Back in her office, Sloane reviewed the outline for her day. A follow-up with furniture (a bright spot: she was counting on Andrew to share the comps of people-reading-books-in-bed ads), another meeting with electronics (dark spot), and later that afternoon, a brainstorm with both the social media and verbal identity team. We need a name for your empathy robots! I’m really feeling this, Dax had written in her digital calendar next to the event.
Sloane put the outline down and took stock of the pressure in her heart. Because of hurdles with Roman’s paperwork, he’d be video-calling in to meetings so he could stay apprised of what was going on until he was cleared for a work visa. So rather than immediately suffer Roman’s physical presence, she’d be gifted with an image of his floating head. Dax had yet to tell her how often she was going to be forced to work with him and under what circumstances (Did they have to sit in on every single meeting together? Would they be leading separate teams? What exactly would it look like, the battle between team Tech and team Touch?), but she imagined some of this would be cleared up in Dax’s video post, which had already reached her desk.
She clicked on the e-mail. “Big news!!” the subject line read. She pressed the Play arrow, and there was Dax, a navy cowl-neck sweater with wooden toggle buttons, a deer head nailed into a log cabin interior at his back. Sloane rolled her eyes. He’d made the video in his vacation house.
“Hi, team!” Dax started. “I hope this finds you fresh and fit after a healthy, happy Thanksgiving. I wanted to share a new direction with you that we’re taking for the ReProduction summit. As you all know, we’ve been fortunate to have Sloane Jacobsen with us helping align the products we’re going to present with future trends. An exciting addition is that her collaborator, Roman Bellard, is also coming onboard. Many of you met Roman at the talk he gave last Wednesday, and all of you now know him through his “After God Goes Sex” piece that appeared in the Times last week. We couldn’t be more excited to have this duo guiding us toward the most exciting, most enticing products that we can offer anti-breeders at our summer summit.
“Which leads me to a little twist in the scenario. For those of you who were at Sparkhouse two weeks back, you’ll remember Sloane making a very titillating suggestion about the ‘professionalization of affection,’ in which she posited that people would soon be willing to pay others to outsource their needs for affectionate touch.
“As you all know, Roman is predicting the opposite—he thinks we’ll see a certain class turn against penetrative sex in favor of augmented virtual sexuality and a love life lived online.
“Can these two philosophies live together? Sure! But what fun is that?
“What we’re going to do instead is organize the summit into two teams: Pro-Tech and Pro-Touch. Roman will be heading up the Smart Blinds presentation and Sloane will be leading the Empathy Bots project—these will be our headliners. You’ll find out soon which team you’ll be working with. And in the meantime, I hope you’ll all agree that this new direction is going to make this the most exciting trends summit yet. I can’t wait to see what you’re all up to when I get back.
“Till then!”
He waved at the camera, and yellow infographics spun a handwritten copy of Dax’s signature across the screen. Sloane immediately tried to get him on his phone. It rang four times and went to voicemail. She started ringing him again.
“Sloane J!” Dax answered, finally. “I’m on the other line, champ! Can I call you back?”
“I just watched the video,” she started. “I thought we had more room to brainstorm, Dax. Room to do what we wanted.”
“Well, sure you do! Of course you do! Fine”—he sighed—“hold on.”
Sloane waited, foot tapping, while he got rid of his other call.
“Sure,” he said, back on again, “you guys can keep searching for the hypothetical, but we have to have star products to lead with. For press.”
Sloane tried to be reasonable. This was business, it made sense. But she didn’t want to be saddled to a project she didn’t believe in while she was having premonitions that felt far more important.
“And what the hell are Smart Blinds?” she asked, instead.
“Ah! We’ll get to that. But I’m so glad you called me. Was just about to get you on the line. Stellar news, my dear—I’ve got you both booked on Tusk. Had to move a thousand mountains for it, but we’re a go.”
Sloane bristled both at the name of the conservative TV show and the fact he’d called her “dear.”
“I haven’t heard anything about this,” Sloane said, both feet tapping now.
“Of course you haven’t! It just happened! Roman’s in L.A. still, so we finagled an eleven o’clock.”
“Wait, what?” she blurted, startled. “Today?”
“No time like the present! If you’ve got anything, cancel it, ASAP.”
“But I’m not prepared!”
“You don’t need to be,” he countered. “That’s what a press release is for! It’s like a six-minute slot. Video call-in. They want to hear about the summit’s new direction. Best idea I’ve had in a long while. Tech versus touch, the Internet’s on fire! Nothing to worry about. Just be you!”
Although Dax liked to run his business with an air of effortlessness, Sloane knew that he went to great lengths to appear spontaneous. Something was wrong about this. He was being far too cavalier.
“I really would have appreciated more time,” she said. “I think this feels too rash.”
“Story of my life!” he said. “I’ll be in the electronics meeting, after. You can tell me how it went.”
After they hung up, Sloane shielded her eyes from the piercing winter light glinting off the office windows across the street. She had spent the weekend determined to run the show, and ten minutes into her Monday, it was evident she couldn’t. You do you. Dax only did Dax.
