by Gish Jen
“Will he lose his job?”
“He deserves to,” said Eleanor.
“Though it all depends on how the university disciplinary code is written,” I put in quickly. “Which in turn depends on who wrote it. And who knows how AutoJudges are programmed in the Netted world, if things get that far.”
“Plus, he’s young,” said Eleanor.
“Twenty-seven,” said Gwen.
“Young enough that the university may just reprimand him,” I said. “Depending on their rules.”
“Maybe I should write to him?” said Gwen, after a moment. “To express my sympathy, even if he’s guilty?”
“Of course, if you’d like,” said Eleanor.
But in the end, Gwen did not write. She had, after all, just enrolled in MoveTheEffOn, an online course for the brokenhearted, the first lesson of which was, Delete means delete. Romantic love is like an addiction, explained a bald speaker with a paisley-stamped scalp. Showing a scan of the brain, he circled in green a certain spot. “This,” he said, “is your problem. The ventral tegmental area. See how it’s lit up? This is the VTA of a person in love.” Then he introduced a woman who, he said, had succeeded in dimming her VTA. “Your goal,” he said, “is a time-scan like hers.” He showed a clip of the bright spot fading, in a matter of a month, to plain cerebral-matter gray.
“You have to delete everything that bears the guy’s name in any form,” Gwen reported, adding, “I could ask on the ClassChat whether it would be a good idea to send a note to Woody, but somehow I know what the answer is going to be.”
Eleanor and I nodded supportively.
“I’m going to dim that dot if it kills me,” she said.
In the meanwhile, sometimes she would say how at peace she was, and sometimes she would cry, and sometimes she would say how at peace she was even as she cried.
“How long is this supposed to take?” Eleanor asked me. “Do you know?”
I shook my head. “Healing is slow,” I said.
“Poor Gwen,” she said.
* * *
—
It took Diego ten days to convince the powers-that-be that adding Gwen to the roster was not adding a new member to the Lookouts but merely reinstating an original member.
“Regulations,” he muttered. “We didn’t used to have regulations.”
Even after he succeeded, his contention was challenged by the Newton Zebrafish, who pointed out that Gwen’s replacement remained on the team. When her replacement graciously stepped down, though, the challenge was dismissed. “Just in time for the playoffs!” crowed Diego—the Lookouts having indeed, happily, made the playoffs.
Gwen was not particularly nervous going into the first game. But as she was devoting more attention than usual to reading the batters and the catcher, two players managed to steal bases early on. One was tagged out. The other, however, advanced and scored, emboldening her teammates. In the fifth inning alone, the Burpies stole four bases, including one where Gwen picked off the runner at first only to have a runner at third steal home. She had never in her life, she said later, been so embarrassed.
She started throwing more fastballs, and the Lookouts did still win in extra innings. But so protracted was the battle that many thought Gwen ought to sit out the next game, which was just two days later. The pitch count, they said. Wasn’t she exhausted? Plus, the forecast was for gusts of forty miles per hour, possibly with rain. And the playoffs were best of three. A reasonable strategy might well be to save her for the third game.
But she applied what was left of her THC ointment to her elbow and pitched all the same, and this time recovered her command so convincingly that the Burpies spent most of the game Sweeting pictures of her. The Lookouts won 4–0, clinching the championship—hurrah! As the winter storms blew in right afterward, though, there was no exhibition game.
* * *
◆
It was early spring when a man showed up at our door.
There’s a strange man outside, said the house. He’s not from around here. And he is not ringing the doorbell but he does not seem to be a burglar. A burglar would be looking at your windows for ways of breaking in. This man is just standing there in the drizzle.
Why, having thought of Coach Link with such hostility for so long, did Eleanor and I soften toward him now? We had been in full support of Gwen’s efforts to rid her brain of its dot. But back when Gwen was at Net U, we had seen through the scrim of our fears a powerful man and an impressionable girl—a sheltered girl, as Renata had put it. A vulnerable girl. In contrast, I, for one, now saw an iron-willed young woman. A young woman who had confronted a powerful man and left him—a young woman who had proven herself fully capable of cutting him out of her life for good. A girl who could make her heart a rock.
And in place of the all-powerful man, I saw a man who had been through fires both public and private. A man who was quite possibly determined, as Renata had said, that nothing like what had happened would ever happen again, and a man, too, who had spoken to Gwen in more than a few ways. I saw a man to whom she had spoken in return—and a man of whom even my mother might have approved, had she known any like him. For what is a man, she used to say, if not a human who does not come back?
Woody did not look as I had expected. A slight man with kind eyes and a widow’s peak, he had surprisingly long brown hair, blue eyes, and a chipped tooth. Was he really a coach? Certainly, he had an athlete’s physicality—a way of not so much simply standing, as of planting his spread feet, for example. It was as if he never lost track of his foot mechanics; perhaps he noticed dorsiflexion in pitchers because it was so important to himself. But to see him now was to be reminded of the talk he gave to Gwen about how different pitchers were from one another. He was not what anyone would have thought the coach type. In fact, he was in his resting state distinctly gentle.
