Page 47 of Minha Dona

This is going to be a problem.

In Houston she’d played her apartment down, told Caitlin she had “a little place of my own,” and mentioned that she valued privacy. That was technically true, just as technically she’d been working that day. It was also wildly misleading, because Helena’s apartment was not little by any definition. It occupied the whole of one of the upper floors in a modern building in one of São Paulo’s most exclusive streets, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen that could have hosted a cooking show, and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a panoramic view of the city skyline. The furnishings were tasteful and expensive… her mother had insisted on helping her decorate, which meant that every piece of furniture had been sourced from designers that her mother’s social circle approved of.

It was, in short, the apartment of someone with family money. A lot of family money. And Caitlin was about to see it.

Helena checked her phone to see that Caitlin had messaged from the flight.

Two hours to go. Cannot WAIT xx

Just about the least Caitlin message imaginable, and Helena absolutely loved that she had sent it to her. She fired off her reply:

Me too!! Look for the biggest smile in the arrivals hall xx

It was early still, but what was she going to achieve by waiting around at home? She picked up her car keys and headed for the airport.

***

Guarulhos was its usual controlled chaos… the biggest airport in South America, Helena had been told, operating at a pace that suggested it was always slightly behind schedule and didn’t particularly care. Brazil in a nutshell, she thought with a smile. Helena found a spot in the short-stay car park and walked to the arrivals hall, positioning herself where she’d be able to see when Caitlin came through.

The flight status board showed Caitlin’s flight from Houston as landed. Long experience taught Helena it would be at least thirty minutes for taxiing, immigration, and baggage, so she bought a coffee from a stand and waited, her heart doing something ridiculous in her chest.

The arrivals doors opened and closed constantly, disgorging a steady stream of travellers. Helena scanned each face, her pulse quickening every time she saw dark hair. Which was often.

Then Caitlin was there.

She came through the doors pulling a wheeled suitcase, her cabin bag over her shoulder, wearing yoga leggings and a white t-shirt. She looked tired from the travel but scanned the crowd still with bright, searching eyes. Helena raised her hand and Caitlin saw her immediately, and the smile that broke across her face… oh, that made it all worth it. Relief, joy, disbelief… it was as if she couldn’t quite believe that the plane had dropped her off here rather than Barbados.

Caitlin walked towards her, quickening her pace, and then they were hugging in the middle of Guarulhos arrivals hall, a proper hug, tight and long, Caitlin’s face in Helena’s neck, Helena’s arms wrapped around her.

“You’re here,” Helena said into her hair.

“I’m here.” Caitlin leaned back and looked at her. “I can’t believe I’m here.”

“I can’t believe you came.”

“I can’t believe you asked.” Caitlin grinned. “Though I notice you didn’t bring a sign with Gatinha on it.”

“I did consider it.”

“I’m sure you did.” Caitlin glanced around. “Is two women kissing in public allowed in Brazil?”

Helena simply laughed and kissed her briefly on the lips. “Is that your answer?”

“Good,” Caitlin laughed. “Take me home.”

Helena took her bag, led her to the car, and they pulled out into the São Paulo traffic. It was late afternoon on a Friday, which meant the roads were somewhere between busy and apocalyptic, the São Paulo gridlock that the city was simultaneously famous for and completely unbothered by.

Caitlin looked out of the window as they drove, taking in the city for the first time… the scale, the density, the mix of gleaming towers and crumbling apartment blocks, the graffiti and the jacaranda trees and the sheer, relentless energy of twenty-two million people living on top of each other.

“It’s enormous,” Caitlin said.

“It makes Houston look small.”

“It makes Houston look like a village.” Caitlin was grinning. “How do you ever find anything?”

“You learn your neighbourhood and you don’t leave it unless you have to.” Helena navigated a roundabout that required the aggressive lane-changing that São Paulo drivers considered normal and everyone else considered suicidal. “My neighbourhood is nice. You’ll see.”

They turned off the main road into the tree-lined streets of Helena’s neighbourhood… quieter, greener, the high walls and security gates that marked serious money in São Paulo. Helena pulled into her building’s underground car park and they took the lift to her floor where Helena unlocked her front door and pushed it open, stepping aside to let Caitlin through.