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Get a hold of yourself. Arianna had to take over. Get them out of there. Somewhere else. Somewhere private. So she latched her arm around Kaylinn’s and directed her out of the alley, toward the nearest MRT station where they silently stood on the platform and boarded the next train heading toward Changi.
Arianna didn’t think to wrap something around her sister’s neck until an older woman stared at them from across the train.
“This is so embarrassing…” Kaylinn muttered as the MRT lurched forward.
There was still nothing for Arianna to say until they were back at her place, and even then? I’m losing my mind. She kept waiting to wake up from this dream because that was the only way to explain what was happening.
It wasn’t until they sat in her studio apartment, still avoiding one another’s gaze, that Arianna finally found the voice to speak.
“What the hell were you doing?” she hissed. “That was my coworker!”
Kaylinn melted into her sister’s bed, the two of them propped up by the decorative pillows that allowed Arianna to transform her humble but comfortable bed into a couch during the day. More than once, Kaylinn had come over to cry herself to sleep over some boy while Arianna cooked dinner or packed for a flight the next day. How many times did she come over uninvited because she needed my presence? Kaylinn had a roommate in a cheaper part of Singapore, far away from Arianna’s place. Yet she was always here, wanting to be with her family instead of an acquaintance she split the rent with. I assume that’s not her girlfriend! Arianna never had a reason to suspect that about her sister. Not until now.
“She told me she was a pilot, but I didn’t know it was your airline.”
“You didn’t ask? Question if you should fool around with someone in the industry?”
“That’s what you’re hung up on? Not the fact it was a woman?”
Arianna scoffed. “Of course I’m confounded by that. Why wouldn’t I be?” She leaped off her makeshift couch and started preparing tea for them both, preferring to keep her hands busy instead of fidgeting next to her sister, who courted a cloak of shame.
It wasn’t like Kaylinn. She wasn’t ever embarrassed about anything!
Yet Arianna knew they couldn’t be more different in how they expressed it. I keep a cool head while holding it all in. She curls up and dies. Neither was productive, but Arianna had perfected her poker face due to demand. Her job. Her sexuality. Both things required her to never show the real her at the wrong moment.
“Are you…?”
Kaylinn looked up from the enclosure she created with her bent knees. “What?”
The dishes clattered against the counter. “Since when do you make out with girls too?”
Kaylinn shrugged. “Tonight was the first time. Probably the last time. I’m traumatized.”
Nothing offered some levity like her sister’s dramatic words. “You shouldn’t be. That was all me.” Arianna loomed over her electric kettle as it sputtered to life. “I shouldn’t have reacted that way. I was… shocked.”
They were quiet while the water boiled and Arianna calmly placed two separate tea bags in two identical cups. She brought both hot teas to her dining table but didn’t audibly invite her sister over. Instead, Kaylinn crawled to the end of the bed and reached far enough to grab the tea and bring it to her chest. Arianna gazed out her window. I don’t have a view. Just more of the same building across a green walkway. There was a reason her rent was affordable enough in this part of town. Studio. No view. Low floor. She could see blips of airplanes coming in and out of the airport, and that was all she cared about outside of the price.
Not even that gave her some solace now.
“You made your new girlfriend sound nice,” Kaylinn quietly said. “You know I’ve been having problems with dating guys. Thought maybe I could… I dunno…”
“You like going to the gay bars, this is true.”
“I’ve turned down a few offers before. This time, when an American woman started talking me up, I was taken in by her style. All I knew about her was her given name and that she was a pilot on layover. I only told her my name and that I work in an office.” Kaylinn sniffed. “She bought me a drink, one thing led to another…”
“I come barging out and making a fool of us all. But… I was shocked.”
“Going to make the next flight back to LA weird, huh?”
She had no idea. Like Arianna had no idea where things would go from here.
“You’re supposed to meet my girlfriend tomorrow.”
Kaylinn sipped her tea. “Yeah.”
Arianna immediately went into damage control mode. “We’ve got to cover that thing up on your neck. Here. We have the same skin tone. I’ve got the perfect thing in my bathroom.”
Minute by minute, this whole incident was more palpable to Arianna’s brain. She’d probably regret that, eventually.
