One man stood out. He was in an impeccably-tailored light-grey suit, but didn’t have the kind of efficient business vibe to him that the others all did. His posture was remarkably straight, and his face looked like it was made out of stone. Only his eyes moved as he scanned the crowd, looking for the light of recognition in passengers’ eyes.
The calligraphy on his sign was intricate, and written both in English and in Arabic. Nadya had to squint to read it.
Nadya A. it read.
She stopped cold, trying to decide whether she should be glad her sister would spare no expense in greeting her, or upset because it was flaunting her newfound wealth – the very reason behind the fight they’d had.
Nadya was still undecided as she walked up to the man. She knew she’d have to accept the gift, anyway, if she wanted to get to her sister’s without spending a fortune, so she figured she should let it go.
The man eyed her suspiciously, like she was a middle schooler in a convenience store with a large backpack and a shifty look.
“I’m Nadya A,” she said, the words coming out a touch defensively.
It took him half a second to accept this. She could see him turning the idea over in his mind. But then something clicked, and he clicked into his polite, serving mode. He gave her an off sort of half bow, which would have made Nadya laugh if she hadn’t been so tired. And then, as if from nowhere, two other men in identical grey suits appeared and took her bags from her.
She followed the original grey-suited man out of the airport, followed by the two men carrying her luggage. She’d never been met by a chauffeur like this before, so she didn’t have a lot of experience to compare it to. But looking around her, it all seemed a bit heavy on the pomp and circumstance compared to how other passengers were being led off to their cars.
But when Jasmine did things, Nadya thought, she never did take them halfway. This was just like her, wasn’t it?
In any case, Jasmine apparently hadn’t skimped on the car. It was a full limo, which made Nadya feel more than a little underdressed. It had a flat screen TV inside, which turned on automatically when she slid inside.
“Good Afternoon, Your Highness,” came a voice from the TV. “What would you like to watch?”
The voice startled her. She looked around, as though someone should be there to offer her an explanation, or laugh at the joke, but the door was closed, and she could hear the driver climbing into the front.
“What did you call me?” she said out loud, her voice sounding weak and silly to her ears.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Please read the title of the selection you would like to play.”
A TV with voice recognition, programmed to call her “Your Highness.” Nadya laughed; Jasmine really must be sorry.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” the TV said again. “Please state the title of the selection you would like to play.”
Nadya perused the selection, but nothing stood out to her. “TV, off?” she said, taking a shot in the dark. The screen promptly went black and she was left alone.
She’d only been in a limo once, she realized, as she felt the engine come on and the car pull away from the curb. It had been prom, and the limo had been filled to the brim with her friends, all high on youth and possibility. Now, in the middle of the day on a Thursday, and with only Nadya inside, it still felt exceedingly luxurious, but more empty and stark than anything.
As they left the airport, Nadya looked at Queens going by. What a different world it was, she thought, compared to the one that her sister and her husband lived in. The view was hampered by the tinted glass, so instead she stared out the skylight at the clouds. She zoned out, thinking about what she would say to her parents. They would be there, overbearing as ever. And though she hadn’t had a fight with them that she would need to reconcile, there had been this low-level sense of disagreement between them, ever since she dropped out of college.
Nadya’s parents wanted her to go back to college. More specifically, they wanted her to finish her politics degree, and go out and do… what exactly? She’d tried to explain to them that she just didn’t believe in it anymore, the way she had when she had first started. It had become clearer and clearer that it was all back-room deals and no one believed in things the way she had thought when she had been young and naïve and thought she could change the world.
She would go back to college. Eventually. She’d assured them of this. But they wanted to know when, and she couldn’t tell them that. She spent too much time waiting tables, and worrying about rent, and worrying about how she’d pay her power bill to think about any of that. But “when I’m sure I know what I want to study” hadn’t proved to be a good enough answer to them. At least, not so far.
Nadya was brought out of her head by the realization that the car had slowed. That wasn’t right. There shouldn’t have been traffic between LaGuardia and Hastings-On-Hudson on a Thursday mid-afternoon, and they certainly hadn’t been driving long enough to be there yet.
She looked out the windows, and her heart sank. They were on Wards Island. Instead of heading north into the Bronx, the way that would take her to her sister’s house, they were heading over the bridge into Manhattan. Something had gone wrong. There must have been some confusion, Nadya thought. But the sign had my name on it.
“Driver!” she called out, and the partition slid down.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
The man’s words took her aback. She wasn’t sure how to respond. She’d accepted when the TV had called her that. It was a prank her sister had played on her, she’d felt sure of it. But the way the words came out of this man’s mouth, it was like he believed them.
She shook her head and decided she was being absurd. If Jasmine was going to go all in, she was going to go all in. Of course she’d have told the driver that she was royalty, if that was the joke she was playing. She was just taking this further than Nadya expected.
Jasmine had always had this playful, rebellious streak in her. Since they’d been children, this was the sort of prank she would pull. Maybe, Nadya thought, this was Jasmine’s way of trying to show her that she hadn’t changed; that she was the same girl she’d grown up with.
Nadya settled back, mostly feeling at ease, or at least trying to be.
“Is it going to be long?” she asked, trying to adopt the voice that a man who thought she was royalty might expect. It was only partially successful, but, hey, royalty was a new look for her.
“Not long now, Your Highness. There is some traffic in Harlem, but it should be clear once we’re past it.”