But when I go out front to check on him, the van is gone. I don’t think much of it until darkness falls and the doctor finds me watching out the window, Anne Frank in my lap. “Do you think something’s happened to him?”
She eases onto the couch next to me. “I caught him fiddling around on my screen, doing Lord knows what with my data. I’m sorry, child, but he had to go.” It is her soft voice today, her sorry voice. I remember it from the day she sent me away. “He was going to go anyway. You know that.” She presses a folded piece of paper into my palm. “I found this in the mailbox.”
Get enrolled in school. I’ll be back to check on you. —N
I sit in the driveway crying, unrelenting, unbelieving. That’s the problem. I’ll be back to check on you. It’s like he’s trying to soften the blow, to make this all easier on me. But I refuse to be tricked again. He’s left me, and he’s gone.
I let the doctor lead me into the house and I lie down on the couch facing the cushions. She hovers for a while, cooks, brings me food. She tells me to eat, and when I don’t, she hovers longer. I fall asleep, and when I wake, it’s to the stale smell of the cushions, the room black. I go to the screen, bring it to life.
“Hello?” The voice doesn’t match at all, so young. Why would the doctor select such a voice for herself?
“Do you know who this is?” I ask her.
“Don’t be silly, Gabe. Where is she? I mean me.”
“Asleep.”
“So you sneaked on here, did you?”
“I did.”
“You were always such a slippery fox. Why’d you want to talk to me?”
“I thought you traded me for Lilac. I hated you for the longest time.”
“And now?”
“You’re so old and rickety. I can’t leave you. Even if you sent Nat away.”
“He’ll be back,” she says.
“He promised he’d take me with him.” The insides of me are too dry for tears. I feel like a desert, caked over and hardening. “What am I going to do?”
She laughs from inside her screen, and it sounds real, but not at all like the doctor. “You’re thirteen now, aren’t you?”
“Yup.”
“My goodness. It’s time you took school seriously.”
I wipe snot on my sleeve, suck back the rest. “That’s what Nat says.”
“Well, he’s right.”
I want to hug her. I could go into the doctor’s room, curl around her in bed, but I feel how the one on the screen is different, someone else entirely—how can that be?
“I love you, you know that?” she says. The original has never told me this. I don’t know how to answer. My cheeks heat, my heart thumps extra hard. I think of my own mam, long gone, my Bee. Would I have wanted them like this? The same, but strangers too—that’s what it is, something impossible.
“Would I want it?” I ask the doctor. Yes. Definitely. Yes.
MS. ESPERA
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA
Scones and tea, sweetener. Windows fogged. It’s nice being out—the clang and wash of milk steamed, orders called, conversations had, the laughter, so rich, almost sensory overload—especially after that abominable quarantine. I’d nearly died—my child not able to visit her own mother whenever she wanted. A police state. Fascism! It made me want to tear off my clothes, run into the street, show the world my ugly, wrinkled underbelly. I’ve always had urges like these. I grew up under the scrutiny of I8s, so I learned at a young age to control my flights of fancy.
Isla coils through the café door, unraveling a laboriously long scarf from her neck like a bandage. The host points her in my direction. We bat eyelashes hello, I8s wasping in the window, the hush of the café as they realize someone famous has come in, eyes turning in the direction of my daughter. She’s not an actor—she doesn’t have that kind of beauty—but she’s Sydney’s child, and the tabfeeds love to hover over the children of studio executives. It’s excellent leverage, the clever ways they come up with to ruin the parents, turn them into slaves, feeding stories, never free, always a picture away from annihilation. Fortunately, Isla learned discretion from me. She’s like a Renoir, always capturing the light.
Earlier today, I tried to catch my breath, sitting on the edge of the tub overflowing with water I couldn’t turn off. Sweaty, heart racing, a tingling sensation in my extremities. I sneaked a look in the fogged mirror. My face, my neck, my hands, smooth like a starlet’s, but the rest of me, pure Kubrick. On the screen was that awful trial, always streaming; how could you turn it off? The scientists who’d unleashed those illnesses didn’t appear especially evil in their rumpled suits, with those faraway eyes. I tried to stand, slipping in the water, cracking my back on the lip of the tub. No blood, but a bruise, instantly purple, the whole side of my rump. The pain, I can hardly bear to sit.
