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“I cut my teeth on traveling Economy for business. I know a thing or two about good service even if you’re stuck in the center seat.”
There were no notes for her at the end of her presentation. Elle was one of the first board members to head back to her hotel, which was closer to the airport than downtown. At least the car is paid for by the company. She slid into the backseat of a sleek Towne Car and typed her notes into her laptop as the driver navigated from Downtown Los Angeles to a hotel suite with a view of the Pacific. Small favors. If she were stuck near the airport, Elle at least wanted to watch the waves from her window.
The hotel was luxuriously quiet at that time of day. The tourists were out and about, the businesspeople were in their meetings, and the staff had finished most of the cleaning before the late afternoon check-in rush began. Elle rolled her bag behind her as she bypassed the front desk and swiped her card to access the elevator. It wasn’t until the announcement over the speaker that she realized she had boarded the one that didn’t go all the way up to her suite.
She hopped off at the next floor to catch one that did. While she waited, another elevator door opened, an eye-catching woman stepping out with a shopping bag dangling from her hand.
At first, Elle did not recognize the First Class flight attendant who had provided some of the excellent service discussed during the all-day board meeting. Not that Arianna looked cataclysmically different when out of her uniform. She still wore her black hair up in a smooth, sleek twist, and her makeup, while more subdued than what her supervisors required, was immaculately natural. She moved with the same grace as her spine remained straight and her eyes focused forward, legs clad in soft leggings, and her torso adorned in a light gray turtleneck that fell past her thighs.
She didn’t notice Elle waiting for another elevator. Arianna was focused on making it back to her room, her ULTA shopping bag a reminder of what most of the flight attendants bought during their layovers.
Elle was disappointed that she wasn’t riding the return trip to Singapore. Must I go home? Because the view from the top was much more striking than the commuter trip back to Seattle.
Chapter 4
The moment Arianna returned home to her flat near Changi Airport, she took down her hair, removed her makeup, and changed into the thick pajamas that marked her desire to spend the next three days huddled beneath her duvet watching movies on her tablet.
She didn’t own a TV. Between her laptop, phone, and travel tablet, it was unnecessary. It also got in the way of Arianna burying beneath her covers, humidifier blowing in her face as she slowly drank from her water bottle and munched on a spicy snack.
“Don’t go…” the tragically beautiful heroine on her tablet screen said as she reached for her love interest’s hand. “We’ll figure something out. I’ll go with you to Hong Kong. Just let me be with you.”
The other woman, who hid her broken heart behind a smiling veneer, jerked her hand away. “Take this as a sign that we weren’t meant to be. Love isn’t for people like us.”
Arianna wiped away the tears pooling in her eyes, snack dust lingering on her fingers. As soon as she realized what she had done, she dabbed a tissue against her eyes and hoped she hadn’t gotten any of the spice somewhere it shouldn’t be. Just my luck. By the time she focused on her screen again, the credits rolled. Doubtlessly, the heartbroken heroine had been left on the pier, her fate unknown.
“Why do they have to be so sad?” Arianna knew the answer. There were plenty of happy lesbian stories those days, but she was always drawn to the “it could never work, we’re not meant to be” kind that tore her heart asunder and made her weep for the next few days. The worst was when she was at work, preparing meals for passengers when she suddenly remembered oh my God, they couldn’t be together and that was the end of her sanity for a few minutes. At least she knew how to recollect herself in record time.
Arianna liked things that reflected her life. The hardworking, diligent women who had to eschew love to achieve their dreams. Most of her coworkers lauded romantic comedies featuring whatever male heartthrob was the “it” guy of the year, but not Arianna, who barely knew what it was like to kiss a man, let alone fall in love with one. Her fate lay in the kind of sapphic tales that showed women were not meant to be together if it got in the way of their careers and ambitions. Arianna understood that all too well.
Her mother would be upset. Her employers would not be too happy. Her social life? Combustible.
Times were changing, she supposed, but she would soon be old enough that she was so set in her ways that being in love, cohabitating, and thinking about long-term plans with another woman was beyond her comprehension. Arianna Song was a woman who put her career before all else. It gave her something to focus on while the world continued on without her. It allowed her to build savings, investments, and a life that did not require a man to vouch for her existence. If there’s one gift I can give my mother, it’s not having to worry about my future. Pearl would always worry, of course, since her greatest wish for her daughter was for Arianna to marry well. But…
Arianna was willing to sacrifice love with a woman if it meant freedom from a man.
Someone unexpectedly knocked on her door while she was moping beneath her covers. Arianna wiped away the last of her tears, closed her tablet, and checked her phone where it charged by her bed. A text from her sister said she was stopping by.
“Aiya, you look so tired!” Kaylinn was one of the only people allowed to see Arianna out of uniform, and that included the look she adorned whenever she left her apartment. So for her to say I look tired… Kaylinn was right. Arianna was tired. “That LA route is going to be the death of you.” She helped herself inside, taking off her shoes and presenting her sister with takeout for dinner. “Ever since you started working regularly, you somehow look more exhausted. How does that work?”
“You mean since I got a regular schedule?” she croaked.
The plastic bag full of food landed on the small patch of counter space in Arianna’s kitchen. “Since you started flying to LA every single week, lah. When they had you going everywhere you were sometimes closer to our time zone. Now you’re flying over the ocean every week. So…” She opened her hands. “Did you bring me my presents?”
Arianna couldn’t say no to her sister’s demands for candy. That didn’t merely include the adult version, which was inside a tiny ULTA bag. That meant American chocolate, gumballs, and saltwater taffy. Kaylinn’s sweet tooth was the stuff of legend ever since they were girls in Kuala Lumpur.
“You’re the only person who ever asks me to bring back American chocolate.” Arianna sat at her tiny table that folded down from the wall. Her hair swished against the tabletop and almost knocked over a screw that had come loose from the hinge. “I can’t stand the stuff myself. And Mom is somewhere in Malaysia right now bemoaning the state of your teeth.”
“Luckily for me,” Kaylinn broke into a Hershey bar and took a generous bite, “I’ve got excellent insurance. What did you get for yourself?” Her mastication of the chocolate bar was impressive. Enough so that Arianna was afraid to eat her savory meal. “You never told me how the new lipstick is working out.”
This was how every post-work visit with Kaylinn went. We’re sisters, yes, but this is still a quid pro quo relationship. Arianna didn’t own a car. In exchange for her sister driving her around, including to and from the airport, Arianna brought back trinkets and treasures from her layovers. Kaylinn had been excited to hear her big sister was on a permanent route to LA since it meant her favorite snacks and discount makeup every week. Most of what the Song sisters liked was imported and buying it in Los Angeles saved considerable money.
But they never forgot that Arianna was older and had a more impressive job. Sure, Kaylinn was going places in the finance industry, but Arianna had been a Singapura Girl. Something even their mother bragged about whenever Arianna was out of earshot. Kaylinn reported on it constantly.
And she’s straight. Let’s not forget. Kaylinn was the only person in the whole world who knew her sister was gay, and that was only because she once walked in on Arianna “entertaining” a nameless date she brought home from a bar. With my top off… and her pants off.
Arianna had some dirt on her sister’s personal life as well. That was how it had to be.
What Kaylinn didn’t understand, though, was her big sister’s need to keep up her perfect façade. That meant plenty of exasperated conversations while waiting for Arianna to finish getting ready, teasing about her receding hairline from all of those twists and buns, and asking a million questions about what it was like being a First Class flight attendant.
