We did our song, “It’s So Nice to See You, It’s So Nice to Go to Sleep.”
It’s been fun and now it’s done! Lots to do! Time to go! Clap clap, I love you. It’s part of our repertoire, a playlist built over Nova’s baby and preschool years, which now includes the Calming Down song, the Being Flexible song, the Wash Your Hands with Soap song, and the recent hit, in heavy rotation now and for the foreseeable future, the Look Me in the Eyes When You Talk song. I waved goodbye as the view went dark.
I sat on the bed, wondering where Rafe and Nova were having lunch. It pricked a little, in a funny way, not to have her where I expected her. It seemed like a foretaste of the time, not that far away, when she would be off doing her own activities, and she’d have a busy schedule of her own that would conflict with mine. If Rafe were here he’d hum that cat’s-in-the-cradle song at me.
I turned the television on, clicked out of the TV gulag of pay-per-view options, and watched a green field in which a series of hurdles were surmounted by one bottle-nosed dog, much to the excitement of the announcers. I turned the TV off. On the coffee table lay a plate with three golden apples and a sharp, sharp knife to slice them. A clever touch, really—the hotel leveraging something inexpensive for a luxurious effect. I stabbed an apple into halves, and then quarters, then eighths. I found I had no desire to eat any fraction. Nothing seemed right.
I read the room service menu from beginning to end, settling on chicken salad. The nice thing about an international chain hotel is you know the chicken salad won’t contain bones. The same, I’m sorry to say, cannot be said elsewhere. I called down the order, got the key out of the envelope, fiddled with it, chastised myself for indecision (Shelley: you make the call), encouraged myself to connect with my core values (be bold and shrug off fear), put my shoes back on, and went out of the room.
Car bomb? I wondered in the elevator. But who would want to have me killed? I mean, really, I’m a value creator. Kidnapping? That was worrisome—note to self, be careful. Token of appreciation from an admirer? Not impossible, just peculiar.
The video didn’t prove anything, even if it did reassure me. That was the point of it, I suppose. To capture my interest. To take me off guard. I should therefore stay on guard. I fingered the key in the key pocket of my yoga pants as I rode down in the elevator.
It was only dusk out, no reason to be afraid, and I was fast and strong and wearing running shoes. The air was humid. A family was unloading their luggage from the car. A little girl pushed a pink plastic stroller beside the car while a bellman hung up a garment bag and her father was digging around in the open trunk, with a suitcase unzipped. A sick-looking woman stood nearby, with very fine, very blonde hair like a doll’s and an expression of defeat. She held her hand protectively over the bag she carried, looking wary, as if this was not where she’d thought they were going.
Their eyes fixed on me—was I the kind of person they should fear, and was this hotel all right?—and, just as fast, released me. But I had seen them and they me, and that gave me a feeling of safety.
The hotel was situated on a wide, pleasant six-lane Barcelona street with elaborate buildings lining either side. Yellow-and-black cabs glided past, under very tall streetlights, elegant, decorous, dark. At the end of the block a round fountain shot its plume of water into the air.
Ornate buildings faced each other, adorned with carved statuary, minarets, garlands, and cherubs, and also, looking not at all out of place amid all this fanciness, the familiarly shaped signs for American banks and clothing stores and fast-food places. Strong global brands work everywhere.
I walked down the block. A disconcerting mix of trees lined the street—sycamores, or some kind of trees with dappled trunks in silvery gray, and some palmy things. I saw a palm tree in Ireland once, towering in the front yard of a very small house. You would think palm trees need warmth, but what they really need, bottom line, is for it not to get too cold. I am certain there is a business lesson to extract from that.
Enrique had talked about spaces. Around the corner. There was no parking lot, but when I turned the corner from my hotel, the street had an additional lane with some diagonal parking, separated from the rest of the street by sidewalk. On the sidewalk were dozens of motorcycles. I love agility and individualization in products so you’d think I’d love motorcycles, but I wouldn’t ride one because I fear injury, which shows how complex consumer preferences can be.
