Money Trees

5 ✮ Unready

    "Gate number?" Apollo called at Mai as he pulled her bag for her.

  She jogged in front of him, trying to quickly reach their gate before it closed. They spent a little too much time in the hotel and ended up arriving late to the airport.

  "Eighteen! We're nearly there!"

  Finally, they reached the gate, greeted by a hostess with a tight smile and dead eyes. Mai practically threw their documents at her before hunching over to catch her breath.

  "So, you'll be sitting in suite two in first class," She chirped, handing Mai's tickets back to her. "And you're seat is in thirty-two B in economy."

  "Economy? That must be a mistake," Mai answered. "Apollo got first class as well."

  The hostess pointed at the ticket as if the problem was to do with Mai's vision and not the airline. "No, the ticket is booked for economy."

  "There must be some mistake."

  "No, no," Apollo finally spoke. "My fault. I must have gotten economy by accident."

Mai pouted. She was looking forward to the long flight with him by her side. "Can he be upgraded?"

  "Unfortunately it's too late to change class."

  Apollo shrugged and looked at Mai. "It's okay. I'll see you when we arrive."

Mai wanted to whine. She didn't want to be separated from the guy in front of her, even though she had only known him for a short while.

  Neither of them had spoken about what would happen when they reached New York but Mai was hoping she had just made a long-term friend at least. She wasn't ready to lose him just yet.

Apollo's hand was in hers as they walked quietly to the plane door. Before they went their separate ways, he turned to her.

  "I'll see you in a bit."

"Nine hours to be exact."

  He winked in a way that implied he had some sort of plan. "We'll see about that."

  Mai eventually found her private cabin which contained a TV, bed, table and chair, all fitting in a 3m x 3m room.  It wasn't the best she had seen (nothing would beat the Scott Corps private jets) but she would have to make do.

  She opened her bag to take out a few toiletries when she found a piece of paper baring the Shangri-La logo at the right corner. She flipped it over, revealing a phrase scrawled on in black ink. Curiously, she picked it up and read it.

'You made Paris perfect. Thank you.
Apollo xo'

She laughed to herself, reading then rereading the letter. When did he even write it? They hadn't been apart a lot in the previous twenty-four hours.

  Mai had a lot of fun with him. It was one of those experiences she would tell her kids about when she turned old and grey. Obviously it would have to be a much more PG version because she wasn't going to go into detail of all the places his lips had wandered.

  Mai filled her time by reading through some magazines, hoping to get some guidance as to where to go next. Apollo was a great distraction but without him all she could think about was how badly she had messed up. She had no job, no definitive goals and no drive. She wanted to reach the top but could neither find the ladder to get there or even really bother looking for it. It was like she was waiting for some big opportunity to just fall into her lap. Apparently that wasn't the way the world worked, however.

  Scanning through the sensationalist and salacious tabloid articles made her realise one thing at least. She never wanted to write for a tabloid or gossip magazine. She wanted to write about art and the beautiful things in life, not 'who wore it best' or '17 reasons to get a haircut'. The page she was currently on in the trashy tabloid she was reading was focused on some wall street fraudster who had scammed a bunch of rich white men out of their money. Dennis Roth. But even though the story was serious, the tabloids somehow turned it into some sort of gossip column, writing about Roth cheating on his wife rather than the more serious aspect of his crime. 'MRS ROTH'S WRATH' was the headline. Another story focused on 'Vampy', a rockstar whose real name was Sienna. Mai remembered her as being friends with Oliver at some point. The article contained a photo of her crying on the phone and contained references to a stint in rehab. It couldn't get more tasteless than that.