Entanglements

by Tomorrow’s Lovers, Families

  Chester: It’s supposed to be the best Captain Marvel since the one in the 2030s. She can team up with Spider Gwen! The effects are amazing. I might try to play Spider Ham. Also, we could get curry Japadogs after. What do you think?

  This was what she loved about Chester. He was always going on adventures, and his job as a VFX designer meant he knew where the weirdest things were happening. Edwina paused, wiped all her work out of the air, and tapped her temple to go offline. What had she been thinking? That there was something she loved about Chester? She put her head in her hands and sighed. Maybe if she actually saw him, the feelings she had for Augie would blow this attachment to Chester away. She tapped her contacts back on, feeling bittersweet but determined.

  Edwinner: Sure! Meet you at the Hurricane!

  Chester: See you soon, cutie!

  Edwina had gotten her hopes up for nothing. The moment she saw Chester’s spiky black hair and half-smile, she knew she was still smitten. He was wearing a sparkly yellow shirt that perfectly set off the dark brown of his skin, and she immediately wanted to kiss him. Squashing her feelings down, she focused on her incredible weekend with Augie. She remembered their sunset kiss and was sure Augie was the one.

  More and more people crammed into the warehouse space, and they shoved every last piece of furniture against the walls so they could interact when the show started. They all downloaded a character sheet and started figuring out their skills. Edwina was going to be She-Hulk, which meant she had legal acumen and enhanced strength. As she put on headphones and set her contacts to work with the warehouse AR network, Edwina realized this was the kind of fun she could never have with Augie. Most of the time, Augie couldn’t deal with crowds. She liked routine. There’s no way she would ever have gotten into an interdimensional war with a bunch of strangers playing characters from twentieth-century comics. Still, Chester would never have stayed in bed all day talking about the latest E. coli infection disaster. Or gone on a nature hike to a lonely peak.

  After they defeated Magneto and Loki, Chester led her up Natoma Street to a food cart serving Japadogs with mango curry and various other bioluminescent sauces. They ate sitting on the curb, far enough from the cart that the chef wouldn’t hear their reviews.

  Chester elbowed her lightly and wiped some mango blobs off his cheek. “What do you think?”

  “Ummm . . . I’m afraid I’m going to say no to mango curry Japadogs for the rest of my life.”

  He laughed. “What? I thought She-Hulk liked to eat everything.”

  A feeling washed over her like a blast from one of Doctor Strange’s magical semiphores. Edwina pulled Chester to her tightly, giving him a long, hard kiss on the mouth.

  “Hey, cutie, what was that for?” He looked simultaneously quizzical and horny.

  The words tumbled out. “I think I’m in love with you.” Once she’d said it, she knew it was true.

  Chester’s eyes widened. “Really? Because I think I’m in love with you too! You are absolutely, 100 percent, the greatest person ever.” And he hugged her again, kissing every part of her face right there on the street, only a few yards away from the worst Japadogs known to humanity. It felt right, just like kissing Augie did.

  The next morning, Chester made Edwina a perfect cappuccino with a rocket-shaped machine that he’d stolen from the set of a long-ago canceled video series. Edwina popped another pill out of the blister pack, swallowing it with a mouthful of foam. Taking these things had only made her life worse. Now she was officially in love with two people, which was the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen.

  “Are you going out with Augie tonight?” Chester asked.

  At the sound of Augie’s name, Edwina almost spilled her coffee. She stared at Chester, unable to say anything.

  Chester continued, seemingly unperturbed. “I was only asking because it seems like you two usually hang out on Tuesday nights. Isn’t her day off on Wednesday?”

  Maybe Edwina had told Chester that at some point. Or maybe Augie had told Chester, one of those times when they’d met. Finally Edwina found her voice. “I’m not sure what I’m doing tonight.” She heaved a sigh. “I don’t know what I’m doing at all.”

  Chester shrugged, oblivious to her internal conflict. “Okay, well let me know. We could go to that new Godzilla popup theme park in Oakland if you’re free.”