I noticed people as I walked, hoping they would in turn notice me. I walked by lots of young people who looked like they had just finished sweaty workouts, and people wearing a style of sandal you don’t see in the United States. I passed a pale woman wearing khaki shorts, the light falling so that they seemed first to be shorts, then pants as they blended with her pale legs. Then, as she turned into the shadow, for a moment she had one pants leg and one shorts one.
The key was in my pocket and resolution was in my heart. I was stalwart, not trembling except inside. I counted as I walked down the row of cars, peeking in their blank, clean exteriors, their Euro-variation on American cars and their bemusing names, hinting at a different set of marketing preconditions—the VW Polo, Ford Ka, Opel Insignia Sports Tourer, the Toyota Aygo, Citroën C6 Saloon, Renaults, Peugeots, the—can that really be its name?—Nissan Qashqai. And Audis. The TT translated well. I wonder what they do in Cyrillic markets.
At the end of the row, in the fifteenth space—I think—I saw a car that was different. I looked away, worried that it would not be what I hoped. For some reason this prospect upset me. I went back to looking at the buildings. A wall had graffiti stenciled on it. I approached the car at the end of the row with an unusual diffidence, like a boy you meet at fourteen—which is to say, I stayed at the opposite end of the row and barely looked at it, awash in feeling.
It was akin to a sexual undertow. Probably just because I missed Rafe. Maybe because of altitude sickness. Worry. Maybe the high I get from giving keynotes.
I couldn’t tell where this feeling was coming from. This—was it sexual or seasickness?—queasy feeling. Did I think a full-on view might dispel its charm? Or perhaps there was something else that made me keep my eyes away as I moved, first this way and then that, lacing my way gradually closer.
The car was silver. That was my first impression. A different silver from the silver of all the other cars, more truly silvery, with a sense of motion underneath, like a one-way mirror in a focus group room, where, when one of the observing executives leaves to return to other responsibilities, the focus groupers turn and glance over toward the mirror, as if they have picked up on some shadowy change. The car’s headlights were round, like spectacles. It was tiny, even among the little Citroëns. It looked—what? Cheerful? Sexy? Some other catalog word—compelling. User delight is something we talk about a lot in tech, how to achieve a beautiful user experience, but rarely do I feel it. But “delighting the user” is very 2010. This was two notches up from delight: elation and balming the user’s soul.
I slid my hand along the car’s flank and felt a shiver of static run up my arm and down my spine. Far away there was the crack of thunder, and I felt, despite myself and all the stuff I’d said earlier, a very unpleasant spasm of fear. I recited some words I say in such situations, paused, and took a few cleansing breaths. Then I bent down to look in, cupping my hands to block the glare. In just a moment I would try the key. I tried the door handle first, and the door swung open. The two front seats were brown leather with rows of scalloped stitching—like the scallops of a conch shell, actually (I can’t help but see opportunities for our brand and make the connection. As Greer would say, it’s there if you look: the universe wants to provide). The steering wheel was old-fashioned, unpadded, perhaps a little spindly—not a fluid-filled simulacrum of a steering wheel, with the plastic cushioning of old people’s toilet seats, but a wheel, a real one, that probably turned all the way.
You might think, don’t I already have a lovely car? I don’t, actually. Rafe drives
a Tesla and it’s funny to watch the squirrels eating acorns in our driveway scatter, dangerously late in the game, as he glides soundlessly up. We have an Odyssey for the nanny. I have a car too, but there’s nothing interesting about it. Having a driver is key for me, because that way I can work in the car, or could if I didn’t get carsick all the time. That’s one of the challenges I’m working to overcome.
Also, we like to invest in what’s eco-friendly or technically intriguing, efficient or innovative, not in buying things just because they’re pretty. Our kind of luxury has to justify itself as being something else. We live expensively but it’s all about our work. Not pleasure—pleasure is not something I have much time for, the pointlessness of it, the inefficiency and excess.
