"Would you mind checking the galley first?"
"Sir, I'm trying to prepare the cabin for departure."
The firmness of her tone was not itself troubling. Cabin crews had schedules and safety tasks. Marcus knew that. What troubled him was the contempt with which she said it, especially after the abundant patience she had shown the passengers around him.
"Please check when you have a moment," he replied.
She moved away and said something quietly to a younger attendant, Michael Barton, who was arranging service supplies. Michael glanced toward seat 2A and grinned. Clare shook her head, smiling now as though sharing a private joke.
Arthur leaned across the aisle. "For what it's worth, I saw a bottle of that whisky on the cart earlier."
"Thank you. Perhaps it belongs to another service."
"Perhaps," Arthur said, without sounding convinced.
The aircraft doors closed. Clare returned with orange juice in a paper cup and placed it on Marcus's tray before he could ask another question. The champagne around him remained in glassware. Marcus looked at the cup, then at her.
"This is all that's available?"
"For you at the moment, yes."
The choice of words was precise enough to carry a sting.
He could have let it pass. He was tired, and he had a meeting to prepare for. But a pattern was forming, and Marcus had learned that discrimination often survived by remaining small enough to be dismissed. One missed drink was an error. One curt answer was a mood.
One lesser amenity could be blamed on supply. The pattern among them was harder to excuse.
He opened his personal phone and wrote to Jessica: Please record that Flight 347 seems to have inconsistent premium service. No action yet. I want to see whether it continues.
Her response appeared before the aircraft began pushing back. Understood. Is everything okay?
Everything is safe, he typed. I'm paying attention.
Clare came through the cabin with warmed nuts in small dishes. She served Arthur, the anniversary couple, and the passengers behind Marcus. At seat 2A she put down a sealed packet of pretzels.
Marcus stared at it for a moment.
"Are the nuts unavailable too?"
"Pretzels are perfectly good, sir."
"I didn't say they weren't."
"Then enjoy them."
She left.
A woman in the row behind lowered her magazine. "Did she really just do that?" she whispered to her companion.
Marcus heard her, but he did not turn around. He had decided that his response needed to be as clear as the problem. No insults. No raised voice. No scene for someone else to describe later as threatening.
As the plane taxied, his tablet vibrated with the final service-equity report Jessica had sent. He skimmed a chart showing a modest decline in premium-cabin satisfaction among Black and Latino travelers. A footnote described the sample as too small to indicate a reliable pattern.
Marcus frowned. The number of dissatisfied travelers was never small to the traveler who had paid for a seat and been made to feel unwelcome in it.