| Generated by Google VideoFX text-to-video AI software, powered by Veo 2 |
Olimpia had been working here for a few weeks now, and everything was going
great. He had an assistant before her, but he was nothing special. She
quickly learned to anticipate Mateo’s needs, and they had developed a nice
rapport with each other. Being the Fleet Commander for the entire Central
Midwest region meant that he had to do a lot of traveling. It wasn’t all
over the country, of course, but it was a regular thing. He had just spent
most of the last week in Cedar Rapids, which was horrible enough, but going
it alone was just too much. Typically, the office assistant stayed in the
office, so they could respond to driver issues from their desk, and take in
any walk-ins. But with SRW headphones and a cell phone capable of accepting
forwarded calls, she really could do her job from just about anywhere.
Ramses always stayed next to his precious servers, so he could answer the
door if anyone were to show up. Mateo really needed Olimpia there with him
when he was on the road. “Are you interested in that?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“It’s not a monarchy,” he reminded her. “I didn’t hire you for travel, and
that’s not in the job description. It would therefore come with a
new job description, and a modest wage increase. You can say no,
though.”
“I have no ties,” Olimpia replied with a shake of her head. “Before I found
you, I was applying to jobs in most of the lower 48 states. I like to move
around, and stay busy. Honestly—and I probably shouldn’t tell you this—I get
bored with a job after a few years, and tend to start looking elsewhere. If
I’m traveling, I’m sure it won’t get so tedious.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Mateo said. “I know I just got back, but I have to
fly up to Minneapolis tomorrow, and I could really use your help.”
“I didn’t think Minnesota was in our region,” Olimpia said.
“It’s not, I’m meeting with my equivalent for the Northern Midwest. The guy
from the Northern Mountain region will be there too. I’m not a hundred
percent sure what it’s about. I think they want to have some kind of
convention, or something. This has been on the books for a couple months.”
“Well, I’m in, I’ll change the plane tickets.”
“Great! And hey, why don’t you come for dinner tonight, meet the family? My
daughter is cooking something. She’s gotten really good lately. It will be
vegetarian though, so if you have a problem...”
“No, I can be there, that sounds great. I really appreciate it, sir.”
“You can just call me Mateo. We’re not formal here.”
“Don’t I know it,” Ramses said, appearing at the entrance to Mateo’s
cubicle. He stretched, and pretended to take a drink from a flask.
“Don’t worry, it’s empty,” Mateo explained to Olimpia. “We got those as
gifts at a company retreat last year. Ridiculous, if you ask me, but I like
how they etched in the RideSauce logo.”
“Oh, yeah.” Olimpia was being polite, but she didn’t care.
“Well, I’ll see you at 17:30 for dinner? I’ll be sure to get you home early
enough to pack for the trip. We’ll be gone for three days.”
“I’m already packed,” she said. “I haven’t unpacked since I came to
Kansas City.”
“We’ll be traveling a lot,” Mateo reminded her, “but you should still try to
dig in and put down some roots.”
“I’ll get right on that. Why don’t we ride to your house together?”
“Okay.”
That evening, after work, Mateo called a RideSauce Hot. He usually went with
a Mild, because he didn’t want to feel like an elitist, but he wanted to
impress Olimpia. Plus, Boyd liked to hang out in this area around the end of
the work day specifically in hopes of answering a request from the boss. It
was unclear what he was after, because he wasn’t really on track for a
promotion. Maybe he was just a bit of a kiss-ass, and couldn’t help himself.
He didn’t qualify for the request today, though, not with that jalopy he was
driving. A bluish-purple Aevum Magnitude showed up instead. The driver
stepped out, and came around to let them in the back like a real chauffeur.
That was part of what you were paying for when you selected Hot.
“Thanks,” Mateo began before remembering that he didn’t notice the name on
the app.
“Dave, sir,” the driver replied. He was dressed in the full get-up, all
black with a sleek driving cap.
“Dave,” Mateo echoed. He slipped him a 20-dollar bill.
“Thank you, sir.” Dave shut the door behind him, and went around to get back
in the car. He received another 20-buck tip at the end of the ride.
Mateo laughed when his daughter answered the door. She was wearing 2450s
housewife attire; a pink shirtwaist dress with darker pink flowers and a
pleated skirt. Her hair was done up however you would think for that time
period, though he didn’t know what to call it. She had deep red lipstick,
and smiled in that fake, dying-on-the-inside, sort of way. “Welcome to our
home? May I take your coat?”
“Why, that would be swell, ya see? Thanks, sweetheart, you’re a doll.”
“That’s the 2440s, dad,” Romana complained. She shook it off. “Hi, you must
be Olimpia. I’m Romana.”
They shook hands. “Nice to meet you. I’m Olimpia. I mean—you just said
that.” She was embarrassed.
Romana smiled kindly. “I really will take your coats. Come on in.”
