Crosstalk

by Connie Willis

  “To May?” Briddey said, thinking, That’s still two months away. That means at least three billion phone calls and emails and texts, and who knows how many interrogations by the Irish Inquisition. I’ll never make it.

  “No,” Trent said. “The cancellation caused some shifting around in his schedule, and he can fit us in next Wednesday!”

  “Live in fragments no longer. Only connect…”

  —E.M. FORSTER, Howard’s End

  Keeping the surgery date secret for even a few days turned out to be a huge challenge, especially after Dr. Verrick’s office sent a pre-admission form to Briddey’s office email address, and Charla saw it. She immediately asked Briddey if the date of the EED had been moved up.

  Briddey managed to convince her it hadn’t, and that the hospital had to do things months in advance to allow time for the insurance company to process the claims, but it was a close call, and Briddey still hadn’t thought of a way to ask Management for the time off that wouldn’t alert the grapevine, especially since the EED required an overnight stay. With the Apple rollout looming, and everyone trying frantically to come up with a new design to compete with it, nobody was getting any time off, let alone the better part of two days. But when she texted Trent her concern, he told her not to worry, that he’d take care of it.

  He did, and, miraculously, without word getting out so no one waylaid her in the halls to ask her how they’d managed to get in so quickly. But that still left the matter of getting to the hospital to have her pre-op bloodwork done without being seen by somebody from Commspan—and with my luck, she thought, it’ll be Suki—and of keeping her family from finding out. But here Maeve came to her rescue. Her rebellion over not being able to watch Tangled had apparently spilled over to school, and she got sent to detention for reading the latest Secret Haven book in class.

  “I hate adults,” she texted Briddey. “They don’t let you do anything.” And when Briddey suggested mildly that she still should have put her book away when the teacher told her to, Maeve replied, “Like I told Mom, I didn’t hear her.”

  She had apparently also told Mary Clare the reason she hadn’t heard her was that “I was thinking about other stuff”—an explanation that brought on a flurry of anxious conferences with Maeve’s teacher, the school counselor, a child psychologist, and a hearing specialist.

  Briddey was able to use the excuse of a family therapy session as the reason for her car’s being at the hospital when she went for her bloodwork, and the family’s preoccupation with Maeve gave her the time she needed to pack her overnight bag and stow it safely in the trunk of her car, write out instructions for Charla, whom she’d told she was going to an afternoon meeting downtown on Wednesday and a morning conference Thursday, and answer the emails that couldn’t wait.

  Kathleen had sent her an ad for a “Spiritual Connection” seminar taught by a psychic named Lyzandra of Sedona with a note reading, “If you go to this, you won’t have to have surgery to read Trent’s thoughts,” and Aunt Oona had emailed her about the Daughters of Ireland’s upcoming outing to see Riverdance (“Sean O’Reilly’s going!”). And C.B., who supposedly didn’t believe in emails, had sent her twelve: four news items about minor outpatient procedures that had resulted in death, seven about side effects from EEDs, and a news item about a man who’d shot his wife when they failed to connect.

  Wednesday morning, Briddey emailed her family, telling them she’d be in meetings for the next two days—“Do not call hospitals if I don’t answer my phone, Aunt Oona!”—and then activated the automatic “Bridget Flannigan will be out of the office until…” message and turned off her phone, trying not to think of how many lies she was telling.

  But only till tomorrow afternoon. As soon as she got home from the hospital, she’d tell them a last-minute opportunity to have the surgery had come up, and there hadn’t been time to tell anybody. By then they’d be able to see how harmless it was and how happy she and Trent were, and they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. If she could just get safely out of the building.

  She’d planned to drive her car over to Trent’s apartment at eleven, leave it there, and go to the hospital with him, but he called her as she got to work to tell her his meeting with Graham Hamilton was running late and he’d have to meet her there. “But don’t we have to have it done together?” she asked.