Luckily I’ve taken something, just a half, I don’t want to slur or lose focus—Isla’s too smart for that.
She is saying something. “A new body, young, with skin, only the best. How does that sound?”
“Delightful.”
“But it’s expensive. I’ve asked Father—”
Pinpricks everywhere at the mention of Sydney. “You asked your father for what now?”
“I put out feelers, so to speak, nothing concrete.”
The test. Isla’s talking about the test, the oncologist telling us terminal, no treatment, too far gone. Yesterday? Was it yesterday? I can see his locked palms, Isla snapping out of her usual languid posture. “How could you have missed it? She’s at the doctor every six fucking weeks!”
“Those were cosmetic procedures, with a surgeon. Your mother hasn’t been in to see me in two years.”
Isla twisted in her seat to face me, anger flaring her nostrils unattractively. “Mother!”
“Mother?” She has me by the elbow. The café. My scone. It’s apricot, I believe, impenetrable with a fork. Sydney! I remember Sydney, the tests. The I8s are in the window, hovering near our faces, a mad hiving. Why did Isla pick this place? Trendy North Canon, so close to Wilshire—it’s like she wanted a scene.
I funnel my mouth with my hand. “God, I’m ashamed.”
“Don’t be.” Isla is unperturbed by their presence. She blows on her tea, takes a sip. “He knows it’s not your idea, but Mother, would you listen? He’s amenable. He doesn’t want you to go. If he can help out, in any way—that’s what he said.”
“Of course he said that. He doesn’t need that kind of guilt on his conscience. And Lord knows he has the credit.” I married a man with business savvy, confidence, more than that, ego. I’d found it charming in the beginning, what a turn-on. He wasn’t traditionally handsome, but I knew he’d use my family’s wealth to build even more. And he would not cheat, he would never, there was a prenup, for crying out loud! My father had insisted. Plenty of suitors had come calling after me in the hopes of getting their hands on the Espera family fortune, amassed across seven generations and diversified into so many markets I don’t know what we stand for anymore. I saw our brand name on a toothbrush the other day—a toothbrush! But Sydney did, cheat, I mean, the bastard, and prenup be damned, he went out on his own.
Just as the divorce papers were signed and my lawyer was telling me I should be relieved and I could hardly believe this had happened to me, Sydney abandoned the agency I’d helped him build, took the studio gig, took over the whole operation. That was what bothered me the most. He’d waited until we were divorced, papers signed, alimony settled, before he took the job we’d both been working toward, a significant bump in pay, and lifestyle, God, he can go anywhere now, and she’s the one on his arm, the second wife, an aspiring model, ha! I watch the screen when I’m in the tub, squeezing the life out of my shampoo bottle. Meanwhile, Espera stock sinks lower and lower, my monthly dividend checks dwindling.
I take Isla by the hand. “But to be owned by some company, to be property.”
“You’ll be in my custody.”
“I don’t
know, sweetheart. I want to say yes, but I’m afraid.” It is hard to meet her gaze. Despite her gauntness, she has Sydney’s large, serene eyes, and when she smiles, which she rarely does, thank God, she is his spitting image.
“Oh, Mother, I’m scared too! But if we want it to happen, we have to schedule it now, see? It’s too risky, waiting until the end.”
“So, when would you like me to die?”
“Stop it.”
“Seriously, what day did you have in mind? I’ve got to prepare myself, don’t I?”
“They have an opening next month.”
Next month! I scream inside my head. But with Sydney’s credit and position, it’s no surprise we’d be scooted right to the top of the list. “What date, please?”
Isla shifts her Sydney eyes to the teacup she’s clutching. “The twenty-seventh.”
“Three weeks out. Not a lot of time to prepare, but if there’s one thing I’m good for, it’s putting together a party.”
“You don’t have to make a big to-do of it.”
