by MB Austin
She sat back down and said to Rose with a smile, “That’s better. Thanks for inviting me.”
When Mona came back with their orders, she rolled the cart of plates and pitchers up to the table. Bubbles and Maji got up to help, handing out plates. When the cart was empty, Mona gave Angelo an odd look and shook her head. “I’m sorry, hon. I just keep thinking I know you from somewhere.”
Angelo scrunched up his face as if caught out. “I’m a Benedetti. I hope it doesn’t bother you, my coming around your place.” Surprised, Rose felt a little sorry for him.
“Oh, sweetie. My mother’s a Mormon, married a Hell’s Angel. Everybody’s welcome here.” She rounded on Maji. “But if you two served together…”
Maji held up one finger to pause her. She clicked her watch’s listen-only function, and waited while Angelo did the same. “Go ahead,” she said. “Fallujah, right?”
“I hate to even ask. I been dying to know, but I didn’t want to ask Hannah, add to her worries.”
Maji took her hand. “It’s okay.” She breathed in, and let it out. “It was me. The Army played with my name and photo to give me some privacy and keep Mom out of the headlines.”
“Oh, honey!” Mona pulled Maji from her chair, into a hug. When she stepped back, she wiped both eyes. “Your poor parents. I can’t imagine. How they doing?”
“Really good. I’ll give them your best.”
Mona excused herself, and Maji looked around the table. “Sorry.”
Before Rose could reassure her, Angelo threw his hands up in frustration. “Jesus, babe. Why even have a cover?”
“I told you, Ang.” Maji’s eyes were cold. “People around here know my name, know my family. From before.”
“Before the Army?” Rose asked, sure she was missing some vital piece.
Bubbles shook her head. “Before those jackasses put a price on her mom’s head.”
“Hey!” Angelo looked almost frightened.
Bubbles scowled at him. “Rose is bound to hear. And it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, we look out for them. Maji is safe here.”
Maji shrugged, at Angelo. “Bubbles is right.”
Angelo leaned back, his arms crossed. “And you want her to know.”
“It’s not classified,” Maji said, coloring. “And if she keeps coming to the dojo, she’ll hear it from someone else.”
When Angelo finally nodded, Rose asked, “Well?”
“My mother is Neda Kamiri,” Maji said simply.
A faint buzzing filled Rose’s ears. Bubbles took her hand. “Hey, you okay? Drink something.”
Rose drank, thinking of Nobel Peace Prize coverage, Dr. Kamiri’s picture on the cover of Time, the excitement on campus when the renowned professor came to speak to a packed hall of admirers. The security teams and local police struggling with crowd control. And that story about the attack on the UN, alleging Dr. Kamiri was the target. Maji’s mother must be in danger all the time, thanks to her high-profile work. “I’m so sorry,” Rose managed at last.
Bubbles sprayed soda across the table, hitting Maji, who caught her friend’s eye and burst out laughing. While the two dissolved in giggles, Rose and Angelo looked across the table at each other.
“Worst fangirl ever,” Bubbles gasped, tossing napkins to Maji, who patted herself dry with them while she caught her breath.
“Oh, I didn’t mean…” Rose started. “That is, of course I admire her work. It’s just—”
Maji waved her apology aside. “S’okay. Refreshing, actually.” She lifted her watch wrist and nodded toward Angelo. “We can move on now, though.”
“Wait!” Rose blurted. “The guys don’t know?”
Angelo shook his head. “Nope. It’s not a state secret or anything, but it’s private, you know?”
“Of course,” Rose said, and turned to Maji. “Your story to tell, as Hannah would say.”
Rose settled into a shaded spot by the pool and surrounded herself with the Sunday Times, two research papers she’d been asked by colleagues to peer-review, and two paperback romances she’d packed on a whim.
Maji appeared in flip-flops, cutoffs, and a large man’s shirt tied in a loose knot at the waist. She picked the chair on the other side of the café table, and laid her laptop and Russian textbook down. “You want anything? Iced coffee? Water?”
“Water, thanks.” Rose gave her what she meant to be a polite smile. “Will you swim today?”