  Why was Chester so casual about this? Now that they had used the word love to describe their feelings, shouldn’t he be discouraging her from seeing Augie? And shouldn’t Augie have been telling her not to see Chester? Edwina stared morosely out the window of Chester’s flat, which had a panoramic view of the bay if you stood in the exact right spot to see between two other apartment buildings. Then she texted Alyx.

  Edwinner: I think the pills are doing something weird to me, and now I’m stuck in this super awkward situation where I have no idea what to do.

  Alyx777: I warned you.

  Edwinner: What do you mean?

  Alyx777: I said the pills were magic! Or maybe garbage? Either way, the kids are buying them like crazy. Did you see this week’s episode?

  Edwinner: I’m serious, Alyx. do you have time to meet up for happy hour?

  Alyx777: Yeah. Sorry about the love trauma, boo. Let’s meet at El Rio.

  Edwina blinked away the words to see Chester smiling at her the same way he had last night, when he called her the greatest person ever. It made her want to cry, or have sex with him, or maybe both. They walked to the bus together, holding hands and talking about how Godzilla was still the best giant monster. It felt natural and unnatural at the same time. She couldn’t wait to focus on something completely normal, like spraying bacterial precursors on birthing tables in a maternity ward to encourage the growth of microbes that used to live in people’s vaginas.

  Alyx was drinking a Long Island iced tea when Edwina arrived after work. Her hands still felt pruny from wearing gloves all day.

  “You look kind of sick.” Alyx sounded concerned. “Are you still actually taking those pills?”

  Edwina settled on the bar stool next to Alyx and nodded. “I mean, they’re just placebos or something. But I do feel strange.”

  “They might really have hormones. Or—I dunno. ProTox has some bizarre subcontracts with people who claim to do sorcery and shit. Who knows what’s in there.”

  Edwina ordered a scotch and sipped it slowly. “I think the problem is that I need to break up with one of the people I’m dating.”

  “Why? Is one of them better than the other?”

  “No. The opposite!” Edwina said vehemently. “It reminds me of how I always have to order a scoop of chocolate and a scoop of salted caramel when we go to Bi Rite. They are so perfectly, equally good that I can’t imagine ordering only one. Does that make sense?”

  “I think you’re saying that Bi Rite has done such a good job of marketing their flavors that they’ve suckered you into always ordering two scoops instead of one,” Alyx said. Then they saw the look on Edwina’s face and reached out a hand to squeeze hers. “Sorry to be so snarky. I guess I don’t get why you are so freaked out. My mom had seven kids, and she loves all of us. Like for real. Imagine if you had to keep track of what seven people like for breakfast, or what they want for their birthdays. She always has, though. If she can love seven maniacs, why can’t you love two flavors?”

  Edwina could feel tears in her eyes, and her contacts started to drift off her irises with an annoying string of error messages. She blinked them back into place and used one finger to draw circles on the bar with a blob of water. “I want to have kids. Nobody will let you marry two people and have kids with them.”

  Alyx looked more serious than she had ever seen them. “You know that’s bullshit, right? I can’t think of a better place to raise kids than with grownups who love each other.” They drummed their fingers on the bar and seemed lost in thought for a moment. “Marriage is like every other brand that has staying power. Think about YouTube. It used to be part of a p
rivate company, and it was full of really bad stuff, like Nazis and crazies talking about rounding up gay people. But then YouTube spun off and became part of the public broadcasting network, and now it’s all educational programs and people gardening and stuff. That was a major rebrand, but it worked. Most people don’t even know that it used to be dangerous for kids to go there.”

  “And this is related to my situation how?” Edwina drained her glass.

  “Marriage is another changing brand. It used to be only for cis heterosexuals, but now gay people can get married—at least, in a lot of places. People don’t think of marriage the same way anymore. Even in North Carolina, where they have those Family First laws, people are protesting. Here in California, you can create an indie brand marriage. And you know what happens to indie brands, right?” Alyx winked. “They get appropriated by giant megabrands. Pretty soon, ProTox will be marketing a placebo for people who want to fall in love with more than one person. I guarantee it.”