They sipped tea and talked for about a half hour in the kitchen while Romana
was finished preparing the food. Leona helped, but Romana was running the
show. It was typically Mateo’s job to stay out of the way when they were in
their teacher-student mode. He felt uncomfortable this time since he was
expected to be in here while entertaining their guest. Fortunately, they had
a rather large kitchen. This was the kind of thing you got when you lived in
Mission Hills. Olimpia seemed a little uncomfortable too as she was looking
up at the architecture, probably because she wasn’t used to all this fancy
stuff that rich people had. Or he could have been completely misinterpreting
everything. Maybe she just didn’t like him. Or she was starving, and this
was taking too long. Or she was craving meat, and was just trying to get
through this. That was enough of letting his neuroses take over. He could
have been misinterpreting her facial expressions entirely. It was time to
eat.
Dinner was lovely, Romana really was getting a lot better. It was probably
time that she stepped out from under her mother’s wing, and started
seriously thinking about culinary school. She was acting a little weird
while they were eating, like she was keeping a secret. Maybe she was about
to reveal to them that she knew exactly where she wanted to study, and
Olimpia’s presence was overshadowing the announcement. “Lechuga, is there
something you wanna tell us?”
“What? No.” she answered.
“Wait, why Lechuga?” Olimpia had to ask.
Mateo smirked. “Romana, romaine, lettuce, lechuga.”
“Oh.” Olimpia giggled.
“There’s something on your mind. You can tell us,” Leona encouraged her
daughter. “You know we don’t tell lies in this house.”
Romana sighed, but it was more like a coo. “Okay. Well, you know that I
wanted to go to culinary school.”
They nodded, even Olimpia, who just wanted to fit it.
“Well, Boyd said there’s a great one in Hawaii.”
“Boyd, who the hell is Boyd?” Mateo questioned.
“Boyd Maestri, your...driver.”
Mateo feigns ignorance. “Uh, I don’t have a driver named Boyd Maestri who is
between 15 and 18 years old. I think you’re confused.” Mateo was never under
the impression that his daughter wouldn’t eventually grow up and become
sexually active, but there were still rules. The
half your age plus seven rule may not have had any scientific basis,
but it seemed sound to him. Boyd was way too old for her, and Mateo wouldn’t
have it.
“Relax, dad, we’re not doing anything. We just talk sometimes.”
“Why would he be talking to you?” Mateo pressed.
“Calm down, Matt,” Leona urged.
“No. I’m going to be however I need to be,” Mateo insisted. “I get it,
Romana. I want you to understand that you did nothing wrong. But he did. I
don’t know what you two talk about in your secret little phone calls. It
could be politics, or the weather, or cooking. It doesn’t matter. It’s about
the reason that he’s talking to you. Even if you don’t see it, I do,
because I was him. Your mother was a lot younger than me when we first met.
But we didn’t really start talking until we were the same age.”
Romana winced, as did everyone else. “What do you mean, she was younger? How
could she have aged while you stayed the same?”
Mateo uttered a single unintelligible sound before he became blocked and
frozen. He could not explain what he had just said. Leona was younger? And
then she got older, and now they were the same age? That didn’t make
any sense at all. He had to cover. He had to figure a way out of this. “You
know what I mean, she was just a little too young for me, but as we both
aged at the same time, the gap remained the same, but it became less
pronounced.” That wasn’t right either. They were the same age!
“And how long would I have to wait before someone Boyd’s age would be
appropriate for me?”
“Someone Boyd’s age? Maybe ten years. Boyd himself? Uh, after the sun
goes supernova, I guess.”
“The sun’s not going to go supernova, it’s going to expand, cool off, and
shrink,” Leona clarified.
Mateo narrowed his eyes at her wife. “Thanks.”
Romana scoffed. “For your information, I know what boys want from me. I
mean...look at me. It’s irrelevant what Boyd thinks he’s gonna get in
return for helping me, because if I don’t wanna give it, I won’t. He has a
friend who works at the Hilo Culinary Arts Institute, so I’m using him
however I must to get into that school. We can’t all have careers that fall
into our laps just because we got a 100% on our first driving tests, and it
inflated our egos.”
“It was 101%,” Mateo reminded her. “I corrected one of the questions for its
ambiguity.”
“Oh, how could I forget?” Ramona said in a mocking tone, crossing her arms.
“You can get into whatever school you want, Lechuga—”
“You don’t call me that when we’re fighting,” she argued in a raised voice.
He closed his eyes. They did agree to that. It was a pet name, and those
should not be associated with negative emotions or hostilities. “Romana.
You’re extremely talented, and we are doing well for ourselves. You don’t
have to go to a school nearby, though I would love to have you stay
in the area. What I will not tolerate is you using someone for their
connections. I’m not saying that you should give it up for him instead, but
I didn’t raise you to exploit people any more than I raised you to be
careless with your heart and body. You are to treat others with kindness and
respect, and if that means losing out on an opportunity, then that’s what
will happen. Your integrity is more important.”
This seemed to speak to her. “Yeah,” she said in a lowered voice. She let
out an exasperated and disappointed sigh. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry for starting a fight.” He turned his attention. “Olimpia, I’m
sorry that you saw us fight.”
“It’s okay,” she replied sincerely.
There was an awkward silence, which Leona broke. “I didn’t want to be
completely useless tonight, so I made the dessert all by myself. Who here
likes sand cake?”
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