by Delaney, JP
There was a long silence as we thought about that. The person who made the comment was new, and didn’t understand the ramifications.
But it was great to see Tim so happy, we agreed. Abbie was really good for him. It was a story old as time: Hard-ass falls in love, stops being such a hard-ass.
* * *
—
At one of the boring investment functions, Abbie and John Renton’s ex-wife got drunk and danced on a table. Some of the men gathered around them, whooping, and tucked hundred-dollar bills into their shoes, like they were strippers.
Tim watched this with a strange expression on his face, Elijah reported. It was as if he was half proud of Abbie, half worried she was going too far.
Elijah heard him say to her later, as they were walking out to the parking desk, “I know you’re not a slut. It’s just that none of them know that.”
She linked her arm through his. “And every single one of them was jealous of you,” she teased. “Thinking you might have a slutty girlfriend.
“Which I am most definitely not, by the way,” she added.
“I know,” Tim said. “It’s one of the things I love about you.” And he laughed, that high goofy giggle that always seemed so unlikely coming from his mouth.
The next day, someone glimpsed a PowerPoint Tim was working on in his office. It was titled, Why Polyamory Is Dumb.
* * *
—
Someone who went to Maker Faire saw Abbie’s name on the exhibitors’ list and went to see what she was showing. It was a sculpture made out of six pairs of shopbot legs, walking on a treadmill. It wasn’t her best work, he reported. It was basically just the runway incident, rehashed.
What was more noteworthy was that Abbie was hanging out with a bunch of people who looked like rock musicians—tattooed, long-haired, bearded. They all seemed wasted. Not on alcohol, either, our informant said: It was more like they were on speed or coke. He spoke to Abbie, or tried to, but she, too, was gabbling nonsense, her eyes popping and her forehead shiny with sweat.
We were surprised, and also disappointed. Sure, Abbie had to let off steam occasionally. And sure, she was an artist. She’d probably been around people who did drugs for years. But still…She herself had seemed so clean-living, so wholesome. It was hard to reconcile those clear eyes, that fresh, unspoiled beauty, with any kind of substance abuse.
We all wondered who was going to be the one to tell Tim his girlfriend was a cokehead. Well, perhaps cokehead was a bit strong; recreational user was probably more accurate, but that was not a distinction we imagined Tim would take much notice of. He had a zero-tolerance policy for drugs in the office, with testing a mandatory part of the recruitment process. Even outside of work he rarely touched anything stronger than a glass of wine.
Of course, we told each other wisely, that had been part of Abbie’s appeal for him—her otherness, the fact that she came from a different, more creative milieu. But even so, we predicted the relationship was now headed for the rocks. Tim was not someone who could compromise over a matter like drugs. Or, indeed, any matter. And we felt sad about that, because we’d really liked Abbie. And we’d really, really liked what she did to Tim.
39
When Danny comes to the table for breakfast, you show him the picture menu you made. But today it isn’t working. He gives it a cursory glance, then ignores it.
“Come on, Danny,” you say at last. “There must be something you want to eat.”
Scrambling down from his chair, he goes and fetches one of his Thomas the Tank Engine books. You see him considering. Then, quickly, he slips the book into the toaster and pushes down the handle.
“Hmm. Maybe not such a good idea,” you say, retrieving it. You hand it back to him. Immediately, he tries to take a bite from it.
“Bother that telephone!” he says distinctly.
You look at him, thinking hard. Those words he just said—you recognize them. They’re from Toby the Tram Engine—the same book he’s just tried to eat.
Coaxing the book from him, you find the page where the Fat Controller—as he was called in those days—is being served toast and marmalade by his butler when the telephone rings, interrupting his breakfast.
“Is that what you want, Danny?” you ask. “Toast and marmalade?”
“Well blister my buffers,” Danny says. He seems almost startled that you’ve been able to follow his circuitous thought processes.
Startled, and also pleased.
* * *
—
After Sian’s collected Danny to take him to school, you get out your phone. You don’t know exactly when you made the decision to call Lisa, but having made it, it feels right.
You find her name in CONTACTS and press CALL. So simple. You imagine your sister picking up her own phone, staring at the caller ID. There’ll be a few moments of shock, you imagine. But after all, she’s seen you on TV now. At some point, she’ll answer.
But she doesn’t. After a few rings, the call goes to voicemail. You can’t bring yourself to leave a message. Your first contact with her after so long shouldn’t be a recording.
A few minutes later, you try again. This time it cuts out after one ring. You imagine her holding the phone, waiting for your name to appear, her finger jabbing down at the button to cut you off. To get ABBIE off her screen as quickly as possible.
Sighing, you send a text. Lisa, it’s me. It’s REALLY me, whatever you may have read or heard. I’m going to call again. Pick up this time, will you?
Delivered, the phone tells you. Then: Read. Three dots appear, meaning she’s typing. But no reply comes. She must have deleted her answer before sending it.
Encouraged, you try dialing again. And this time it’s answered. She doesn’t say anything, but you can hear her breathing.
