When they arrived, the decor was slightly different than she remembered it. Gone was the exposed brick and in its place was a wall of moss, real or fake; Olivia couldn’t tell, but either way it reminded her of a jungle, a lush orgy. How long had it been since she and Michael slept together? A month? Two? Before they were seated, the waiter asked them to turn off their microprocessors.
They shut their eyes and logged off—well, Olivia logged off but she suspected that her husband stayed online. Michael had aged so much in the past ten years but was still handsome, his skin leathery from tanning beds, his teeth bleached white and his body, like hers, controlled through a strict diet and exercise regimen.
“I’m not too hungry,” Olivia said to Michael, trying her best not to betray her excitement. “Would three courses be enough?”
“What?” Michael said. “I’ll be back in a sec.”
Michael headed toward the washroom and Olivia scanned the room looking at the other couples in the restaurant: the younger ones leaned toward each other, the older ones laughed. She wondered how many of them had been deemed compatible by information their microprocessors had gathered on them—so much more accurate than those old Internet dating sites that relied on self-reported data—like she and Michael had all those years ago. Michael was gone for so long, or so it seemed to Olivia, that Olivia called the waiter over and ordered for both of them, pointing out random items on the menu. She slurped down half her oysters and glugged down a glass of Pinot Grigio by the time Michael came back. Without comment he tucked into his veal tataki.
“So,” he said, “the big day is almost upon us.”
“Yes,” Olivia replied. In front of her, the waiter set down the second course. A quail stuffed with grapes and foie gras. “A month away.”
“Olivia,” Michael said, a speck of balsamic foam quivering on his lip. “We’re leaving on Saturday.”
“Right,” she said. “Right.”
“Sometimes,” he said fondly, “I swear you’re living in another world.”
Somehow they made it through their scallops and devilled goose eggs, swilling wine as they went over the details of the trip, all the hotels and restaurants their friends had recommended to them. Finally the waiter came over. “Dessert for Madame et Monsieur?”
“No, just the bill.” Michael took Olivia’s hand in his and stroked it, his expression blurred, but whether by microprocessing, wine or love, Olivia couldn’t tell.
“Wait,” Olivia said as he walked away. “Ice cream. Do you have any ice cream?”
“Mais, oui,” he said. “A house specialty. Breast milk ice cream infused with vanilla beans.”
“One for me,” she said.
“Very well.”
“Do you really want that?” Michael whispered as the waiter walked away. “He said breast milk?”
“Oh,” she said. “I think that’s just the foodie way to describe normal milk.”
“Right.”
The ice cream was heavenly, creamy and rich yet simultaneously pure and light. It tasted like late afternoon sunlight. That night Olivia didn’t brush her teeth because she wanted to taste the dense sweetness in her mouth as she made love to Michael.
Chris, sweating and red-faced, was trying to get up from the mat to ease the tightness in her lower back. Where was Olivia? She would surely have noticed Chris’s discomfort and rushed to help, but the other women stared at her as she wheezed, an inelegant imitation of the instructor’s explosive exhales.
“Push from your solar plexus,” the instructor said. “It has to come from the fountain of power within you.”
After much strain Chris managed to stand up, but almost slipped on the water that had poured down her legs and puddled at her feet. It was still too early, she thought to herself, but any residual doubt was squeezed away by the first wave of contractions.
Olivia came back from Gujarat with a jewelled turquoise sari, a sunburn and a pair of babies. There’d been no complications, and they’d given the surrogate a twenty-dollar tip, the standard amount according to the online discussion boards Olivia had consulted. Throughout the trip, Olivia had often thought about Chris, but when she got home she was too busy trying to love the new babies—it was still hard for Olivia to think of them as her babies—to do anything else.
The twins lay swaddled in their crib beneath a lacy canopy. Olivia’s microprocessor collected pictures of them, which Olivia would sort through later, deleting the ones in which the babies were drooling or crying.
