The Perfect Wife

by Delaney, JP

  Someone who had an excuse to walk past told us Tim was taking Abbie through a PowerPoint titled, Why Homeopathy Is Dumb.

  The presentation, we learned later, dealt with many of the key elements of designing good scientific trials, from selection bias through to the placebo effect.

  Perhaps remarkably, Abbie seemed fascinated.

  “But if I take a homeopathic pill, all I know is, I feel better,” she was overheard to say. And Tim was heard to reply—not arrogantly or dismissively, but as if he was genuinely interested in explaining it to her—that this was indeed perfectly possible, and might well be due to the statistical effect known as regression to the mean.

  Now, it’s fair to say that some of us were surprised by the romance between Abbie and Tim. A few people even made disparaging remarks about Abbie’s possible motives.

  Those who took that position felt vindicated when, a week or so later, Abbie didn’t turn up one day until way after noon. Someone spotted her striding across the parking lot, backpack dangling from one shoulder.

  “Hey,” Tim said, when he saw her at her desk.

  “Hey,” she replied.

  “Thought you and I were going to have breakfast.”

  “I know. I’m really sorry, my car broke down at the beach.”

  “It broke?”

  She nodded. “It’s the head gasket, apparently. I had to leave it and catch a bus. And then I had to organize the tow and the garage and it just took forever.”

  Tim went into his office. A moment later he came back with something in his hand.

  “Here,” he said, dropping a bunch of car keys on her desk. “For you. Now you needn’t ever be late again.”

  We waited for Abbie to throw the keys back at him; or at the very least to say she didn’t want to be placed in his debt like that.

  But she didn’t. She picked up the keys. She said, “Wow. Thanks.”

  33

  Bouillabaisse is not the simplest dish to make, although the results can be spectacular. Your previous effort used Elizabeth David’s recipe, but the most authentic one, the one favored by restaurateurs in Marseille, is from Jean-Baptiste Reboul’s 1897 La Cuisinière Provençale, which stipulates half a dozen different rock fish, including grouper and striped bass. Since some of them are unavailable in North America, you decide to amalgamate that recipe with one from Chez Panisse.

  Step one: Make a fumet, or broth, of chopped vegetables, fish bones, fennel seeds, and thyme.

  Step two: Add two cups of white wine, twelve mussels, the peel of an orange, two tablespoons of a French liqueur called Pernod, and an ounce of Spanish saffron. Simmer for two hours, then strain and set aside. The saffron alone cost over a hundred dollars.

  Step three: Make the rouille, the spicy paste you will serve on bread to accompany the bouillabaisse. Take half a cup of your fish stock and soak some breadcrumbs in it. Add more saffron and cayenne pepper. Chop a whole bulb of garlic very fine. (When tempted to use a garlic press, re-read Elizabeth David’s comment on the matter: “I regard garlic presses as both ridiculous and pathetic, their effect being precisely the reverse of what people who buy them believe…I have often wondered how it is that people who have once used one of these diabolical instruments don’t notice this and forthwith throw the thing into the dustbin.” Decide to keep chopping.)

  Add six egg yolks and whisk slowly together, adding a mixture of half olive and half grapeseed oil, drop by drop, in the manner of mayonnaise. Char two red peppers and two tomatoes over an open flame, then remove the skins and deseed. Pulverize in a mortar, and combine.

  By the time you’ve finished chopping the garlic, it’s late afternoon and Sian’s brought Danny home. He seems fascinated by the charring of the peppers directly on the gas burner.

  “How was your day, Danny?” you ask him. He doesn’t answer. Suddenly his hand darts out and he drags his fingers through the naked flame. Grabbing his wrist, you pull him straight over to the tap and run cold water on them, but it’s too late. Two of his fingers are blistered.

  There’s no point in scolding him—he simply didn’t understand; not because he hasn’t encountered flames before, but because he has trouble extrapolating from those previous experiences that flames are always going to be hot.