Gwen forbade me from letting him in.
“Wouldn’t you like to just say hello?” I said.
“I would prefer not to.”
“He is standing out in the rain with no jacket and no umbrella,” said Eleanor. “No hat, even.”
“It’s not raining that hard.”
“I think he is wearing a Lookouts T-shirt,” I said.
“Good for him.”
Eleanor and I looked at each other.
“We have to at least answer the door,” I said, and before Gwen could say anything else, I opened it.
“Hi, my name is Woody Link. I’m looking for Gwen Cannon-Chastanet,” said our visitor. “Is this the right address?”
“It is,” I told him.
“Might I see her?”
I could hear Gwen retreating upstairs to her room.
“She is indisposed,” I said.
“Indisposed.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning that she has somehow figured out that I have come and instructed you to turn me away.”
“I am afraid so.”
“Not much I can do about it, then,” he said. “Is there.” It was not, as Gwen said, raining that hard, but his hair was frizzled by the damp, and he had goose bumps.
“I am afraid not,” I said.
“Please tell her I said hi.” He looked me in the eye as if he expected that, as a fellow male, even of the distant galaxy that is another generation, I knew the suffering of our kind and would sympathize.
“I’ll do that.” I smiled what I hoped would seem a friendly smile. “Tact, sometimes, is all a father can offer,” I continued, “although in this case, perhaps I can lend you an umbrella?”
He refused but with gratitude, I thought, in the shake of his head. Then he walked away, his jeans curtaining a bit from his belt loop, as if he had lost some weight.
* * *
—
If Eleanor and I hadn’t failed to give Woody a proper welcome,
I would perhaps have held the line with Mimi a few days later. Indeed, I saw her in the VisiDoor and was tempted to pretend we weren’t home. But Eleanor lifted her chin, stood, and smoothed the front of her shirt as if to say, We just don’t treat visitors the way we treated Woody. At this Gwen bristled, lifting her own chin in parallel protest. But when I stood, she did, too. And when Mimi entered with a new yellow cane and new matching reading glasses above her broad smile, even Gwen was shamed by Eleanor’s pointed glance into mirroring Mimi’s warmth.
“You have a new cane,” said Eleanor.
“Like it?” said Mimi. “I thought it was time for a change.”
“A change of cane is always a good thing,” I said—to which everyone laughed, though none of us could have said what was funny. And then it was as if, what with everyone’s lips parting and cheeks lifting, everyone’s feelings followed suit.
In the garden, we discussed the hardening off of the seedlings. We discussed their transplanting. We discussed the dividing of the perennials. We discussed why peonies liked wood ashes and whether you needed to keep the ashes from touching the plants. We offered Mimi some hibiscus tea with wild mint as if this was an idea that had just that moment occurred to us.
Mimi’s mission did not surface until her teacup was empty, and then it was so predictable she seemed embarrassed to bring it up. But finally, setting her cup in its saucer with a clink, she asked if Gwen would consider trying out for the Olympics.
“We are holding special tryouts for the Surplus,” she said. “You might have seen the GovernorGram.”
It was the sort of statement to which Gwen would once have turned her back without answering. Now she simply said, “No.”
“No, you haven’t seen it?” Mimi looked hopeful.
“No, I did not see the GovernorGram and, no, I am not interested,” said Gwen.
Eleanor offered Mimi a cookie.
“You got me once with the tryout thing,” Gwen went on. “You aren’t going to get me again. And how well can I play when I simply do not care if Team AutoAmerica beats ChinRussia or not?”
“Don’t say that!” Mimi looked as though she had just discovered winnowing agents in the tea.
“In fact, I hope they lose,” said Gwen.
Normally Mimi set her cane down so hard she could have been punching holes in the sidewalk. But now as she left she seemed too dispirited to lift its lemon tip clear of anything, much less swing it up so it could land with decision.
“We are so sorry,” Eleanor began.
Mimi paused. “She is like you.”
“I hope I have better manners.”
“She is not going to get anywhere being like that.”
“Just as I have never gotten anywhere being the way I am, you mean.”
Mimi did not disagree.
And for several days afterward, the house echoed Mimi.
She is not going to get anywhere being like that.
She is not going to get anywhere being like that.
She is not going to get anywhere being like that.
“Oh, shut the hell up,” I said.
If you have objections, you should call an Autonet customer care representative, the house said. If you leave a message someone will get back to you shortly.
“Shut up!” I repeated. “Shut up! Shut up!”
* * *
—
Ten days later, Gwen was fencing in the garden with Eleanor when the house expressed surprise.
That man’s come back, it said. He’s on the walk.
I did not ask Gwen whether she wanted to see Woody or not. I simply glanced out the VisiID and opened the door before Woody even had time to ring. He stood awkwardly in the doorway a moment but then reached out a hand, which I warmly shook. He wore a Chattanooga Lookouts baseball hat, and in his free hand held what appeared to be a baseball glove knit out of yarn.
