Victoria looked out the window as the trees started to thin. She with her mom this morning? A beat. A beat that was just 1 second too long. Her mom passed.
Marcus said four years back. I'm sorry, Victoria said, and meant it in the way she almost never meant things in those situations, not as filler, not a script. I'm genuinely sorry. Thank you. He said it simple and clean.
The way people say things when they've learned to carry grief like something that belongs to them, not something that's happening to them. Her name was Dana. She was good people. He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to.
Victoria sat with that for a while. The shop was a low, wide building set back from the main road with a handpainted sign above the bay doors. Carter's auto in red letters, the A slightly larger than the rest. Like whoever painted it had started bold and then reconsidered. There were three bay doors, a small waiting area visible through a front window, an American flag hanging still in the morning air.
Marcus unlocked the side door and held it for her. Inside the office was clean and practical, a coffee maker on a counter along one wall. A desk with a computer that looked like it was born around the same time as her Honda. Framed photos on the wall. A younger Marcus at what looked like a high school graduation.
Another photo of a little girl on a beach laughing at something off camera, arms out, hair wild with salt air. "Ava! " Marcus poured two cups of coffee without asking how she took hers, then stopped himself. "Black," he said. "Or black is good. " He handed her the cup and sat on the edge of the desk rather than behind it, which somehow made the space less formal, less like an office, and more like just a room two people were standing in. He said, "Atlanta," she agreed.
"What do you do in Atlanta? " If you don't mind me asking, she'd thought about this. She'd had a whole background story prepared. I work in consulting was what she'd planned to say. Small firm, nothing exciting. Vague enough to discourage follow-up.
What she said was technology. I work in tech, which was technically true. What kind of tech? Software, mostly business solutions. She wrapped both hands around the warm cup.
It sounds more interesting than it is. Most things do, he said. Not cutting, just honest. He sipped his coffee. You like it?
She opened her mouth to give the automatic answer. The answer she gave interviewers and journalists and people at Galas who asked the same question and expect the same response. I'm passionate about what I build. I believe in technologies power to some days she said instead. He nodded like that was the realest answer she could have given.