“You can keep these drawings,” he says. “Otherwise, I’ll keep them tucked away in your file—”
“You should keep them,” I tell him.
Simka smiles. He carefully folds up the drawings and returns them to the file folder.
“And how are you handling your dreams?” he asks. “The last time we spoke, you were having some difficulty sleeping. You were thinking deeply about the young woman—Hannah, I believe her name was. Do you still think about Hannah?”
Horrified by the notion that I may have abandoned her, but for some reason I don’t want to tell Simka the truth—that I think about Hannah whenever I try to sleep, that I see her body and sometimes imagine her voice, so I say, “I stay busier now than I used to. Kucenic has her case now, he’ll take care of her. I don’t have much time to think about the past—”
“Well, then. Here’s your paperwork,” he says. “Good luck. I’m very proud of how far you’ve come. I know that it’s been hard for you recently. I should have realized that you might have needed some extra attention right now, and I’m sorry I failed you in that regard. The ten-year anniversary. I should have anticipated how hard this would be for you—”
“I’m healthy,” I tell him. “All’s well that ends well—”
“That’s fine, very fine,” says Simka, but tells me recovery rarely happens in one gulp, and that it’s a fine idea to still journal—that I’m still suffering from depression and anxiety, even if I’m feeling better and have been distracted by some exciting new changes.
“I’m still writing,” I tell him, and show him this notebook. He flips through, his Adware overlaying my poor handwriting with Verdana typeface. He reads a page. “Good,” he says, “good detail. Consider using some of the Progoff prompts…” I remember an early session when I showed him my poetry, the poetry I used to write. He’d read them attentively, twice over, three times over, and had said, “These are beautiful.”
“So, now we’re talking purely as friends,” he says. “Addiction and recovery from depression are difficult. There isn’t a quick fix—even complete dialysis and Adware reconditioning don’t treat the underlying causes of your addiction. You’ll have to work at this, Dominic. As they say, ‘You’re gonna carry that weight—’”
“Timothy told me a very similar thing but said you’d disagree. At any rate, I feel like maybe I can become happy again—”
“Hm,” he says. “Just so you know—indulge me, here, Dominic: you are still eligible for further substance abuse treatment through the District system. Dr. Reynolds pursued your case file once the Correctional Health Board determined you’d have to switch out of my care. I’m not sure why he pursued you, Dominic—but it makes me wonder if he has a predetermined treatment schedule in mind. If you find that your current therapy isn’t helping you meet your goals, and if you decide to sign up for further substance abuse treatment, Dr. Reynolds wouldn’t even have to know. There are confidentiality requirements if you apply directly to the Correctional Health Board. Keep that in mind, anyway. Once the novelty of switching treatment methods fades, you may search out substances again to bring clarity. Old habits die hard—”
“You know, Dr. Simka, bringing up substance abuse clinics with me is counterproductive. I’m beyond that. I’m with Timothy now—”
“I can’t argue with success,” he says.
We’re interrupted—his secretary doesn’t buzz but knocks discreetly, poking her colorful head into the office to announce his next appointment’s ready in the reception room. Simka shakes my hand and asks me to dinner, to talk further when we have more time, in a different setting, over cognac, but I’m noncommittal.
Timothy finds me as I’m leaving Simka’s office. He pulls over in the Fiat, rolls down his window.
“Nothing you’re doing is more important,” he yells to me. “Come on with me. Get in—”
The lingering cigarette stink of the interior, the lack of legroom. Timothy inches through a throng of pedestrians crowding the boulevard, laying on the horn, and peels away once he’s clear.
“How did you find me here?”
“You mentioned you’d be over this way,” he says. “Kalorama, at Dr. Simka’s office. I figured I’d take a chance, try to spot you—”
Again the exhilaration of potential death in wreckage as Timothy drives—he cuts off a garbage truck at the intersection, running a stop sign he claims never used to be there. He’s wearing a suit and tie, a wool overcoat. He’s a slight man but flabby, and when he smiles his face blossoms into double chins.
“I have meetings today,” he says. “Actually, you’re on the docket. I’m recommending to the board that they withdraw you from group therapy. Waverly will be your sponsor, if that’s all right with you?”
“That’s great news,” I tell him. “Absolutely. I have the paperwork you needed from Simka—”
“I’ll take over your case as a private therapist, because there are treatment requirements we have to keep up with. Red tape. I’ll keep the talk therapy to a minimum, though, so we don’t waste your time. I will hold you to staying clean, however. This isn’t a Get Out of Jail Free card—”
“I understand.”
Timothy folds into traffic. I ask him where he’s taking me.
“A clinic Waverly uses from time to time. He has a gift for you, a sort of welcome to the company gift—”
“The company?” I ask. “Focal Networks? Is that who I’ll be working for?”
“You’ve been doing some research about him, I take it? You won’t be working for Focal Networks, not officially, but you’ll have some of their perks—”
“What is it, exactly, that Waverly does?”
“Psychology applied to business,” says Timothy. “Algorithms. Think of it like this: You see two advertisements. You pick one to pay attention to. Waverly figured out why you pick one and not the other—he can predict it. He can predict which images hold your attention in the streams, which ones you’ll remember. His work is mostly academic theory. I’ve tried reading his papers, but they’re all math—”
“So… Marketing?”
“Marketing consultancy, maybe, but you don’t quite understand. His company goes beyond marketing. Marketing is irrelevant once you hire Waverly—”
“Then why all this shit in the Adware? If he’s figured it out—”
Timothy laughs. “All that shit in the Adware is Waverly figuring it out. He’s programming you,” he says. “Every time you look or click or fantasize, you give him the key—”
A private Panda Electronics clinic in Chevy Chase. The showroom fills with spots for Panda Electronics, hallucinations of Chinese girls wearing cosplay lingerie and panda bear ears, cuddling with panda bear cubs, offering deals on personal devices. The clinician is dressed in Ralph Lauren, a polo shirt and white slacks—simple, but she’s a stunner, black hair and pale, high cheekbones and vivid violet eyes. A plastic surgeon must have installed her Adware because the scarring cresting her forehead resembles the veins of a leaf rather than the haphazard gridding most people have. Her profile’s set to public—Agatha Kramer, a biocommunications major at Georgetown, a cheerleader for the Redskins, vids of her in mustard and yellow spandex, doing high kicks on the sidelines. Her profile pic’s one of Gavril’s “Street Fashion” series—so she’d been one of his impromptu models for the blog. She smiles as we approach.