“It was awful. I could only eat thinly sliced extra sharp cheddar,” I said finally. The pang of relief to not be fighting.
“And apples, right?”
“Only some days. Only Granny Smiths, so thinly sliced that each slice could almost let light through, and served very cold. That was all I wanted. I felt so wretched, I’ve never ever felt so bad.” I corrected myself: “Rarely.” Extremely thinly sliced foods, managing to both exist and barely exist, were the only foods I could tolerate. I couldn’t handle the idea of food—ads for it, seeing people’s lunch bags, the concept of restaurants—but I could manage the occasional petite translucent manifestation of it. At work, the smell of coffee roiled me. Also, the smell of the oil on the window sashes in the conference room. I was very conscious of it, sitting in meetings. Or maybe it was window cleaning fluid. In any case it became one of the top five things I was conscious of, along with Gorvis’s cratering performance. “Why are you thinking about it?”
“Some people feel like that all the time.”
“Gestational carriers,” I said knowingly.
“No,” Rafe said. “It’s a metaphor. It’s how I feel.”
I touched my belly, my belly button. “I’m glad I had the experience of pregnancy. Once was plenty, though.” It worked out really well using the gestational carrier with Blazer, since I was able to ramp up to another baby with reserves of strength and energy. The pregnancy was during the time I was managing a major product launch, so I still had the sense of incubating something phenomenal.
“I’m saying: I feel like that about our life.”
“It goes away when you have the baby.”
“Are you following? Yes. I can’t continue feeling this way. I need something to change. We have options. If you hate the Brazil idea, I can stop working for now, and you can do your thing. Why isn’t that a compromise you can accept?”
“It’s hard for me to respect people who aren’t ambitious,” I said.
We went silent for a few minutes, our backs to each other in the bed.
“Like me,” he said.
“Yeah.” We lay in the darkness of our bedroom, with its smell of nice carpet and fresh monogrammed sheets and no other smells, just cleanliness and all-natural, scent-free laundry detergent derived from pistachios.
“It would never occur to me to feel differently about you if you lost your job,” he said.
That was so hard for me to relate to I couldn’t think of anything to say in response. After a while he seemed to understand this and tried again. “We don’t have to work like this.”
“I have to work like this,” I said quickly.
“If things…if your work…I’m sure there’d be opportunities for you there. I’ve been pushing for us to expand our operations in that office, so it’d be strategic for me to lead it. It’ll amp up my career, which matters to you, and the work would be interesting to me. It comes at the price of me moving away, but it sounds like that’s OK with you. I can move down with the kids, and then you can join us if, you know, you…” His voice had a funny sadness to it. “You in?”
I sighed. “If I get fired because I can’t close the Powerplex deal, then yeah, I’ll do it. Sure.” That was an easy thing to agree to, as I was determined not to let that happen. Still, it was difficult to say.
“I’ll tell them we’re thinking about it,” Rafe said. The warm brawn of his upper leg fitted against mine.
This was my most intimate relationship, or was supposed to be. Should I tell him about the board meeting, the girl, the caller, whether I should send her the money? I searched for words to begin.
“Something happened. When I was in Barcelona…” It was hard to get the words out.
His voice, when it finally came, sounded strained. His leg moved almost imperceptibly, but away. “Yes?”
“I went out one night, to this bar. It was very strange…”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to. It would make me feel better to—”
“Look, we’re adults, we travel a lot, I assume—”
“What do you assume?” I said sharply. I restrained an impulse to kick him. “What are you assuming? What are you doing when you travel?”
“Nothing interesting,” he said. “Sometimes I order extra bacon for breakfast. But I get the feeling it’s different for you. You don’t seem to dislike work trips the way I do. When I’m away, I just want to get home. But you—”
“I miss the kids,” I blurted out, meaning to contradict him. It came out wrong, as if I meant they were the only ones I missed. I should have added that I missed him also, but I didn’t want to have to add it on, so I didn’t. “It wasn’t an affair, that’s not what I meant.”
