One was flipping through a tabloid. The other was dramatically pressing the buttons of a remote control.
“Ugh!” she cried, her lips making an exaggerated duck face. “There’s nothing on TV!”
“I know,” pouted the other one. “I’m so bored!”
All of a sudden, a cute boy in a sweatshirt and tighty-whities walked into the open kitchen viewable behind the couch.
The girls started to giggle. The magazine reader put her finger in her mouth, coquettishly turning the page with her moistened finger.
To the other girl, she whispered, “When do you think Tina will be home?”
This one bit her lip hungrily. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Soon, probably.”
The two of them looked into the kitchen where the boy—surely Tina’s younger brother—was lapping up cereal from a bowl. He appeared to have a boner of the early morning kind.
“I feel like being playful,” said the magazine reader.
Sloane’s heart leapt at the naked simplicity unfolding on screen. She felt like being playful, too! She watched excitedly as the former remote control changer sauntered into the kitchen. The camera followed her, panning in as she pulled the refrigerator open, leaning over, bending deeper, to reach the juice inside the fridge—her thong pushed aside just enough to reveal an arc of labia.
The kitchen boy kept chewing—he was as dim as the other men in porn videos, but at least he was attractive. He really did the just woken up, muscular sleepy boy thing very well.
“Oh,” said the girl, head tilted with a pout. “It looks like we’re out of juice.”
She glanced at the glass the boy had on the counter. “Can I have some of yours?”
As she moved toward him, her robe opened to reveal a white silk teddy underneath. The girl’s breasts seemed so lively and impatient. Sloane bet they had a full agenda with lots of places to go.
Without much of an explanation, the girl’s lips were on the boy’s. He’d just been drinking juice, supposedly; she wanted some of his. They started some deep kissing, and his hands were on her ass. In order to show this, the fuzzy robe got felled. The girl’s behind was just as wholesome as her jubilatory tits—her whole body seemed to pulse with youthful ripeness. She was like the first melon of summer, except with perfect tits. Sloane watched the boy’s fingers spread under her nightie as she reached for her own vibrator. The way he was massaging her ass cheeks drove Sloane absolutely nuts. There was a memory, a dim one, of what it used to feel like to have her skin spread there, and it sent her vibrator humming with insistency against her wakened clit.
The pair were still kissing, kissing lovingly, the boy’s lips on her neck, sliding off a silken strap to graze her nipples teasingly. The girl, confident in both her desirability and the lushness of what was about to happen, let out a pleasant laugh.
Then the other girl—the magazine reader—walked into the kitchen, her own teddy lowered to reveal a pair of breasts that were tight and dark and small. She moved toward the embracing couple, pressed herself into the girl’s back, reaching around to caress the first girl’s breasts herself.
Sloane was really going at it now, the thrumming of her vibrator bringing her to a higher plane of pleasure. The anticipation was too much. The first girl was pulsing against the boy, pushing aside the bottom of her nightie so that he could find her. He hefted the girl up and onto the counter, knocking over the box of cereal as he did. He pushed aside her nightie even further, while the other girl lovingly—even reverently—put her hand on his bulge, massaging his desire through the cotton of his shorts, and then she shoved her hand inside the ribbed waistband to—
“Sloane?” a voice called, Roman’s. Roman, home. Sloane clapped the computer shut in fury, threw the vibrator under the bed.
“I just came home to pee!”
Pants up, accomplice hidden, Sloane lay there, furious, breathing heavily. She listened to the fumblings of the man she shared her life with removing his catsuit in the bathroom. Then she looked at her closed computer, the links to other people’s feigned love lives therewithin.
“Chérie!” Roman hollered, knocking something over in his efforts to free himself from his tight suit. “Do you see the gold one? Do you think I should wear the gold one? I want to make a good impression at the Lycra Club!”
Alone together, she thought, the phrase swelling up at her from a hidden depth.
