by Julie Hyzy
She’d eventually caught on, of course. Hauled him into a program that, despite his sometimes violent refusal to cooperate, made him see things differently and change his habits. And somehow, she’d managed to keep the episode quiet from all their friends. From their family. She’d taken the companion course, attacked it with gusto, and encouraged Keith’s progress till he was sober again.
Looking at life through the eyes of the newly abstemious, he’d been zealous in his desire to impress Margaret. Fresh with confidence, he’d behaved like a man possessed. And in a way, he had been. In her efficient way, with murmured endearments and quiet encouragements, she’d turned the tide in his life. His focus became returning the favor.
She made it seem like she’d be there forever. And he’d believed it.
The store across the street couldn’t have looked more innocent. An apple green sign perched above the entrance, spelled out Virtually Yours in crazy, crooked letters. Frameless glass, rendered nearly invisible by the brightly lit interior, gave the illusion of barrier-free egress from the street. Welcoming, cheerful, it was the kind of store people visited with families in tow, to choose the evening’s entertainment. Movies, games, and other entertainment discs were displayed next to merchandise with tied-in themes. Rows of colorful boxes stood in neat lines like shelved books, sorted by genre and medium. Keith couldn’t see Margaret inside. But he wasn’t surprised. It had been like this for the past four times he’d sat here.
She’d been inside for twenty minutes.
He signaled to the bartender; there was plenty of time for one more.
When she started coming home late a month ago, he’d arranged his face into careful nonchalance, and said something vague about being surprised not to see her when he got in. She’d fluttered her hand, brushing away his question like some sort of pesky insect. “Yeah,” she’d said, without looking at him, “worked a little overtime.”
Something about her casual manner bothered him. And when she came home late for the fourth time in two weeks, he’d decided to find out why.
He wrapped his hand around his fresh beer and scowled. Fake. Just like his wife. What was so exciting about this place that she visited it twice a week? And why didn’t she tell him about it? He had no idea what she could be doing for so many evenings in a place so innocuous-looking, but he intended to find out.
Keith looked over his shoulder at the bartender filling a mug from a brass spout. He licked his lips and thought about tasting something real.
Thirty-seven minutes tonight. Keith stopped the timer on his watch when Margaret emerged, a smile on her lips. He wondered who’d put it there. He released the time-stop mechanism and folded his hands together, his white-knuckled fingers writhing together like squirming snakes, mimicking the struggle in his brain. He blinked twice to clear his head, and blew out a steadying breath. Always between thirty-three and thirty-eight minutes. And she came out with no bags, no packages—nothing but her purse. So she wasn’t shopping. He eased back a little in his chair, to keep his face in shadow in case she glanced across the street. But she didn’t. His leg twitched a nervous rhythm as he watched her. Her routine never varied. Once outside the door, she looked around, took a breath, and, with that contented little smile, turned toward home.
He watched her until she turned the far corner before he paid his tab and walked outside. He hated weather like this. Hot, steamy. Even when the sun went down. Made his skin crawl and his head pound. Street lights sputtered and shone dismally, their brightness swallowed up by the humid night air. He could see the mosquitoes swarming in the buzzing lights, waiting for unsuspecting humans to provide their evening feast. It was wet, hot and unpleasant. Virtually Yours, with its cheerful, artificial brightness, promised a respite from the darkness and humidity, beckoning with almost sinister attraction.
He crossed the street.
Sensing his presence, the doors whooshed open, hitting him with a little puff of cool air and the sound of lively music. It was a busy place; young employees stocked shelves and answered questions with helpful smiles. The staff was easy enough to identify, wearing company issue apple-green shirts that matched the outside sign. White walls, with embossed sparkle, provided a pristine background for the array of colorful merchandise. The floor was that same shade of apple-green, with little speckles of bright blue thrown in, for variety, he guessed.
“Hi,” he said to the girl behind the counter. The twenty-something salesclerk looked up from watching a music monitor and sprang into action. She smiled as she bounced off her seat, her shiny chestnut curls swishing back and forth as she walked. She was beautiful. He ran a quick hand through his hair.
“Can I help you?” she asked, with a tilt of her head.
“Ahhh, yeah,” Keith said, having no idea what he wanted to ask. “I, uh, that is, my wife…”
Her nametag, pinned to her company shirt, hung by a thread. Keith turned his head sideways to read it as he spoke. She nodded, her eyes bright.
“Well, Clarisse, she comes here a lot, maybe twice a week or so…” How do you ask what your wife is doing in a place like this?
“Oh, then she’s doing Travelogue.”
Travelogue? Okay, he’d go along. “Yeah,” he said, smiling, “I think that’s what she said.”
“And you’re here, looking for a gift, right?”
Keith tried to look sheepish. “Yeah.”
“Okay.” Down to business now, she placed her hands, one over the other, on the counter between them and leaned forward with a grin. For a young thing she was certainly self-possessed. “First of all, what you need to know is that it really is best if your wife picks out her own Travelogue. Especially if she’s been doing it here for some time.”
Keith had no idea what she was talking about, so he nodded.
