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She crouches beside my son so that the drone will track her face and follow her down, and as the two of them wave goodbye, I take a quick screen-capture of the tableau before they disconnect. I’m not sure why. I suppose I just like the image.
***
Not twenty minutes later, I find myself calling Ana again.
“Hello?” she answers quietly. “Is everything okay?”
She sits at a round table at a private corner of the library, with Asili slouched in the armchair beside her, looking bored out of his mind with his chin in his hand as he scrolls through his tablet.
“Yes,” I sigh, “and no. I need you to…” Then I sigh again and lean back in my chair, staring blankly at the hovering mini-drone.
“Yes?” she prompts after a moment, but I have no reply. I don’t even know why I bothered to call. “What happened?”
“Never mind,” I say, reaching for my wrist to cut the connection. “Carry on as you were.”
“Wait, don’t hang up!” she demands, leaning forward in her seat as if to come closer to me. “Tell me what happened.”
“Are you giving me orders now?”
She rolls her eyes. “What wereyou going to ask me to do before you changed your mind?”
I consider for a moment. “To stop one Nkina Petrz from being able to call anyone on this entire sphere.”
“Your ex-wife?” she says a little awkwardly.
She is up to date with all the gossip, then, which I suppose should be expected. “Yes.”
“Has she been…calling you?”
“Yes,” I say in perhaps a more clipped tone than I would prefer when addressing Ana. “Aggressively, despite the fact that she should not have access to my new number, or the direct line to my secretary’s desk.” I lean back in my chair. “She has not contacted you, has she?”
“No,” Ana murmurs, although her brows furrow. She looks across at Asili, who does not seem to be paying us any attention, but she stands and walks towards the rows of bookshelves behind her anyway. She stares at me curiously, and I think she must wish to ask me what Nkina might want. But then something like guilt flashes through her eyes and she looks down instead.
“Well, look, I don’t think I can ban her from calling every single person on this planet, but I can get her number blocked from contacting you.”
I wonder what that odd look was about, but I simply file it away and move on. “She will just call on a different device.”
“We can at least make her life a little more difficult.”
I rub briefly at my forehead. I have a meeting regarding funding for the education sector in five minutes, but I can barely bring myself to care at this point despite how important I know it is.
“Why don’t we just have all calls from unknown numbers to your personal line redirected through to me?” Ana tries again. “Then, if they’re important, I can patch it back to you, or otherwise forward them to your secretary.”
I drop my hand to my lap. “I’m not sure having Nkina contact you is any more desired, if I’m honest.”
Ana leans a shoulder against the bookshelf and smirks at me. “Why not? It might be fun. I can pretend I’m your new lover and see if it makes her crazy.”
“Pretend?”
The sudden redness that blossoms in her cheeks brings just a small bubble of amusement back up into my chest. She looks away quickly, stumbling against the bookshelf despite that she was stationary to begin with, and—did she just say, “Not yet”?
I feel my lips twitching.
Actually, perhaps I was right to call Ana. I do feel a little better now.
“I will send you Nkina’s contact information,” I say after a moment watching her blush. “You may block her number from dialing through to me, and to everyone else close to me, including yourself. Do not redirect my calls.”
“Alright,” she mumbles without looking back up at the screen.
“Also, I’ll need you to stop off at a Chifphoun X’le store on your way home,” I say as I stand from my seat and begin towards the door. “Buy whichever piece of jewelry takes your fancy most, price is not an issue. I require it as a gift for someone. You still have my card, do you not?”
“Yes, of course I do. Okay, I’ll…see you tonight?”
“I hope so.”
And I do hope so, because I am quite sure she said ‘not yet’ and I would like to explore this topic with her further.