He didn’t say anything. His body lay tense beside mine. I knew exactly how he lay even though I wasn’t looking at him. I could read his position in the bed by the arrangement of heat. I could tell he was worried by what I’d said and waiting for reassurance. Once I had thought that monogamy might be difficult. But marriage has corresponded for me with an intense career phase, so it’s easier than you’d think to be faithful; I’m so busy. I turned my mind over to Barcelona. How could I explain it? What would I say? Would Rafe think I had snapped, or was unstable? Would it make him more likely to pack up the kids and take them away?
“Never mind,” I said. “I made it sound too dramatic. It was just a work thing I was going to ask you about. It’s nothing.”
“Of course. How did I guess? A Conch thing.”
“Yes. Sort of.” If he was trying to irritate me, it didn’t work. Not for nothing have I done all this life-coaching. I spoke as if he hadn’t brought up Conch. “Look, if you moved down there with the kids, you would miss me.”
“I’m sure. But we’ll fly back. There’s Skype. I just heard about this chat app that’s popular with college kids.”
“They’re known for being so great in long-distance relationships.”
Rafe turned over. He wanted to go to sleep, but I wasn’t done.
“Do you think that taking this job at Conch has changed me?”
“No, you were always this crazy.”
“Be real.”
“What makes you think I’m joking?”
I laughed, but he didn’t. Rafe did his locking-in-for-sleep maneuver, which I’m sure he doesn’t even know he does—a half-roll, a tug on the sheet, a grunt as he moves into position. There was nothing notable about the sequence except that he did it every night. You get used to these things; they become part of your scenery. I gave him a quick kiss. He kissed me back but with a sense of finality, of closing the opportunity up.
“I still feel I made the right decision to take this job. Don’t you think?”
He didn’t answer. I prodded. “It was an opportunity that wasn’t going to come around again. You have to seize opportunities,” I insisted. “However you can get them.” I heard what I was saying, and I understood its correctness, even though I knew it would hurt to see it through.
Rafe groaned and moved farther from me in bed.
Chapter 14
The next morning, Rafe seemed irritable and distant, but there was no time to talk things over. I left the house early, flew to and from Santa Barbara for a lunch meeting, stopped by the office to tie up loose ends, and then went home to change before heading to the party at Cullen’s place in San Francisco. Rafe was meeting me there. Was supposed to meet me there. I had an unsettled, sick feeling that he might not show up as I waited for him outside Cullen’s apartment. I practiced my power poses, which Greer taught me, which lower my cortisol levels while helping me emulate the alpha creatures of the jungle. But this time I just felt like a person pretending to be a panther.
The people I network with tend not to have partners or children. They worship their dogs (I view Eggs not as family, but as a housemate liable to eat my socks). Their biggest loves are nonhuman: clean air, clean water, exoplanets, orcas. Cullen’s passion is the ocean. (Try saying that thre
e times fast.) He is interested in investing the fortune he’s making from Conch in creating nanobots—a kind of engineered bug—that will eat pollutants and clean the oceans. Mechanized krill, or something. It fits his big life project of making technology pervasive. The people I work with also like to mention their big life projects.
I checked my messages. Still no news from Rafe. He hadn’t even bothered to make an excuse. It would have been so easy: an unexpected deadline, a client meeting, a problem with his team, a deal unraveling that needed his delicate handwork to stitch back together. I would be perfectly fine on my own at the party, of course. I just felt sad about him not wanting to come with me. I pictured what my life would be like without him: making do with a handful of nuts for dinner, going to bed in a creaky, empty house. Should I start talking about him less in public? I checked my watch again, scrutinized my reflection in the glass of a picture frame, slapped some color into my cheeks, and went in.
The party was in Cullen’s loft, in a converted anchovy cannery. Little bronze plaques throughout the building explained that this had been the scaling room, this the cleaning room. There was a carved wooden throne upholstered in tattered mauve silk by the door. At the huge open windows, tall flat curtains flapped. Sea lions cried. Or something did—and I was willing to buy that it was a sea lion when told so. Cullen was converting the loft into a clubhouse for his old summer camp friends. It was vast and gray, every surface polished, lots of concrete. The ceilings were thirty feet above. The espresso machine straddled the kitchen, the size of a mid-century supercomputer, trimmed in brass like an 1880s locomotive.