  “It’s not welding, sweetheart,” Trent said. “Dr. Verrick has to do one of us first, then the other. Yours is at one and mine’s at two. I’ll be there in plenty of time. And then we’ll be connected, and our worries will be over. Everything will be perfect.”

  He was right, and going to the hospital separately was probably better than going together. If they left Commspan at the same time, people might put two and two together. But the change in plans meant she had to think of something else to do with her car. Taking a taxi was out. She couldn’t leave her car here overnight without eagle-eyed Suki noticing it, and if she drove home and took a taxi from there and one of the family dropped in and saw it after she’d told them she was in meetings here at Commspan…

  But she couldn’t park it at the hospital either. With her luck, Mary Clare would show up to see some specialist for Maeve and spot it. She’d have to park it someplace out of the way and then take a taxi to the hospital.

  So she needed to leave now. Which meant another lie. If she could think of one. A parking ticket? No, Charla would want to know when and where she’d gotten it. Jury duty? A dentist’s appointment?

  She shut off her phone and went out to Charla’s desk. “Is Suki here today?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Excellent. That meant her chances of getting away without anyone finding out had just increased exponentially. Unless she was at the hospital. “Suki’s not out sick, is she?” she asked.

  “No,” Charla said. “She’s got jury duty.”

  Which I nearly used as my excuse, Briddey thought. Thank goodness after tomorrow I can stop lying, because I’m no good at it.

  “Did you need her for something?” Charla asked.

  “No, it can wait. I need you to go up to Records and ask Jill Quincy to help you find everything we’ve got on the patents for Apple’s last three iPhones,” Briddey said, and as soon as Charla’d left, she put the instructions she’d written out for Charla on her desk, checked the corridor to make sure it was empty, and walked quickly to the elevator, debating whether she should take the stairs instead, just to be on the safe side.

  But Charla and Jill were up in Records, Suki was safely sequestered in a courtroom, and C.B. never came aboveground.

  Except today of all days—and, worst of all, she was already inside the elevator and had pushed P when he suddenly appeared in its doorway, looking thrown together and slightly out of breath. “Oh, good,” he said. “I’m glad I caught you.”

  “If it’s about your idea for the TalkPlus phone,” she said, “everybody loved it.”

  “Of course they did,” he said disgustedly. “It’s not about that. There’s something else I need to talk to you about. It’s important.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t have time right now,” Briddey said, hitting the CLOSE DOOR button. “I have a meeting downtown in ten minutes.”

  “That’s okay. I’ll ride down with you,” he said, squeezing in between the shutting doors. “Did you read those emails I sent you about the IED?”

  “Yes, and now that I know that the EED’s side effects include sciatica, short-term memory loss, plantar’s warts, peptic ulcers, jogger’s knee, and getting kicked off The Bachelorette, I’ve decided I definitely want it done. I’ve always wanted to be thrown off a reality game show.”

  “I was afraid of that. But there’s also a chance it could cause UIC, you know.”

  And if you think I’m going to ask you what “UIC” stands for, you’re delusional.

  He must have reached the same conclusion because he said, “You know, unintended consequences.”

  “What unintended consequences?�
�

  “Who knows? That’s the thing with unintended consequences. You have no way of knowing what they might be till they happen, and then it’s too late. Look at Prohibition. And DDT. They seemed like terrific ideas, and look what ended up happening—Al Capone and a slew of dead robins. Or look at Twitter. Who’d have thought it would give rise to ISIS and #InsufferablyCuteCats? Look at all those Irish immigrants who thought it would be a great idea to take the Titanic to America. If they’d considered what might happen—”

  “So you’re saying that if I have the EED, I’ll be hit by an iceberg?”

  “You might. There’s no telling what’ll happen. What if, when they shave your head in pre-op, your hair grows back in white instead of red?”

  “They don’t shave your head. They go in at the back of your neck.”

