“No, you can check her boarding pass,” the woman said, pointing at me as if I were a piece of misplaced luggage. “I just want to be absolutely sure she’s supposed to be here. She seems very… confused about her seating arrangement.”
Greg looked mortified. He glanced at me, his cheeks flushing pink. I could see the conflict in his eyes. He knew this was wrong, but he was bound by the invisible chains of customer service in a metal tube where the person complaining was wearing Chanel.
“Ma’am, if she’s seated, her pass was scanned at the gate—” Greg started softly.
“I don’t care what happened at the gate,” she interrupted, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. “I pay a premium to fly without disruptions. I want you to verify it. Now.”
I could have made a scene. I could have demanded the pilot. But honestly? I was just so profoundly tired. And a small, cynical part of me was curious to see how far she would dig this hole.
I pulled my phone back out and held it up to Greg. He leaned in, barely looking at the screen, his face burning red.
“Thank you, Ms. Vance,” Greg mumbled, refusing to meet my eyes out of pure shame. He turned back to the woman. “She’s in the correct seat, ma’am. Can I get you that drink now?”
The woman’s jaw tightened. She didn’t apologize. She didn’t even look at me. “Sparkling water. With lime. And tell the captain to turn the air up, it smells stifling in here.”
Greg practically ran away.
The woman settled into her seat, throwing her elbows out wide to claim the armrest between us. She aggressively pulled out a sanitized wipe and began scrubbing her tray table, the armrest, and the seatbelt buckle, muttering under her breath about “standards” and “hygiene.” She built a physical and psychological wall between us, an invisible fortress of prejudice.
I closed my eyes again, trying to sink into sleep. I needed rest. Tomorrow morning, at 9:00 AM sharp, I had to be in a Seattle boardroom to finalize the termination of a massive, multi-million-dollar vendor contract that my company had inherited during our recent acquisition. The vendor had been failing to meet their key performance indicators for three straight quarters. They were sloppy, outdated, and arrogant. I had spent the last two days reviewing their file, and I had already made the decision. I was going to cut them loose, effectively bankrupting their outdated operation.
As the plane finally pushed back from the gate, the woman next to me pulled out her laptop. She opened it with a dramatic sigh, and I heard the unmistakable chime of a satellite Wi-Fi connection.
“Chloe, it’s me,” the woman said loudly, making a phone call despite the flight attendants’ warnings to switch devices to airplane mode.
I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but she was practically shouting.
“Yes, I’m on the plane,” the woman barked into her phone. “Listen to me carefully. You need to have the revised projections on my desk by the time I land. If we lose this Apex Nexus contract tomorrow, we are finished. Do you hear me? Finished.”
My eyes snapped open beneath my closed eyelids. My heart did a strange, cold stutter in my chest.
Apex Nexus. That was my company.
“I don’t care how you do it,” the woman hissed into the phone, the desperation leaking through her arrogant facade. “The new CEO of Apex is flying in tomorrow to review the vendor agreements. I hear she’s a total shark. A ruthless, corporate monster who inherited the position and thinks she can just wipe us out. We have to blindside her with a sob story and a desperate pitch. My husband didn’t leave me with two million in debt just so I could lose this firm to some diversity-hire tech bro in a hoodie.”
I froze. Every muscle in my body locked up.
I slowly turned my head, just a fraction, peering through my eyelashes at the screen of her laptop.
There, emblazoned at the top of an open PowerPoint presentation, was the logo for Croft Communications. The exact PR and logistics vendor I was flying to Seattle to terminate.
Which meant the woman sitting next to me… was Eleanor Croft.
Eleanor Croft, the CEO whose file was sitting in the worn-out tote bag by my feet. Eleanor Croft, whose entire financial future required my signature to survive. Eleanor Croft, who had just spent the last twenty minutes trying to have me thrown out of First Class because I was Black, wearing a hoodie, and daring to exist in her airspace.
The plane’s engines roared as we accelerated down the runway. As the nose lifted into the air, pinning us both back into our luxurious leather seats, a profound, chilling clarity washed over my exhaustion.
I wasn’t tired anymore.
I looked at her, watching her nervously bite her cuticle as she stared at her failing financial spreadsheets. I thought about the sheer, terrifying power resting inside my ragged tote bag.
You want to play games, Eleanor? I thought to myself, a slow, cold smile spreading across my face as we broke through the clouds. Let’s play.
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