  “You have to be careful with him around fire,” Sian says unnecessarily.

  “So I gather,” you say tartly. They’re the first words you’ve exchanged since that night at the beach house.

  Danny doesn’t seem to feel pain as much as neurotypical children, but he is bothered by the blisters.

  “When?” he says, flapping his hand in agitation. “When?”

  “They’ll be better in a few days.” You know he won’t let you put petroleum jelly on, let alone a bandage, so you don’t even try.

  “When?” he insists.

  You give in to his need for an exact schedule. “The blisters will be gone by Friday morning at ten o’clock.” You have no idea if this is true, but saying it may calm him.

  It does, somewhat. Humming nervously, he goes off to check that his Thomas trains are still precisely lined up, just as he left them this morning.

  You get out the pestle and mortar and start pulverizing, glad you’ve got something to focus on other than Sian.

  To your surprise, she suddenly says, “Hey…I’m sorry.”

  You look over at her.

  “I saw that interview you did,” she adds. “I hadn’t realized…It can’t be easy, being you.”

  “How often did you and Tim sleep together?” You hate yourself for asking, but you have to know.

  She hesitates. “He’s made me sign a nondisclosure agreement as part of my severance package. I can’t discuss any of it.”

  “He’s just worried you’ll speak to a reporter,” you say, though you can’t help wondering if it’s actually you Tim doesn’t want Sian talking to. “That doesn’t apply to me, obviously.”

  “I guess not. But I still can’t take the risk. It’s a lot of money.”

  “Tell me this, then. Just this one thing, and I promise I won’t repeat it to Tim. The other night, who initiated it? Did you go to his room, or did he come to yours?”

  “I can’t—” she begins, but then she sees your face. “I guess he came to mine.”

  You don’t say anything.

  “And it was him who got careless with the bedroom door.” She stops, then says in a rush, “Have you considered…maybe he wanted you to find us?”

  “Why would he do that?” you say, mystified.

  She shrugs. “Jesus, I don’t know. Guilt, maybe. Subconscious confession. He’s pretty strange in bed anyway, right? All that tantric stuff.”

  “Right,” you say, although you have no idea what she’s talking about. “I think you should go and check on Danny now.”

  “Okay.” At the door she stops and turns back. “Like I said, I’m sorry about what happened. I won’t be sorry to leave, though. I mean, I’m getting a good payoff and everything, but it’s not about that. The whole setup here, with Danny and you…I just can’t figure out what he wants. From you. From any of us. And that freaks me out, y’know?”

  “No,” you say firmly. “I really don’t.”

  34

  Two hours before John Renton and the other guests arrive, you make the marinade for the fish. Olive oil, white wine, fennel, peeled garlic cloves, Pernod, and yet more saffron. You cube the fish into chunks and remove the bones with tweezers.

  Step six: Cut baguettes into slices, each three-eighths of an inch thick. Drizzle with olive oil and bake at four hundred degrees until crisp, then rub with a sliced clove of garlic and spread with the rouille.

  Step seven: Make the bouillabaisse.

  Chop a dozen leeks and a dozen onions very fine, and sweat in an open pan along with a bay leaf and another pinch of saffron. Dice a
nd deseed ten tomatoes, and whisk in a bowl along with yet more finely chopped garlic, more orange peel, and a glass of white wine. Add to the softened onions and pour in the fumet. Then add the chunks of seafood and poach for three to five minutes, until just done. Remove and keep warm.

  The reason it’s called a bouillabaisse is because of what happens next: You boil up the cooking liquid, very hard and fast, so everything emulsifies and acquires a soupy consistency.

  Add more Pernod to taste, more saffron and pepper to taste, and you’re done.

  Except, of course, you couldn’t actually taste it.

  35

  By the time Tim comes home, the kitchen is tidy again and the table laid. White wine—three bottles of Bâtard-Montrachet—is chilling in the fridge, as per his texted instructions. It’s his best wine, a mark of how important this evening is to him.

