Neopets in the year 2000—it was the next logical step from Pokémon and she picks a Kau with its friendly farm-animal face but it is a short-lived obsession because she tries to be one of those people who have a ton of money and can partake in all the quests—it seems no matter how hard she tries she is at the bottom of the barrel—she wonders how much time people spend on here and she tries not to think about her Kau suffering without her to take care of it as she goes days then weeks without playing—understanding now that games can be played on her computer she asks for two for her birthday
Secret Paths in the Forest and Secret Paths to the Sea also the year 2000—they are a little older and a little outdated but she has it on good authority from American Girl magazine that she’ll be able to see herself mirrored here—story! she thinks: This is how I want to see stories—not from tedious books and This is how I want to tell stories—not in essays no one but my teachers will ever read—but when she sits down to write a game it feels pointless without the skills to make little fantasy people move around dream worlds on a screen—instead she draws with abandon because it is the closest she thinks she could get without being good at math and without having already started to tame the computer—She Is Twelve! and decided already on the impossibility
There are more games of course but We will skip to 2004—Ultima Online and an awkward flat-chested sixteen-year-old girl who has stopped growing far earlier than her teenaged compatriots and who eats lunch in the guidance office and offers periodically to organize files in return for a safe and unawkward space to Peacefully Contemplate her cucumber-and-cream-cheese sandwich and her iced tea—she works summers at her parents’ advertising agency and takes art classes where other students both shy and navel-gazing leave her in a corner to paint on her own and when one of the art kids whispers with his eyes on the floor that he plays Ultima and hopes to see her there sometime—that it is Stupid Fun—she buys the game and signs up for the subscription using her leftover summer job money and she doesn’t tell her parents because they think games are a waste of time for a young lady beginning to look at colleges
Her character tames horses—she can tame anything to ride and she sells steeds to those whose skills lie elsewhere and she finds the Shy Art Kid and he introduces her to the other Shy Art Kids and they form a Shy Art Kid Guild and Eliza finds she can actually talk to them in the game with the keyboard standing sentry between her and the scrutinizing eyes of others—the fantasy aspect isn’t necessarily for her—she has never been a girl who is into princesses and dragons—but the Bravery and the Camaraderie and the Automatic Conversation Topics when she sees the others at school—she’ll take that any day—they build their castle and design their own crest: a paintbrush crossed with a sword and they take on dungeons and Eliza tames them each and every one an ostard or a warhorse or whatever they want—for Herself she tames a unicorn—it is a mount only women can ride
Chapter Sixteen
We catch up with her an hour after Preston takes her to dinner, when Circuit Breaker pops into existence. She flees to the outskirts of Windy City, ignoring us all, and starts cracking down suburban trees with lightning. She thinks blowing up some stuff might make her feel better. It doesn’t. She collects the wood to build things for her fortress. Any other day it is tedious but necessary work. She undertakes it now because she hopes the exploding little plants will grant her satisfaction. They don’t.
Circuit Breaker hears the unmistakable thunk thunk of Chimera’s knuckles on the ground. She sees the sound bubbles long before her fellow hero arrives. Chimera says nothing for a while. She grabs trees by their skinny necks and pulls them from the ground like weeds, dwarfed in her mighty fists. She breaks them in two—it requires no effort at all—and adds hand-split wood to the pile. “What are you planning on building?” she asks.
Eliza shrugs even though Suzanne can’t see her (even though we can’t see her). “I dunno,” says Circuit Breaker.
“Okay.”
They blast things. They uproot things.
“So you told Preston?”
“Chimera,” says Circuit Breaker with a warning in her voice. “I don’t want the real world in here. As much as possible. Right now.”
“Ugh, fine. You told Human Man?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“I dunno. He shook his head. Said he was really disappointed. Said those guys had been with him from the first hiring round, some of his best. He took me to dinner and then sent me home for the rest of the evening, so I came here.” She cracks another tree, this time with a good deal more electricity. Instead of usable wood, the two heroes gaze upon the pixel-perfect equivalent of a spent match. It is at least a little satisfying. “He did that thing where he seems to want to squeeze his own head until it’s a tiny square.”
“The thing with his palms on his temples?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s gonna start breaking out. Zits for days.”
They keep blasting trees.
“Why are you here, anyway?” Circuit Breaker asks. “Shouldn’t you be working?”
“You bet I should.” Chimera pauses. “This felt more important. I’m taking a break. I’m on the couches. I have a laptop with me, I’m surprised you can’t see the lag.”
“He said he’d talk to HR,” Circuit Breaker says after a while more.
“How do you feel about it?”
“I really have no idea how I feel about it. It was such a spur-of-the-moment decision. And I think, maybe, it wasn’t the best—” They hear a camera click and we shudder with anticipation. Yes. Yes. More information.
The telling dust trail and Runner Quick, Winged Feet of America and the World, stands at her side. Devonte knows it is a long, ridiculous tagline; that is part of the fun.
“Y’all don’t have private turned on,” Runner says immediately, and we all curse.
“Fuck,” says Circuit Breaker, for a different reason. Or rather, the same reason from an opposing viewpoint. We could hear them. We want to continue to hear them. They wink from existence, but we know they’re still there. Ghosts.