“Oh yes I do. There’s no other way to go out. You have a party, say your goodbyes, then the next day, poof! You reappear in a new young body.” Or so I’ve heard. I’ve never actually met a companion. I’m sure there are plenty in Sydney’s circle, but since the divorce I’ve rarely received an invitation to any social event worth putting on my face for. “How young do you think I should go? I was thinking twenty-six. Is that too young? I don’t want you to feel strangely—”
“Mother, would you stop?”
“What is it, honey?”
“It’s just—this is serious.”
“You’ve given me three weeks. I’ve got to make some decisions.”
Isla presses my hand to her sad, damp cheek, the I8s in a frenzy outside the window. I pat her hair—it’s going to be all right. My nails are pewter, such a cold color. When I’m reborn, I’ll wear red again.
* * *
In the evening I take something, a whole this time, and watch the screen from bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows, legs lost in satin sheets, searching for one mention of Isla and me at the café—so many I8s, such a dramatic scene! Only I can’t find a trace of us, and I irritably call for Ria, my housekeeper, to bring me a slice of angel food cake, please, as I settle on my favorite tabfeed, the host’s face so contoured she’s positively feline. She swishes a hip, announces: “After days of speculation following footage of Hollywood heavyweight Lorna Banks leaving a Metis facility”—cut to wobbly I8 footage of the actress in a giant floppy hat and sunglasses scurrying into a waiting car—“the ageless beauty has come out as a companion.”
“No!” I practically shout at the screen as it cuts to the studio gates, Sydney’s studio, a mob of protesters, a strange mix of religious fundamentalists and fans, equally incensed. God, he must be furious; Lorna is one of their brightest stars.
He’d stolen her away from the agency when he left. I can picture his oily pitch: Why pay an agent’s commission when we can guarantee you an endless stream of films? We had devised the plan together, in-house talent, no middlemen, knowing it would do major damage to the agency we’d built, maybe even kill it. Pipe dreams, I’d assumed. “We would never really do such a thing, would we?” I’d ask Sydney, and he’d pat my knee.
“Course not,” he’d say.
I feel giddy, sick, starting to get that far-off pharmaceutical feeling.
Ria squeaks into the room in her orthopedic shoes, slides a plate of cake into my lap, glances up at the screen. Her jaw clicks shut like a wooden puppet’s, a terrible habit she developed to keep from speaking.
“Spit it out, Ria.”
She digs her wrecked hands into the folds of her apron. “I know her, is all.”
“No, Ria. You don’t know her. I know her.” Or I did, anyway, back when I was Sydney’s wife. I doubt she’d take my tea invitation now.
“Well, she ate here once, didn’t she? Complimented my deviled eggs.”
“And now she’s going to upstage me, ruin my—” I stop short. I’ve not told Ria, not thought for a moment what it’ll mean to her. Twenty-seven years she’s been my housekeeper, a nanny to my Isla since birth. “Go on then, Ria.”
As she squeaks out of the room, I pick up the slice of cake and devour it in a single bite.
* * *
I plan, ping Sydney with the details, and he’s right back to me with a confirmation. I can feel it, how he wants me to know he’s there for me. And I do. Till death do us part—it takes on all new meaning. He made a pact with me those years ago, and even though he broke it, in the end he’s going to make certain he’s there for me. It’s lovely, touching even, but it doesn’t reduce the anxiety I experience with each passing day. The only distraction is the planning.
Flowers, music, food and libations, a ceremony, the signing—that will come after, when we’re alone. They say I can die in the comfort of my own suite. The doctor and his team will administer a drug cocktail that will make me sleepy. I’ll drift off, my daughter, anyone I want can be there, and when I wake, I’ll be at the Metis clinic in my new body, and I’ll be their intellectual property.
