh, the temperature is a lovely 72° F, partially cloudy.  The local time is 1:20 in the afternoon.  We hope you have a lovely time, thank you for flying with Southwest Airlines.”

            Huffing, Daniel tugged his oversized carry-on off out of the overhead bin, rolling it down the aisle and out into the air-conditioned connecting hallway.  Already late, he hurried, his long legs moving at a ground-eating pace. 

            “I just hope there’s not any distractions,” he muttered to himself.  “The last thing I need is another delay.  I’m already so far behind schedule, I’ll never catch up.”

            Weaving his way to the proper baggage claim, Daniel flopped down, as exhausted as if he had been running a marathon, as opposed to simply sitting on a plane since early in the morning. Finally, after what felt like hours of waiting, the first of his two small suitcases came ambling down the conveyor belt.  Crawling along at a snail’s pace, it was easy for Daniel to catch hold of the handle and heft it off of the carousel. 

            Settling down on his suitcase instead of the ground this time, he tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for his second bag.  As he absently hummed to himself, he spotted a woman weaving her way through the crowd easily, avoiding bumping into anyone despite the crowd.  As she came closer, Daniel could spot her very out of place dress: a black, strapless evening gown that swept the floor, falling in elegant folds of fabric; heels so tall he was amazed she could walk in them at all, let alone with such grace; a choker of diamonds that glittered at her white throat with matching earrings and bracelet; make-up light but tasteful and auburn hair sleekly done up in a French twist – all-in-all, she was ready for a state dinner at the White House, not an airport at just before two in the afternoon.  Remembering the movie he had watched in-flight, Daniel breathed to himself, “Wow, what a Bond girl.” 

            Unable to tear his eyes from her slender, elegant form, Daniel watched as she paused right beside a much more casually dressed man.  Even as he gazed, riveted on the absurd spectacle, The Man carefully passed a package wrapped in what looked like ordinary, brown postal-packaging.  Yet The Woman accepted the package with as much care as one would give a newborn baby, wrapping it in a lace shawl that had previously been wrapped around her shoulders.  The Woman then took something, too tiny for Daniel to see, from her small, black evening purse and handed it over to the man.  Oddly, as he glanced around self-consciously, no one else seemed to be taking note of this very note-worthy exchange.  It was as if they had better things to be doing…

            With a jolt, Daniel remembered his own baggage.  He turned briefly to the carousel, checked off that his other bag was not currently passing him by, and turned back to The Woman and The Man…

            …Only to find that they had both disappeared, merging back into the crowd.  Daniel thought he barely caught a swish of black fabric slide out the glass doors, but could not be sure as his shook his head, resolving to think more on it later.