“Leese, we need to meet,” you say into the silence. “I know you think this is weird—I do, too. But it’s not like I had any say in the matter.”
“Jesus,” she whispers disbelievingly. “Jesus. It sounds—it sounds—” She starts to cry.
“Why don’t I come to Spikes?” you say, naming the coffee bar where you used to meet up sometimes, halfway between your houses. “Say at eleven?”
She doesn’t reply, just sniffs back tears.
“Look, I’m going to be there anyway,” you say, after a while. “Please come. I need to see you.”
FOURTEEN
It has to be said, we couldn’t spot any signs of Abbie’s alleged drug use at work, no matter how closely we looked. What we saw instead was someone immersing herself in a new creative project. There was a full-sized 3-D printer in the workshop, a very expensive piece of machinery for making prototypes. At Abbie’s request, Darren showed her how it could be used to make perfect replicas of almost anything.
She ordered in a load of Newplast, a soft modeling putty favored by stop-frame animators. Then, for a whole week, she took over the printer booth. We didn’t know what she was doing in there, but she started arriving late and working through the night. Tim was cool with that, we gathered.
As with the punching bags, she made no fanfare about this new artwork when it was finished. We simply came into work one day and found Sol, who usually got in earliest, in a state of high excitement.
“You have got to come and see what she’s done this time,” he told us.
He led us to one of the meeting rooms. And there it was—a life-sized, 3-D replica of Abbie, fashioned out of flesh-colored putty. Apart from the briefest of thongs, she was nude. She stood with her hands on her hips, her torso turned slightly sideways, as if looking at herself in a mirror.
“Holy fuck,” someone breathed, and indeed it was a remarkable sight. Nobody wanted to look uncool by commenting on it directly, but Abbie really did have an awesome body. It was more than that, though. It might only have been a 3-D printout, but
you really got a sense of what kind of person she was: vibrant, optimistic, even somewhat innocent.
It was only after we’d been staring for several minutes that someone spotted the printed card fixed to the nearby wall.
DO AS YOU PLEASE (FEEL FREE!)
3-D printed modeling putty and wireframe
Interactive installation
Dimensions variable
“How is it interactive?” someone else wondered. “It doesn’t do anything, does it?”
“And why dimensions variable?” asked one of the girls.
“Maybe,” Kenneth suggested, “we’re meant to—you know—play with it?”
There was silence while we digested this. Someone bent down and gave the sculpture’s foot a tentative squeeze, just above the toes. “It’s soft, all right,” he reported.
“Hey, don’t ruin it!” Marie Necker protested.
“But I think that’s the whole idea. I think we’re supposed to—refashion it.”
Sol placed his thumb halfway down the sculpture’s right hip and pressed. When he took his hand away, it left a small dish-shaped dimple containing his thumbprint.
“I don’t think you should have done that,” Marie said nervously.
“Why not?” Sol retorted.
“Has Tim seen it yet?” someone else wondered aloud. That brought us all up short. Whatever we were meant to do with the sculpture, no one wanted to be the one who did it before Tim had had a chance to decide what the right reaction was.
40
You get to Spikes early. Lisa’s late, so late you start to wonder if she’s coming at all. But you’re confident she’ll show in the end. Somehow it’s just one of the things you know about her.
While you wait, you look through the video clips stored in your phone. They’re of Danny, mostly. In one, taken the morning of his fourth birthday—just a few months before his regression—he’s singing “Happy Birthday” to himself in his excitement. His face is almost broken in two by his toothy smile as he reaches the end: “Happy burfday dear Danneeeee….Happity burfday to meeeee!”
Your voice, behind the camera, can be heard correcting gently, “Not burfday, Danny. Birthday.”
“Burfday!” he repeats eagerly. “Vat’s what I said.” He had a slight lisp—a result of hooking his front teeth over his bottom lip, the speech therapist told you. She said he’d almost certainly grow out of it, but you could help by modeling correct pronunciation.
You sigh at the memory. But then you remember that tiny moment of connection at breakfast over the toast this morning, and you can’t help smiling. Danny might have changed almost beyond recognition, but he’s still your child.
* * *
—
Lisa eventually turns up at half past, staring at you through the window. You give her a tentative wave and a rueful smile that says, I didn’t mean for it to be like this.
She doesn’t get coffee, just comes straight over and sits down. Physically, she’s not like you—you somehow got her share of good looks as well as your own, she used to say wryly—but you have exactly the same eyes. Most people wouldn’t even notice, but looking at that one part of her is like looking into a mirror. Of course, she’s five years older than when you last saw her, but Lisa always dressed middle-aged anyway.
“I saw you on TV,” she says abruptly. “But somehow in the flesh…” She swallows. “Christ, what am I even saying? There’s no flesh involved.”
“They deliberately made me look terrible on TV. But at least it means I don’t get recognized in places like this.”
She gives herself a little shake. “It sounds like you. Like her, I mean.”
“It is me. At least, I think it is. It’s my mind, Leese. A very small sliver of it, I gather, but enough to feel like me. You can debate whether that makes me AI or transhuman—and believe me, Tim’s friends debated it for an hour over dinner only last night—but the point is, I’m not just some electromechanical look-alike.”