  “So does a guillotine. Or what if they drill the hole in the wrong spot and you end up unable to communicate at all? Or in a coma, and the doctor harvests your organs and sells them on the black market?”

  “He is not going to harvest my organs. Look, I appreciate all this concern, but I know what I’m doing.”

  “She said as she boarded the Titanic. Okay, let’s say you do, and the surgery goes great, and you find out everything about each other, but you don’t like it. Communication’s not everything, you know. I can guarantee you that getting to know Hitler’s innermost thoughts wouldn’t make you like him any better. The same could turn out to be true for your boyfriend.”

  “It won’t be,” Briddey said, looking longingly up at the floor numbers above the elevator door, willing P to blink on.

  “Or what if the EED doesn’t work? Don’t the two of you have to be emotionally bonded to connect? What if you’re not? And what the hell is ‘emotional bonding,’ anyway? It sounds like something out of Fifty Shades of Grey. Why can’t they just say you have to be in love with each other?”

  She was going to be stuck on this elevator with him forever.

  “What if he’s ‘emotionally bonded’ to somebody else?” C.B. went on. “Like his secretary?”

  “Ethel Godwin is at least sixty,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I can think of more mismatched couples than that who’ve found true love, but fine. What if he’s in love with Jan in Payroll? Or Suki? Never mind, bad example. If he was in love with Suki, everybody on the planet would know about it. What if he’s in love with Lorraine in Marketing? Or Art Sampson?”

  “He’s not in love with Art—”

  “Or what if the two of you only think you’re emotionally bonded? I mean, people think stuff that isn’t true all the time. Hitler probably thought he was a really nice guy—”

  “What is it with you and Hitler?” Briddey exploded.

  “Sorry. Side effect of spending a lot of time online. Internet conversations always involve Hitler. My point is, even if the EED works, it won’t necessarily solve all your problems, and in the meantime, it could create a whole bunch of new ones.”

  “Thank you, I’ll take that into consideration,” she said. “Now, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Talk to you about?” he said blankly.

  “Yes.” She looked up at the floor numbers again. “You said you needed to talk to me about something urgent. Or was Hitler’s deluded opinion of himself it?”

  “No,” C.B. said as the P above the door lit up. Finally. “I thought of some more ideas for the Sanctuary phone. Like a photo function where if people send you photos of their babies and their insufferably cute cats, they automatically disappear into the ether.”

  Like I wish you’d do right now, Briddey thought, stepping forward to be ready the second the door opened. If it ever did.

  “I also had an idea for a hanging-up app,” he said, and the doors slid apart.

  “We’ll discuss it next week. Call Charla and make an appointment,” Briddey said, and shot through the doors and into the garage.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” C.B. said, catching up to her. “You know how in the good old days when you were mad at somebody, you could shout, ‘Goodbye!’ and bang down the receiver, and it not only felt good, but it got your message across perfectly?”

  I should have parked closer, Briddey thought, accelerating her pace.

  “And you know how now all you can do is click an icon, which isn’t nearly as emotionally satisfying? I’ve come up with an app that makes a really loud slamming-down-the-receiver noise.”

  She reached her car, glad she’d put her overnight bag in the trunk and not the back seat.

  “I haven’t worked out all the kinks yet,” C.B. said. “I want to make sure there aren’t any side effects I might not have thought of.”

  Very funny.

  “And speaking of hanging up, that’s another disadvantage of telepathy. There wouldn’t be any way to hang up on the other person.”

  “For the last time, the EED doesn’t make you telepathic!”

  “You don’t know that. That’s the thing with unintended consequen—”

  “Look,” she said, opening the car door. “As much as I’d like to stay and explain the EED to you again, I really have to go. I have a meeting downtown—”

  “You’re lying.”

  She looked up at him, horrified. Somehow Suki had found out where she was going, even though she was sitting in a courtroom miles away. And if she’d told C.B., she’d told everyone. Including Facebook. And the Irish Inquisition would be peeling into the parking garage any moment. “H-how—?” she stammered.

