“That’s kind of the idea, right?”
Alice followed his lead, looked through the jumbled bodies, saw the large font, scrolling wide letters: RINT PARTY END OF PRINT PARTY END…
She didn’t get its meaning; meanwhile the boy had started talking again, but in a new way, faster and more invested — as if Alice had met some kind of standard, one that released his internal spigot. Alice wondered if he was going to provide his name. Unlike everyone in the fashion world, Bushytop definitely gave off a hetero vibe, and was not in any way uncute.
He was apologizing, saying this whole thing was his fault, in a way. His buddy Ruggles — the dapper asshole with his arm around that French harpy — had been on him to take a break from work and school. Dragged him to some poker night with the Expats. Which, honestly, had been a trip: great smells from the pots atop the stove distracting you from your middling hands; different spendy crackers and good cheese making the rounds; more than a few glasses of a nice red to boot. Seven-card stud was the game, but with showers of wild cards, crazy amounts, like where you passed the second and fourth cards of your hand to the immediate right. During one of the snack breaks, he’d answered a question about what one in graduate school for computer science did.
Alice looked doubtful, but encouraged him to go on.
The boy answered the Expats with an explanation of virtual realities, the possibility of creating — inside one’s computer — a reality and life and system that you kind of lived, but simultaneously, along with your life in the outside world. Oliver told Alice this virtual life could also be three-dimensional, meaning it would include commerce, entertainment, and sex, of course. A complete parallel reality. Or at least a supplementary one. “Like, it can filter into the real one. You’d start to pay your bills through computers, who knows, even go shopping on them—”
“I could certainly do without salespeople.” Alice laughed. “But buying a dress without seeing it on?” Her eyes rolled. “Let me know how that turns out for you.”
“Right.” He looked chagrined. “The thing, nobody knows what they’ll come up with. But it is going to become more ingrained. And what I do—”
“That’s the coding?” Alice asked.
“Yeah.”
“Meaning you what?”
“Okay, so, if you want the computer to do the shit we’re talking about, you better be able to communicate with it, right? So think of the codes as languages. English. Urdu. I was telling your friends here, there’s not even a question that speaking these languages, having conversations where you can direct the computer and create the programs it runs, it’s more important to our future than anything on some fucking page.” He waited. “Yeah. Your buddies bought it as much as you. So much they decided, Hey, why not celebrate the end of the written word?”
His arms opened up, toward the rest of the room. “This is their celebration. A bunch of papers with codes are floating around. I guess you write out your name. On the key, each letter corresponds to a number. So you can convert your name to BASIC, binaries. Then you’re supposed to go around the party, introducing yourself to everyone with your code. Since it’s my bright idea, I’m kinda obligated to be here.”
New papers had been brought out onto the counters. Alice grabbed one, bounced a bit in place. She read the code keys, thought for a second.
Immaculate, scripted capital letters followed:
ONE.
The invention of fire
TODAY’S AIR-PUFFED MANILA envelopes included one state-of-the-art multimedia magazine from a group of upstart culture peddlers, and two samplers with the first level of a different three-dimensional role player game. Each mailer represented millions of lines of code — written over months, perhaps years — burnt onto compact discs, and sent out by other hungry young programmers with ambition and dreams and hustle to spare. It was a little depressing, when Oliver thought of it. So Oliver didn’t. He separated the mailers from Alice’s fashion glossies, ignored whatever subscription cards fell loose.
The hidden, smaller envelopes were where the action was. Hospital billing departments sent out statements starting on the twentieth, he knew. Usually the queasy feeling began in his stomach around the twenty-third, kicking up a few notches whenever he got near the mailbox. Especially dreadful was the sight of an official-looking, sky-blue envelope, stuffed fat with pages of billing procedures. Today had none of those. The only hospital bill was a thin envelope, even lighter blue, a type he’d grown accustomed to. This one contained a short payment request: seven hundred dollars, for Alice’s visit of April 11. Across the page, red letters warned: if this amount remained unpaid, the balance would be forwarded to a collection agency.
Oliver paid minimal attention, sorted through today’s avalanche of communications from the insurance companies. Among them, the monthly statement for April; a small packet listing procedures that had been covered for the April 11 visit; some one-page quickies explaining why certain payments for the April 11 visit had been adjusted upward, thereby reducing Oliver’s responsibility; some other quickies explaining why certain payments for the April 11 hospital visit had been reduced, thereby increasing his responsibility….
And a new thing. This envelope lemon yellow. The same shade as the florist’s business card. Oliver’s knees went weak.
But no. It was just from some medical place he didn’t recognize.
—
Entering the apartment, the first thing he saw was that Doe had applesauce all over her face and her bib. She’d turned her tray into a giant shining swamp. Her bright eyes gleamed; she smiled big and wide at Daddy, rocking back and forth in her high chair, then doing little jumps, and Oliver’s fury abated, a tad. He was about to shout hello hello, the way his father always used to. But the kid started making an even bigger mess now, flinging more applesauce.
Next to the high chair, globs dripping off her curls, Alice’s mother looked exhausted and miserable. Someone else was there as well, someone new: brunette, young, Oliver didn’t recognize her.
“This is Samantha,” Alice’s mom said, trying to sound pleasant. “She’ll be helping after I head back.”
Not bad looking: severe bangs, a nose maybe a bit too long, but eager eyes, a well-meaning smile. She held a spoon and the tin. Her efforts had also been rewarded with applesauce: her chin, hands, sleeves coated in it.
Oliver welcomed the girl into his home, but his smile felt odd, and he knew it must have looked halfhearted, and he needed to move, forward, respectfully, but still hurrying, that crumpled letter dangling from his hand.
—
Comforting chimes and wind instruments — soft harmonic sounds came from the other side of the bedroom door, and this irritated him. He pushed in, ready for the usual deaclass="underline" low lights, a few votive candles along the sill. But not this whole scene: Tilda on the yoga mat, in a beige leotard and caramel-colored sweatpants — kneeling on one knee, reaching upward with both hands, toward the sky. Skin was everywhere exposed, flushed and clammy, and the image brought to mind some ancient wildebeest, heaving and covered with morning dew.
Beyond her, Oliver saw his wife dangling off the bed’s front corner. Wearing her shades, Alice had one of his baseball caps on backward. She was working to keep her arms raised, as if trying to signal a touchdown. She’d gotten both hands above her shoulders, but her elbows were bent, her biceps trembling.