“I know an old lady who swallowed a fly,” she sang in her breathy soprano, smoothing down the wrinkled sheets near the twins’ toes. She noticed a yellowish patch of spit-up on the blanket and made a mental note to mention it to Bituin, the Filipino nanny. “I don’t know why she swallowed that fly. I guess she’ll die.”
Following advice from her baby broker, Olivia spent at least three hours a day with the babies, even when it exhausted her. Purple crescents hung beneath her eyes, and twitches had taken up residence on the lower lids. “I know an old lady who swallowed a spider.”
Just then, Michael appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing, darling?”
“Bonding with the babies,” Olivia said. “Ever heard of it?”
“It’s four a.m. The babies are sleeping. You’ll wake them.”
“I didn’t have time today, so I’m doing it now. Three hours a day, or have you forgotten?” Her eyes back on the babies, she began singing, more shrilly than before, “That wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her.”
“Please don’t do this. I have a meeting in the morning.”
More quickly now. “She swallowed the spider to catch the fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly!”
The sound of Michael’s footsteps padding along the hallway was interrupted by a wail. Then quickly, a second wail. “Bituin!” Olivia yelled. “The babies need your help!”
Chris waited for her computer to load. It was already old, but she needed it to keep going for the next few years; it was getting harder and harder to buy hardware or software because just about everyone, not just the rich anymore, had wetware installed. Eventually, when she was ready to start a new life, she might be forced to capitulate and get a microprocessor. But not yet.
After the birth, Beth posted an enthusiastic review on her website. “Chris’s services may seem pricey but they are worth every penny. I’m 100 percent satisfied with my new baby. She sleeps through the night and has a good appetite. Don’t skimp on your progeny; call Chris today!” Ever since, emails from couples had been pouring in at an accelerated rate and Chris was having a hard time deciding who she wanted to work with: the older lesbian couple, both professors of law, or the young hip couple, he a graphic designer and she a PR specialist? And then she saw it. The name Olivia and the subject line: need a hand?
Olivia called in sick to the office and was now waiting for Chris at the Otter, a restaurant with large rough-hewn communal tables and blackboard walls covered in chalked murals of otter couples in Kama Sutra positions. Olivia had chosen the Otter based on a review in the weekly alternative paper. That the restaurant was attached to a hotel had been a bonus. She wore a tight, black turtleneck and slim-fitting jeans, the kind of outfit she would have worn when she was Chris’s age. Watching Chris walk in, Olivia’s heart nearly stopped. Chris was wearing a sage halter dress with the knot clumsily tied at her neck. The dress was tight against her flat stomach. Olivia closed her eyes and launched into self-talk: You knew she wasn’t pregnant anymore. She said so in the text. Push the disappointment away from your heart. By the time she opened her eyes, Chris was sitting across from her.
“Should we get some wine?” Olivia blurted. “And it’s great to see you. I’m so glad you came.”
“No wine for me, thanks,” Chris said.
Happiness gushed through Olivia. “Of course, silly me. You’re pregnant agai
n.”
“Not yet,” Chris said, a tight smile on her lips.
Her stomach may be flat now, Olivia’s mind raced to provide assurances, but remember the belly button pushing out, the tiny heart beating inside that swollen gourd. This woman is an earth mother, a goddess. Olivia decided just to go for it. “But you’re glowing as though you were,” Olivia said.
The blush spreading across Chris’s cheeks allowed Olivia to believe, for the first time, that Chris might truly reciprocate her feelings. “Okay,” Chris said, her hands shaking. “One glass can’t hurt.”
A bottle later and the women were holding hands beneath the table. Olivia showed Chris some glossy photos of her babies—in all of them, the twins were giggling and Bituin, the nanny, had been cropped out. Chris talked about the pregnancy, told the story of her water breaking all over the yoga studio floor. It was this story that made Olivia propose they get a room, her treat. She didn’t even care if Michael saw the bill.
Chris had convinced herself to meet up with Olivia because she was a potential new client but the second she’d seen Olivia sitting at that table, she knew she’d never believed that, not even for a second.