  “I can see it in your face, and the way you practically ran out here to your car. You can’t wait to get rid of me.”

  True, she thought, relieved. “Look, I appreciate your input—”

  “No, you don’t. You think I’m sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong,” he said. “But when you see somebody heading straight for the edge of a cliff, you can’t just stand there and do nothing.”

  “I am not heading—”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Why? Because I’ll end up like a patient in Coma? Or get jogger’s knee? Give me one good reason I shouldn’t have the EED. And not one involving black-market organs or lobotomies. A believable reason.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s the problem.” He looked at her seriously. “Listen, Briddey, being connected isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You think you want to know what other people are thinking—”

  “Briddey!” Charla called, hurrying across the garage toward them, waving a piece of paper.

  Oh, no, Briddey thought. If that’s a message from Trent, and he mentions the hospital…

  She moved to intercept her, but Charla was already at the car, saying breathlessly, “I’m glad I caught you. Your sister Mary Clare called. She said you need to contact her right away. It’s an emergency.”

  It’s always an emergency, Briddey thought. “Did she say what the emergency was?”

  “No,” Charla said. She looked at C.B. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “C.B. was just leaving,” Briddey said. She looked at him meaningfully. “Weren’t you?”

  He smacked the top of the car door with the flat of his hand. “Yeah,” he said. He stuck the earbuds back in his ears and walked off, his hands in his pockets.

  Charla leaned in toward Briddey and whispered, “Was he bothering you?”

  Yes, Briddey thought. She shook her head. “No.”

  “Oh. When I heard you two shouting, I was afraid he was sexually harassing you or something.”

  “No. We were discussing an idea for the new phone.”

  “Oh.” Charla looked doubtfully after him. “He’s so weird. His hair—”

  “Tell my sister I’ll call her as soon as I can,” Briddey said, and got into the car.

  She shut the door, started the car, waved, backed out of the parking space, and drove off, feeling like she’d barely escaped disaster. And there was still the call to Mary Clare to get through.

  She
had to call her, in case it was a real emergency and not just Mary Clare’s latest obsession regarding Maeve. But what if it was an emergency and they had to postpone the EED? There wouldn’t be another opening for months. And I can’t take much more of everyone trying to talk me out of it, she thought. On the other hand, if Aunt Oona had had a heart attack…

  Briddey fretted about it the whole way to the Marriott and while she parked the car, finally deciding to turn on her phone and call Mary Clare from an inner corner of the parking garage in hopes that the coverage would be spotty.

  It wasn’t. Mary Clare’s voice came through clear as a bell: “Oh, thank goodness you called. I don’t know what to do. Maeve’s teacher just told me the book Maeve was reading in class wasn’t a Secret Haven book, it was The Darkvoice Chronicles! Why would she be reading that?”

  “All the third-grade girls are reading it,” Briddey said. “Like Apocalypse Girl. Or The Hunger Games. And I thought you said she was spending too much time online and that you wanted her reading—”

  “But not this book! Do you know what it’s about? A schizophrenic teenager who hears voices. And Maeve said she didn’t hear her teacher talking to her. What if it was because the voices in her head drowned her teacher out?”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, Briddey thought. “Maeve is not hearing voices—”

  “You don’t know that,” Mary Clare interrupted. “I read this thing on the internet that said the symptoms of schizophrenia can manifest as early as age seven, and in The Darkvoice Chronicles, the heroine hears this voice that tells her to kill her mother—”

  “Yes, and in The Hunger Games the heroine hunts people with a bow and arrow. Maeve isn’t doing that either.”

  “Then why won’t she tell me what she was thinking about? There’s something going on. I know it. Listen, could you pick her up after school tomorrow and take her shopping and get her to tell you—?”

  “No,” Briddey said. “I’m in meetings the next two days. I could do it sometime next week—”