I try not to focus on that, turning my attention instead to the ceremony—Sydney and me, us, in front of the gathering. I don’t want to be stingy, not on a night like this, but I enjoy culling the guest list, decimating the names the new wife sends over, Sydney’s old pals from the agency I helped build, hoping to bend his ear, to beg him to rethink his plan, and their serpentine spouses who would swallow me whole if they thought it might improve business, the studio’s stars with their bad attitudes, the tendency to take over the night with their sobbing or their smashing or their naked tossing into the pool, especially that Jakob Sonne who showed up to the garden social I hosted to raise funds for Cedars’ cancer kids program with his mess of an ex-girlfriend. She made such a scene, stoned out of her mind, yelling at Jakob, at anyone who dared make eye contact, that he was wrong, different, she kept shouting, You’re someone else, something else! She’d passed out in the pool, the paramedics called, ruining my charity event. Sydney wrote a big check to Cedars as an apology, and never once did they ask me to host an event again. I want the right people, the right mood—no thieves of the spotlight, no jokers, absolutely no party crashers.
I’m screening with Sydney’s head of security, walking swiftly down rugged Rosewood with one last shop to visit—it’s raining heavily and everyone is running around all wide-eyed and unprepared. At least I’ve brought an umbrella, though it’s positively useless in this downpour. Not like I have time to take a car over to West Hollywood again, the only place I can find those vintage cloth napkin squares I must have. The night—it has to be perfect, I’m telling security, no angry fans, no religious nuts, no trouble, and a girl is running in my direction, clumsily teetering until, oh no, what is she—shopping bags go sideways, a stab of pain in my leg, going down onto my knees, oh that hurts, and it’s wet it’s wet it’s wet. I’m on my bottom in an inch of water and the girl is stooped down in my face. “I’m sorry. I can’t believe I did that! Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” I grumble, trying to stand. My dress is soaked, and she grabs hold of my arm, plucks me from the sidewalk like the molted casing of an aged insect. “My goodness, you’re strong.”
“I should be.” She gathers my bags. “My body is engineered. The least I can do is help a lady collect herself in the rain, especially when I’m the fool who knocked her down.”
“You’re a companion.”
“Indeed I am.” She gives me an even line of a smile. Her face is in all ways normal, not pretty exactly, nothing to look at. Why would they make her plain? Still, she has youth on her side, and that alone is its own kind of beauty.
“What’s it like?”
“I’d love to tell you, but the rain—I’m tolerant, but I don’t like to tempt fate.”
Feeling guilty, I suppose, for having soaked me, she offers to buy me a drink. “I’m meeting a friend here shortl
y,” she says, and we tuck into the nearest bar. Seedy, a scent, not of the savory variety, a clientele leaving something to be desired. Evidence: the woman in a black dress, endless cleavage, legs bare and in need of a shave, head rested heavily on the counter—is she snoring?
I order two glasses of chardonnay the color of urine and we take a table, the companion slouching in her seat, legs crossed, foot swinging to some beat I can’t hear.
“Are you a newer model? I expected you to be more—” I pause, choose my words carefully. “Rigid.”
“I can feel this seat, did you know that? A lot of people don’t. There are many common misperceptions about companions.”
“Are you a plant?”
“I’m sorry?”
“My daughter—she wants me to do it. And I think she’s worried I’ll change my mind at the last minute. I mean, it’s not like I don’t understand—she doesn’t want to lose her mother, but I—” I catch myself rambling. It’s something I watch out for. I don’t want to be that old woman. “What’s it like? Do you feel like yourself? Do you feel alive?”
“Yes and no.”
“What do you mean?”
“Yes, my body reacts to stimuli. I feel emotions too. In all ways, I feel alive. Then I remember I’m inside a machine. My emotions—they’re all fabrications. Everything that’s happening to me is actually happening to this machine I’m in, yet I feel it.”
“Does it bother you?” It’s hard to find the words; one never wants to offend a new friend. “Not being—a real person?” This feels wrong as it comes out, but she doesn’t seem to mind. I suppose she’s heard worse. Plenty of people have sour feelings where companions are concerned, especially the religious, who are extra fervent these days.
“Not anymore,” the companion says. “Believe me, it did. I’m sure it’s pretty traumatic for every single person, no matter what they say—giving up the body. But it’s also liberating. My old self is dead, all my mistakes, my fears. What I do now, it makes me me.”
The Companions Page 11