  “You’ve changed your hair,” he says, kissing you as he passes.

  “Yes. Do you like it?”

  “You should wear it any way you choose,” he says, frowning. “That’s the whole point. You’re autonomous, not some Stepford Wife. Whether I like it isn’t the point.”

  “You hate it.”

  “No, I like it. I’ll get used to it, anyway.”

  While Tim’s in the shower Mike arrives with Jenny, his wife. She’s geeky and boyish in a T-shirt and jeans. “I worked on your deep-learning capabilities,” she tells you earnestly when you’re introduced. It’s hard to think of an answer to that. You’re rescued by Mike, who adds proudly, “Jenny has a PhD from Stanford in logistic neurons.” You nod as if you know what on earth that means. But after a moment, of course, clunk, you do. An antisymmetric sigmoidal function that can be trained from real-life examples rather than explicitly programmed.

  “You mean you built my brain,” you paraphrase.

  She nods. “I guess.”

  Elijah brings his husband, Robert. A woman called Alicia Wright arrives on her own—late thirties, toned, her blond hair glossily smooth. “Hi! I’m Scott Robotics’ PR consultant,” she says brightly, holding out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “I thought Katrina was the PR consultant,” you say.

  “Tim fired her this morning,” Elijah says. “Alicia is new.”

  “But fully up to speed, and super excited to be working with the famous Abbie!” she assures you.

  Tim comes down from his shower. He’s changed from the black jeans and gray James Perse T-shirt he came home in, into fresh black jeans and another gray T-shirt. While you open the wine, the others brief him.

  “Try to behave,” Mike suggests. “Renton’s an idiot, but he’s a smart idiot. He’ll want to test you. Stand your ground, but don’t let him rile you.”

  “I always behave,” Tim says, bristling.

  “Just not always well,” Elijah mutters.

  As if on cue, John Renton arrives. To your surprise, given their descriptions of him, he’s much younger than Tim and Mike. But his manner is of someone older—brash, confident, dominating the room. You see Tim stiffen as Renton slaps him on the shoulder, and know instantly that your husband dislikes this man.

  When Renton’s introduced to Alicia he interrogates her about who else she’s worked with. Each person she names, he tells her about his own last interaction with them—“You PR for Shaun? He called me the other day, trying to get me to invest in that lame app he’s building.” “Oh, Catherine? Smart lady. We just shared a platform at TED.” You see her responding to his attention, how her body moves just a little more sensuously, how she touches her hair when he speaks. He has the opposite of good looks or charm—indeed, he’s almost ugly—but you can see how some women might be charmed by him.

  At last he turns to you. “So this is her!” he exclaims, holding out his hand.

  You shake it. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He laughs delightedly. “An AI with feelings. Get that! What are you feeling right now?”

  You think. “Happy. And a little nervous.”

  “Do I make you nervous?” he says eagerly.

  You shake your head. “I’m just worried about how my bouillabaisse will turn out.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, I do feel a certain amount of monachopsis.”

  Renton frowns. “Monachopsis?”

  “It’s a persistent feeling of being out of place.”

  His eyes widen. “Monachopsis. I never even heard of that.” He turns to Tim. “Impressive.”

  Tim rolls his eyes. He clearly thinks that someone who’s impressed by your use of a long word to describe a feeling—as opposed to the fact you can have a feeling in the first place—has missed the point of you completely.

  “I’ll get the wine,” you say hastily.

  Half an hour later, you’re opening a second bottle, and Renton’s in full flow.

  “I gotta tell you, Tim, when I first heard about this I thought you were nuts. I mean, feelings? Feelings are what made my wife my ex-wife, for chrissake. Sure, I can see some possibilities. Healthcare, maybe. The sex industry.” I see Tim wince. “But fundamentally, there’s an acceptability issue. People don’t want their robots to have feelings. Because if machines feel like humans, pretty soon some bleeding heart will decide we should treat them like humans. And then the whole economic argument for AI vanishes. Instead of being mechanical servants, tilling our fields and toiling in our sweatshops, suddenly they’re indistinguishable from people. But making people is cheap, right? It’s running them that’s expensive. With AI, it should be the other way around. We start giving robots the same rights, the same consideration, maybe even the same pay, then where’s the viability in that?”