After tripping their way upstairs, Chris leaned on the wall while Olivia swiped the card into the slot and they stepped into the Sea Suite, a campy themed room painted bright blue with stylized seaweed stencilled on the walls and a bedside light shaped like a mermaid.
Chris fell backwards onto the bed, closing her eyes and savouring her first drunk in four years. She felt loose and buoyant. But this isn’t a step backward, she told herself. It’s a step forward. This is love. I’m going to enter the relationship phase of my life.
“Is something wrong?” Olivia asked.
“No,” Chris said. “I feel wonderful.”
“Come here.” Olivia pulled Chris up from the bed and kissed her long and hard, lightly biting her lower lip as she untied her dress from behind her neck.
It’s really happening, Chris thought as Olivia kissed her face, then her neck, then her collarbone, then her breasts, then just above her ribs, then, then, then… Chris yearned for Olivia to continue her path, but Olivia rolled off the bed and was now pacing the room in her bra and panties, a matching turquoise set perfect for the marine theme of the room.
“Did I do something wrong?” Chris sat up.
“No.” Olivia fiddled with the gauzy blue curtains, pulling them together then apart. “Don’t be silly.”
Of course, she doesn’t want to kiss my awful gut, Chris thought. All those stretch marks gashed everywhere, the tacky swirl of tattoos so unlike Olivia’s clean, smooth skin. Chris pulled a pillow over her stomach.
Olivia looked over at Chris, her eyes skimming the hump of blue concealing Chris’s midriff. To Chris’s relief Olivia crawled back into bed and laid her head on the pillow. Chris leaned back. The familiar feeling of pressure on her stomach offered even greater relief, though it hurt a little, too.
“I’ve got an idea,” Olivia said. Through the dim light, Chris could still make out the whirlpool of plaster on the ceiling.
“What?” Chris’s fingers were lost in Olivia’s curly hair. “Anything.”
“Let’s pretend to be mothers.” Olivia crossed her arms and closed her eyes. “You first.”
Difficult People
These talks are mandatory, aimed at increasing our productivity. Last week I received an email from the organizer, Owen Peck. He promised “tactics to deal with Downers, Moochers, Whiners, Passive Aggressives and all other Energy Vampires in your lives!!” Sounds like Devon, I thought.
As I step into the boardroom, I take a moment to remind myself to smile, to participate but not in an overbearing way, to be cheerful not cloying, assertive not strident, to be a team player, and under no circumstances to mention Devon. Never ever bring up Devon. It’s only after this bit of self-talk that I notice the mantra projected against the wall: Happiness is the Power Cord of Success!
Three months ago, on my weekly trip to my parents’ house, I went downstairs to summon Devon. He lived in the basement, which he referred to as his Idea Incubator. Thirty, unemployed, addicted to energy drinks, aggressively curious, my brother spent most of his time writing and editing Wikipedia entries. He called my parents his patrons; it made the arrangement seem more reciprocal and dignified than it really was.
My feet, encased in nude pantyhose, swished against the cream carpeted steps.
“Time for another enfoodment!” I said, using our childhood slang for dinner. Well, his slang, really. Part of a faux-naturalist idiom Devon invented after years of watching nature documentaries (they were the only movies our parents deemed suitably educational). Devon could do a mean David Attenborough impression. When he was a teenager, his good days still outnumbering his bad, he used to give breathless, British play-by-plays of our family dinners: What we have here is a typical Caucasian enfoodment. Notice how the younger female human does not bother to chew at all! The older male switches his fork from left to right and back again. Remarkable.
That evening I was feeling silly and sentimental. I’d just received a promotion at work and was determined to maintain my sense of triumph, even in the face of my brother’s inevitable disdain. He didn’t believe you could be both employed and human. I called his name again.
No reply.
I decided I’d force him to laugh. “En-food-ment!” I repeated in a low, Cookie Monster grumble. Pausing before his open door, I rubbed my feet vigorously against the carpet, hoping to charge myself with static electricity.