But it’s fine, it’s fine, we know what happens. We know we know what happens. We can keep narrating. “Preston called HR into his office as soon as he got back,” he continues, once he is sure their voices aren’t being broadcast.
“And?” Eliza and Suzanne say, both forgetting the role-play rule this time.
“Jinx,” Suzanne says.
“Come on, dude,” says Eliza, rolling her eyes.
“I dunno. They talked for a while in the glass office. Joe told me.”
“Joe with the hearing aids?” Suzanne checks.
“Joe with the mad lipreading skills. He says it’s not exact. But he seemed pretty sure of himself, regardless.”
“Well then,” Eliza says. “You have to know what happened.”
“I dunno. I mean, I do know, but do you really wanna know?”
“Uh-oh,” Suzanne says.
“Yeah,” Devonte replies. “Joe said it looked like mandatory sensitivity training.” No one is playing now. Their characters are the opposite of disembodied, standing there. What is it called when one only has a body, we wonder? Reverse ghosts?
“And?” Eliza asks.
“Have you, like, not been listening?” Suzanne says into her mic. “That’s all that’s going to happen.” She pauses. “Right Devonte?”
“Joe didn’t say anything else. Just that.”
Chapter Seventeen
JPDes: i feel bad
LFleis: why?
JPDes: preston seemed upset
LFleis: he just has to be
JPDes: ??
LFleis: he has to call HR in
LFleis: and pretend to be upset
LFleis: so he can say he took care of it
JPDes: i dunno
LFleis: look, he did teh minimum okay?
LFleis: thats how u know
LFleis: if he were really pissed abut it, hed do more
JPDes: i still feel bad
LFleis: your choice dude
JPDes: i guess we know shes not sleeping with him
LFleis: we dont kno that
JPDes: ???
JPDes: she went out with him to rat on us
LFleis: they culd have done that in his office
LFleis: but he took her out insted
LFleis: do u take women to lunch or somthing if your not gonna fuck sometime?
JPDes: i take my sister to dinner when she visits from paris
LFleis: dont be an asshole
LFleis: you kno what i mean
JPDes: i guess
LFleis: theyr definitely up to somethign
LFleis: you think shell be mad at him that he didnt take her side?
JPDes: dunno
LFleis: i bet hes not getting any for a LONG time
LFleis: lol
LFleis: JP?
JPDes: lol.
Chapter Eighteen
Most of us identify strongest with Jean-Pascale, unaware and unassuming, a brilliant technical mind, so he is deserving of our eyes and ears and focus for a moment or two. He hangs his keys on the board as requested by Delphine. She is wearing an apron and making some kind of asparagus over some kind of quinoa. He winces: asparagus isn’t in season and he hates quinoa. He wants something with meat in it, and in a bigger portion. But Delphine, an actor-dancer, is very particular about what she can eat, so he usually picks at what she puts in front of him and goes out for burgers late at night.
Delphine is so very cool or so very fake, depending on which of us you talk to; we either want to fist-bump Jean-Pascale in celebration, or sit him down and ask him what he is thinking. She has a French name but not a drop of French blood in her. Samantha Delphine Stewart, middle name selected by a Francophile mother. It came in handy when Jean-Pascale chatted her up in a bar. “My middle name’s Delphine!” she’d said when they talked about his move from Paris to New York.
“Delphine’s a very French name,” he’d said as he sipped his beer and pretended to like it. He’s called her Delphine ever since. Her mother is thrilled about it. He wishes for bar snacks in lieu of whateverthefuck she is cooking. The best part of America is the junk food.
She turns around with a baking sheet in hand and sees his face. “What’s wrong?” she asks. She is so in tune with him. She can spot his upsetness. We wish we had girlfriends that paid attention to us like that.
“Hello to you too,” he says, his shoulders slumping. He doesn’t really want to talk about it anymore—he feels like he’s been talking about it for hours, with HR and Lewis and inside his own head, feeling shitty about it all.
“Tell me everything,” Delphine orders as she scoops some vile dinner onto his plate. So he does.
“80085,” she giggles and covers her mouth so Jean-Pascale can see only her tiny nose and mischievous eyes, squinting at the corners. She is like a Disney princess—animated, perky and perfect. “JP, that’s so mean.” She pauses. “But so funny. It’s clever, using the numbers like that. Certainly this side of offensive.”
Jean-Pascale smiles. “You think it’s funny?”
“Yes. Comedic genius.”
His smile breaks into a grin. Or grimace. “That’s what Lewis said. I’m not sure anymore.”
“Ugh. Lewis. Your boyfriend.” She emphasizes the oy in “boy” as if she’s been transported back in time to the playground. Delphine chews her bite of quinoa. Jean-Pascale rubs his eyes. “Aww, honey”—she puts down her fork—“you really feel weird about this?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Well here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to go take a bath—I’ve been sore all day anyway, that new choreo is a killer. And I’m going to use some bubbles and some candles and stuff.”
“Uh. Okay?”
Delphine smiles. “That’s so when you order in the burger I know you get at least once a week at the diner, I won’t smell it. And you won’t have to leave.”
