I said it watching her through the rearview mirror. Our eyes met in the glass and held. Two seconds. Three. She looked away first, back to the road, and even in the dim light I could see the color rising in her cheeks.
“You don’t know if I’m kind,” she said. “But I am definitely beautiful. Thank you for noticing.”
I laughed. A real one, rough and surprised, pulled from somewhere that had been closed for a while. She glanced at the rearview again, looking surprised by the sound.
“Do you say that to every fan?” she asked.
“No. Just you.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re my only beautiful fan.”
“You have millions of fans.”
“None of them drove me home covered in sparkling water. That makes you special.”
She shook her head but I could see her fighting a smile. The car moved through the Coral Gables streets, past the houses and the palm trees and the neighborhoods I’d spent my childhood trying to escape.
“Can you turn on the music?” I asked.
She pressed the button. The stereo came on, mid-track. An old jazz standard, Coltrane, something I kept in rotation because it was the only thing that quieted my brain after long days.
“Oh wow,” she said. “You still listen to this?”
I watched her through the mirror. “How do you know what I listen to?”
Her eyes met mine in the glass. Then her face burned red, the flush starting at her neck and climbing.
“You mentioned it in an interview once,” she said quietly. Then, even quieter, almost to herself, “Great. I sound like a weirdo. Again.”
She didn’t say another word for the rest of the drive.
I didn’t mind. I watched the city go by and listened to Coltrane and studied the back of her neck in the rearview mirror and thought about the fact that this woman had memorizeddetails about me from interviews she’d watched years ago, and instead of finding that unsettling, I found it touching.
She pulled through the gate of my property and the security team was there in seconds, surrounding the car—eyes scanning, hands ready, doing what they were paid very well to do.
I got out and waved them down. They stepped back but stayed close, watching Miley with professional wariness.
She was standing by the driver’s door, keys in her hand, looking up at the house. She held the keys out to me.
“How long until you accept my job offer?” I asked.
She looked at me. “Can I start on Monday? I have somewhere to be this weekend,” she said.
I nodded. She started to pull out her phone, probably to call a taxi. I turned to my driver, Carlos, who was standing by the garage.
“Take her home.”
“I can get a cab,” she said.
“I wasn’t asking.” I caught her eye. “It’s late, and you just drove a stranger home from a bar. The least I can do is make sure you get back safely.”
She looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”
She got into the back of the town car. The door closed. The car pulled down the driveway and through the gate and I watched it go, watched the taillights shrink and disappear around the corner.
“Interesting,” I said to nobody.