13
When Sloane woke the next morning, Roman wasn’t in the bed. She found him in the kitchen, curled over his phone. Barefooted, wrapped in a thin, cotton bathrobe, she felt as invisible as if she were looking at her partner through a sheet of one-way glass.
“Hey,” she said, pulling the robe closed around her. “You sleep okay?”
“Hmmm,” he said, poking, tapping, his shoulders high with stress.
She rested her head against the doorjamb. “What’s up?” she tried again.
“I’m trying to find a place for breakfast.” A brief smile before his eyes went down again.
“I used to live here, you know,” she said, approaching the coffeemaker. “You could ask.”
“Yes, of course! But I want reviews.”
She chose a “House Blend” capsule and dropped it in the plastic depression fitted for the pod.
“Do you have a breakfast meeting?” She realized in the asking of this, how little she knew about what he was doing with his time while she was at Mammoth.
“Breakfast meeting, no. But I want to have a good breakfast, I have a meeting after that. New York magazine wants to run a translation of my Nouvel Obs profile!”
Sloane balked. Her mug overflowed with coffee. New York magazine was the lefty’s travel guide to everything worth knowing about the world that week. How had she not sensed that things would take off so quickly for Roman in America? She’d wanted to have faith in her fellow humans, maybe for a change they wouldn’t gobble up the newest fad. In this case: Zentai. In this case: him.
Staring across the kitchen at Roman, the actual physical person, she realized how hard it was to judge modern productivity from afar: a person could sit around the apartment all day in his bedclothes and still make waves online. Sloane had long ago stopped checking in on Roman’s social media feeds, but when he got up to get more juice, she took his phone off the kitchen island. His sky-rocketing follower numbers made it hard to breathe.
“Seriously?” she said, still scrolling through his feed. “New York magazine?”
“It is a big thing, right?” he said, putting his hand out for his phone.
“Roman,” she said, trying to hold his gaze. “Maybe we should go out to dinner. Catch up. I feel like . . . it feels like things are slipping through the cracks.”
“Ah,” he said, his eyes falling to his smart screen. “Are things not good at work?”
She didn’t answer. She wanted to see if her silence would prompt him to ask her again. Wanted to see if he had any idea what they were actually discussing.
But her silence appeared to be welcomed. He was deep in his research, reading the opinions of breakfast-eating strangers instead of asking her. One of her very favorite things in college had been going to the nearby Café Mogador with her sister after a long Saturday night out. They had an excellent array of egg specials, if anyone cared to ask.
• • •
On her way to work, Sloane had Anastasia drop her at a storage solution store where she purchased two dark acrylic cases to function as the suggestion boxes Dax had (reluctantly) signed off on, and three massive Lucite ones for the phone confiscators that he hadn’t signed off on at all.
“So, we’ll need some kind of company-wide e-mail to go out,” Sloane said, after she and Deidre had positioned all the boxes throughout the different floors. “I don’t want people thinking these things are for recycling.”
“No, no,” said Deidre, thoughtful
ly. “Especially if they’re filled with phones. I’ll put something together and send it over for your approval.”
“Isn’t it better if it comes from me?” Sloane asked.
Deidre winced. “If there’s backlash . . .” She faltered. “Let’s just say the staff is used to getting behavioral e-mails from me.”
“Oh,” said Sloane, surprised. “Like what?”
“Mr. Stevens just likes everyone to use an enthusiastic voice. Actually, I think he calls it ‘pitch.’ And lunch. He has very specific ideas about that.”
Sloane winced.
“It’s nothing you should worry about,” Deidre said, seeing Sloane’s alarm. “It’s just for entry-levelers. He just prefers they snack. Anyway. Before I forget these—” She slid a sheath of papers out of the manila envelope she was clutching. “Here’s an overview of your day.”
Deidre waited quietly while Sloane perused it.
“If there’s anything not to your liking, line spacing, font, you just let me know.”
