Page 48 of Minha Dona

Caitlin walked in, stopped, and stared. She turned slowly, taking it all in, then turned back to Helena with an expression of amused incredulity.

“A little place of your own?” she said.

The apartment was lit by the late afternoon sun streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the São Paulo skyline spread out like a painting across three walls. The living area was spacious and open… the modern furniture, the art, the bookshelves, the kitchen visible through an archway. Everything was clean and tasteful, not to mention unmistakeably expensive.

Helena felt her cheeks redden. “I may have undersold it slightly.”

“Slightly.” Caitlin walked to the windows and looked out at the view… the city spread below them, towers, parks and the distant haze of the sprawl reaching to the horizon. “Helena, this apartment is bigger than my house. And you’ve seen my house. It’s a nice house.” She turned back again, smiling incredulously. “Is this what ‘I value my privacy’ looks like in São Paulo?”

“It’s… my parents were generous.”

“Generous.” Caitlin ran her hand along the back of the couch. Imported Italian leather, Helena didn’t say, bought through a negotiation by her mother with the dealer. “This couch probably costs as much as my car.”

“It doesn’t. I promise.”

“It definitely costs more than my first car though.” Caitlin was grinning, not judgmental, just thoroughly entertained. “You told me in Houston that you had a little place. You made it sound modest.”

“I didn’t want you to think I was…”

“Rich?” Caitlin laughed. “Helena, I’m not an idiot. I saw your handbag back in Houston. I knew you had money. I just didn’t know you had this much money.”

Helena sighed and sat on the arm of the couch, accepting that the reveal she’d been dreading was also, apparently, hilarious. “My parents bought this apartment as my twenty-first birthday present. They did the same for my sisters. Mariana has a place in the next street and Beatriz is in Pinheiros. It’s what our family does. My grandfather bought my father and his siblings their first apartments, my father bought ours.”

“Your twenty-first birthday present was a penthouse apartment?”

“It’s not a penthouse. There’s a floor above.”

“Really? Because I didn’t see a higher floor number in the elevator?”

“There’s the rooftop terrace.”

Caitlin stared at her, then burst out laughing. “Helena. You have a private rooftop terrace?”

“It’s communal. The other residents can use it too.” Helena paused. “Though the other residents are mostly in their sixties, so in practice…”

“In practice you have a private rooftop terrace.” Caitlin shook her head, still laughing. “I’ve been sleeping with a Brazilian heiress and I didn’t even know it, and you live…”

“I’m not an heiress. I work for a living.”

“…live in an apartment your parents bought you that has floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the entire city of São Paulo.” Caitlin walked over and stood in front of Helena, still grinning, putting her hands on Helena’s shoulders. “I’m teasing you. It’s beautiful. I love it. I’m just processing the fact that the woman who slept on my Target sheets in Houston in a bedroom that I painted myself apparently lives in a home that could be in a design magazine.”

“Your sheets were very comfortable.”

“They were still from Target.”

“I liked them.”

“You’re sweet.” Caitlin kissed her, still smiling. “Show me everything. The whole place. I want to see it all.”

Helena stood and took her hand, feeling the last of her nervousness dissolve under Caitlin’s warmth. She’d been afraid of the wealth gap reveal, the revelation of just how privileged her background was, but Caitlin had handled it with exactly the grace and humour that Helena should have expected from her. The force of nature wasn’t intimidated by money. She was entertained by it, and by Helena’s transparent discomfort at having it exposed.

She led Caitlin through the apartment room by room. The kitchen, with its marble worktop and professional-grade appliances that Helena seemed to end up using mainly for coffee and reheating takeout. The third bedroom that she used as a home office. The master bedroom, the space where Helena fervently hoped that they’d be spending quite a lot of time. The only one that Helena skipped was the main guest bedroom, for the simple reason that that was her playroom and she both didn’t want to intimidate Caitlin so soon after arriving and desperately wanted to keep it as a surprise for her later in her visit.

“It’s up to you where you sleep,” Helena said. “I’d love it if you stayed in my room, but I’d understand if you wanted the home office and the bed in there for your own space.” She grinned. “I don’t want to assume anything…”

Caitlin walked back over to the door to the master bedroom and glanced inside. “Nice bed.”

“It’s comfortable.”