Goodbye for Now (13 page)

“I’m delighted,” said Livvie.

Dashiell said nothing.

“Oh, I wish I were there with you. How are you, Dash?”

A pause while Dashiell’s brain whirred. “I’m … fine?” he asked.

“Oh, you look just great,” Livvie enthused. “How’s L.A.?”

“It’s … fine?” Dash guessed.

“How’s work, honey? What about that deal with the guy from the movie about the aardvarks? How’d that work out?”

Dash looked even more stunned which hadn’t seemed possible the moment before. “It was … It went fine. Well. It went great.”

“Oh honey, I’m so proud of you. I’ve got such smart grandbabies. You’re having a party?”

“Mom and Dad went home this afternoon,” said Meredith. Dash looked like he might fall over.

“Poo on them. You’ll have more fun without them anyway. What are you kids doing on your visit?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” said Meredith. “Wine, cake, running our mouths.”

“Well, don’t stay up too late,” Livvie warned. “I know you two. You’ll be up gabbing all night, and then you’ll both be grouchy and grumpy all day tomorrow.”

“What I feel is neither grouchy nor grumpy,” Dash managed.

“You say that now. But we’ll see about tomorrow. Listen, sweeties, I gotta run. We’re having piña coladas over at Marta’s”—Meredith and Sam exchanged a glance. That was why she had to go that first time. Glitch in the system? Finite response loop? Coincidence? Sale on coconut milk?—“but I’ll call you in the morning. Love you all. Kisses!” And she was gone.

“Holy. Fuck,” said Dash.

“Right?” said Meredith.

“How drunk am I?”

“Very,” said Meredith.

“That wasn’t … How did you …? That wasn’t an old chat.”

“No.”

“That was new.”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t cobbled from old … That aardvark thing was the last conversation I had with her.”

“Yes.”

“Before she
died
.”

“Yes.”

“You called me. You found her in her apartment. Here. Dead.”

“Yes.”

“And I was at the funeral. I saw her in the coffin. I carried the coffin to the hole. I put the coffin in the ground.”

“I remember,” said Meredith.

“Did you resurrect her from the dead? If you did, you can tell me, you know. I’ve worked my share of zombie movies, vampire flicks, ghost stories. I know the drill.”

“No,” said Meredith sadly. “She’s still dead.”

Dash considered this for a while then poured himself another glass of wine and narrowed his eyes at Sam. Finally he turned to Meredith. “This is what Grandma was worried about, you know.”

“Me eating a whole chocolate cake practically all by myself in a single sitting?”

“You falling in love with a computer geek. Sure, they have good stock options and smokin’ hot bods, but what about that dark side of genius that reanimates the dead?”

“Okay, start slow. From the beginning. Tell me how it works,” Dash began the next morning over hair of the dog (Bloody Marys), stimulant to overcome it (Americanos), and all the carbs they had lying around to absorb it all (bagels, leftover Thanksgiving pie, and some suspect freezer waffles). “Actually, no, start with
why
it works.”

“Well, it works because most human interaction is predictable. Especially between people who know each other well,” explained Sam.

“Nothing about me is predictable,” said Dash. “I am a constant, delightful surprise. Like that thing about the aardvarks. No one saw that coming.”

“Well that’s easy,” said Sam. “You’re alive.”

“So?”

“So you can vary what you say, but the response stays about the same. Whatever business you’re doing, whatever deal’s in the works, whatever movie’s in production, she’s always going to say, ‘How exciting!’ and she’s so proud of you. You’re never going to have an in-depth pro/con debate with her on the relative merits of one investment versus another. You give her the overview. She gives you generic praise. Tells you about the beach and the weather. That’s it.”

“So you’re saying
I
ama constant, delightful surprise, but my grandmother—beloved matriarch and giver of genes to your girlfriend here—was tiresome and boring?”

“No, I’m saying that because you had such similar conversations over and over, small deviations don’t mess up the overriding pattern which you don’t even see, but the computer does. You close the deal with the aardvark guy, and she’s proud of you. Change the aardvarks to guinea pigs or balloons or cheese, change closing a deal to making a meal or keeping it real, and the computer knows she’ll still be proud of you.”

“What about copping a feel?” Dash asked.

“Very tasteful,” said Sam.

“No, I mean it. What if I did something totally out of character? Would she be proud of me if I copped a feel or killed a seal?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “That’s a good question. But Meredith won’t let me screw with it.”

“With her,” Meredith said. “I won’t let you screw with her. My dead grandmother. I am such a bitch.”

“But there is no her really, right?” Dash clarified. “You haven’t endowed the computer with her consciousness, have you?”

“Don’t ruin the illusion,” said Meredith.

“It’s not really an illusion,” said Sam. “It’s not putting Livvie’s consciousness into a computer. But it is real.”

“I hate to sound like a stoned high school poet,” said Dash, making his voice sound like a stoned high school poet, “but what’s real, man?”

“The computer makes a compilation then a projection. It looks at her whole electronic archive and—”

“Isn’t that invading her privacy?”

“Yeah, but she’s dead and she’s family, so I’m okay with it. And also it
is
her, her public self, the self she gave you, has already given you. It doesn’t know anything she was keeping private. The program only re-creates the version of Livvie she was being for you anyway. And then it just becomes a question of patterns. What are the odds she’s going to mention the beach and the weather when you talk? About ninety-nine-point-nine percent. What are the odds you’re only going to tell her about the kind and gentle parts of your job?”

