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“Oh, oh!” Charmaine smacked Arianna's arm in excitement. Up ahead on the moving walkway were recognizable Royal Asia uniforms coming in the other direction. “There they are!” Her excitement melted into reverent awe. “They're so cool…”
Arianna was likewise stricken with admiration as she gazed upon the women coming in her direction. The Americans in their standard royal blue suits and pencil skirts caught their gaze with Arianna and Charmaine and flashed them the kind of wide, white-toothed smiles that made the insecure girl inside of Arianna turn away in embarrassment and the grown-up flight attendant approaching them match the toothy smile.
“Look at their hair. Oh, my God.” Charmaine was already speaking in English before they met the other cabin crew at the end of the walkway. “Can you imagine having hair as gorgeous as that?”
Arianna wasn't sure which woman Charmaine referred to. Was it the crew member with silky blond hair tied up into a tight and elegant bun? Or the woman with a large afro that accentuated her bold features and striking makeup? Nobody tells them what kind of makeup to wear. Arianna's grin became more genuine the closer they came to the flight attendants, who now waved and gestured for Charmaine and Arianna to come their way.
There was no other choice. As soon as the moving walkway ended, Arianna tripped over her feet and smoothly recovered with a hand brushing out a wrinkle in her kebaya.
“You ladies must be the Singaporean crew,” said the woman in front, whose smile was the brightest of the three. “We've been looking forward to meeting you all ever since they told us we'd be meeting up. Did you guys fly in from Singapore?”
Charmaine nodded with more giggles on her lips. Arianna saw Boss Tan in the distance but knew she couldn’t wait for her superior to arrive before addressing the women in front of her. They stood alongside the windows between two gates. Eventually, someone from Royal Asia would usher them toward the lounge, where everyone was guaranteed one free drink ticket to loosen up the conversation. Arianna had been dreaming about what she might get, but now? She only had eyes for the bevy of beauties before her.
“Yes,” she said, unsure of her volume. She could have been as silent as a mouse, or as loud as a boar.
“You should come tell us all about it,” said the woman in front. “I think they opened the lounge for us.”
Turned out, they didn't need anyone else to let them in. The American crew moved and spoke with such confidence that Arianna was simultaneously grateful and chalking it up to them being in an American airport. The crew knew exactly where they could go and what they could get away with on their own. Not like Arianna, whose English would take her places but not with the guarantee that she was allowed there.
That's where they met up with the rest of the crew, including the pilots who milled around in their uniforms with a single drink in their hands. Long before Arianna was paraded around to be introduced to everyone, she recognized familiar faces and subjected herself to saying hello to people she might not ever see again. They offered her a mixture of bows and handshakes, and the results weren't limited to who came from what country. A few of the American crew wished to try their Mandarin on her – and one wanted to test their Japanese, only to be disappointed that Arianna only knew a few phrases. None of it helpful.
“I didn't catch your name earlier,” said the beautiful woman with an afro. “I'm Sherry Alexander, Business Class supervisor for the LA-Tokyo route, although I pick up a few routes to Seattle, too.”
They shook hands, Arianna attempting not to stare. She saw lots of great hair and interesting ways of dressing it up back in Singapore, but rarely was there someone near her who looked like this. If they were at a certain kind of bar instead of a work function, Arianna would be inclined to flirt with her.
“My name is Arianna Song.” She released Sherry's hand. “Most people call me Aria.”
“Aria Song! How about that?”
“What do you mean?”
Sherry cocked her head in mild amusement. “Aria. Song. They're kind of the same thing.”
“Oh! I've never thought about it.”
“How about that? Did you get your drink yet?”
Within another ten minutes, the entire room was a healthy mix of minglers based on different sides of the ocean. Arianna never lacked anyone to talk to, even if it was with the likes of Boss Tan or Rachel, both of whom were having a grand time as they sipped simple drinks and answered questions about themselves before probing into the “mysterious" lives of the American cabin crew. If this was what the company wanted, it was what they got, all the way down to people swapping phone numbers and WhatsApp handles.
The only ones who did not immediately approach Arianna when she was in their vicinity were the pilots, who mostly kept to themselves when they weren't heading to the bathroom or accidentally bumping into a flight attendant. Yet there was one person in a pilot's uniform who caught her eye, if only because Arianna was still not used to female pilots in her line of work.
Yet there was one on the other side of the room, occasionally looking in her direction. When their gazes finally caught up to each other, she received a flirtatious smile that immediately made a chill run down Arianna's spine.
“You're one of the only people I have yet to speak with.” The woman, who wasn't that much taller than Arianna, said. “Riley Lowe. I'm the copilot for the LA-Seattle route. I saw you talking to Sherry earlier.” She was still grinning. “She's a hoot. Don't believe a word she says about me.”
Like Charmaine had been giggling on their way here, Arianna was now casting her gaze aside and hiding her unladylike snickers of delusion. Another foreigner flirting with me. Go figure. Because Riley was quite flirtatious, wasn't she? Perhaps she didn't mean it and Arianna completely misread the situation. No matter. She'd take the compliment that she was someone worthy of admiring!
“Arianna Song.” She forced herself to look Riley right in the eye. She's so… dapper. She wore the same masculine pilot's uniform as the others, her brown hair clipped above the ear and tapered down the back of her neck. It was a slick and stylish look that made Arianna think about some of the very first women she had ever kissed. “I go by Aria. Sherry told me that Aria and Song mean the same thing. I regret to inform you that my mother did not do it on purpose.”
“I hadn't even thought about it.”
“Riley Lowe,” Arianna tested saying with her tongue. “It’s like Rob Lowe.”
“I get that a lot. Raised a few eyebrows when I applied to Royal Asia to be a pilot.”
“You mean it wasn’t because…?” Arianna stopped herself. Some things can be thought of but shouldn’t be voiced. Yet she recognized the reaction she had feared, right in Riley’s eyes.
“Because I’m a woman?” she grinned. Americans love that kind of grin. Arianna couldn’t help but match it. “I came over from Delta. Before that, I was in the Air Force. The military to pilot pipeline isn’t that shocking.”
