Goodbye for Now (9 page)

Meredith was sure she couldn’t just ignore her grandmother’s invitation. But she also didn’t want to tell her she was dead. She thought that would upset her, whoever she was. Sam thought it might make the program implode. Eventually Meredith replied:

Dear Grandma,

Sam is beautiful, really. He has dark, wavy hair, like his dad’s, evidently. He has these deep, green eyes that watch everything closely and look vaguely bemused, that redden up when he gets sad or tired. He wears jeans and T-shirts. He has glasses for reading. He smiles all the time. He hardly ever shaves. When he wakes up, his hair stands up in all directions, and he goes around patting it down all morning until he showers.

I would love to visit you. I wish so much that I could. You can’t imagine. But it’s not possible right now. I’m so, so sorry.

I think about you every day. I miss you so much. You are so much in my heart.

Sam wondered what the program would do with this but said nothing. Whereas the computer had so far replied exactly right, Meredith had now replied exactly wrong. The program had correctly assessed the situation: unremarkable, everyday, warm but not overwrought, ordinary mortal missing rather than the extraordinary eternal kind. Whereas the granddaughter’s reply rang with tragedy, pathos, and brave-fronted despair.

It noticed the change. And was worried.

Oh honey,

You seem so sad. Are you getting enough sleep? Do you feel okay? Maybe you’re really working too hard. I miss you too, but don’t worry, I’ll see you very soon. Can’t wait!! If I can help in the meantime, just yell.

Love you and see you soon!!! Summer’s coming!!

xoxoxo,
Grandma

P.S. Sam sounds like a total hottie! Send me a pic!

VIDEO KILLED THE RADIO STAR

S
am said let’s be done now. He did. He said enough is enough. He whispered while he held her naked against his naked that this wasn’t healthy or good for her or revealing, and no one was awaiting her reply, and no one had written her, and all it was was ones and zeroes, so much data, a clever computer program, and bouncing electrons. She said that was all his algorithm had been, and it had brought them together. Nothing more real than that. All that miracle. All that light. All that life that came from nowhere, from nothing, from where there had been none before. Sam said it was hurting her, not healing her. She said she was hurting anyway, and this way she got e-mails from her grandma to make her feel better. Sam said he was worried she was becoming obsessed. She said do you think you can do video.

Don’t be ridiculous, said Sam. The answer was unequivocally no, God no, don’t be absurd no, no way in hell, aren’t you cute to even ask, no. E-mail was a trick, a curiosity, an amusement. It took repeating elements, rearranged them for variety, and plugged in Meredith’s keywords. Basically, it was glorified Mad Libs. Video, on the other hand, would require the solving of problems that had puzzled computer programmers from the dawn of computer programmers, plus a miracle. The answer would therefore have stayed you-must-be-on-drugs-no except for one thing Sam had neglected to factor in. Best he could tell, there was nothing in the world more persuasive than: “Please Sam. Can you try? For me? I know nothing like this has ever been done before, but you are a genius, Sam. I know you can do it. I believe in you and your big brain. I feel so sad with missing her, and I know that this would help,” from one’s besotted, bereaved, very
hot, and fairly new girlfriend. With tears in her eyes. “I’d do it for you,” she added.

“Merde,” Sam replied carefully, not wanting to strip her of her conviction of his genius, “what you’re asking isn’t possible. I could as soon raise her from the dead.”

“That would work too,” she agreed amiably.

“I can’t do either one.”

“Video is just like e-mail.”

“Video is nothing like e-mail.”

“Why doesn’t it work the same way? The computer remembers what she looks like and sounds like and the sorts of things she says and how she says them.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“No … ma’am?”

“No,” she laughed. “No you can’t, or no you won’t?”

“No, I can’t. First of all, e-mails are archived whole. You look in her outbox, and there they all are. Video chats aren’t archived at all. We could probably get ahold of some of the IP packets, but that data would be all mixed-up, unreadable, unsortable. Two, Livvie video chatted with lots of people, but it’s not like e-mail where there’s a name and address. She knew who she was talking to, but the computer didn’t. Three through four hundred and sixty-seven: the current impossibility of artificial intelligence, the unknowability of the human heart, the mystery of personal interaction, and the infinite variety of human behavior and response, not to mention complex understanding of complex situations.”

“You lost me at ‘first of all.’ ”

“Suffice it to say it can’t be done.”

“My grandmother loved video chat,” Meredith mused. “We gave her a laptop with a camera for her birthday a few years ago. I had to talk my parents into that one. They thought her old laptop was fine. I said it was old and out-of-date and didn’t have a camera for video chat. You can imagine how much of a selling point that was for Kyle and Julia, so I had to switch tactics to how heavy her old one was. I told them she might sprain a shoulder or something. That convinced them. But at first, my grandmother wasn’t sure about the camera either. Her point was she
could do e-mail in her bathrobe. I said I’d seen her in her bathrobe loads of times, but she was worried about having this image of her in her pj’s out there in the world. Anyway, then she realized that, unlike e-mailing, video chat was something she could do while her nails dried. The woman loved to do her nails. After that, she was an instant convert. We talked all the time when she was in Florida. And here too. It just got easier than picking up the phone.”