She had an urge to call her sister, and then, like the memory of something that had happened in someone else’s story, she remembered that neither her sister nor her mother had called her back yet. She was worried. Originally, she’d been pissed for selfish reasons—concerned that they’d been purposefully ignoring her, that Leila had decided Sloane had to work a whole lot harder to earn the right to be sisterly again. But now she was just concerned.
She tried her sister’s cell phone. She tried her mom’s. And then, for no other reason than it was the only other Jacobsen number she had in her contacts, she tried her childhood home.
On the third ring, somebody picked up.
“Mom?” Sloane said, incredulous. “Mom?”
“Sloane?”
“Mom?” She felt like she’d entered some kind of space-time continuum. “What are you doing back?”
“Oh!” went Margaret. “Well, actually, Leila’s on bed rest.”
“What?!” Sloane exclaimed. “Why?! Where?”
“Um, here?” her mother said, her calm clearly an effort. “The baby’s a little small, unfortunately. And she was having contractions. On the Jungle Cruise, in fact. Which I’m sure will make for quite a story when everything’s, you know, better,” she said, adding a little cough.
“Why didn’t anyone call me?” Sloane cried. “Is she going to be all right?!”
“She just needs to rest, honey. And she wanted to do that here, where she has all her doctors—”
“Should she have been in a plane, though? Like that?”
“Well, she can’t have the baby now,” her mother went, a false laugh in her voice. “She’s not due for another two months! So she just needs to rest.”
“Well, well, jeez,” Sloane said, both stung and panicked. “Where’s everyone else?”
“Harvey stayed on with the kids for a few more days. No need to spoil their vacation.”
“But why didn’t anyone call?” Sloane repeated, wondering where in the house Leila was right then. If M
argaret’s voice was carrying through the floorboards, if it was for Leila’s benefit that Margaret was acting nonchalant.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been trying to reach you guys all weekend!”
“Well, honey,” her mom started, “what would that have changed?”
Sloane’s response caught in her throat. Her mother must have heard it, because she fell uncharacteristically silent. Several awkward beats passed with neither of them knowing where to go from there.
“I was going to come to Florida, you know,” Sloane finally managed. Hurt, jealous, frightened at the same time. “There weren’t any flights. I sent you all these messages.”
“I know, honey,” Margaret said, too easily. “We had a horrible time getting home ourselves.”
Sloane bit her lip to quell the lump in her throat.
“Didn’t you think that I’d be worried, Mom? Didn’t you guys think?”
“To be honest, Sloane . . .” Her mother faltered. “It all happened so fast. It was just a nightmare trying to get home, what with the storm, and then there were logistics, and the doctor, he even had to write a note for the airline, it was really very complicated—”
Sloane heard what her mother wasn’t saying. In the sizing up of the people who could be helpful, Sloane hadn’t made the cut. It particularly hurt that Leila, whom she’d felt she was gaining ground with, hadn’t even managed to get back to her via text. God, but that made it even worse, actually. Was she that tired? That much in pain? Sloane’s heart clenched with everything she didn’t know.
“Mom, I’m here, now,” Sloane said. “I want to know about stuff like this. I want to help.”
“Okay,” Margaret replied with the formality of someone drawing a conversation to a close. “Well, that’s good to know.”
Sloane wanted her mother to believe her and her mother didn’t. She’d cried wolf too many times.
Then Deidre was in her doorway, using her right hand to draw out an exaggerated nose. Sloane got it—Tusk. Interview prep time.
Sloane looked up at Deidre; a bird landing on a bough.
“Hair and makeup,” Deidre whispered, looking sorry that Sloane had to go.
30
Sloane didn’t wear a lot of cosmetics; some blush, a lot of moisturizer. Accordingly, she looked older than her real age—and a little crazier—once the hair and makeup team prepped her for the Tusk video call. She was trying to tone down some of the eye makeup with a pull of cotton when the sound technician told her they were ready for her.
“You just sit here,” he said, pointing to a black director’s chair set up against a black backdrop. “Sorry about the lights, they’re super hot. You’ll hear the show’s producer, and then some prompts . . .”
“No problem,” Sloane said, succumbing to the various indiscretions necessary for the technician to wire the microphone under her tunic.
“Try this on for sound?” he asked.
“One, two,” Sloane said into the headset.
“You hear anything?”
“Static.” She adjusted the earbud.
“Hello?” said a man’s voice into her ear.
“Yes, hello, this is Sloane Jacobsen?”
“Oh, hi, Sloane, this is Jarvis, I’m one of the show’s producers. We should have you live in five?”
“Okay,” she said, blinking at the lights.
“Sloane?” A pause. “Sloane?”
Sloan’s eyes were starting to tear up from the heat lamps. She was feeling somewhat nauseous.
“Roman?” she said into the mike.
“Yes, Sloane, hello! Nice to hear you again! This is quite something, isn’t it? I had to get up at five o’clock!”
“Did you,” she asked, deadpan.
“I did! I did! But Los Angeles is wonderful! The people are so funny! Very busy, but not really. They like all my ideas!”
Because she didn’t answer, he rollicked on again.
