Page 4

What a strange question! Arianna had received some over the years, usually from nosey passengers who had one too many, but this was the first time she heard it with such a dulcet tone. “Yes, it’s very comfortable. Easy to move around in. You may not garner such an idea while looking at us in it, but the fabric bends and breathes easily.”

“My goodness, you sound like a saleswoman.”

“I may have stolen that from the brochure we received with our new uniforms.”

The flash of amusement on Ms. Sparrow’s narrow face told Arianna that was the right thing to say. “That’s how you do it. Anyway, thank you for your assistance, Arianna.”

It was her turn to go on break, as announced when her coworker Yuehua arrived to relieve her from duty. Normally, Yuehua worked Economy, but once the meals had been collected and the lights were dimmed in the main cabin, Arianna was off for a few hours and Yuehua kept an eye on First Class with Esther. Both went on their break when Arianna’s was over.

So it went every week for the past three months, with only a few hiccups as Royal Asia adjusted the schedule on behalf of demand and requests from ICAO. Outside of last-minute requests from the lauded First Class passengers, many of whom were responsible for Arianna’s new paycheck, she was off for the middle third of the flight.

She lowered the ladder that took her to the private sleeping bunks above First Class, next door to where the pilots slept as they rotated their shifts as well. Esther was absolutely miffed when she found that out. Something about “pilots and flight attendants mixing in private” which would have been hilarious to Arianna if anything like that actually happened. Most of the time, the crew were so tired by the time they had their turn in the bunks that the only sounds of frivolity were giggling at a good dream.

The bunk in the Royal Asia airplane was slightly different than Singapura Airline’s, which was longer but wider. Royal Asia’s already roused the complaint of Western flight attendants and the taller Asian attendants like Yuehua, who often had to sleep with their feet poking out of the curtain. Arianna was short enough to fit after changing into the loose linen tunic she packed for breaks on the plane and for lounging in hotel rooms during her layover. She had perfected her routine to the point that by the time she lay back on the pillow with her satin mask over her eyes, she didn’t even need her earbuds to listen to the in-flight entertainment to lull her to sleep. The plane engine and the low hum of a fan blowing against her body were plenty.

For the next five hours, Arianna slipped off to dreamland, her body’s natural circadian rhythm so out of whack that it had re-righted itself after ten years of being an international flight attendant. It was sometimes concerning how at home she felt on these multi-ton death machines that spent more time over the Pacific Ocean than on the ground.

Oh, well.

When the plane landed at LAX exactly on time, everything went smoothly. Everything except the leap of adrenaline in Arianna’s body when she assisted the passengers off the plane.

There were the usual thanks and ignoring of her entire humanity, which suited her fine. Then there was the way Elizabeth Sparrow looked at her when she grabbed her roller bag with one hand and her briefcase with another.

“Thank you for another wonderful flight, Arianna.” She lingered close enough for Arianna to smell something slightly enigmatic, something that must have been spritzed on during landing so Ms. Sparrow could head straight to her meeting. “Hope to see you again soon.”

Arianna attempted her usual bow of farewell but discovered a hair slightly falling out of place and smacking her in the face. As she jerked back up, hand on top of her bun, she caught a broad smile and a chuckle from Ms. Sparrow.

If only she weren’t Arianna’s exact type. Anyone else would not have remained stuck in Arianna’s head as she did the final sweep of her section and deplaned with her colleagues, everyone boarding the shuttle to their hotel where standard suites awaited them.

Arianna had two days in LA before flying back home. When she should have been plotting her American mall shopping trip or arranging to see a friend who lived in Century City, she instead dreamily sat by the window overlooking the smoggy Los Angeles world, wondering when it would be her turn to fall in love for the first time.

Chapter 3

“…And that’s the final first quarter, folks.” Dustin Jones, the CFO of Royal Asia, smacked his palms together and shook both fists in the air. After a slight moment of silence, the entire boardroom erupted into fervent applause.

“Can you believe it?” Isaac Persons leaned in toward Elle, who politely clapped before finishing jotting down the notes she preferred to have in her handwriting. “We actually pulled it off.”

Across the table, the Singaporean half of Royal Asia nodded their approval. That was Elle’s biggest relief. She was fluent enough in Mandarin that she understood most of what the graying heads and slightly younger colleagues were saying when they met up for quiet meetings in the hallways outside of the boardroom. All around Elle, those same men who once questioned whether it was a good idea to enter a joint venture with Americans now did their equivalent to high-fives and promising to get good and roaring drunk that night.

“I’d say it’s a miracle,” Elle said as she packed up her briefcase and bade farewell to another board member who had a dance recital to get to, “but the forecast was always good, especially after what happened with Bowen earlier this year.” She referred to the one plane manufacturer Royal Asia had not agreed with when buying their first fleet of planes. Right now, their entire stock was the more regarded Airtram, but the issue reminded Elle that Royal Asia needed to diversify their stock in case Airtram was next to the guillotine. But it definitely helped us out when we got going. A cheeky campaign cooked up by the marketing department told the whole world that the newly minted Royal Asia did not use Bowen, leading to a large group of travelers canceling their Singapura Airlines tickets and swapping over to Royal Asia for the first time.

Everyone on the inaugural board of directors had been cautiously anticipating this day. The first quarter financial results had put a smile on everyone’s face. Hopefully, this meant Elle’s presentation during the afternoon meeting would go over well. One less thing to worry about.

Isaac, a fellow board member who worked with companies like Airtram, accompanied Elle to lunch at their favorite Downtown LA spot that they usually hit up when commuting from their respective cities. I’m from Seattle, he’s from San Francisco. Both of them regularly traveled to other destinations. Every time Elle was in Singapore to work with the squad on that side of the ocean, Isaac was either in Australia or Canada slowly working on relationships with other carriers there in the hopes of branching out Royal Asia’s destinations in the next few years.

The board meetings were more often than not based out of Los Angeles, since that was the most convenient place to put the American headquarters. Almost as frequently, though, everyone was summoned to Singapore to touch base with the Asian contingent who had put up billions of dollars, called in favors within the industry, and recommended potential personnel from their old airlines. Not only Singapura… Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and China were all represented in the Singaporean boardroom. The lingua franca was English when the Americans were around, but Elle’s Mandarin was more than good enough to understand what everyone started saying behind closed doors.

“I bet Delta is kicking themselves now,” Isaac said over capers and bellinis, the who’s-who of LA’s business scene bubbling around them in a trendy fusion restaurant. “When this all goes public later this week, our old bosses will be madder than hell that they lost two amazing executives like us.”

“Just Delta?” Elle teased. “What about United? They’re the ones I cut my teeth on.”

“Ah, but unlike you, I at least started as a flight attendant.” Isaac flashed one of the charming smiles that had catapulted him to cabin stardom when he was a young twenty-something trying out a new career. By the time Elle met him at Delta, he was in backend management, thirsty for the boardroom. A real All-American Story. Lower middle-class theater kid who thrived in groups and thought on his feet. In some other dimension, Isaac was a famous legacy trainer who ushered in every new crop of flight attendants at some major North American airline. “How did I get roped into mechanics and engineering and you’re the one working on the people side of things?”

Elle shrugged. “Life is funny that way. Most of the cabin crews have no idea who I am, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, going incognito as an assumed name. Sounds fun!”

“How?” Laughter pickled Elle’s face. “You really think Elizabeth Sparrow is throwing people off in First Class? I keep telling them to put me in Coach, but no, I’m special.”