Sloane looked up at her, and smirked. “You’ve worked with a lot of art directors, huh?”
Deidre permitted herself a quick laugh. “I have.” Then she smoothed her hands on her skirt, professional again.
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you,” she said with a nod. “See you at Sparkhouse.”
According to her schedule, most of Sloane’s morning would be taken up by the famous Wednesday morning group thinks that had been another factor in her accepting the job. Originally envisioned as a kind of pass-the-talking-stick space in which people could share what was inspiring them, Sparkhouse (as Dax called it) closely resembled the brainstorming process that Sloane preferred: open, unstructured, stylistically free. But now that she’d witnessed the type of clamming up that happened among the staffers whenever Dax was around, she had lowered expectations for the Sparkhouse sessions. She hoped she’d be surprised.
Regardless, she felt gratitude for how busy she would be. Full days meant she wouldn’t have time to think of Roman, how disassociated he’d become, how very much not there. Excerpts of his Nouvel Obs profile that she’d originally been proud of now rang out like omens: “Roman Bellard: Online interactions are the truest form of touch.” “Augmented reality is the modern land of opportunity: better recreation, better education, much better sex.”
In the beginning, he’d just been shooting his mouth off. Back when the Zentai suit thing had started, his theories on the superiority of virtual physicality felt like an extension of his beloved video games. But something was shifting, turning her bemusement with his various eclecticisms to a malaise she couldn’t ignore.
A ping on her computer alerted her to an incoming e-mail. Deidre had already compiled a draft of the new meeting protocol:
Dear Mammoth staffers,
In an effort for Sloane Jacobsen to get the best work she can out of the individual teams she is consulting with, we have installed cell phone resting boxes outside of the fourth- and fifth-floor meeting rooms. Phone drop-off is voluntary during regular meetings, but is obligatory in any of the ReProduction task force meetings with Ms. Jacobsen. If you feel you need an exception to this regulation, please contact me in person or in writing before your meeting time.
Additionally, in her ongoing efforts to instill a heightened atmosphere of creativity and intellectual support, Ms. Jacobsen has placed two suggestion boxes outside of my office and hers, respectively. Sloane states that these notes can stay anonymous and can be about any subject in particular—anything that’s on your mind.
Please do not use these suggestion boxes to complain about the cell phone protocol. As stated beforehand, such comments and requests should come through me.
Thank you in advance for your understanding,
Sincerely,
Deidre Thompson
Executive Assistant to the CEO
Just as she was writing Deidre with her approval, Deidre called.
“Oh, hi,” said Sloane. “I was just writing you. It’s great!”
“I’m so glad. I’ll go ahead and send it. But I was actually calling because I have line one for you. Your mom.”
An emergency. It had to be. They had just seen each other.
While she waited for the line to transfer, Sloane tried to think of benign things. Had she left something in Stamford? Her phone cord or computer charger, she was always leaving those behind. Had she been offensive in some way? And then the darker thoughts. Leila. A run stoplight. Kids.
“Mom!” she said, when the call connected, “is everything all right?”
“Oh, hi, honey. Hi. How’s everything with you?”
Sloane crossed her legs, remembered how to breathe. She knew this tone of Margaret’s. This wasn’t a check-in phone call; it was a task.
“What’s going on, Mom?” Sloane asked, edgily.
“Oh, not much. The other night, it was pretty nice, right? Thanks for your text message! And don’t you think those kids are getting big? I mean, they’ve clearly gotten Harvey’s height. As for my genes . . . well, you never know about the third one. Maybe she’ll get my terrific head of hair.”
“She?” Sloane squawked, while her mother chuckled at her own joke. “I thought Leila said they weren’t finding out the sex?”
“Right, no, of course not,” her mother hurried. “It’s just a way of saying.”
Sloane raised her eyebrows into the receiver. Her mother sounded more unbalanced than she usually did.