“You know about that?”
“Of course I do. You smell like meat when you get home. Meat and fried things. And popcorn? I don’t know why popcorn. They don’t serve popcorn. But you smell like popcorn and that diner smells like popcorn. And anyway, you can eat your burger and play your game and hang out in cyberspace with your boyfriend—”
“—he’s not my—”
“—and you won’t have to worry about anything at all. Good?”
Jean-Pascale doesn’t know how he’s gotten so lucky. “Sure. Yes, good.”
“Okay then.” Delphine gets up to clear the plates.
“Delphine?”
She turns around. “Yeah?”
“You don’t think something worse should have happened?”
“Jean-Pascale, you are a wonderful person. If we can’t joke around anymore at work, then maybe we should all hide in basements somewhere and never speak to each other again.”
“So you don’t think it was that bad?”
“JP. Let me tell you. This isn’t sexist. Yesterday I left an audition because it became abundantly clear that I wasn’t getting the spot unless I slept with the choreographer who was twice my age. When it comes to shit that happens because of sexism, we have way bigger things to worry about.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lewis isn’t doing anything particularly interesting tonight, but we should check in on him anyway because this is the last evening of calm before the maelstrom, and we feel like we should see him in his normal state, before it all goes to hell, before his inertia is disrupted. He logs on to Guilds of the Protectorate so he can be Doctor Moriarty (no tagline) for a bit. He doesn’t think one thought about HR or Preston or Eliza. Sometimes he thinks about how much of a pussy JP had been, and during these moments he shakes his head. But then he gets sucked into the game again.
He lives in midtown with his mother—or more accurately, his mother lives with him. His apartment has a fabulous view of the city where he can see Manhattan in layers, as if it’s shedding petals and exposing a center only the luckiest pollinators would ever see. If Lewis were to look out over the city, maybe he’d think about how lucky he is. How he has this place in the middle of things that lets him really know New York in such an intimate way, a bee dipping into a concrete flower. The New Yorker building with its red letters. Yellow cabs look like skittering cats on the street below, that’s how small they are. Maybe if he were to survey it all with a bourbon in hand, he’d have some other thoughts too. And maybe those thoughts would drift to Eliza. Or to his mother, snoring softly in another room. Perhaps, with such a quiet moment of reflection, he’d be better able to handle what’s coming. But we disagree on this—some of us see Lewis as the tragic hero in the classical sense. Predestined, the sort of person tragedy hunts down and finds with little provocation. His flaws are coded into him. What else is he to do?
But some of us think he could choose to turn back. We’ll point out when we think the moment is, where—should he listen to his chorus—he could throw his hands up and walk away. But that’s the thing with tragic heroes—we’ll never know, because they never listen to their narrators.
Anyhow. Instead of doing any of that, he sits in his dark apartment missing the clouds brewing, rolling in against a sky inkier than Black Hole, Destroyer of Light. The blue shine from his computer blasts his face. It lights up the window with a cold, lifeless LCD hue while every one of his neighbors’ windows shines a buttery yellow.
Chapter Twenty
The next morning, we watch Eliza brazenly change the subject after Preston calls her in to tell her the situation has been taken care of. Entitled to his time and the direction of the conversation, like she belongs. Completely without the deference required for the CEO of Fancy Dog. “I don’t understand,” she says after listening, her lips growing tighter and tighter over her ugly-ass rat mouth. “I don’t understand why they just got a slap on the wrist. Don’t you believe me?”
Preston sighs and rubs his temples, sq
ueezes his head. His eyes dart to his giant glass wall and to the prying eyes beyond. “Of course I believe you, Eliza.” He pauses. “But it’s a complicated thing.”
“Can I ask you to explain—?” She clears her throat. Her mouth is dry. “Explain it to me?”
“You could, but I wouldn’t have to.” Preston is getting annoyed. “How management decides to deal with its employees is really only the concern of management. Above your pay grade, as they say.”
“But”—Eliza points to the glass wall—“what about transparency?”
Preston sighs again. “Okay, fine. Come on, sit down.”
After Devonte signed off the night before, Suzanne and Eliza talked. “Okay,” Suzanne had said. “If you’re insistent upon it, if there really is no turning back, you need to be really clear and cool-headed about it. You can’t go in there and cry. You can’t go in there and say ‘systemic issue,’ because men don’t want to hear that they’re part of the problem too. You have to go in there with solidly reasoned points as to why this actually matters, because Preston isn’t going to instinctively know why. He’s not. He’s never going to have experienced something like this, and he never will.” They’d gone over everything she could possibly bring up. Gone over it twice.
“Can you just tell me what happened?” Eliza starts, because she isn’t exactly sure how to begin, despite the preparation. She is nervous. She hopes he will throw her an anchor, a place from which to begin. Or perhaps she hopes he will trap himself.
Preston sighs once more and glances at his watch. “I pulled them into the office with a Human Resources representative. I let them know you had seen a tag on all of your code and had come to me about it, that you were concerned about sexism and I wanted to get their side of the story.”
We Are Watching Eliza Bright Page 5