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“I’m so sorry, Ms. Sparrow.” She slithered out of Elle’s lap, trying not to whimper. “Forgive my inability to stay up on two feet at such a crucial time.”
She smoothed the wrinkles out of her uniform before hurrying to the jump seat, where she hid her blushing with a turn of her head and refusing to look at Charmaine sitting across from her.
She wished she could say that was the most embarrassing thing to happen with Ms. Sparrow on board. Yet not even two weeks later, when she once again returned from Los Angeles, a certain passenger was on the other side of the lavatory door when Arianna stepped out a little too… fast.
“Oh!” Arianna nearly fainted when she realized she hadn’t only smacked a First Class passenger but had nailed Elle right on the face. The woman swore she was fine and that no damage was done, but Arianna didn’t miss that Charmaine ran a certain passenger a small handful of gauze to take care of a bloody nose.
Then there was the deplaning that required Arianna to assist Elle with removing a carry-on bag that had become stuck in the overhead bin. Once it was dislodged, it fell– wheels first – upon the floor, barely missing Arianna’s head by three centimeters and Elle’s arm by five.
But nothing came close to the debacle that occurred when Esther turned the corner too quickly and promptly collapsed to the floor, clutching her shin.
“I’m fine,” she insisted to Arianna, who was the first to cut across the front of First Class and tend to her supervisor. “I promise. Please, let’s not make a big deal of this.”
Yet when Arianna placed her hand on Esther’s ankle, Boss Tan hissed through her teeth and attempted to yank her foot away from the woman assessing the situation.
This was the one time Dr. Tim Kuang was not on board. Not that it would have mattered right at that moment, since it was quiet hours and Arianna reckoned that she and Esther were the only ones awake and aware at that moment. I can barely see her in the darkness. Arianna’s eyes were excellent at adjusting to the darkened cabin, but even she needed a flashlight to see the unnatural way Esther’s ankle pointed. While Boss Tan remained adamant that it was “only a sprain, I’ll be fine!” Arianna looked around for anyone who could help her get Esther up.
“Everything okay?”
She recognized Elle’s voice before the passenger came into view. “We are fine, I assure you, Ms. Sparrow,” Boss Tan said through clenched teeth. “I just need to sit down and elevate this for a couple of hours.”
Elle took one look with her cell phone light and said, “I think you’ll be elevating your foot for the next couple of weeks by the looks of this.”
“No, no, it’s fine, I promise.”
Already, Arianna’s mind raced with everything this meant. Of course we’re heading to LA. A layover. With any luck, there was enough time to reroute a flight attendant from another plane to take Esther’s place, but Arianna was looking at a temporary promotion on the way back to Singapore. With my boss sitting in her civvies in a jump seat, no doubt. Already, she detected the shame and embarrassment oozing from every one of Boss Tan’s pores. “Why couldn’t this have been Charmaine?” those calculating eyes seemed to say. “I’m needed around here!”
Arianna didn’t necessarily disagree, because this wasn’t about the paperwork they had to fill out for the incident report. They were looking at hauling Esther off in a wheelchair the moment they landed in a foreign country. She’d have to go to an American doctor, insurance would get involved, and she would not be paid for the return trip that she probably needed, based on the conversations the whole crew had about what they did with their savings. Boss Tan recently got married. Right now, she planned on staying employed, but what if this changed her plans? A flight attendant had to walk!
“Do you have an ice pack and tape?” Elle asked with a voice low enough to not awaken her fellow passengers.
“Y… yes.” Another flight attendant came up behind them, startling Arianna, who told her to go get the materials for taking care of a sprained ankle while in the air. “I can do it. We’re trained to take care of these kinds of injuries, I assure you.”
“Ha! Are you a former Girl Scout Ambassador, though?”
“A what?”
“If you don’t mind, I can wrap an ankle in two seconds.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Boss Tan continued to insist. “I just need to get to the jump seat and take some medication. I have to be ready to land later.”
Arianna wanted to believe her supervisor, but she had a similar assessment as Elle, who recognized a badly sprained ankle. “I don’t disagree that we must get you out of this aisle. Esther, right?”
Boss Tan was mildly surprised that even a frequent flyer remembered her name. “Yes. But, if I may, a passenger shouldn’t be the one to help. We have a…”
Arianna cut her off once the ice pack and tape arrived from the galley. “I won’t say anything about her help if you don’t.”
Between her and Elle, Esther was soon hopping on one foot down to the empty First Class seat by the window. She insisted that she not sit in a seat Elle paid for. When Elle in turn insisted that her company paid for the seat and it was nothing to her, Arianna removed her supervisor’s shoe and slapped the ice pack on Esther’s ankle. Boss Tan was subsequently thrown backward as Elle cranked back the seat to ensure the injured woman’s leg was elevated.
“Better take some ibuprofen, huh? I’ve got some in my bag if you can’t find any.”
“We have medication to stop the swelling.” Arianna told her coworker who oversaw this chaos to go grab the medicine. “Don’t worry, Boss,” she said. “We will take care of you.”
Esther’s embarrassment was so palpable that Arianna felt the dagger in her back when she turned around. Now was not the time to attempt placation, though. Arianna was in first-aid mode, and she was so used to Elle’s presence by now that she didn’t think twice about a First Class passenger applying the ice pack and wrapping a flight attendant’s ankle.
“This is highly irregular,” Boss Tan muttered, although the fight slowly drained from her as she swallowed the anti-inflammatory and was made comfortable in the chair. By now, other passengers slowly awakened and pulled back their curtains to see what the fuss was about. “Something happened to a flight attendant,” Arianna heard in English. Then, someone else said in Mandarin, “You owe me fifty bucks. I told you this was gonna happen. With those heels?”
The other coworker went to report what had happened to the attendants, who would in turn ensure the pilots and ground crews knew what had occurred somewhere between Los Angeles and Singapore. Already, Arianna imagined the American ground crew preparing for a Royal Asia flight attendant in perfect makeup and slim kebaya to come rolling through in a wheelchair with a straight shot to immigration. Someone would make a doctor’s appointment on Boss Tan’s behalf. The hotel would be informed to ensure her room was ADA-compliant. Yes, everything’s going to be okay. Arianna attempted to tell Boss Tan as much, but the woman slumped in Elle’s seat and pretended that this wasn’t happening.