“Can’t,” Maji answered, and drew back the left side of her shirt to reveal a handgun tucked into a stretch band over her ribs. “I’m packing.”
Before Rose could respond, she saw Maji wince. Then she looked away and spoke to someone unseen. “Yeah, hilarious. Now, grow the fuck up, all three of you.” She gave Rose a long-suffering look. “Now they’re explaining the joke to your aunt.”
Which meant Frank was hearing the guys’ snickering explanation of the double entendre, too. Rose flushed.
Then Maji laughed and broke into a grin. “Jackie told Dev, and I quote, Only in your wettest dreams, hon.” She waited for Rose to smile back, then went inside for the drinks.
Maji returned in record time and handed her a sweating glass of ice water. “Frank’ll be at his place, if we need him.”
Rose nodded, relieved he’d chosen not to carry the drinks out himself. She was mildly surprised when Maji sat and said, “Guys, I’m going listen-only,” then frowned at the reply. “You wanna listen to me practice Russian the next couple hours?…Thought not. Rios out.” She pressed a finger to her watch and relaxed into the lounge chair. “Summer with the boys. How’d we get so lucky?”
Rose was pretty sure the question, spoken toward the sky, was rhetorical. There were questions she wanted to ask Maji about her mother, her childhood, everything. But just because she’d shared the secret didn’t mean Maji wanted to indulge her curiosity. Or did she? Feeling cowardly, Rose held the paperbacks toward Maji. “I haven’t read these, but there might be some hilarious packing in one of them.”
“It’s not so hilarious in real life, just awkward. But maybe it was the whole drag thing. I’ve never been able to take myself seriously in drag.”
Rose blushed. “You’ve gone out as a man? Complete with the…” She swept her hand along her thigh.
“That was a special case. I very briefly dated a woman who was really into it. Didn’t hurt to try, but I couldn’t keep it up, pardon the pun.” Maji looked a little sheepish. “Just wasn’t me.” She paused. “You?”
“Me?” Rose squirmed under Maji’s direct gaze. And she’s not even flirting. “Um, no. Never really saw the point.”
Maji shrugged. “I hear you.” She looked over the book titles and handed one back. “This one’s good. Given enough suspension of disbelief.”
Rose blinked. Maji never failed to surprise her. “Doesn’t the genre rely on that?”
“Not more than most. Maybe the happily-ever-after part. But what I meant was, this one has a smoking-hot thirty-five-year-old virgin.”
Rose laughed. “Okay, that’s a stretch. Unless you mean, didn’t figure out she was gay until then. I’ve met women who swear that was true for them. I can’t imagine it myself, but you have to take people at their word, don’t you?”
A cloud passed over Maji’s face, and she opened her laptop without responding. Rose surmised the strange, frank discussion was over. She watched Maji log in, then reach for the companion textbook, and notice Rose watching her.
Rather than look away, Rose asked, “We’re off air, right?”
“Listen-only. Yeah.” Maji looked at ease, her face neutral.
“Was there more you wanted to say about your mother last night?”
A shadow of Maji’s amusement at supper peeked out. “Not especially. You curious about the real woman behind the hyperbolic headlines?”
“Yes,” Rose admitted. “But…I don’t want to intrude.”
“Well, she buys the designer suits off the rack, and they’re never gifts, despite wha
t the tabloids say,” Maji started. “And it pisses her off that what she wears makes the news more than what she says, publishes, or stands for.”
“Wow. Is that what fangirls want to know?”
Maji gave a half shrug. “Now you see why Bubbles said you weren’t good at it. Seriously, though, whatcha got? Ask now, because this isn’t casual talk for home or the dojo.”
“I do understand.” Rose pulled her thoughts together. “Okay. She must travel a great deal. Was that hard on you?”
“As a kid? Not really. She always kept her teaching schedule at Columbia, only did speaking tours during school breaks. And the UN’s right in town.”
“I heard her talk once, when I was an undergrad—Farming as Feminism. Actually, that had a lot to do with my decision to focus on women’s role in food production and the preservation of traditional foods.” Maji seemed to be waiting for another question, so Rose asked, “What about you? Why linguistics? It seems a little arcane for someone who got expelled from several schools. Or was Bubbles pulling my leg?”
