Page 12 of His Temptation
“JFK Airport,” I reply. “I’m going to teach you a thing or two about our company. Let’s go. My driver is waiting downstairs.”
She scurries out of my office in her heels. I swear, every time she does that, it looks like she’s about to bite it and face-plant on the ground. Where the hell did she come from? It’s like she’s never worn heels before.
We walk outside onto the busy city street, where my driver is waiting.
“Good morning, Mr. Monroe,” he greets us with the door to the SUV open already.
“George. Thank you. This is my assistant, Miss Ricci.”
“Lovely to meet you, ma’am.”
“Hi, George,” she replies kindly. “Nice to meet you.”
I wave my arm, motioning for her to get in first. She smiles awkwardly, then climbs into the back seat—not very skillfully, I might add.
I spend the drive to JFK returning emails on my phone. It’s not exactly convenient to be spending my day like this, but something tells me I need to put in the effort. Maybe if I get her up to speed, I’ll actually have an assistant who lasts longer than a month.
We arrive at the departure gate, and I instruct George to pick us up at the arrival gate in a couple of hours. I want to have enough time to get through the airport while going over whatever comes to mind.
Once inside, I lead the way down to our airline check-in section.
Before we go to the counter, I stop and turn to Miss Ricci. “What do you see when you look around?” I ask.
She cranes her neck as she views our surroundings. “People checking in for their flights.”
I nod my head. “True. But there’s so much more than that happening. These are people walking into this airport, feeling safe enough to put their lives in our hands. They are giving us their trust. I don’t take that lightly.”
I watch as she continues to look around her, maybe taking it all in with a newfound appreciation for what it means to be responsible for an airline.
“That’s our top priority—to take care of our customers. Beyond that, we try to make their experience as enjoyable as we can. If you look at our check-in station, we have four people workingat the desk. We have eight self-service check-in stations and employees circling them at all times to make sure they can help anyone who needs assistance. Why do you think that is?”
She bites her lip, then swallows. “Um, to make sure they have a good experience and come back.”
“Very good. They are going to judge us the moment they step foot in the airport. If we have long lines, like some of our competitors, we’re going to lose their business.”
I lead us to the check-in counter, where the woman behind it looks me up and down with appreciation. I used to revel in the attention. Now it’s hard not to roll my eyes. I place my hand on the small of Miss Ricci’s back as I guide her to the counter.
I notice the look of annoyance from the woman behind the counter as her eyes home in on my hand resting on my assistant’s back.
“Good morning,” she says with a little less enthusiasm than she had a moment ago. “Are you checking in?”
I open my wallet and pull out my black Amex. Her eyes open wide like she just saw the Pope. Gold diggers are so easy to spot. All it takes is one flash of evidence of my wealth, and their eyes light up.
“I’d like to purchase two tickets for your first flight to LA,” I tell her.
“Two tickets to LA. May I see your IDs, please?”
We go through the process of getting ourselves checked in—all the while, I know I will have to tell the employees at the gate that we are not getting on the plane. I may be the CEO of the top airline at this airport, but TSA doesn’t give a shit about that.
They want my ticket and to make sure I’m not carrying anything dangerous.
With my priority card, we get through TSA immediately. She looks in every direction as we walk to the gate. It’s like she’s never seen an airport before. For the first time, I’m curious to ask my assistant a personal question. The mere idea of it makes me grimace.
When we arrive at our gate, I find two seats at the window that faces our plane. She follows my lead and takes a seat next to me.
“This is the cool part,” I say. “This plane is a Boeing 757. What you heard us talking about in that meeting was about the wing for a new aircraft design. This particular plane has a supercritical wing, which was the first of its kind. A supercritical wing is a type of wing that has a certain shape to delay shock waves at high speeds. This helps with speed and fuel efficiency.”
“The actual name of the design is supercritical wing?” Her eyes remain glued on the aircraft.
