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I love her. All the more reason to sort this business out between them.
Before the world did it for her.
Part 3
Flight of Fate
Chapter 21
Everyone gathered around the large poster that had gone up the night before. There, right in Terminal 2 where Royal Asia currently made its home, was a friendly greeting from the company’s current representative of all things Asian and flight attendant.
“Wow…” Charmaine raised her chin as Arianna struggled to remember where she was. “You can see every one of your pores!”
Boss Tan gently chided Charmaine for saying something so daft. Everyone else assured Arianna that it was a gorgeous picture of her, Photoshop and all. Thank God for Photoshop! Arianna’s blown-up face had never looked so smooth, her makeup so perfect, and her teeth so white. This particular poster used a shot of her holding up her hand as if gesturing to the words “ROYAL ASIA – QUEEN OF THE SKIES.” Beneath her hand was the smaller tagline, “Now with direct flights to LAX.”
Attention soon turned to the other posters hanging up at the entrance to Terminal 2. Charmaine exclaimed that Sherry’s afro was “the coolest thing ever” and that First Officer Riley had “never looked so good.” The insinuation was that nobody could see how short Riley was, not even in the group picture of all three of them together with Sherry in a chair and Riley and Arianna standing on either side of her. Each poster welcomed potential passengers to different aspects of what Royal Asia offered, from an American excursion to The Next Best Thing in Pacific Hospitality.
Arianna was aware of how calculated everything was. Sherry represented the American sojourn, a distant, foreign land of glitzy people and Hollywood dreams. Riley was the professionalism that was attributed to men and women alike, a hopeful signal to any female passenger who wanted to see herself in the sky one day.
And Arianna? She was familiar. The beautiful woman in a kebaya who spoke Mandarin and ensured the Asian passengers that this was as good, if not better than airlines like Singapura and JAL.
“Can you believe it?” muttered another flight attendant in Malay, a language that instantly perked up Arianna’s ears. “They’re trying to have the best of both worlds. You know she used to be one of us, right? “
Arianna didn’t have to turn her head all the way to recognize the Singapura kebaya, an even more familiar sight that once graced her closet. It stood out even more than the old Malaysia Airlines uniform or whatever Bali Airlines now sported. Unlike Royal Asia, which may always be in flux as they found their footing, the thought of Singapura Airlines ever ditching the kebaya was unfathomable. Something Arianna had to confront as she stared at the group photo, where the kebaya pattern was only represented in Sherry’s collar and the pocket protector.
“What a silly experiment,” the Singapura flight attendant said in a huff before rolling away with her bag.
Arianna didn’t let it get to her as she approached the gate for her flight. She kept her head down as she bypassed passengers, not that any of them were likely to recognize her yet.
Once onboard, she had to endure more questions and comments from her coworkers, especially when Riley was in the galley with the gossiping gals. Capt. Fan even got on the speaker to announce that he had never been prouder to fly with two celebrities, which Riley said was a jab at her. The “boys,” as she called the older men flying the plane, liked to rib her.
“It’s how you know they like you,” Arianna said as she went through the checklist.
“How do you know if people like you, Aria?”
She flashed the pilot a smile. “They ask me to be in a marketing campaign with other good-looking women.”
“Please. Don’t let me think you’re flirting with me. Not after…” Riley cleared her throat. “Never mind!”
Sometimes, Arianna managed to forget what had happened a month ago. Kaylinn never brought it up. Neither did her sister. It was Riley who bloomed into a red rose when around Arianna, which seemed rather silly after four weeks. Was she that hung up on being caught with someone’s sister? It was water under the bridge by this point.
“So,” Riley said, changing the subject before she had to get back into the cockpit for boarding, “what’s this I hear about you not flying back to Singapore later this week?”
Arianna hung up the list while Charmaine snuck past her to check the status of a First Class seat that had been deep cleaned of a stain. “Oh, that. I’m going on vacation as soon as we’re in LA, actually. I fly to Seattle on Monday night. It’s going to be a long day.” As soon as she landed and made it through immigration, she was off. But without a hotel room to go to, she had to hang around LAX after changing in the Royal Asia lounge. She was using her privileges to fly standby to Seattle, with all but a guaranteed seat in the back of Economy. I hope I see Sherry. She was supposed to!
“Seattle, huh? You know, I used to live there until a couple of months ago.”
“I do know! Where do you think I should go first?” Arianna closed the medicine cabinet after taking inventory of the secondary first-aid supplies. “Pike Place, or the Space Needle?”
“Why in the world are you going to Seattle, of all places? For your vacation!”
Arianna had already shared the same story with everyone else… she might as well use it on Riley as well. “I’m staying with a friend who wants me to visit. Besides, it’s not like we fly to many locations. The Honolulu route hasn’t started yet.”
“Fair enough.” Rachel lightly tapped Riley on the shoulder on her way by. “That’s my cue to get my butt in there. See you in America, Aria.”
Arianna didn’t think much of it as she leaped into her work, greeting passengers as they boarded and making the occasional small talk with the ground staff who stopped onboard to check on passengers before hopping off again. It wasn’t until most everyone was on the plane and the door was about to close that Capt. Fan got on the speaker and prematurely thanked everyone for flying Royal Asia.
“Additionally,” he said, barely clear enough for most to hear him over the racket of the boarding procedure, “I’d like to say that I am deeply privileged to be flying with two of our airline’s new models, First Class flight attendant Arianna and our First Officer Riley Lowe.”