“She was a remarkable woman,” said Sam.

“That’s not my point.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is there’s a lot more of Grandma out there via video chat than via e-mail.”

“Out where?” said Sam.

“That’s
your
job,” said Meredith.

It wasn’t Sam’s job. Because he didn’t have a job. Every time he resolved to look for one, he remembered how much more productive it was to just stay home. When he went to work, all he got done was work. Now Meredith went to work in the morning, and he cleaned the apartment, walked the dogs, wandered down to Pike Place Market to buy fresh fruits and vegetables, cheese and flowers, went running, read books, did laundry, watched cooking shows then attempted elaborate dinners, and tinkered with corresponding electronically with the dead. He also corresponded electronically with his girlfriend, and though online flirting was less exciting than in-person flirting, involving, as it did, less chance of her being naked, it did increase the chance of her being naked
later
, and that was something.

“This meeting is sooooooo long,” she wrote one morning.

“Leave and come home,” he wrote back. “I’m lonely.”

“Because you are too much on your own. Alone. Unemployed. Drifting.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Who else is there?”

“The dogs.”

“No, really you’re alone.”

“So leave and come home,” he wrote again.

“Then they won’t pay me.”

“For a little while they will.”

“I’m so bored. Take a picture of your naughty bits and send it to my phone.”

“What if I want to run for president someday?” asked Sam.

“I don’t want to move to the East Coast,” said Meredith.

“What if I want to run for governor?”

“No one cares if there are dirty pictures of the governor.”

A little while later she texted, “OMG, it’s total upheaval here. You have to come to happy hour after work and meet my new boss.”

“You have a new boss?” said Sam.

“Trust me,” she replied. “This is one you have to see to believe.”

He met her downtown at Library Bistro, their favorite place for happy hour. It was the bar in the lobby of the Alexis Hotel. He liked that the walls were lined floor to ceiling, corner to corner with books, any one of which you could borrow, or own for five bucks. It was an eclectic mix, not being a bookstore, and Sam remembered the days he’d hung out there before he met Meredith when he’d choose which woman he might chat with based on what book she was reading. He never did chat with even a single one of those women, but he’d liked the extra data point the books provided, just in case. Plus they had great french fries. Sam got there early and had picked up a book of science jokes when Meredith walked in with Jamie.

Sam was delighted to see him. “Jamie! You tagged along!”

“Indeed I did. Why are you reading jokes about science?”

“Werner Heisenberg is pulled over for speeding. The officer walks up and says, ‘Sir, do you know how fast you were going?’ Heisenberg says, ‘No, but I know exactly where I am.’ ”

Jamie considered this. “I’m not sure that answers my question.”

“I will buy you a drink,” said Sam.

“As well you should.”

“Rough day?”

“And all your fault.”

“Tell us quickly before Meredith’s new boss gets here.”

“In fact,” said Jamie dramatically, “he already is.”

Sam exchanged a look with Meredith to confirm this. She winked at him.

“How did that happen?”

“Funny you should ask, Sam. BB feels that my software development team was producing an insufficient amount of software. BB feels that our failure to convincingly promise—but not actually deliver—soul mates is my fault. I told him that my team had in fact produced world-class, groundbreaking, some might even say orgasmic software, and he was the one who wouldn’t let us use it. Then I broke the never-utter-the-name-Sam-Elling-again rule.”

“Ooh. And what did he say?”

“He said my managerial talents were no longer required on floor seven.”

Sam gasped. “He fired you!”

“No Sam, pay attention. He moved me. Down.”

“Hey,” Meredith protested.

“Firing would have been better. Then they have to give you severance.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sam smiled.

“Whereas now I’m just being tortured. I am a software engineer. I was so good at that I was
recruited
to
manage
other, lesser software engineers. We invented things. New things.”

“That is what ‘invented’ means,” Sam agreed.

“And now what will I do? Sell stuff.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” said Meredith.

“Sell a product I know to be shite.”

“It brought
us
together,” said Sam. “No, wait, that service isn’t available anymore.”

“And it’s all women and talking and hair and laughing—”

“Hair?”

“And they smell nice and they inquire after your evening and they offer to pick something up for you on their way back from the market.”

“Those bitches,” said Sam.

“And they have little dishes of jelly beans on their desk. And hand lotion. And photographs. In frames. I just want to work in peace. I like my employees socially awkward, not chatty. I don’t want to answer polite questions or smile nicely or eat sweets. And what if I need a Rubik’s cube to work while I consider a sticky bit of code? Well, there are no Rubik’s cubes to be found.”

“Nor any sticky code to consider,” said Sam.

“Plus they sit down for their meetings. In chairs! With Danish. I’ll gain two stone by Christmas.”

“You could come work for me,” Sam offered.

“Doing what? Chatting up Meredith’s gran?”

“And making dinner.”

“I don’t think I want to work for you. You keep ruining my life.”

“Just think about it,” said Sam.

“Does it pay well?”

“It doesn’t pay anything at all.”