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Well… that was something I’d been through with Cameron already. And I felt like I knew Cameron a bit better than María, at this point. But it sat in my stomach like I’d eaten something bad—this distant pang wondering how much I really did know her. All of this, everything with her… it had all been so fast, I felt like I was coming down from a high.
“So,” I said, “why did you put me on her case, then?”
“Because. It was worth a shot.”
“What… what aren’t you telling me?” I shifted my chair closer, and I pushed it when she didn’t answer. “María.”
She picked up her coffee cup from where it was nestled in her papers, and she took a long sip, her gaze fixed on the horizon. “Mark,” she said. I paused.
“Going by a new name? I support it for you.”
“Ha.” She set down her coffee. “The insurance guy. He’s not happy. Queen Pearl’s credit has been drowning ever since fucking Philip screwed us over.”
“So… what’s going on?”
“They’re cutting the contract end of next week. I’ve got until then to find a new provider. Premiums are going to be unbelievable, right when we’re already starved for cash flow.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I get that. But what are you trying to say? That Queen Pearl is going to fail?”
“I’m saying we should be ready for whatever happens next.” She snatched up her cup again with a heavy sigh. She’d apparently quit smoking when she came to the US, and coffee had been her replacement. It was easy to see it sometimes—the way she held the cup with stress tightening her fingers around it, close to her mouth, just for something to hold there. “Chinga tu madre.”
“I know what that means.”
“Not tu madre. The arbitrary general madre.”
“If you’re that defeatist about it, why are you sending me to handle a headline presentation?”
She finished off the dregs of her coffee before she slammed it down, turning to me with a sad, tired look in her eyes. “Fine then, London. You want the truth? The truth is, it’s because you have more hope than me. And I know if I went onto that stage and talked to a crowd of fucking vultures, they’ll take one look at me and know I’ve rolled over. But you?” She raised an eyebrow at me. “You don’t fucking quit for anything, do you, hija?”
I let out a long, slow breath, letting myself relax, just a bit. She almost never called me hija—said it was tacky and she didn’t want to be an old lady like that, but it came out every now and then, in these moments where it felt like it was me and her against the world.
And admittedly, I reveled in the fact that Miguel was never hijo.
“I just believe in us,” I said, quietly, finally. “We’re smart. And skillful. We’ve gotten through worse.”
“Have we really?”
“Sure. It’s not the first time it’s felt like the end of the world.”
“Too right.” She sighed, shaking her coffee cup. I stood up.
“I’ll get you another before we start the presentation practice?”
She smiled gratefully at me before she tossed the cup in the trash. “Don’t know what I’d do without you, London.”
The coffee run was eventful, just not for me—someone’s laptop blue-screened as I walked past in the lobby, and when I got to the café and ordered María’s regular, the drip machine broke with a loud crack and dribbled coffee down the barista’s apron, and most entertaining of all, someone’s dog just up and sat down on the sidewalk outside the café while they were trying to go in and refused to cooperate. That was a new one. I pretended I didn’t see them tugging on the leash begging the dog to move or the way the dog turned its head away like it was giving them the cold shoulder, and I headed back up to where the receptionist muttered a curse at the computer that, in my defense, seemed like it was giving him trouble even before I entered the room. Finding María in the meeting room, I handed over the coffee, and she took a long sip before she even said a word, and we were off for a good two hours until she clapped her hands down on the table.
“Honestly?” she said. “You’re good.”
“Just… like that?” I arched an eyebrow at her. “You don’t want me to… I don’t know… practice more than a couple of times for a headliner at a major conference?”
“Practice in your own time as works for you. I don’t see any point in me being part. You’re a better speaker than I am.”
I put my hands up. “That’s not true at all. I’m just trying to imitate what you do.”
“Please. Save the sweet-talking for another lady. One your age.”
“I’m not hitting on you, María. My blood pressure wouldn’t be able to take it.”