“That’s the only kind there are, baby,” said Dash.

“And then what are the odds she’ll say she’s proud of you? Ninety-nine-point-nine percent. Easy.”

ON THE BEACH

D
ashiell went back to L.A., and Meredith continued to e-mail her grandmother and have quickie five-minute video chats with her every other day or so, but that was it. She wasn’t obsessed. She wasn’t sullen. She wasn’t missing her overly. Or underly. She was back, so far as Sam could tell, to her old self. Theirs had been an odd courtship. Without that trip to London at just the moment their eyes were starriest, without the attendant desperation of that separation, the insanity caused by that absence, they might have stayed longer in the dating phase, the getting-to-know-you, playing-hard-to-get, acting-a-little-bit-coy phase. They might even have gone back to it had he not returned to tragedy and the implicit demand that he either step up like a long-term boyfriend or get out forever. He was happy to step up, of course. It had been like a relationship shortcut, a secret ladder to meeting the family, the good times and bad, the part where he got to prove himself in for the long haul. And even after that, they might have dialed it back a notch or several, but here was this apartment and Meredith desperate to live in it and desperate not to do it alone. He wasn’t complaining, not by any stretch, but it was weird.

That she’d sort of disappeared for a bit there, obsessed, morosed, closed up and moped seemed fair enough. But now things were settling down. She was settling in. They were catching up with their own relationship, coming to think of it as their place rather than Livvie’s, finding a rhythm to their days and weeks. Sam started to think about finding a job. Meredith started to think maybe they should go away somewhere together, not Florida, of course, but somewhere warm. They nested—spent nights in
with carryout by the fire and had Jamie over for dinner and picked out shower curtains and bath towels. One night after dinner, curled up on the couch, Meredith looked up from tea and a book to say, “Thanks, by the way.”

“For what?”

“For helping me say goodbye to my grandma.”

“You’re welcome,” Sam said.

“As it turns out, I love you, you know,” she said.

“I do,” he said, and he did, but he still thought her saying so was the best thing that had ever happened to him. “I love you too.”

For helping her say goodbye to her grandma. Not for helping her keep in touch with her grandma. Not for giving her back her grandma. Not for making the dead live again. For helping her say goodbye to. This was a good thing, Sam decided. A kind thing. A blessing even. Not creepy. Not unhealthy. Not wrong or exploitative. A kind, generous, good thing.

It seemed like a sweet moment, but looking back later, Sam could see that this was why, when Dash called to video chat about his hypothetical, Sam did not say, “Dash, you’re a lunatic. This is a terrible idea. Get away from me,” or, “Dash, you’re delusional. This will never work. Get away from me,” or, “Dash, you’re sick. This should never be. Get away from me.” Instead Sam said, “Hmm, I’m not sure, but it’s an interesting question.”

“Can we think about it?”

“Sure.”

“In person?”

“Sure. Come up this weekend.”

“Why don’t I fly you kids down?” Dash said. “A friend is having a party on the beach tomorrow that is not to be missed.”

“A beach party? Are you shitting me?” Sam was an East Coaster at heart and took the weather in Seattle—where it was in the low forties and vacillating between rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow showers—personally.

“Do you have any beach parties up there?” Dash asked innocently.

“We’ll see you at LAX baggage claim in the morning,” said Sam.

The party was like one of those TV shows with high school kids in beach towns—lots of food and alcohol and music and beautiful people, clear skies, bonfires making revelers cool and hot at the same time, everyone in sweaters and flip-flops. Dash mingled expertly, and Sam and Meredith lingered behind him, watching a little awed and a little awkward, waiting to be introduced as Dash hugged everyone in turn or kissed on both cheeks or squeezed someone’s hand warmly. For Sam, whose social skills had always been tottery at best, it was an impressive display.

“Meredith, honey, this is the dear friend I was telling you about who makes the world’s most perfect apple cookies,” said Dash, one hand on the shoulder of a guy in bare feet, a business suit, and a cowboy hat, and the other on the shoulder of Meredith, who had no idea what he was talking about. Dash had never mentioned apple cookies or a dear friend who made them, but the guy beamed and hugged Dash and promised to deliver a fresh batch in the morning. Sam admired the ability to pull off a suit with bare feet, and a cowboy hat with anything, but not as much as he admired Dash’s ability to talk to everyone and make them all feel warm and special.

“I want you guys to meet the incomparable LL,” Dash was saying of the next person they ran into.

“Mitch Carmine,” said LL, shaking Sam’s hand. “Pleasure.”

“This is my favorite relative, living or dead,” said Dash, indicating Meredith, “and her genius boyfriend, my next-favorite relative.”

“How do you get LL out of Mitch Carmine?” Meredith asked.

Mitch Carmine shrugged humbly. “Apparently, I have luscious lips.”

“No apparently about it,” said Dash. “I’ll demonstrate later.”

After endless introductions, which Sam forgot instantly, Dash filled plates from an impossibly lavish beach buffet tended by a woman who could only have been an underwear model and settled them all around a fire by the last dune on the beach. He had ideas. It was romantic there in the dune with grilled fish on their fingers and margaritas in their hands and smoke in their eyes and sand in their hair and the sea stretching out in front of them to forever, so perhaps it was no wonder they were dreaming big and wide and almost, but not quite, impossible.

“So here’s what I can’t stop thinking about,” Dash began. “This program you’ve concocted … would it work for anyone? Anyone dead?”