Maji chuckled. “No, Doc. Bubbles doesn’t play games, any more than you do. I had to get my GED before I could enroll in college.”
Hearing Maji use the girls’ nickname for her made Rose smile. “So? Linguistics? I don’t know much about the field, except what one hears of Noam Chomsky.”
“He’s a generativist, I’m more a congnitivist. Ask me about that when you can’t sleep sometime. All that came later, anyway. Mostly I just kept learning new languages because they didn’t bore me.”
Rose laughed. “Okay. How so?”
“Well, to really absorb a new language, you have to get inside the head of people who speak it. You pick up geography, history, food of course, and how they think about the world. It’s so much more than vocabulary and grammar.”
Rose found herself momentarily speechless. Maji was so much more than she seemed. “Your mother must be very proud of you.”
Maji’s expression clouded. “She’d rather I was an academic, like you.” She grimaced. “I’m sorry. Teaching is cool. You might just inspire the next Vandana Shiva. Or be the next wave yourself.”
Rose flushed. “I doubt that. But thank you.”
For her second Sunday supper with the family, Maji toned her Ri look down a bit. Not so much as the tasteful memorial outfit, but enough to show she was trying to fit in.
Sienna, at least, was sold. “Gawd, I love that top!” she exclaimed, grabbing the fabric on Maji’s sleeve. “You find it around here? I can’t find anything in the Hamptons that isn’t for, you know, the golf set.”
While the antipasto steadily disappeared, Sienna tried several times to get Maji and Rose to go out with her—mani-pedis, the spa on Montauk, maybe shopping in the city. Maji dodged each idea, giving Angelo a more pointed look each time. Finally, she said, “Ang? A little help here?”
“What?”
“Your cousin’s gonna think we don’t like her,” she said to him. “Which isn’t true,” she assured Sienna. “This just isn’t a good time to be going out around town, with Ang’s thing heating up. Right, Ang?”
Angelo looked uncomfortably between his girlfriend and his uncle. “We don’t talk business at the table, babe.”
“What you’re doing on that computer all day and night, who cares?” Maji shot back. “I’m talking about you saying we can’t go out.” She gestured to Jackie and Rose and herself. “When clearly everybody in this house can. So?”
Maji noticed Jackie training her attention on Gino, and Gino’s color rise from under the collar of his dress shirt. Ricky’s face took on a familiar smug cast as he said, “Your boyfriend’s just overestimating his importance, as usual. Thinks his thing is bigger than all our normal things put together.”
“For a guy with a nickname like Little Dick,” Maji said slowly, “you really leave yourself open, you know?”
Sienna snorted again, and Rose just stared.
“Enough with the pissing contest,” Gino growled. “Ang’s Army buddies are welcome here, if they make him feel better.”
“So, what’s with the muscle at the gate?” Jackie asked Gino. “I thought everybody was happy, now you and that Russian are tight.”
Maji watched Angelo pass a look to Gino, who lifted one shoulder and an eyebrow—permission to speak. “Khodorov’s not the issue, Ma. Except, he’s kind of a big deal, with big-time competitors. And they don’t play by the rules we’re used to.” He paused and gave an unconvincing smile of reassurance. “Dev and Tom are combat vets, Ma. They’ve seen action our guys aren’t used to. I just feel better having them watch your back. Okay?”
“Daddy,” Sienna whined, “even my girlfriends are talking about Ang’s thing.” She caught herself, and blushed. “So why don’t Mom and me have bodyguards?”
“Who’s talking business with your girlfriends?” Gino demanded.
Sienna looked at him from under lowered lids. “They don’t know any more than I do. They’re fishing.” She turned to Maji and explained. “Wiseguys are the worst gossips. ’Course they got their girls asking me. Like I know any more than you.”
Gino sighed, and turned to Ricky. “Pick a couple guys and reassign them. Starting tomorrow.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Shouldn’t I be with the bicycle gang?” Rose asked Maji, looking past her to the girls on their bikes by the SUNY Stony Brook student union. It was empty of students now, just as the big upper campus parking lot was empty of cars—except for Frank’s town car and the county patrol car, a white sedan with blue and orange stripes down its length and a rack of lights on its roof.