“Hey, it’s the birthday girl! You look lovely tonight, La Shelley,” said Cullen’s friend Irwin Lee, greeting me. He kissed my cheek, bending into the cloud of perfume that I had spritzed onto my neck earlier, and which now accosted me, sharp and aldehydic, every time I shifted position. Irwin kissed my other cheek too, European-style, which I was not expecting and caused our noses to pass within a pore’s width of each other, which is the closest I have ever come to Irwin Lee. How to sum up Irwin? Is it worth the time it will take? He grew up going to summer camp in Vermont with Cullen, where they played guitar together and flew kites (literally chasing the long tail). Now he does something with security and passwords. Cullen says not that well.
I was wearing my blue silk dress—blue like the dirty ocean. Elegant, fitted, just off the shoulders. And earrings. I always forget to wear earrings (I have a checklist on my bathroom mirror to remind me), but I had them on tonight, dangly ones that jingled when I turned my head suddenly, which apparently I do a lot. The little jingle kept making me think it was time for my next meeting. I had made quite an effort. I hoped Cullen appreciated it.
At the moment Irwin and I separated, I touched my ear to be sure my earring hadn’t slipped forward. I saw his eyes follow, and I realized he thought I was touching my Conch, prompting it to identify him. Of course I knew Irwin, but at that moment, feeling a little insecure myself, I liked the idea that he wasn’t sure if I did. It’s so important to stay humble, and the reason people say that is because power-tripping is so seductive. I watched him follow my finger up behind my ear, so I gave my Conch a little tap. There was a flicker of uncertainty on his face. It was a nice little moment.
“Good to see you…” I paused just for an instant, just to see discomfort on Irwin’s face, as he timed how long it would take to come up with his name: “…Irwin.”
“I heard about the Clitch,” Irwin ventured, as if he were saying something naughty. Willow had told me earlier that this was what the strategy team had nicknamed the Conch glitch.
“Don’t like that,” I had told Willow.
“Pick your battles,” she’d said pertly right back. I am totally developing her.
“Ah, yes,” I said to Irwin, as if he’d mentioned a friend we had in common. I squeezed his hand warmly and he looked, I was glad to see, a little scared.
I ate grapes, looking out the big windows at the darkness and twinkling lights. Along the back wall of the loft, large aquariums pumped dark water. In the tanks, lacy clumps drifted and coalesced, forming shapes: maybe they were coral, or nanobots, or krill. I went closer and touched the glass of the tank. The shapes evolved, as if following the motion of my hand. A neon fish pierced the dark dreamscape. A very ugly electric eel lay at the bottom of one tank, featureless except for its gleaming eyes.
A woman glanced from the eel to me and caught my eye. “Reminds me of my ex-husband,” she said.
I smiled. I tried to remember who she was: I think a CEO in biotech, very minor.
“Oh, Shelley!” she said, recognizing me as I tried to place her. “You’ve had a rough week.” She said it as a statement of fact, without sympathy.
“It’s a good thing I have laser focus, product power, and a team with incredible acumen,” I said. “Without those assets, it would be tough.”
Her eyes stayed on me a moment, as if she were going to say something and then decided not to. She sipped her wine. “You learn so much through the failing process,” she said thoughtfully.
I didn’t acknowledge this. Had everyone heard about the Clitch? Perhaps it was my imagination, but as I made my way across the crowded room, people abruptly stopped talking and then started up again in a forced, stagy way. I huddled by the windows beside a table of sustainably harvested seafood hors d’oeuvres. I checked my watch and wondered when would be the earliest acceptable time to leave.
“Greeting you!” a woman said, reaching out to hug me.