My pleasure receptors seemed to get shriveled by the lightning, and now I seek other things: challenge, risk, accomplishment, excellence. I’m not unhappy. I’m never unhappy anymore. Am I ever happy? Yes, despite what Rafe said once, I am very happy, but it’s not a leisure-based happiness. If I’m very successful, that’s something I can engage in in retirement while mulling over philosophical conundrums and unsolved mathematical theorems. Then there will be time for a more serious yoga practice and more mindful contemplation and adventure travel and serving on scads of nonprofit boards, which I’m always being approached about but don’t have the bandwidth to commit to right now: clean water, clean air, curing cancer, helping burn victims, hindering strip mining, opera for the inner city, squash for farm kids—the racquet kind, obviously; they already have the vine kind.
Rafael is a bit pleasure driven. He grew up with so little, and now he gets so much joy out of excess—crazy Christmases and buying four pairs of shoes at a time. Maybe it’s because of his family background, their siestas and family meals, or a compensation for all his family had and lost. Whatever it is, I like it about him, his sprawl and size and willingness to take naps and fine-dine, and clients love it, the way he’s so warm and socially ept, makes anyone he meets feel like a million bucks. Pleasure doesn’t hold the same pleasure for me; I get bored and irritable. It all takes so long, an appetizer’s enough for me to feel like I’ve had the experience at the restaurant, and lying down for five minutes is enough of a nap, and I like to schedule sex for when we’re changing out of our clothes anyway. Then I need to get back to work.
And yet. All that was true but. This had my attention.
When I squeezed my hand together the key was in my palm. I got into the car. The leather inside smelled of smoked butterscotch. It was tidy and precise and charming in the way that vintage technology is, with its spiny unsteroided gearshift, its dials with their misguided pretensions of the future, its knobbiness and clock with hands. Even a digital evangelist like me can appreciate the charms of analog. It’s like dating a nerd and a football quarterback concurrently (not that I have tried this). The car seemed assembled rather than fused, and made of materials harvested from the world—metal, wood, and leather.
I figured it was all right to take the time to explore this. This was good research for work. We’re a wearables company—that’s what our marketing director always says. (She wishes she worked in fashion.) I need to stay abreast of design trends. I should drive this car.
It felt right. The seat fit. The pedals were where my feet wanted them to be. The wheel lay a delicate bent-arms distance from my shoulders. The smell was intoxicating, rich—not new-car, not old-car—something concocted specially, rare, rich, library-like.
I made some unnecessary adjustments to the driver’s seat, which was already adjusted optimally to my body. I snapped shut the door, and it closed satisfyingly with the dark-toned, vibratory thwack of a successful tennis return. I felt a surge in my spine and looked up.
The sky, which had been twilit, went dark, though it was not yet late. There was a crack of lightning and the sky split like a knifed cantaloupe. Rain pelted the windshield. I sobbed once. Cleansing breath. Then I turned the key.
Chapter 5
I felt the growling of the car under me, the lashes of the rain on the roof. I wasn’t sure I’d remember how to drive clutch, but the knowledge was lodged in my muscle memory, and I knew what to do. The car moved with a glide I felt through my body, as if I had merged with the equipment that was making this motion possible, like skiing.
I backed out and drove down the street, past buildings with wrought iron balconies stretched across them like elaborate spiderweb aprons. They reminded me of the buildings in Nova’s Madeline books. The decoration adds value, I thought. It might have seemed like an extra expenditure at the time, to order all that ironwork and get it installed, but value is not just short-term profit. Quality creates desirability, which can pay dividends far into the future; i.e., why I was staying on this street, and why my hotel could charge so much.
The storm continued, but I felt less anxious—driving felt too natural, too responsive, too perfectly fitted to me. My father, full of admiration for all well-made mechanical things, would have liked the way this car drove: “Turns on a dime and gives you nine cents change.”