“But we offer gift certificates…”
He tried to make it look like he was considering it. “That seems so… impersonal, though. Don’t you think?”
Her grin widened. “You’re one of those really great husbands, aren’t you? You know, most guys don’t think that Travelogue is such a good idea, and they really don’t like their wives getting into it. It’s nice to run into a guy who can handle it.”
What was this Travelogue anyway? Keith pasted a smile on his face, wanting to grab the girl by her shiny chestnut hair and shake the answers out of her. “Not a lot of guys can,” he agreed.
“Most guys won’t even try it. They go around complaining about how much time their wives spend on it, but do they even take the time to find out what it’s all about?” She shook her head and rolled her brown eyes. “No.”
“Well,” Keith said, sensing an opening, “that’s another reason why I’m here.”
“You want to try it?” she asked in a high voice. “Cool. I’ll set you up.”
Not knowing what to expect, Keith followed Clarisse to the back of the shop, listening to her chatter. She led him behind the large animated wall that played advertisements for the various entertainment options available. A heavy silver door opened before them, and closed quickly as they passed through, shutting them off from the busy sounds of the store. Total silence.
He followed her down a sterile white corridor of apple-green doors, each closed and numbered. At number twelve, she stopped and entered a series of commands into the keypad next to it. The door swung open toward them, silently. Inside was a room so small that they could both barely occupy it at once. The only thing in it was a bright blue chair, built into the wall. Clarisse gestured and Keith sat. From a panel on the wall she pulled something that looked like old-fashioned earphones, but instead of pulling it over his head like a headband, she wound it around the back, attaching two sensors to his temples and allowing the curved plastic band to rest on the back of his neck. In order to make sure it fit well, she was required not once, but twice, to reach behind him to confirm the gear’s placement. He felt her cool breath on the back of his neck for those brief seconds and enjoyed the scent of her as she l
eaned in, close. Not perfumey, she reminded him of the outside, clean and fresh.
Standing back, she asked, “Comfy?”
He nodded.
“Okay,” she said, and reaching into her pocket she pulled out a silver cylinder. “This one’s a blank. If you choose to continue, just let me know and I’ll file it away for you.” With that, she tucked the silver piece into the side of the headset and said, “Have a nice time!”
Stepping out from the privacy booth thirty minutes later, Keith put his hands to his face to shade his eyes. The enormous rush of relief he’d felt as he completed the Travelogue series had started as a bubble of emotion down deep and was working its way up to his throat as he re-entered the main store. He understood now. This sort of thing was exactly what Margaret would love. A release, a way to experience other lands and cultures. She was so interested in things like that. A real classy woman. They never had enough money to travel and maybe that’s why she kept her visits here a secret. Because she wouldn’t want him to feel bad. He squeezed his thumb and finger over his eyes, trying to quell the heat gathering there. No need to get emotional. He took a deep breath and returned to the counter.
“How’d it go?” Clarisse asked with a smile when Keith came back to the counter.
He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“Great,” she said, taking the mechanism from him. “Do you have some idea of what your wife would like, now that you’ve tried it?”
He blew out a breath, found his voice, “I got a bunch of questions…”
“Of course you do. Hey, but let me show you how the thing works.” With deft fingers, she removed the tiny silver cylinder from the headgear. A little smaller than her index finger, the cylinder’s outer casing reflected the ambient light with a glimmering rainbow. Clarisse slid her thumb to a tiny line near the top of the cylinder, exerting a bit of pressure. With a whooshed click, the top flipped up and from within a blinking and whirring module popped up. “This,” she said, “is the brains, or heart, I guess, of the Travelogue. Your experiences are stored here. And when you’re in, you’re in. It’s, like, impossible to even remember there’s an outside world. But that’s what makes it so cool.”
Keith shook his head. How could the world of experiences he’d encountered be produced by that little device? Shaped like a tall, skinny ‘S’, the module was lined with minuscule yellow, blue and green lights. The blue ones blinked and Keith could feel them asking for input. How strange.
As Clarisse closed the cylinder, he reached for it. When the salesgirl didn’t immediately let go, Keith looked at her. “Now this is important,” she said, still holding, “she can’t let anyone else use her Travelogue. Ever. Not even her best friend. Nobody. Their thoughts will reconfigure the matrix and she won’t recognize it when she gets back. It’ll ruin it for her, and even if she started over with a blank, she would never be able to recreate the same experience.”
“What about a backup? Is there a way to do that?”
Clarisse shook her head. “Whoever designed this was really smart and is probably really, really rich right now. The way it’s set up, everybody has to have her own Travelogue. That means no borrowing, no copying. But there is a way to share the experiences without messing it up. There’s a view-only option. Hang on.” She walked over to a nearby cabinet, unlocked it and pulled out a monocle-shaped mirrored glass with two wire leads attached to it. “People buy this piece mostly to check on their kids and make sure they aren’t getting into anything too strange.” Her perfectly shaped eyebrows arched upward as she fitted the leads to the Travelogue gear, explaining. “I guess you never know. But…” she continued. She looked uneasy. “There’s more.”
Keith nodded, “More?”