Devon’s room was shadowy, lit only by the monitor’s bluish glow. Also emanating from his laptop was a faint pinging sound. As I got closer, I could see why: Devon’s forehead was squashed against the keyboard, page after page filling with random letters.
If only I’d acted sooner. I couldn’t speak or move. I just watched. Later the doctors and therapists told me there was nothing I could’ve done. If only I’d acted sooner. That it wasn’t my fault, that he was already too far gone. If only I’d acted sooner. I couldn’t help but blame myself. If only I had acted at all.
After a while I could tell it strained my parents and doctors to hear me relive the scene. They winced when they heard the word if drift out of my mouth. The worst part is that my brother would have listened to me, he would have been proud of how I let grief put my life together in a new way. But none of the living understood. Everyone considered it masochistic.
I wanted so badly for people to think I was a healthy, adjusted person—I have never been able to live far from others’ approval. And so a month after a painkiller overdose scoured all life from my brother’s body, I charged my Blackberry, responded to the 138 emails clogging my inbox and returned to my job at the bank.
Owen Peck looks like an ESPN broadcaster. Bald and thick-necked with a neat little salt and pepper goatee, he wears a blue suit, the blazer unbuttoned; his skinny red tie lolls down his white shirt like an anteater’s tongue. Devon would have liked that analogy.
“Welcome,” Owen says. “Welcome. Please take a seat.”
Everyone is sitting in a circle on the ground. The men are mostly cross-legged. The women—all in skirts—have their legs tucked under or slightly off to one side. I resist the urge to skip around them, patting their heads: duck, duck, goose! No one moves to make room for me. Owen points between Marian and Roman. “Could you two scooch a bit?” Reluctantly they separate. Do not take it personally, I tell myself.
“Thanks,” I say to Marian.
I plop down and cross my legs. I’m wearing pants. Ugly pants. Before Devon’s death I would never have been caught in pants so ugly; I only bought them because they’re made from a synthetic fabric that doesn’t wrinkle.
“Decided to grace us with your presence,” Marian says.
“If that’s okay,” I say, aiming for a meek tone.
Before my brother’s death Marian had been my best friend. In the weeks after
the overdose, she tried to help as much as she could. She attended the funeral in a black Chanel suit, obviously new, and kept reaching for my limp hand or offering me one of the bergamot-scented tissues crammed in her purse. She left encouraging messages on my machine and dropped off turkey casseroles with my doorman. Yet I couldn’t will myself to accept or appreciate her kindness, goaded as I was by Devon’s voice: She probably read an about.com how-to guide for dealing with grieving friends. None of it comes from an honest inner compulsion, unmediated by society. It’s all just repetitions of repetitions. Naturally she began to resent my failure to return her calls, my coldness, and our friendship suffered.
If I tried harder, bought her a green tea latte and chatted with her about her pug Buster or invited her out for martinis after work, I could probably still repair the damage. But right now I’m just not up to it.
“Now, now, ladies,” Roman says. “Don’t be difficile.”
Over the years my brother contributed to thousands of Wikipedia entries, but those dearest to him dealt with famous recluses, hermits, eccentrics and naturalists. He distilled the lives and works of Thoreau, Julian of Norwich, Hanshan, Dickinson, Schopenhauer, Audubon. Right before he died he was working on a biography of Elmer Kleb, a Texas man who refused to leave his 119 acres of wilderness just outside Houston, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid taxes. Oh, my brother loved these entries! He tended to them like a mourner at a graveside, excising additions (the factually inaccurate, the clumsily worded, the malicious), and laying down offerings freshly plucked from his research.
My brother subscribed to a Deletionist philosophy. The Deletionists are a group of Wikipedia editors who vow to uphold the most rigorous encyclopedic standards. Through message boards they debate the merits of articles, insist on the deletion of entries about people or ideas they deem to be poorly referenced, overtly biased or lacking in notability. This final category is especially contentious. Some of these online scuffles would sadden my brother for weeks. He never could convince his fellow Deletionists that Elmer Kleb merited an entry.
Difficult People Page 11