“We need two days,” Kathy said. “Two more days.”
“What’s changed?” he asked.
“We have an investor. Ted’s meeting with him now. But we need time for everything to clear.”
“You’ve had eight months.”
“I know that, Mr. White,” Kathy said. “So what’s two more days?”
“Who is it?” he asked. “One of the hedge funds?”
“No. It’s a small company. Privately owned.”
“An angel investor then.”
“Of a type,” she said.
Kathy had left Rome (the weed farmer Ted was driving up a dark mountain road toward) because she’d had a revelation. She wasn’t going to be one of those women — one of those women like her mother — who didn’t live the life they wanted to. She refused to be among the legion of kept, kept down, or kept from. She’d loved Rome — and had loved the money that came along with him — but she couldn’t plan one more trip to Burning Man for their anniversary. Couldn’t host another end-of-the-season barbecue for the gutter punks who trimmed. Couldn’t be the weed king’s common-law. She’d begun storing up her fuck yous, hiding them away like Rome did duffel bags of cash, and she didn’t like the feel of it.
“They believe in MicroWeather?” Mr. White asked. “And they know about the FCC, the FAA, the privacy lawsuits you’re sure to get?”
“All of that’s hypothetical,” Kathy said. “None of that’s happened.”
“It will,” Mr. White said. “Trust me.”
“Maybe,” Kathy said. “Warning letters are only warning letters. MicroWeather doesn’t need to know if you’re cheating on your wife. It only needs to know if it’s raining where you are. Is it wrong to ask a stranger’s phone if the wind is blowing? If the temperature’s dropped? If it senses an earthquake two miles underground?”
When in doubt, it was best to hit them with tragedy and disaster. You had to give their wives cancer, Kathy thought. Shoot their children in the street. Blow the world apart.
“This is likely?” Mr. White asked. He was very, very serious now. “The investment?”
Kathy didn’t know. But for the call she’d made to him that morning, she hadn’t spoken to Rome in five years. She’d caught him early, at six, before he’d had time to head out to the fields.
“I know you’re married, Kath,” Rome had said over the phone. “I’m on Facebook. I know a lot of things about you.”
Kathy knew a lot of things about him too. He was dating some woman named Monarch. She was young, and looked like a tramp. Her Twitter feed loved life. She Instagrammed horses.
“How bad is it?” Rome asked. “The money?”
“Bad,” she said.
“And the idea? This Internet thing?”
“Very good,” Kathy said. She explained it to him. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s the weather.”
“But perfect,” she said. “Perfect weather.”
“All this technology,” Rome said, “and all anybody wants to talk about is the weather.”
“It’s the end of the world, Rome,” Kathy said. “Don’t you know that? Flash floods, heat waves, tornadoes.”
“It’s the end of people,” he said. “Not the world. Once we’re gone, the world will be fine.”
“Put it however you want,” she said. The man was infuriating. He knew what she’d meant. “Either way, it’s an opportunity.”
Even as she considered the position she was in — and Kathy was begging him for money; they both knew that — she found it difficult to be fake with Rome. With anyone else, Ted even, she would have immediately agreed, sacrificed her own opinion, and done whatever was required of her to get what she wanted. But it was different with Rome. Her instinct was to attack. With him, her love had always come out wrong. She would want to be gentle, but would end up pushing him away instead. She would pick a fight, or find herself in one despite not wanting to be. Something about Rome, his closeness, the way he’d lived in her, and she in him, had been unsettling. It had felt claustrophobic. It had driven her mad.
“Will you meet him?” Kathy asked. “Will you please do that for me? I’ve never asked you for anything.”
She waited in silence. The tension between them — old and comfortable — was like a worn T-shirt that needed to be thrown out. Kathy felt herself disappear. She experienced the folding nature of space and time.
“Fine,” Rome said. “Send him up. But later tonight. I’ve got work to do. Some of us do actual work.”
He clicked END and noticed Monarch standing in the kitchen doorway. She wore a towel, but her hair was dry.
“Who was that?” she asked, and yawned.
She was beautiful, sexy, and kind, and Rome loved her, he thought, but for an instant he couldn’t remember who the hell she was or what she was doing there.
“No one,” he said. And then, “An old friend.”
Monarch was half Mexican, with dark eyes and even darker hair. A pleasant sleepiness clung to her in the mornings.
“Kind of early,” she said. “Who?”
Rome understood that if he lied to her, it would only end up being more of a thing.
“Kathy,” he said.
The sleep burned out of Monarch’s eyes. She’d heard too many stories around the farm. One time she did this. One time she did that. Over time, Rome had come to understand that Monarch’s obsession with Kathy had very little to do with him. Maybe nothing.
“What did she want?”
“Oh,” Rome said. “Business.”
“Business?” Monarch asked. “Your business?”
“Her husband and her. They’re having some... some money stuff.”
“And she called you?”
“Isn’t that what I—” He stopped himself. “Yes,” he said.
“What do you say?”
“I said I’d hear him out.”
“Who?”
“Her husband,” Rome said. “He’s got a pitch. Some company. A weather thing.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Monarch said. She readjusted her towel, made it tight, and then walked out of the kitchen. She went down the hall toward the bathroom.
“Monarch!” Rome shouted. He tried to be gentle about it. “Mon!”
He heard the bathroom door close. A moment later the shower came on. He did not hear the curtain, which meant she was either peeing or standing there in front of the mirror, being angry. Monarch was an emotional person. She cried a lot. Something would bother her, and then she would start. He had learned to let her cry, like that Hootie and the Blowfish song. What was that guy doing now? Rome wondered, his mind suddenly gone left. Singing country music? What was that about? How did that work? America did the strangest things to people.
He filled his thermos with coffee and went out to the truck. On a morning like this, when he felt behind, having to drive slow on the gravel driveway was annoying. But it was a good thing, the gravel. The rocks were a cheap security measure — he’d never not heard an approaching car — but more than a few were sharp. Sometimes, if a guy came up from San Francisco or flew in from wherever, New York, Boston, there would be a puncture.
Sitting in his living room, Rome would hear the tire blow. After the first few, he learned to keep spares around. The buyers he sold to spent a lot of money to get out his way. Plane tickets. Rental cars. Once they reached him, they spent a whole lot more. He tried to be accommodating. The tires. Plenty to eat and drink. It was in his nature, but it was also good business practice. Everything was reputation. It wasn’t like he sold coke or heroin. He wasn’t cooking meth. Those trips were for maniacs, paranoiacs. The people he transacted with were decent. The idea was to make a nice living. In ten years, Rome had harmed very few. On occasion he would have to scare someone. He would have to put the fear of God in them. But that was the nature of any business.