  Edwina shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  A text from Augie was blinking in the corner of her vision.

  Augustales: Hey are we hanging out tonight, or are you with Chester?

  What the hell was it with both her sweeties being perfectly fine with an arrangement that she was taking pseudoscientific vole hormones to shut down?

  Edwinner: I’m actually with Alyx. Can I come over in an hour or so?

  Augustales: Sure. I’m just cleaning up cat barf and reading the latest caloric intake report from the FDA lol

  Alyx had finished their drink and was wearing their usual sardonic expression again. “Off to do some rebranding?” they asked.

  Augie’s apartment was in one of the old luxury condo blocks built in the Castro around the turn of the millennium. It had been divided and subdivided until all the original three-bedroom, two-bathroom layouts were studios, most with shared bathrooms. Somehow, Augie had scored an en suite bathroom, which still had most of the fancy fixtures from the 2010s. Even the heated floor worked.

  Flopping on the futon next to Augie, already in her frayed plaid pajamas, Edwina screwed up her courage. “We should talk about our relationship, I guess.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking that, too. I mean, this weekend was intense. But I’m glad.” Augie leaned over and kissed Edwina’s ear.

  “I really want to get married and have kids one day. I mean, not now, but not super far into the future either.”

  “Me too. Same.”

  “And I think Chester does, too. I mean, I need to talk to him more, but I’m pretty sure he does.” That wasn’t exactly a great way to put it. But, as Alyx said, she was making her own indie brand from scratch. The first try is always a little rough.

  Augie was nodding. “Yeah, I like Chester. He has good taste in women.” She laughed and ruffled Edwina’s hair. “We should probably hang out more often if we’re going to have kids together, though.”

  Edwina felt wobbly. “We probably . . . should? I mean, you’re not mad?”

  “If I were mad, I would have stopped seeing you like eleven months ago when you started dating him. Look, I need to have lots of quiet alone time, and you like to go out and eat cockroaches while dancing to electronic flute music. I’m glad you have somebody who can do that with you, because I definitely won’t.”

  Edwina hugged Augie, smelling the detergent in her pj’s and marveling at how soft the skin on her neck was. She wished she could put this emotion into bacterial slime and spread it everywhere so that everyone could feel it. “I love you,” she whispered, knowing those words were inadequate. Still, she planned to say them to Augie about fifteen million more times before her life was over.

  Chester got off work early the next afternoon and visited Edwina at a school in Richmond that had never been infected before. AFDC had raised money for the school after the San Francisco Wave reported that kids in the neighborhood were getting bronchitis and Crohn’s disease at extremely elevated rates. Volunteers were scrubbing down the walls and spraying everything with agar to promote bacterial growth. The kids had packed all their stuff into neon yellow plastic bags so that it wouldn’t get soggy, and the teachers had taken down all the posters and art. She could see bright squares on the bulletin boards where pinned-up calendars had prevented the corkboard from fading. A few pencils stuck out of the high ceiling; apparently kids still shot them up there with rubber bands. Somebody had left a dead monitor folded up in a dusty corner. Pretty soon this would be a room full of chaos again, swirling with good bacteria.

  Chester sat down in one of the tiny plastic chairs and looked at the bucket of slime Edwina had just cracked open. “Should I eat some of this? Will it help my digestion?” He hovered a finger over the goo, a quizzical expression on his face.

  Knowing Chester, he probably would eat it if she told him it was okay. Which technically it was, though really it wasn’t. She needed every ounce of it for the kids.

  When the volunteers went on break, Edwina sat down on a pink beanbag next to Chester and stripped off her gloves. “So I was talking to Augie about our relationship.”

  “You mean your relationship with her or your relationship with me?” Chester asked.

  “I guess . . . both?”

  “Did you talk about how we are all going to grow old together and raise amazing kids who eat microbes with banana ketchup and understand the difference between Captain Marvel and Captain America?”

