CHAPTER SIX
RONDA AND TANYA
Tanya took her own car, one of the six she owned, on a high-speed race along neighborhood streets, the express route, and aside the southern coast. With the top down, wind rippled her hair and the loose sleeves of her jacket. Morning sun warmed her from head to foot. She zipped corners at street intersections. She took curves in the road with smooth tracks of her steering wheel. She floored her gas pedal and struck the clutch and shifted gears with the dexterity of a professional driver.
In the beginning, she spotted a sports car made of midnight-black and silver in her rear-view mirror. She could not see through their tinted windows, but she recognized its grills, headlights, and front bumper. Once she knew, her smirk grew from cheek to cheek.
She lost them after an hour of speeding, but she kept up the race unto her final destination.
Another hour of travel she made alone.
In the final three minutes, her pursuer swerved down a highway ramp behind her. They rejoined the chase. She led them through stop-lights, streaked past civilians, and shifted side-to-side between lanes.
She at last drove into the airport where she was meant to be hours ago.
She popped out of her car as the Future Industries valet-driver came up behind her. Their engines died down to rest.
Last night's guard who had taken her drunk ass home stepped out of the vehicle.
Tanya cackled at him. "I thought I lost you." She wore sneakers, charcoal gray track pants with pockets and bagginess around the legs, and a scarlet windbreaker that rustled with every move she made. Her sunglasses reflected the near-noontime sunlight like pearls. Her grin showed her teeth, and her hair was a disheveled haze.
"You did, miss." Her driver went to the hatch of his vehicle, where he took out a luggage brief-case belonging to her. "I had to cut through Yingyi," he explained, the town through which he had to speed to get on her tail.
"I gotcha, I gotcha."
The airport's pavement gave off heat through the soles of her shoes, hotter than the spring air around her. The shadow of her airship did little to cool things.
Steel-gray panels and windows formed the ship's exterior. Fins for stability stuck out at odd angles. Propellers and jet engines for propulsion jutted from the rear-end while the driver's cockpit had atrium-style windows to get the best widespread view of the landscape. An aesthetic of gleaming metal, cobalt-blue, and lavender colored the outside and its many parts.
It stood upright on four wheels at the end of stalks. The stalks, like legs, ascended into joints of the airship's underbelly, where they best supported the mass of metric tons of metal. In their midst, a carriage hung from the belly with an all-around view, windows that could see to all four sides. Its hatch door faced her, held open on hinges.
Ronda Jiggy stood in the doorway with her arms folded and her back leaned against the frame. She bit her teeth so clenched, her cheeks were taut. Sunglasses also covered her eyes, but her disappointment etched everything else about her face. She wore a uniform made of garnet-red fabric, golden-yellow seams, and an Air Nation symbol on the jacket's left chest. Her cream-colored pants were harnessed around her waist and left thigh, where they holstered a pair of tonfas. Her black boots were tied and knotted and shined to military precision. Barely a wrinkle nor a piece of lint stained her uniform. She was dressed to a perfect cut.
"Four hours," she said. "Four hours you've kept me waiting. What the hell is wrong with you, hoe?"
Tanya shoved through her and the door, knocking her out of balance. "Waiting on you know, she said from the inside, as her guard followed with luggage.
With their host finally acquired, the airship's crew locked all their hatches, secured everything inside, and activated the engines with a few deft flicks of switches on the control board.
In a matter of moments, they took to the air to begin their journey south.
Meanwhile, Ronda and Tanya found seats for themselves in the bottom-most cabin. Two benches faced each other, enough room for perhaps five to six people to sit in comfort with room to spread their legs. Tanya relaxed on her back where she took up one of the whole benches.
A host arrived to serve them with a menu for food and alcohol. He dressed in air stewardess navies, whites, and yellows. The V-neck of his collar came halfway down his chest to show the hair and definition in his pecs. His skirt ended shy of his knees, while his heels forced him to stand up-right: calves and ass and upper body poised.
He smiled his delicious way with cherry red lipstick. "How do you do, Ms. Sato."
Ronda was already muttering when he arrived, but Tanya didn't quite hear. The steward charmed her to sit up and put on her own smile, a flick of her hair, and a more presentable position. "Hi, yes, can we get some gin and lemonade?"
Ronda shook her head. "This isn't the time for that. We need to be in business mode."
"We are in business mode. I'm just talking about a drink."
"Hot towel, ma'am?" A second steward who was dressed in identical uniform offered in front of them a ceramic plate. Two rolled-up hand towels steamed, and the ladies took one each.
"Why do you keep doing this?" Ronda unrolled her towel, just a square cloth a bit bigger than her face. "It's like you can't take care of yourself. I can't leave you alone, can I."
"What do you mean? You leave me alone all the time."
"When I do, you're always getting into shit. You don't show up. You're truant. You drink yourself to oblivion. You fuck the easiest guys you can get your hands on."
"It's all right. You're jealous. I know just how to fix this."
The steward cut in, "Will that be all, Ms. Sato?"
"Yes, that's it. I'm cutting you off," said Ronda. "She doesn't want anything." She propped a briefcase beside her on the bench and clicked its two buckles out of place to open it.
"If we're gonna be working, we may as well make it fun, too, right? How about a whole bottle, please." Tanya pinched the sleeve of her nearest steward and curled her lips. "Two glasses with ice for me and my friend here."
"I'm serious." Unsure who to pin down with her request, Ronda switched her gaze back and forth between Tanya and the server man, who was retreating to the stairwell that ascended deeper into the airship. "No. Don't do this. I don't want any."
Tanya kicked a radio between their feet. She swiveled a couple of its dials to change stations, roving through static feedback to one channel, then another, then another. Each one played something else like commercials for merchants, a talk show interview, a brass band who sang with trombones. She found a channel putting out electric disco sounds that were catchy and repetitive. She bobbed her head.
In a matter of time, the whole setting changed from a business aesthetic Ronda tried to establish into a lazy affair.
The briefcase lay forgotten.
The women slouched side by side leaning into each other.
Tanya struggled to keep her eyes open while her friend squashed into her and gabbled into her ear without end. The words slipped in one ear and out the other. She cradled a frosted glass that condensed between her fingers, down her wrist, and into her lap. Lemonade tarted her lips and sweetened her tongue, while the gin freed her mind to a happier state.
She tracked the movements of three men in front of her who swayed their hips to music. Three of the airship hosts, all dressed in the same outfits, heels, and make-up, winded around each other with the flair of a strip-tease. Sunlight streamed through the windows which made their skin glow. They had rolled up the waistline of their tops to expose their stomachs, exercised into stone-cut abs with treasure trails of body hair.
Ronda clutched her gin bottle in one hand and her own frosted glass in the other. Ice clinked when she waved her hands to emphasize herself. Between sentences here and there, she sipped from the gin bottle, putting her lips and downing one mouthful at a time.
The whole while, she raised her voice to be heard over the music. With every meaningful statement, she put definition in her words. She intended them with force of personality.
"I know when I put on this uniform, and I look in the mirror, all the other people who put on this same uniform, that they have my back, because that's what we do for each other. Air nomad is in my blood, but none of my family know how hard it is to do what I do, see what I've seen, to put up with you.
"But those soldiers, the warriors of the four nations, those people I can trust, because we've been in the trenches together. You know what I mean? We've worked hard together. You and me, we're warriors. You don't put on the uniform, but I know you have it in you. You're a warrior at heart. You just gotta apply yourself."
"Can't you see I'm a little distracted here?"
"No, you can't be distracted!"