“They called me ‘an ambassador.’ Of cybersex. Ambassador, I like it! I should have a big black car! Anyway! I was very excited to hear about this interview last week. Big show, non?”
“I’m sorry?” Sloane said, sitting straighter. “You knew about this last week?”
“Yes, day after my article. Friday? I lose track.”
“You knew about this last week.”
“Yes,” Roman repeated. “Why?”
“One minute, folks,” said Jarvis, coming back on. “We’re about to go live . . .”
“How did Daxter tell you?”
“What do you mean?” Roman asked.
“In an e-mail? On the phone?” she clarified.
“Guys?” went Jarvis.
“In a text message, I think?”
“Oh, a text,” Sloane exploded, the knowledge seeping into her that Dax had purposely blindsided her with this interview. It spread through her like a poison.
“And three, and two, and one . . .”
“Jarvis?” Sloane asked.
“Um, we’re going live, here . . .” he answered, nervously.
“You are,” she said, standing, motioning to the cameraman to stop rolling. “I’m out.”
“Oh, hey, hey, hey there,” went Jarvis. “We need to be live now.”
“Carry on without me,” Sloane said, turning off the mike.
Everyone in the Mammoth studio stood there, openmouthed, while Sloane freed herself from the cord running underneath her clothes. The cameraman kept looking from his left to his right, trying to discern who he was supposed to listen to.
A young woman exhibiting dysentery levels of discomfort approached her. “Um, Ms. Jacobsen? I’m Danielle, I’m the assistant producer, and I have the Tusk team on the line?”
“This is between me and Dax,” she said. She wasn’t going to let him push her into sabotaging her reputation. He gave a heads-up to Roman about this interview, and nothing to her. He was going to great lengths to make her look like a fool.
“They’re, they’re insisting on a . . . comment? If you can’t go live?” Danielle continued, attempting to pass a phone to her. “About the products at the summit?”
“Tell them there aren’t going to be any because people are going to stop buying things. Tell them there’s going to be a great big trend of unbuying. Tell them that.”
And then she left the studio to find that bastard, Dax.
• • •
As unluck had it, Dax found her first.
“I am walking into the lobby,” he said immediately when she picked up his call. “I am walking into the elevator. What is going on?”
Sloane heard a ping and pulled away from her cell phone: she’d received yet another push notification, dozens all at once. They’d announced the comment she’d given on air during the Tusk show, and people were already starting to comment with the #unbuying hashtag.
“You set me up,” she said, her attention back to him. “You told Roman about the interview days ago.”
“Oh, Sloane, what does it matter?” Dax asked. “You’re more seasoned than him. I put my PR girls on him. He says weird things sometimes.”
“Please,” Sloane scoffed.
“Unbuying as a trend, and you’re the one who’s pissed? I think we’re gonna have to have a little talk.”
“I think so,” Sloane said. “Right now.”
“The electronics meeting is right now,” Dax said. “Where are you?”
“Fifth floor.”
“Well, so am I.”
She turned, and then she saw him just outside the elevators. Her heart softened as they stood there looking at each other. For the first time, he looked tired. There was talk, and then there was talking face to face.
He slid his phone into his suit jacket and approached her.
“Sloane.”
“I’m not h
appy, Dax.”
And then the elevator opened, and a group of Mammothers pegged for the electronics meeting started heading toward them, one of whom was Jin.
She tried to keep her expression stoic lest Dax notice any change in her demeanor.
“Well, we better let them get set up in there,” Dax said, putting a hand on her shoulder, friendly like, smiling for the others. “I’ve just got some stuff to grab.”
Jin reached her just as Dax walked briskly away.
“I think I’m in trouble,” she said.
31
When Sloane was thirteen, she tried to be a Taoist. It lasted a long time, her affection for the dharma of nonattachment—would in fact still be lasting if she didn’t make her living unearthing humankind’s desires for people, places and things.
One of the ways Sloane made her new spirituality known to the other eighth graders was by carrying around a navy backpack covered with quotes from The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu in metallic gold marker. One of these was Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. It was a passive quote, one that suggested accepting people rather than changing them, but it was one that Sloane still turned to when she didn’t agree with a current trend or frame of mind. It helped remind her that if you couldn’t change people, time could. That you had to wait for time.
Time had defeated her inner Taoist, but she still abided by its tenets of open-mindedness and reflection. Thus, with patience as her compass, Sloane entered the conference room where people were busy watching videos: a trending clip of Jimmy Fallon trying to get into a Zentai suit while an already Zentai-suited Roman looked on. Another of the dying polar bear slipping on his melting vestige of a home.
Because the Mammothers hadn’t noticed her yet, Sloane felt overly aware of her own body. Her skin was giving off a dank and sulfurous smell, like pennies covered in moss. It was perspiration, excitement, hormones. Self-smelling used to be an indicator of vitality, and in some countries, it still was: people sniffing their armpits, cuticles, genitals and soles to check in with their bodies, see if they smelled the way they did the day before. It was a method that was asinine to the germaphobic culture of the West, but it worked. Sloane hadn’t smelled like anything these past weeks, and all of a sudden, here she was, smelling like herself.
Touch Page 24