Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary

Except when flights at Heathrow are delayed or canceled, most check-in clerks find the job repetitive and impersonal. Cheryl Summerbee, a checker for British Airways at Terminal One, injects interest into her job by assessing passengers' characters and allocating seats accordingly. It gives her pleasure to think about the love affairs she may have sparked by seating nice people next to each other. Cheryl keeps Bills and Moon romance novels, which she despises but devours, beneath the counter to fill slack times. No Mr. Right has come along willing to take her to the altar still a virgin.

Cheryl smiles at Zapp, admiring his deerstalker hat and making him remember his promise to Persse. Cheryl sweetly offers to mail it when she goes off duty. She likes Zapp, so she seats him next to a very elegant Italian professor of the...