She blinked. “Who?”
“Jem. And the Holograms.”
“Marlon. What are you talking about?”
“The show,” I said. “You know.”
She shook her head slowly. “No the hell I don’t.”
“Come on,” I said. “Your mom used to love that show.”
“Oh, right! We watched it together all the time,” she said. “Oh wait. She died when I was two. So.”
I exhaled. “Do you have to be so… crass?”
“Crass,” she repeated. “Sometimes I forget you’re a million years old.”
“Hey.”
She tilted her head. “What’s the last piece of recent media you consumed anyway?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Music. Movies. Art. Anything.”
“I don’t have time, Aurora. I work.”
“So does everybody else,” she said. “Welcome to capitalism.”
I sighed. “I saw Rush Hour in theaters.”
She blinked. “Rush Hour? Like… the first one?”
“And I listened to LL Cool J’s album a few years ago.”
“LL Cool J?!” she repeated.
“What’s wrong with LL Cool J?”
“Nothing,” she said. “If this were 1998.”
“Oh, ha ha.” I pressed my glasses up my nose. “Let’s just get back to business, aight? Now, I need you to walk me through it.”
She frowned. “Through what?”
“This plan,” I said. “If you about to run something under my roof, I need to know exactly what you doing.”
She studied me for a second. “I just did a whole presentation…”
“Yeah, but you got a new system, right? Lemme see how that works.”
She narrowed her eyes like she was trying to figure out if I was serious or just trying to keep her here.
“Fine,” she said, flipping her laptop back open. “Pay attention.”
“Don’t get smart.”
She angled the screen toward me, one hand resting on the edge of the desk as she scrolled.
