Camille Renshaw

A large woman walked down the center of the plane, slowly, and brushed against each person in an aisle seat. After matching her ticket to my row, she sat beside me for the long flight to Prague. She asked, because of my nervousness, "What's wrong?" Afraid she might think me prejudiced against her immense size, I told her I had a mild fear of flying. She said she once booked a flight from London to New York with an American airline and then exchanged it at the airport, on a whim, for a French airline - thinking the food would be better. Hours later, when she landed at JFK, the news aired a story on the plane she almost took. It had crashed before leaving the island, and all passengers were dead. "Do you believe in Providence?" she asked. I hesitated, either afraid of being evangelized or afraid of the rain outside our window. "I was saved by this huge appetite of mine - that alone." Her arms spread, mimicking airplane wings. "Now you can't keep me from flying, and you can't keep me from eating. You ever had that kind of assurance?"