“So, what’s going on?”
“Right! I’m sure you’re busy. Well, it was just about . . . the other night, really, but more about your text? You know—” She coughed. “About Thanksgiving?”
“Yes,” Sloane said, carefully. “I guess I was just wondering . . . about logistics. Like, what we can bring.”
“Well, that’s the thing, actually,” her mother said. “There won’t be anyone here. We’re, um, we’re going to Disney World? I’m pretty sure I mentioned that?”
“Wait, Florida?” Sloane balked. “When?!”
“Right before Thanksgiving, actually. We’ll be there for a week. Did I really not mention this, sweetheart?”
Flabbergasted, Sloane sank deeper in her chair. It was possible she’d mentioned it, but no, Sloane methodically categorized all of her family’s slights. She would have remembered Florida over Thanksgiving.
“It’s something we’ve been doing for a couple years?” Margaret tried, her voice small. “It’s kind of a tradition. Become.”
“It is?” Sloane asked, digging her fingernail into the edge of her desk. “It is, isn’t it,” she repeated, almost as softly. All of the sudden, she remembered last year: the strangely sinister postcard of Epcot Center that had reached her Paris apartment two months after her family had already returned from their trip. She remembered feeling sad that they hadn’t chosen something more youthful—a picture of the kids with Minnie Mouse or one of those ear hats with her name embroidered on it. Her mother had probably chosen the photo of Epcot because it was the least childlike thing she’d found.
“You could come?” Margaret said, sounding unconvinced herself. “I know that you don’t usually go in for that kind of thing, but I don’t want you to think . . . that you’re not invited.”
“But I’m not, actually,” Sloane said, trying to keep her voice level. Her colleagues didn’t need to hear her go to pieces on her mom.
“Well, of course you are. It’s just that . . . you haven’t been here before.”
“Well, of course I haven’t,” Sloane said, angry that she was getting angry. “I lived in France.”
“Yes, well,” Margaret said, deflated. “I guess we’re not used to you being here. Yet.”
“I see,” said Sloane, seeing. “You forgot I’d be here.”
“Well, darling, you haven’t been very enthusiastic about Thanksgiving bef
ore.”
That was an understatement. Sloane had once referred to the holiday as “one of the best-selling fictions of all time.” But she was older now. This was one of the first times she’d be home in November in over half a decade, and she’d made the mistake of thinking that it mattered. It did not.
She walked over to her window. Looked up, up, up past the water towers. Overhead, the sky was empty. Red alerts throughout the city. Another no-fly day.
“If you want to come,” her mother said, uncomfortable with the silence. “There’s room for you. There really is.”
“No, it’s fine,” Sloane said, resigned. “I should have reminded you I’d be here.”
“Oh, honey, that wouldn’t have changed our plans much. They really love it there. The kids.”
Sloane traced her finger on the window, outlining the figure of someone on the street.
“Don’t worry about it, Mom,” she said after a while. “It’s my fault. I just wasn’t thinking. You guys will have a great time.”
“Honey, we’ll make room.”
“No, it’s fine, really. I’m sure I’ll have to work.”
“Well, that would be such a shame, honey,” Margaret said. “Although you’re in the city, so there’ll be all those good places to eat.”
Yes, Sloane thought, still staring out the window. She could go to a fancy French place and watch Roman touch his phone.
The anger at being overlooked had started to dissipate, and in had washed a desperation that was huge and childish. Sloane didn’t want to have Thanksgiving all alone in New York City. She didn’t want to go out to some fancy restaurant for their three-star interpretation of a home-cooked meal. She wanted to watch Leila and Margaret squabble over the turkey—was it cooked, was it overcooked, had anyone figured out how to work the condo’s oven yet. It felt absurdly important that she spend Thanksgiving with her family.
“Bring me back some Mickey Mouse ears?” she tried. “In the meantime, I’ve got a meeting, Mom. I really have to go.”
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