  Edwina awkwardly scrunched the beanbag closer to Chester and leaned her head against his leg. “Were you guys texting each other or something?”

  “No. I was just saying what I hoped you talked about. Especially the Captain Marvel part. You’re not breaking up with me, are you?” Chester looked uncharacteristically anxious.

  “I meant it when I said I love you. But I love Augie, too. Is that okay?”

  “It’s been okay the whole time we’ve been dating, cutie. I like Augie. We totally should have kids together. I mean, not me and her. But you know—me and you, you and her, all of us. One day.” Chester shrugged. Edwina looked up at his crooked smile and thought about how he was always up for an adventure. Of course he was up for this.

  She turned her attention back to the classroom, its walls drying, and thought that maybe Alyx was wrong about what this was. It wasn’t like rebranding. It was like science. Her mother and grandmothers grew up with spray bottles full of antiseptics and antibacterials, killing everything in the environment until people started getting sick. It turned out that people needed all that bacteria swimming around in their guts and mouths and various other unmentionable tubes. The immune system is a million different moving, living creatures, and if kids aren’t eating dirt then they are probably missing out. Before Edwina was born, people would have called this classroom dirty and sick. Now they knew it was the healthiest place for kids to grow up.

  Edwina pulled the blister pack of Eternalove out of her pocket and stared at it. She didn’t need magic to figure out her future. She already had evidence-based analysis. Kissing Chester on the knee, she stood up and crossed the room to the waste bins. Each candy heart made a satisfying snap as she popped it out of its plastic shell and into oblivion.

  11

  The Monk of Lingyin Temple

  Xia Jia

  translated by Ken Liu

  Perfuming the Altar

  October. Lingyin Temple was shrouded in an auspicious dharma cloud.

  To the southwest of the temple ran a narrow footpath, named Tianzhu Path. Lined with tea gardens, ancient shrines, simple huts, and bamboo groves, it followed the course of a babbling brook.

  It was evening, when there were few tourists. A lone man dressed in black walked along the path: hair white, face lined, a few deep furrows in the brow, as though etched permanently into the flesh. The rain had stopped so that the road and the surrounding vegetation all glinted wetly, and fragrant golden-red-yellow-white osmanthus petals covered the flagstones like stars. He walked deliberately, one step after another, as though linger
ing over the beautiful scenery, or perhaps slowed down by a troubled mind.

  A woman dressed in white stood in the road up ahead. She pressed her hands together and bowed in greeting. “Householder Zhou, you may call me Xiao Wang. The Venerable Zhengxuan asked me to wait here to welcome you.” She wore little makeup; her dark eyes were lively. A small scarlet red mole sat between her eyebrows, as though painted there in vermilion.

  The man returned her greeting. “Thank you.”

  The two walked together down the path, side by side.

  “Isn’t the scenery breathtaking?” asked Xiao Wang.

  The man nodded. “Indeed. I had no idea this path was here.”

  “Everyone’s so used to riding the LINGcart now; so few take walks,” Xiao Wang said. “Before, every time I visited, I’d take this path—it felt like a way to cultivate a connection to Buddhism. No matter how much my heart was troubled, a walk would always sort it out a bit.”

  “Do you often come to the temple for self-cultivation?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t call myself a believer. I’m just here to help with the Liberation Rite of Water and Land. Householder Zhou, did you come specifically for the Liberation Rite?”

  He said nothing.

  Xiao Wang went on. “The Liberation Rite will release from suffering all beings of land, water, and air in the six destinies. The deceased will be freed, and the living will accumulate merit. It’s rumored that the Abbot of Lingyin Temple, the Venerable Zhengxuan, will be retiring this year. That is why this Liberation Rite is even more solemn and grand than usual, and the number of participants so numerous.”

  “The Venerable Zhengxuan is getting on in years, isn’t he?” the man asked. “I believe he’s been the abbot for a long time now.”

  “He’s seventy now. He renounced the secular life and became a monk at Lingyin Temple eighteen years ago, and was elevated to the position of abbot eight years ago.”