One call to a caretaker for Jerome, one call to the private stable hand who managed Sallie’s fleet of self-driving cars, one call to the airport, and the donning of a leather jacket over Maria’s dirty sweatshirt later, and Maria and Sallie were gliding through New York City traffic toward JFK.
“Don’t you want to tell your kids good-bye?” Maria asked.
“I had a feeling I would be going on a trip today, so they already know.”
“How did you know you’d be coming back with me?”
“I have studied you, Maria. I’m not in the practice of hiring fools. I knew you wouldn’t want to work on my network.”
They went through a cursory security check done for the very powerful, and then they were in first class.
“Why didn’t you bring Jerome to see me, if you knew you’d be coming to Florida?” Maria asked.
“Because I wanted to meet you first,” Sallie said. “Easier that way, in case I was wrong about you.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have your own jet. Don’t you own all of Firetown?” Maria asked.
“I don’t like to fly. I don’t see any point in spending more on flight than I need to.” Sallie accepted both mimosas offered by the flight attendant. She downed one and held the other one, not passing it to Maria.
Maria wondered if she had left her apartment clean this morning.
“Do you like living in Florida?” Sallie asked, holding her hand up to the flight attendant. “Two mimosas for my friend here.”
“Yes, Ms. Mignon,” he said deferentially.
“It’s nice,” Maria said. “I’m close enough to Cuba to visit easily but far enough away that my family doesn’t get uncomfortable.”
Sallie laughed. “You still have family?”
“Sure, we all do. I never had kids, but occasionally a great-great-great-nephew or -niece will seek me out and ask for a favor.”
“Parasites,” Sallie said.
Maria shook her head. “Family. It’s usually no problem for me to help them out.”
“You’re generous,” Sallie said. “I wouldn’t be such a pushover. It doesn’t teach them anything.”
“Why do I have to teach them anything?” Maria asked. “Does every encounter need to teach them something?”
She took the offered mimosas and drank one quickly, then nursed the second one. The attendant came back to retrieve their empty glasses, and they sat in silence through the flight safety information. Sallie watched the attendant; Maria watched Sallie, amazed to see someone be so focused on the oft-repeated information.
The plane shuddered slightly as it rose into the air. Sallie kept her eyes on the seat in front of her. “People are like dogs,” she said as if they hadn’t broken the conversation. “Every moment teaches them something. They whine at the door, you let them out because the whining is annoying you, they learn that whining opens the door. You give them a treat before your evening glass of wine, then the dog learns that when that bottle comes out, a treat is supposed to follow it.”
“And if you give a relative some money, do you teach them not to work? Is that your opinion of charity and gifts in general?” Maria asked.
“I like giving to people who really need it, and those who earn it, not lazy people who won’t work. Do your relatives work?”
“I like to think that they don’t need to fill out an application to get a gift from their aunt,” Maria said stiffly.
“Calm down, I’m not going to take away your family’s lollipops,” Sallie said, relaxing slightly. “I was just making conversation.”
Maria looked at Sallie’s posture and her hands flat on her knees in the perfect image of relaxation. Too perfect. “Sallie, why were you so eager to fly home with me if you hate flying so much?” she asked.
Sallie winced. “I wish you hadn’t brought it up,” she said.
“So answer in as few words as possible,” Maria suggested.
“I don’t like to do it. But I have to do it for business. All the time. You can’t own buildings in Pan Pacific if you don’t ever go there. It’s bad investing.”
“So you’re like someone who’s afraid of needles who needs frequent allergy shots or something?” Maria asked.
“Pretty much,” Sallie said. “Can we argue about your deadbeat family again?”
“It’s a short flight, don’t worry about it.”
“That’s because we’re going so damn fast,” Sallie said. “Flights used to take longer, but they were slower and safer.”
“I’m fairly sure if you hit the ground going five hundred miles per hour, you’re as dead as you would be going twelve hundred fifty miles per hour.”
Sallie gritted her teeth. “That’s not helping.”
They talked about Sallie’s kids and Maria’s nieces and nephews for the rest of the flight, and once they touched down in Miami, Sallie’s posture was almost that of a human’s.
Maria lived in a run-down apartment building south of Miami in a neighborhood that was not considered the best. They passed a few really old cars that still required drivers, rusty and battered. Auto mechanics had a good business going keeping old-time cars running since self-driving cars had become the norm. Now the only people who drove cars were rich people who liked the freedom and the novelty, and poor people who couldn’t afford to upgrade to self-driving.
Maria appreciated that Sallie didn’t say anything about their destination, but then realized that she probably already knew all of her personal details, if she had been doing research on Maria. When they got to Maria’s third-floor flat, Maria took out her key card, slid it in, and took a small black box out of her purse. She pointed it at the door and lasers turned on to make a number pad appear. She keyed in a seven-digit code and turned off the laser. The door popped open.
Sallie raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t kidding about security.”
Maria grinned. “That’s just the start of it.”
She opened her door and ushered Sallie in. The dark-brown floors were dotted here and there with white, fluffy rugs. Her living room furniture was all black leather, pointing at a wall where a gas fireplace sat decoratively. From the ceiling hung a square projector, designed to show video on her white wall. Art, done by a lot of the modern-day surrealists, splashed along the walls, including one striking “piece” of purples and reds.
Sallie pointed at it. “Is that a Fogarty?” she asked. “Painted directly on your wall?”
“Yeah,” Maria said, heading into her bedroom to lose the business suit. “He’s a friend.”
“Did you hire him to paint it?” Sallie called from the living room.
Maria laid her suit on her unmade bed and got some jeans and a T-shirt from her drawer. “Not exactly. I was hosting a party and he got drunk and decided to declare his love for me. So he went to town on my wall. First I was mad, and then I thought I had the most expensive wall in Miami, and was okay with it.”
It sounded as if Sallie had moved on to another painting. “Van Gogh could have learned something from him. Did you two date?”