“Coach Link,” I said. “Good to see you again.”
“Please call me Woody.”
“Come in.” Eleanor popped out of the garden, foil still in hand. “We’ve heard so much about you.”
Woody looked taken aback by her weapon. “I’m not going to ask what you’ve heard.”
“Very wise, as we would not tell you,” said Eleanor. “Gwen is outside.” But she was smiling as she sheathed her foil and indicated that he should follow her.
“Should I not emerge alive, do please let my parents know what happened,” he said.
“I’ll save your remains,” I said.
He laughed and took his hat off, although, what with the sun, anyone else would have been putting one on. Nestling the knit glove inside its cavity, he headed outside. I glanced after him to make sure Gwen had disarmed.
* * *
—
Happily, Gwen not only had put her foil away but had busied herself with our worm house. This was a hanging vermiculture composter to which we added food scraps and from which we harvested worm castings. As we had recently lured the worms to the top with melon scraps, Gwen was now opening the bottom hatch, allowing a humus-y mixture to fall into a blue bucket.
“Gwen?”
She closed the hatch awkwardly.
“I came to see you,” said Woody.
“I am not going to play for you under any circumstances,” she said. Her eyes narrowed ominously.
“That’s not my question,” he said. “Or not my only question.”
“I can’t believe you’d even ask.”
“It was the only way I could get out to see you, Gwen. Please. What was it you used to say? Keep your animus for malice. And look. I brought you something.”
She stopped. “Did you make this yourself?”
“I did.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“I had a little help.”
“From?”
“Sylvie.”
“Sylvie? But…”
They turned and lowered their voices in such a way that Eleanor and I could not make out the rest of their conversation. What we could see was a tense but intimate exchange, over the course of which he seated the knit glove on her head like a hat; she must have told him how she used to wear her glove like that when she was a girl. She removed it immediately, though, left the garden, and headed upstairs to her room.
“Thank you for coming,” I said as Woody emerged from the garden alone. “That’s a wonderful hat that you made.”
He looked at it sadly. “No one in his right mind would take this on as a first project,” he said. “But I am not in my right mind…”
Eleanor and I looked at him sympathetically.
“…worried sick as I am,” he finished.
Worried sick?
“It’s hard to win when she is in this sort of mood,” I said. Adding, in something of an understatement, “She can be stubborn.”
He nodded miserably, then said, “I’m not trying to win. I’m trying to help”—and looked back toward Eleanor as if she would understand.
What did that mean? In any case, we let him go.
* * *
—
We were still mulling over his words—help? help whom?—when, the next day, the doorbell rang yet again. Eleanor assumed it was her legal team come for a meeting, but the face in the VisiDoor was neither Yuri nor Heraldine nor Sue.
“Ondi!” she said.
We both knew that Ondi had been PermaDermed. Still it was a shock to behold her angelfair. And almost more shocking than her skin was her hair. Where was her proud red-and-gold pouf? She looked as if she had put herself through a HoloPic filter and pressed “Bleach All.”
“Would you like to speak to Gwen?”
“I would, thank you,” she said. “If she’ll see me.”
Her guess that Gwen might be reluctant to see her was correct. Ondi left
the garden almost as soon as she entered, engaged in another distant exchange with us, and began to leave the house.
So soon? said the house. But you’ve only just arrived.
“Why don’t you speak to Gwen,” she said. “I’m not the problem here.”
And there was the familiar Ondi door slam.
“Perhaps she doesn’t know any other way of closing a door,” observed Eleanor.
“She is an expressive young lady,” I said.
And so, of course, was Gwen, who exploded into the kitchen like a firestorm.
“Why did you let her in? What’s the matter with you? Don’t you see?”
“See what?” Eleanor glanced up at the clockscreen—wondering, I knew, where her team was.
“It’s Aunt Nettie!” yelled Gwen. “Aunt Nettie has set them all on me. Don’t you see? Next, it’s going to be Pink and Sylvie. You watch.”
“They were set on you?” said Eleanor.
“What do they want?” I said.
But of course, Woody and Ondi wanted the same thing that Mimi wanted—for Gwen to try out for the Olympic team.
“They say they need a lefty relief pitcher,” Gwen said.
“Isn’t Bento Halifax a lefty?” I said.
“Exactly. But no. They say they need me. Because I’m a lefty who can pitch to righties. You’d think all-knowing Aunt Nettie would have gotten by now that I am never going to play for Team AutoAmerica,” Gwen went on. “The very fact that she thinks turning every last person against me is going to help her case just goes to show how little an algorithm understands people. Because if the answer before was Never, now it is Never, ever, ever. As in I am never, ever, ever going to play for Aunt Nettie and neither am I going to change my mind and Cross Over and stay. And Woody and Ondi pretending that they are here to warn me of what my recalcitrance could mean is not going to help.”
Eleanor looked at the clockscreen again—squinting, though the projection was perfectly clear. Her team was never late.
“As for how my actions could possibly affect Mom, that is an idle threat if ever I’ve heard one,” said Gwen.