“Yeah. You probably don’t need to worry about this especially since you seem like a normal person and I’m sure your wife is too, but we have to give everybody the warning. There have been cases where people get stuck in Travelogue.”
“Stuck? How?”
“They don’t ever come out of the story. They look normal, but the Travelogue’s playing in their head, even after they take it off—like forever.” Clarisse shook her head and reopened the cylinder. “There’s a safety button, here,” she pointed a navy blue fingernail to a small golden ring, “prevents the brain from being sucked into the reality permanently.”
Keith knew he looked skeptical and Clarisse explained further, “You see, when you’re in Travelogue, you’re creating memories. And your unconscious brain… or is it subconscious…?” she furrowed her brow. “Whatever. It can’t distinguish between real and imagined. So it takes all the memories and files them away in the ‘real’ column. That’s why you need this gold piece here. With this in, everything’s fine.” She reached her shiny fingernails in and grabbed hold of the golden ring.
“With it out…,” She pulled. A metallic click and she held it up to the light. “It’s tiny, but this little gold piece keeps your brain safe, and lets you enjoy the Travelogue, without getting lost in it.”
“Has that ever happened?”
“Really rare,” she said, replacing the ring. “And it can’t be done accidentally. Like I said, you look pretty normal, but there are some people who think that taking the safety off will heighten the experience. But even taking it off for a couple seconds is dangerous.” She shook her head. “Stupid, actually. And from what I understand, it’s real creepy to see someone like that because they’re always hallucinating. You know, like, permanently. Won’t catch me trying that.” She released the cylinder to Keith. “I know you’ll be fine, though. Do you want the whole package or just the starter gear? That’s the part that costs the most. Fifty credits.”
“Wow. Expensive.”
“I could hold it for you for a couple of days, if that would help. But your wife’d still have to come in for the ‘heart’ of the Travelogue—the part she’s been participating in. And that’s another fifteen.”
Keith pretended to mull it over. “You know what? I think I’ll let her buy the whole thing herself.” He winked, “Who says a debit disk can’t buy happiness?”
“I’m not on commission or anything, so it doesn’t matter to me,” Clarisse said, “but I think you’re doing the right thing.”
“Margaret!”
Keith heard a muffled reply from upstairs. He waited in the kitchen for her, a mixed bouquet of flowers in his hands. For years he’d brought her roses, yellow, her favorite color. Until he’d overheard her admiring an arrangement at her friend, Deirdre’s, house. With a sigh, as she’d caressed a snapdragon and leaned to smell a tiger lily, she’d said how much she liked roses, but that when a man took the time to pick out flowers that were different, but that he thought a woman would like, it was so much more romantic. And then she’d laughed and said it was probably cheaper, too.
“Keith?” She looked at him quizzically. “What’s this all about?”
But she was smiling. Thank God. He’d almost blown it. He’d almost believed that she would cheat on him. He could be such an idiot sometimes.
“I’m just so lucky to have you,” Keith said, his voice choking up, “I don’t tell you that enough.”
Margaret reached for the proffered flowers, still looking unsure. “I know that. You don’t need to bring me flowers.” Her gaze shifted to them, “But they’re beautiful. Look at the colors.”
“I hope you like them,” Thank God, thank God, thank God. He watched her as she put them in water. She’d changed into her comfort clothes, baggy shorts and an old tee-shirt that did nothing to show off her slim figure. Her feet were bare and her brown hair was tucked behind her ears. She caught him staring.
“I like them very much. But you don’t need to bring me anything.”
Keith didn’t know why she kept her Travelogue visits a secret from him. But it didn’t matter now. He and Margaret had often talked about seeing more of the world. Of doing more. But they never did, and Keith knew he’d been the one holding them back. That’s why th
e secrecy. He nodded and gestured expansively. “I have another surprise for you, Margaret.”
She’d found a vase and was placing the arrangement on the table. “Yes?” she asked, stringing out the word.
“Here,” he handed her a debit disk. “Eighty units. I got a bonus at work for that project I was working on.” It was a lie, but she’d never find out. “And I want you to spend this on yourself, do you hear? No grocery-buying or anything.”
A starter Travelogue set, plus the ‘heart’ cost sixty-five units, and he wanted her to have enough to buy some extras, if she wanted. Maybe eventually, she’d share her adventures with him.
The next day, back at his perch in the bar across from Virtually Yours, Keith, feeling like a kid at Christmas, waited for Margaret to come out. At twenty-four minutes, his good mood started to falter, and he took a long drink of the coffee in front of him. She shouldn’t have to go into the sensory booth today. She should just buy the thing and come home. What was taking so long? He watched, shook a sugar packet, and worried.
At thirty-one minutes she emerged, apple-green bag in hand. “Yes!” he said aloud. She was wearing a big grin that made him want to rush across the street to share her happiness. If the bar patrons noticed his exclamation, they didn’t react. He shifted in his suddenly uncomfortable seat. Waiting would be tough.
He gave her a half hour head start, and then started for home.
“Hi Honey.”
Margaret looked up from the book she had open on the kitchen table before her. “Keith,” she said, “you’re back earlier than I expected.” She looked at her watch. “It’s Thursday. How come you’re not out with the guys?”