Chapter 31
Cecelia was coming down the aisle for the third time, this time collecting trash from passengers. Her look was stern, yet disconnected. She was doing a job, and not much more.
When she got to Jon and Buddy's aisle and coldly said, “Trash,” as she held out the bag, Buddy again greeted her with a smile. As he dropped his coffee cup in the bag, he looked up at her and simply said, “Ma'am I apologize if I offended you earlier. Certainly didn't mean to do that. And thanks for all of your work today.”
Cecelia paused for a moment, seemingly surprised, and almost reflexively said, “Thank you.” Then she quickly turned to the folks across the aisle and kept on with her task.
Jon leaned toward Buddy. “Did you do that for my benefit?”
“Do what?”
“Apologize.”
“Son, again, no offense, but at that moment I wasn't thinking about you. I was concerned with her. So, no sir. I apologized because it was the right thing to do,” Buddy said, looking back over his shoulder just in time to notice a glance from Cecelia.
“But you stated earlier that she was low in self‐awareness and you were simply trying to be nice. If your motives were good and she's not going to understand what you're doing anyway, why apologize?” Jon challenged.
Buddy grinned.
“Jon,” Buddy paused. “Josiah, Dr. T, and my momma could sing three‐part harmony on a verse they each recite all of the time. Independent of each other, mind you, but these are folks who, when they speak, I listen.”
“And what was that? ‘Do the right ...
Get The Backpack now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