  “If you prick us, do we not bleed,” Mike says, nodding.

  “Bleed?” Renton repeats, clearly puzzled.

  “The Merchant of Venice. I forget how it goes on.”

  “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” you say. “If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

  There’s a silence. “My point exactly,” Renton says. “You’re not ticklish, right?”

  You shake your head.

  “The Shylock question is an interesting one, actually,” Jenny says thoughtfully. “If the capacity to feel emotion means experiencing pain as well as pleasure, by what right do we inflict that on other intelligences?”

  Tim’s eyes flash. “You’re both missing the point. Cobots aren’t slaves or pets. They’re people. Just in another form.”

  “Whatever they are, they’re an expensive luxury item,” Renton says dismissively. “An economic dead end. Your problem, Tim, is that you’ve invented this thing but you have no real vision for what to do with it.”

  You stand up. “I’ll get the bouillabaisse.”

  The debate—which is not quite an argument, but at times so fierce it almost sounds like one—only pauses when you bring the soup to the table. You sit back and watch as they lift the first spoonful to their mouths.

  Tim frowns. But it’s Renton who speaks first.

  “Whoa!” he says, staring at his bowl. “What happened here?”

  Mike sniffs his spoonful. “That’s rank,” he says quietly.

  “What’s wrong?” you ask anxiously.

  “I think some of your fish may have been off,” Jenny says nervously.

  “That’s not possible—” you begin, but then you remember. The employee who couldn’t understand why you wanted fish bones. Who only agreed to add them when he thought they were for your cat. Clearly, he’d simply tossed a bag from the trash in with the order, assuming your pet would sort out the edible ones.

  Your stock—your beautiful, elaborate, saffron-infused fumet—was poisoned from the start.

  “I’m so sorry—” you say helplessly.

  Tim pulls out his
phone. “Basilico can have pizza here in thirty minutes. That good for everyone?”

  Numbly, you collect the full bowls and carry them back to the kitchen. Jenny gets up to help.

  “I feel like such an idiot,” you say miserably when you’re alone.

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “I’ve let Tim down. John Renton came here convinced I’m an expensive white elephant and I’ve just proved him right. Of course I can’t smell anything. I’m a robot.”

  “I wouldn’t necessarily assume that’s Renton’s view,” Jenny says cautiously. “He wouldn’t be here if it was. He’s just sparring. He’s like that. All those tech guys are.”

  You glance at her. “Mike’s not, though.”

  “Mike’s not,” she agrees. “Or not so much. Which is why I married him.” She gives you a sideways look. “Why do you say, of course you can’t smell?”

  “I can’t, can I?”

  She shrugs. “The food industry already uses artificial taste buds. The deep learning for an artificial nose has existed for years.”

  “So why…” You stop, thinking through the implications. “He wanted to build me as quickly as he could,” you realize. “To get me back. Even if it meant having to cut a few corners.”

  “Well, I guess that’s men for you. Their priorities come first.”

  “He loves me,” you say defensively. “He couldn’t wait a day longer than he absolutely had to.”

  You say it, but once again you have that uneasy feeling about Tim’s love for you—that it’s as driven and uncompromising as everything else he does. There could be something claustrophobic, even frightening, about being loved so much and so inflexibly.

  “Yes,” Jenny says. “Tim turned out quite the romantic, in the end.” And again you have a sense of hidden history, of backstories and shared memories and past events that are still unknown to you.

  36

  While they wait for the pizza to arrive, they finish the Bâtard-Montrachet and start on the Pernod, which is eighty-six proof. Only Alicia refuses—she’s still barely touched her wine. Jenny fills a shot glass along with the rest, but sips it slowly. The others down theirs in one, then reach for refills.