“What was the name of your first doll?” she demands.
“Trick question. Grafton. Our parents insisted all our toys were gender-neutral. They were pretty advanced like that.”
She stares at you.
“But to be fair, my memories are patchy,” you add. “You’d be amazed how few you actually need to retain a sense of self. I’m like an Alzheimer’s sufferer in reverse—slowly filling in the gaps.”
She shakes her head. “This is so weird.”
“Tell me about it.” You reach forward and take her hand. “I’ve missed you, Leese.”
She snatches her hand away. “Oh God,” she whispers. “God.” She starts to cry.
“This is all his fault,” she adds through her tears. “That bastard.”
“Tim? He’s given me a second chance at life. He loves me. How does that make him a bastard?”
“This isn’t love. This is—this is necrophilia.”
“Hardly,” you say drily. “He hasn’t given me any genitals.”
Lisa snorts. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s a control freak,” she says bluntly. “Always was. One of the ways he liked to control you was by withholding sex.”
You frown. “I told you that?”
She swipes at her tears. “Not in so many words. That is, you defended him. It was a sign he respected you, you said. Personally I always thought it was a sign he didn’t care about your needs at all. Just this grand, narcissistic passion of his. Loving you was all about him—how romantic he was, how forgiving, how much adoration he was capable of. But God help you if you ever stepped off your pedestal.”
“Did I ever try?”
“Sometimes. But never particularly hard, it seemed to me.” She looks at you for a moment, thinking. “Okay—here’s an example, off the top of my head. This one time, you were really, really tired—Danny hadn’t been sleeping. But Tim wanted sex. Since he wasn’t actually going to come—too messy, too out-of-control—sex usually went on until you came. So, on this occasion, you faked it. But you obviously didn’t do it too well, because he picked up on it. He went on at you about it for days. If Jack had done that to me, I’d have given him his marching orders. But you were always so damn understanding. Anyway, I told you Tim’s attitude was outrageous—I couldn’t understand why you’d felt obligated to have sex in the first place, let alone fake an orgasm, but since you had, it was none of his business. I must have convinced you I was right, because that’s what you eventually told him.” She shrugs. “Hardly a big deal, right? But Tim didn’t talk to you for weeks. Just cut you off. Then when he did start talking, and you told him it came from me, he wouldn’t have me in the house. He got mad if you even spoke to me on the phone.”
You wait to see if the memory of what Lisa’s describing comes back to you. But there’s nothing. “How are you and Jack these days?”
She gives a short, bitter bark of laughter. “Well, there’s the thing. We separated a few years back.”
“Tim and I must have been doing something right, then.”
“I guess.” She gives you a glance. “Or you were too scared to leave him.”
You frown at her. “What makes you say that?”
“You always tiptoed around him. Everyone did. The brilliant Tim Scott, the boy wonder who was going to change the world. He didn’t have employees. He had acolytes. Like a cult. I always thought it was a shame you met him in that environment—all those yes-kids falling to their knees whenever he so much as walked past their desks. Personally, I can’t imagine anything worse than living with someone like that. There was something creepy about the way you always had to live up to this perfect image of yourself that he’d created in his head.” She shudders. “But if you were having second thoughts, you probably wouldn’t have told me. You’d have hated me to have bee
n right about him.”
You think of that book hidden in the bookcase, Overcoming Infatuation. Perhaps it wasn’t you who was the infatuated one, after all. Perhaps you were simply trying to understand the man you were married to.
You push the thought away. Lisa always did this. She enjoyed being the all-knowing, sensible older sister. It was one of the things that, growing up, made you delight in being reckless. Whenever she said something was too dangerous, you just went right ahead and did it anyway.
“And do you remember how you cut off all your hair that time?” she’s saying. “You decided braids were impractical now that you were a mother. Plus there’d been some stuff on social media about it being cultural appropriation or something. So you took a pair of scissors to them. It looked stunning, actually—everything looked stunning on you. But you hadn’t consulted Tim. He was furious. You had to get extensions and braid them exactly the way they’d been before.”
You shake your head. “I don’t remember that, no. Are you sure that really happened? Perhaps I was exaggerating.”
“You didn’t exaggerate. If anything, you had—what do they call it?—Pangloss syndrome. Everything was always beautiful and brilliant and so damn perfect in this amazing new world you and Tim were building together. Arrgh.” She mimes sticking her fingers down her throat.
You think how just the other day you’d asked Tim whether he liked your French braids, and he’d said it was up to you how you wore your hair. And yet, after the poisoned fish debacle, you’d changed it back again. Unconsciously trying to please him, perhaps?
Such tiny, tiny things. And, after all, there are little glitches in any relationship, tiny creases in the carpet. Faking an orgasm—in the great scheme of things, it was nothing. Every wife has done it, and every husband’s suspected her of it. Okay, maybe Lisa wouldn’t, out of some kind of feminist principle, but Lisa always ended up with quiet, downtrodden partners who eventually ran off with someone more fun anyway.