I felt a buzz behind my ear as my Conch registered my speed and direction. “Going for a drive?” my Conch asked. At Conch, we call this a confirmation question. It knows what you’re doing but it’s letting you know it knows. My Conch then vibrated in a suggestion pattern. “For a scenic drive that avoids traffic hassles, head northwest on the A-2 toward Esparreguera.” I nodded, accepting the suggestion. Thank God, I thought, for Conch. What a great product. And to think I’m part of its success. What did I ever do without it?
I drove past a sign showing three arrows chasing each other’s tails, and then into a roundabout with a rusty piece of public art in its center, resembling a gigantic ice cream cone that had come to a bad end. I followed my Conch’s directions, stated plainly, dispensed just as I needed them, as it led me out of town. The bike lanes beside the highway were empty. The road itself was nearly deserted, but even in the dark I felt confident. Lit-up lane markers, like glowing beads dropped in the roadway, showed me the way.
Out of town, past cranes, piers, water—what did they extract here? Mackerel, oil, natural gas? I pressed my Conch in a query pattern. “Local exports?” I asked. In my Conch, and in my ear, something crackled. That was peculiar.
“What are the major industries here?” I said, clarifying.
“Transmission failure,” my Conch said. “No data available. Rebuilding database.”
I flinched; this was very strange. Conch is not, of course, a perfect product. As I tell our investors, we have a killer concept and are a market leader in the space, but there is still room to improve. That’s what makes it such an exciting time to be leading Conch. Our vision for the product is that someday it will be an assistant and a better self, all rolled into one. Who wouldn’t want a bon mot, a trenchant line, a translation on the fly, a fact to marshal a floundering argument, whispered into your ear at exactly the right time? That’s the French president approaching on your left. He likes yogurt and he has a corgi. Mention his wife, Brigitte, whom you met last year in Saint-Tropez. Conch is not quite there yet, we’re still refining the algorithm, and most of the time it’s just There’s an accident on your route home and thundershowers are predicted later and your mother just emailed you a photo of your nephew—but within the near term I can see Conch moving toward much more. But even if what it conveys isn’t profound, it usually works. It was strange that it wasn’t working.
“New connection established,” my Conch said. I’d never heard that before.
It must just be the remote location. I turned my attention to the thought of my chicken salad, which I hoped would have poppy seeds, but probably not, in Spain, and whether it had arrived yet to my room, and whether I should go back to have it. I hoped it would come on a croissant, and then I sharply reproved myself and more strongly hoped it would not, because a croissant is unnecessarily caloric.
I had not driven in a storm in almost twenty years.
“Turn lef
t,” the Conch said, clear and present once again; I found its familiar voice soothing, like an old friend’s, and I swung the wheel. I am so proud to work at Conch, bringing people the words they want to hear, at the moment they want to hear them.
Rain slapped against the roof. The sky had gone gray. Must be, I thought, something to do with the barometric pressure or the altitude. I’ll have to remember to ask the concierge about these weather patterns. It is interesting how when you travel you experience so many different sounds and phenomena not present in North America, or at any rate in Northern California, and that there really is a sense of foreignness to the flora and fauna. Take these gnarled olive trees—their leaves really are olive green, that is exactly the color, what a satisfaction to make that connection.
The road pulled me up the mountain and along a ridge. It was a strange feeling, to ascend to the clouds, to drive through them, like navigating a dense fog, and then finally to break through above. It had been loud, and now it was quiet. I had crossed above the rain. Above the clouds everything seemed crisper, colder, more saturated in color. The ever-present lichen between the rocks had a note of clear green instead of mossy brown. The sky was paler, as if it had given up some color to the rock and the hardy wildflowers scrabbling to grow in between. The air was thin and I felt like I could see very far.
Snow dusted the mountains in the distance. On one side of the car was the stony rise of the mountain, where intrepid little spruces grew, and lichens. On the other side was the steep downward slope leading to the city, staked with tall fir trees, the type that bad guys in movies become impaled on while riding their getaway sleds. Some of the trees had lost all their branches and were now just poles, mottled-looking trunks with stubby sticks sticking out in all directions, like antennas looking for a signal.
The Glitch_A Novel Page 8