Maji looked at her quizzically.
“Well, when am I going to be behind the wheel of a car here, with you and Frank always chauffeuring me around?”
Maji tilted her head and adjusted the holster under her left arm. “If Frank and I were both down, you might need the kind of driving we’re going to train on today.” She smiled and added, “Or it could be handy any normal day around LA. Even for a California driver like you.”
Rose appreciated Maji’s attempt to divert her from the first, chilling possibility. But she couldn’t bring herself to joke back. “I see.”
Maji turned toward Frank and a tall, walnut-brown woman wearing the police uniform of black shoes and slacks and short-sleeved shirt.
Rose couldn’t see the officer’s eyes through her dark sunglasses, but she seemed at ease, her hands lightly clasped in front of her, away from the bulky utility belt with its gun and radio and God knew what else.
“Frank and Officer Barnwell will be assisting you today,” Maji said. “Frank, tell us about your car, please.”
Frank nodded to her. “Well,” he started, “it’s a standard model Lincoln, with some mods. V8 engine, tweaked for quicker takeoff from zero. Shocks and struts are souped-up, brakes get changed out at fifty percent. Inside’s reinforced for rolling, so’s it don’t crush anybody. And all compartments got airbags, except the driver. I gotta be able to hit something and still keep going.”
Barnwell nodded thoughtfully. “A more comfy equivalent of my Interceptor.”
“What else, Frank?” Maji asked, patting the roof of the sedan.
“Oh, um. It’s up-armored. Anything under fifty caliber’ll just make a dent. You could still blow it up, but bullets aren’t worth much against it.”
Rose noticed Officer Barnwell’s eyebrows lift above the top edge of her shades, and that she made no more comparisons to the patrol car. At least not out loud. She took off her sunglasses to look Rose in the eye. “Ever been in a high-speed chase before?”
Rose shook her head.
“You will not be asked to drive like this,” Maji said. “But it will make what we teach you feel easier.”
Frank opened the front passenger door for Rose and handed Maji his keys.
“How long will this last?” Rose asked, swallowing hard.
“Couple minutes, max,” Maji reassured her. She showed her how to brace against
the passenger door and started up the engine. Sliding her window halfway down, Maji put her left hand out and gave Barnwell the ready signal. The patrol car sprinted off as Maji’s window slid back up, and with a lurch the heavy car tore off after it. Maji wove between the cones, swerving without braking, following the lead car closely, fishtailing on the corners. Rose tried to relax and breathe as the car’s g-force pinned her to the door and then let her loose, then pinned her again, the view through the window streaking by. Now and then, a sound escaped her, somewhere between a squeak and a grunt.
“All right?” Maji spoke loudly over the roar of the engine, keeping her eyes on the course.
Rose nodded dumbly, then tried her voice. “Just great.”
Maji’s smile was kind. “Almost done.”
Barnwell’s patrol car pulled smoothly off the course, and Maji decelerated at last, then braked hard and threw the car into a tailspin. She rolled both windows down and turned to Rose. “You okay?”
Rose heard the concern, with not a hint of patronizing. She nodded. “Give me a minute.”
Maji came around and held the door for Rose, offering her a hand. Rose accepted the help and stood with a hand on the hot roof of the town car to steady herself, feeling queasy. Frank came trotting over with a cold bottle of water, twisted the cap off, and handed it to Rose.
* * *
From behind the wheel, Rose found the town car heavy, but eager to leap forward and solid on the hard stops. Maji talked her through the basic drills, clear and direct with the instructions, and quick with a word of encouragement. Rose struggled to overcome the instinct to brake when approaching an obstacle, to instead swerve around it while maintaining control of the vehicle. But, with repetition and Maji’s assurance that she really was getting the hang of it, Rose came to enjoy the maneuver.
After a particularly good run, Maji joked, “Look out, California.” Rose laughed with her, giddily triumphant.
In comparison, hard stops felt easy after that and backing up at preposterous speeds was actually fun. Rose found herself surprised when lunch break was called. “Already?”
