I was a junior in boarding school, heading back to campus the Monday after Thanksgiving. After three rounds of leftovers, I was ready to return to the dorm, to our well-honed methodology of procrastination, to that last gasp of late-night madness before exams settled in and Christmas came. I had planned my flight down to the last minute: I’d finish the book I was reading, proof a paper I had due, and sneak in a forty-five-minute nap before touching down in Boston. I had my headphones to protect me from screeching children and talkative adults. I had five sharpened pencils in the front pocket of my bag. I was ready to go. I usually liked to sit in row seventeen, because seventeen was my lucky number. This time, however, I was seated in row fourteen. I decided not to take this as a bad omen. I was not a person who normally believed in omens. Only luck. I am always early to airports, and thus I always board when my row is first called.
