Chapter 2: The Name I Said Didn't Mean Anything Yet
The wheelchair was cold through my sweater. The blue fabric held me up and I could feel my hands gripping the armrests too tight. My breath hadn't settled. I was trying to breathe quiet and couldn't.
The girl in the maroon top was crouched beside me, her hand light on my forearm. Her ponytail had come a little loose. The blonde supervisor stood right behind us, close enough I could feel her there.
I cleared my throat and it turned into a cough I couldn't stop. It rattled my chest and my eyes watered.
"This is Harold Grant," I said when I could get air. "I'm ready now."
My voice was hoarse. I hated how thin it sounded.
The supervisor looked at me, then past me, like the name was just noise. Jess — I didn't know her name yet then — squeezed my arm a little and said, "Take your time, sir."
I nodded at her. "Thank you, miss."
I tried to explain. I had been at the gate since seven. The woman at the check-in counter told me to wait by the seats and someone with a wheelchair would come get me for the nine o'clock boarding. I did what she said. I sat there with my little red suitcase at my feet. Nobody came. The seats emptied out. My legs got stiff and I stood to stretch and then I couldn't get my breath right.
"They told me to wait for assistance," I said. "I thought if I stayed put someone would come."
The supervisor in the light blue shirt didn't look at my suitcase. She looked at Jess.
"Get back to work," she said. It wasn't loud. It was flat, practiced.
Jess didn't stand up. She stayed crouched beside my chair.
"I'm staying with him," she said. "Then you're done here."
That was what I heard her say to the supervisor, quiet but clear. Her voice shook a little on the last part.
The supervisor's mouth tightened. "You are not certified to push a wheelchair. Only certified assistance staff can transport passengers. Liability. You know this. Get back to your mop."
I looked down the aisle where the mop lay on the polished floor, its wooden handle at an angle near the black seats. Nobody had picked it up.
Jess glanced at it, then back at me. I coughed again, a short one that I tried to swallow.
"He was coughing hard when I found him," she said. "He was hunched over and couldn't catch his breath. I'm not leaving him sitting alone by the doors until proper help comes."
The supervisor sighed through her nose. "Then you're done here," she repeated back to her, making it a warning. "You were hired to clean. Not to touch passengers."
That was when I noticed it. Jess's maroon top had no name tag. The supervisor's light blue shirt had one, white plastic with black letters, pinned straight over the pocket. Jess had nothing. No airline wing, no logo, just the maroon fabric and dark green pants and rubber soles that were scuffed at the toes.
"Are you not with the airline?" I asked her.
She gave me a quick, embarrassed smile. "Contract cleaning," she said. "Through the service. I just started last month."
I felt my stomach drop a little. I understood then why the supervisor was using that tone. Jess wasn't breaking a small rule. She was stepping completely outside what she was allowed to do. If something happened while I was in that chair she was pushing, it would be on her.
"You should listen to her," I said to Jess, even though I didn't want her to go.
She shook her head. "I will when someone comes who can actually help you."
The supervisor took a step back and pulled a radio off her belt. She pressed the button and spoke without looking at us.
"Diane to operations," she said. "I need a manager to the north doors by the yellow signs. I have a contract cleaner refusing a direct order and handling a passenger wheelchair without certification. Passenger is seated, stable, with luggage."
Stable. I wasn't sure I felt stable. My hands were still shaking a little on the armrests and my breath was shallow.
Jess stood now, but she didn't leave the chair. She moved behind it and put both hands on the handles, not to push, just to hold it. To show she wasn't going anywhere.
"What's your flight, sir?" she asked me quietly. "Do you have your boarding pass?"
My red suitcase was still on the floor where I'd left it, a few feet away near the empty seats. I hadn't opened it. My papers were inside. Nobody had looked at them yet, not Diane, not Jess. The screen overhead still showed gate numbers in yellow, but I didn't know which one was mine anymore.
May you like
Diane kept the radio to her mouth. "Yes, documenting," she said into it. "She's still with the passenger."
Jess looked down at me, and I saw the choice settle in her face. She was scared. I could see it in the way she held her lips together and the quick breath she took. But she didn't take her hands off my chair.