“Greer!” I said, melting into the hug, grateful for an ally. I enjoy Greer’s bits of wisdom, shared via text, which add an interesting dimension to the present moment, like sucking on hard candies in lavender and oregano–type flavors. At the risk of sounding like Greer, though, there’s something transcendent about experiencing her energy in person. I think it might be the gloss of saintliness, or a diet free of additives. Her smile just then was a genuinely balming experience. I feel similarly with Melissa, and, the time I met them, Nova’s preschool teachers—next to them I feel bathed in a cool light, and understood.
Greer wore a simple scoop-necked top and gathered print skirt, loose over her small frame, perfect for leaving this event to go teach a ballet folklórico class later in the night, or act in a production of The Grapes of Wrath. It really didn’t matter what Greer wore. As always, it was subsumed by a current of joy, confidence, joint flexibility, fortunate circumstances, and uniquely impactful statement jewelry. She had the posture of someone so used to being beautiful she took it for granted, and it was now beside the point whether she was or not.
“I’ve been hoping to run into you,” Greer said to me, with a warmth that cheered me, but then she went on. “I’m having one of my failure parties next week. Won’t you join me?” Greer throws her failure parties a few times a year for her clients. The idea is to defang failure, so it’s something to embrace, not to fear. It’s like a baby shower except no presents and no baby. The women stand up and give a self-deprecating three-minute talk about their latest failure. Everyone claps. The more major the woman, the more major the failure. In vulnerability, community. I am usually all over this in concept, but I was feeling too genuinely vulnerable.
I shook my head. Greer took my hand, sweetly. “Do come! You can bring a friend, sister, lover…” She lost her conversational balance for a moment, as if thrown off-kilter by considering the possibility of me having lovers.
“Things are a little busy,” I admitted.
“Do you find that busyness is the opposite of meaningful focus?” Greer asked.
I wasn’t in the mood to benefit from this chastisement/reframing, so I picked up a piece of celery and nibbled it.
Greer leaned in and whispered, her breath in my ear. “I notice you are sharing your dress tonight without apology.”
I looked at her, puzzled.
“Appetite is a passion of mine,” Greer remarked, with a glance of revulsion toward the snacks, and particular
ly my celery stick. “I’m fascinated by how we feed our authentic selves. What quenches our true thirsts and hungers.”
The celery was stringy but much of it was already in my mouth, so I was committed to swallowing it. I followed through on that commitment. “Great point,” I said. Further discussion was postponed by Cullen approaching and scooping both of us up in his arms.
“Two of my favorites!” he said, and favorited me by giving me a crisp and very professional kiss. “Did you try the kombucha cocktail? I fermented it myself.” He looked around. “Where’s Rafael? So looking forward to hanging out with him tonight.”
Cullen doesn’t realize Rafe doesn’t like him; he assumes everyone likes him, that’s been his experience of the world so far.
“He’s held up,” I said. I changed the subject. “I didn’t know you knew Greer.”
Greer inclined her head and inhaled in a visible, stylish way. She gave a soft, reproachful look. It was rude to imply there was anyone Greer didn’t know. “What a small world,” I said, to be friendly, though I dislike that phrase. Seven and a half billion people on earth and I keep meeting the same fifty: it just shows our diversity efforts still have a long way to go.
“Look at Shelley’s dress!” Greer said to Cullen.
“Oh, yeah, wow—you’re really tapping into the trends.” Cullen made a funny face.
What did that mean? I had expected compliments and I wasn’t sure what to make of this feedback. When I’d been getting ready for the party I had reviewed, in the bathroom mirror, my not-terrible décolletage, my earrings, how my dress looked from the back. I had made sure nothing showed through the material. I thought back. I had stopped for a moment to lounge on the bed and get on top of my inbox, and then I had been distracted into checking the tech blogs, vile bastards though they were. I’d also had a message from Phil at Powerplex asking for “a couple of minutes as soon as possible.” Was Powerplex scared? Well, they could wait. It didn’t do to seem like a desperate suitor. I had noticed the time and checked my teeth—and yes, the rest of myself—in the mirror before going out. My dress seemed fine. I didn’t know what they were talking about. I looked nice, actually.
The Glitch_A Novel Page 22