The door to the building opened, and a man with a suitcase came out.
“Oh!” Dani exclaimed. “Hi! Was everything okay with your stay?”
The man—the mime—rushed over and grinned and nodded.
“You don’t have to be out for another hour,” Dani said. “I had to meet someone here, but you don’t have to go yet.”
The man gestured to an imaginary watch, and then flung his arms out like a bird, or . . .
“You have a flight to catch?” Dani guessed. “Are you flying out of JFK?”
The man nodded yes with a degree of enthusiasm that seemed better suited for having been told he’d won the lottery.
Dani grinned and pointed at Max. “He can drive you.”
The mime became disproportionately excited, gestured his thanks to Max, and pointed at Dani and mimed counting stars in the sky—he counted to five and pointed at her again.
“I think I just got a five-star Airbnb rating,” she said laughingly.
Max waved at his driver. “We have a passenger.” He turned to the mime. “Could you give us a minute?” The mime performed an elaborate farewell routine, and Dani and Max were alone again.
“Max.” She turned to him. “I don’t want you to go!” She made a silly, self-deprecating face and grinned at him.
Well. He wasn’t sure anyone had ever said something that made him feel this good. And normally he would change his ticket in a heartbeat. “I wish I could stay, but I’m flying to Innsbruck to meet Seb for a series of meetings regarding construction permits.”
She smiled, her tears gone. “That sounds like something a person with a job would say.”
“Well, remember, I’m not getting paid.”
“An almost-job. To go with my almost-divorce.” She shook the papers. “If I understand the process correctly, we file these, and then at some point there’s a judgment, and eventually a certified copy arrives in the mail.”
“I beat you, though. We’ll be breaking ground next month.” And of course, there was her other resolution—the sex resolution. Typically, he would make a joke about that here, but he found he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to talk about it at all.
“Overachiever.” She swatted him on the chest, and before she could retract her hand, he grabbed it, pulled her into a hug. He felt that was allowed, that after all the revelations of the past two days, this was a thing they did now.
She must have agreed, because she came easily. They stood embracing silently for a long moment.
“I’ll see you at the wedding in November,” she said with what seemed like artificial cheerfulness when they finally parted.
“How long will you be in Eldovia? You should stay a while. You have the teaching leave this fall. You’re planning to be a lie-about anyway, yes? So come lie about with me.”
“I’d love to, but I don’t want to leave Max Minimus for that long. After a few days without me at my parents’ place, he starts to get weird and mopey. I haven’t booked my ticket yet, but I’m thinking four, five days at most.”
“I assumed you’d be bringing my namesake with you? Like last time?”
“No. Not doing that again. He freaked out being confined to a tiny crate under the seat on the plane.
“Well, that’s too bad,” he said, understating the matter entirely. Just because he had somehow developed an emotional dependence on Dani didn’t mean he could expect her to arrange her life to accommodate him.
He made himself get into the car. He had a mime to take to the airport. He rolled down the window, and she came to stand beside it. “Until November,” she said.
“Until November,” he echoed. It was too long to be without her, but what choice did he have?
On her way out of what looked like it was going be her last meeting with her lawyer, Dani checked her phone to find texts from Max.
Max: How do you feel about private jets?
Max: We know how I feel about private jets, but what about you? Environmental disasters that are never worth it, full stop? Or are there situations in which you could justify it?
Dani: Like what kind of situation?
Max: The kind where I send one for you so you can bring my namesake to Eldovia and he can roam around the cabin as much as his heart desires while the flight attendant dotes on him, thus enabling both of you to pay a long visit to Eldovia. You can stay with me, and I’ll leave you alone to work on the mystery project.
Max: Mostly.
Max: As long as you agree to gossip with me in the evenings.
Oh, Max. Dani’s heart squeezed at the generous offer.
Dani: I think that’s going to be hard to justify. If you, an almost-duke, can fly commercial, I’m pretty sure that I, a certified normal person, should too.
Max: Yes, but I don’t have a tiny neurotic dog to think about.
The phone rang, and he started talking before she greeted him. “How about this? My parents fly private all the time. Most people in my circles fly private. I never do. I have a reputation as being environmentally minded.”
“I thought you had a reputation as being depraved.”
“Publicly. I have a reputation among people who actually know me as being environmentally minded. In fact, it’s one of my father’s favorite things to fight about. Namely, he does not care about it and likes to mock the fact that I do.”
“You should hire a PR company to start marketing you as the Green Baron. You could dress in a World War I uniform, like the Red Baron. Except, you know, green.”
He chuckled. “Right. So let’s say I had flown private one time in my past. One time out of the hundreds of flights I’ve taken. Would that make my Green Baron reputation any less meaningful?”
“No?” Dani ventured. She was a bit confused, but that seemed like the answer he was looking for.
“Right. So now, you can take one of those private flights that I never did.”
“Is this like buying a carbon offset?”
“Yes! Exactly!”
“A baron offset?”
“Call it what you like. And you can rent your apartment out while you’re gone, so you’ll actually turn a profit.”
She paused, imagining a couple of weeks—or more—spent in Eldovia. She’d get to see Leo and Gabby beyond the whirlwind of the wedding. Max Minimus could cavort in actual nature—there would be mountains and the hot spring. She also couldn’t turn her nose up at the cash she’d make doing an Airbnb rental over Thanksgiving.
And there was Max. She’d get to spend time with Max. Nature and money were cool, but the prospect of getting to hang out with Max for an extended period was too good to pass up. “Would you think I was a terrible person if I took you up on this offer?”
“Yes,” he said, totally deadpan. But then he added, “No. You walk to work every day, so that’s as good as buying a carbon offset.
“Maybe I can buy a carbon offset!” She wondered how much it would cost to offset a private flight to Eldovia.
“You can’t, but I will.”
She was flooded with affection for her friend. “Max, you’re all right.”
“I’ll try not to let it go to my head.”