The Circle

by Dave Eggers

  “To rent a kayak.”

  “Oh. Well, what time is it? I haven’t checked in a while.”

  She didn’t have to check. “4:26,” she said.

  He cleared his throat and smiled. “4:26, eh? Well, we usually close at five, but seeing as you’re so good with time, I bet I can trust you to bring it back at 5:22. You think that’s fair? That’s when I have to leave to pick up my daughter.”

  “Thank you,” Mae said.

  “Let’s get you set up,” he said. “We just digitized our system. You said you have an account?”

  Mae gave him her name, and he typed it into a new tablet, but nothing registered. After three tries, he realized his wifi wasn’t working. “Maybe I can check you in on my phone,” he said, taking it from his pocket.

  “Can we do it when I come back?” Mae asked, and he agreed, thinking it would give him time to bring the network back up. He set Mae up with a life preserver and kayak, and when she was out on the water, she checked her phone again. 4:32. She had almost an hour. On the bay, an hour was always plenty. An hour was a day.

  She paddled out, and this day saw no harbor seals in the marina, though she dawdled purposely to try to draw them out. She made her way over to the old half-sunken pier where they sometimes sunned themselves, but found none. There were no harbor seals, no sea lions, the pier was empty, a sole filthy pelican sitting atop a post.

  She paddled beyond the tidy yachts, beyond the mystery ships and into the open bay. Once there, she rested, feeling the water beneath her, smooth and undulating like gelatin fathoms deep. As she sat, unmoving, a pair of heads appeared twenty yards in front of her. They were harbor seals, and were looking at each other, as if deciding whether they should look at Mae, in unison. Which they presently did.

  They stared at each other, the two seals and Mae, no one blinking, until, as if realizing how uninteresting Mae was, just some figure unmoving, one seal leaned into a wave and disappeared, and the second seal quickly followed.

  Ahead, halfway into the bay, she saw something new, a manmade shape she hadn’t noticed before, and decided that would be her task that day, to make her way to the shape and investigate. She paddled closer, and saw that the shape was actually two vessels, an ancient fishing boat tethered to a small barge. On the barge there was an elaborate but jerry-rigged sort of shelter. If this existed anywhere on land, especially around here, it would be dismantled immediately. It looked like pictures she’d seen of Hooverville or some makeshift refugee settlement.

  Mae was sitting, squinting at the mess of it, when, from under a blue tarpaulin, a woman emerged.

  “Oh hey,” the woman said. “You came out of nowhere.” She was about sixty, with long white hair, full and frayed, pulled into a ponytail. She took a few steps forward and Mae saw that she was younger than she’d assumed, maybe early fifties, her hair streaked with blond.

  “Hi,” Mae said. “Sorry if I’m getting too close. The people in the marina make a point of telling us not to disturb you guys out here.”

  “Usually, that’s the case,” the woman said. “But seeing as we’re coming out to have our evening cocktail,” she said, as she settled into a plastic white chair, “your timing is impeccable.” She craned her head back, speaking to the blue tarpaulin. “You gonna hide in there?”

  “Getting the drinks, lovebird,” a male voice said, his form still invisible, his voice straining to be polite.

  The woman turned back to Mae. In the low light her eyes were bright, a bit wicked. “You seem harmless. You want to come aboard?” She tilted her head, assessing Mae.

  Mae paddled closer, and when she did, the male voice emerged from under the tarpaulin and took on human form. He was leathery, a bit older than his companion, and he moved slowly getting out of the boat and onto the barge. He was carrying what appeared to be two thermoses.

  “Is she joining us?” the man asked the woman, dropping himself in the matching plastic chair next to hers.

  “I asked her to,” the woman said.

  When Mae was close enough to make out their faces, she could see they were clean, tidy—she’d feared their clothing would confirm what their vessel implied—that they were not just waterborne vagabonds, but dangerous, too.

  For a moment, the couple watched as Mae maneuvered her way to their barge, curious about her, but passive, as if this was their living room and she their night’s entertainment.

  “Well, help her,” the woman said testily, and the man stood.

  The bow of Mae’s kayak knocked against the steel edge of the barge and the man quickly tied a rope around it and pulled the kayak so it was parallel. He helped her up and onto the surface, a patchwork of wooden planks.

  “Sit here, honey,” the woman said, indicating the chair he’d vacated to help her.

  Mae sat down, and caught the man giving the woman a wild look.

  “Well, get another one,” the woman said to him. And he disappeared again under the blue tarp.

  “I don’t usually boss him around so much,” she said to Mae, reaching for one of the thermoses he’d set down. “But he doesn’t know how to entertain. You want red or white?”

  Mae had no reason to accept either in the middle of the afternoon, when she had the kayak to return, and then the drive home, but she was thirsty, and if the wine was white, it would be so good under the afternoon’s low sun, and quickly she decided she wanted some. “White, please,” she said.

  A small red stool appeared from the folds of the tarpaulin, followed by the man, making a show of looking put-out.

  “Just sit and have a drink,” the woman said to him, and into paper coffee cups, she poured Mae’s white and red for herself and her companion. The man sat, they all raised their glasses, and the wine, which Mae knew was not good, tasted extraordinary.

  The man was assessing Mae. “So you’re some kind of adventurer, I take it. Extreme sports and such.” He drained his cup and reached for the thermos. Mae expected his mate to look at him disapprovingly, as her mother would have, but the woman’s eyes were closed, facing the setting sun.

  Mae shook her head. “No. Not really at all.”

  “We don’t see that many kayakers out here,” he said, refilling his cup. “They tend to stay closer to shore.”

  “I think she’s a nice girl,” the woman said, her eyes still closed. “Look at her clothes. She’s almost preppy. But she’s no drone. She’s a nice girl with occasional bursts of curiosity.”

  Now the man took the role of apologist. “Two sips of wine and she thinks she’s some fortune-teller.”

  “It’s okay,” Mae said, though she didn’t know how she felt about the woman’s diagnosis. As she looked at the man, and then at the woman, the woman’s eyes opened.

  “There’s a pod of grey whales heading up here tomorrow,” she said, and turned her eyes toward the Golden Gate. She narrowed them, as if completing a mental promise with the ocean that, when the whales arrived, they would be well treated. Then she closed her eyes again. Entertaining Mae seemed to be left to the man for now.

  “So how’s the bay feel today?” he asked.

  “Good,” Mae said. “It’s so calm.”

  “Calmest it’s been this week,” he agreed, and for a while no one spoke, as if the three of them were honoring the water’s tranquility with a moment of silence. And in the silence, Mae thought about how Annie, or her parents, would react to seeing her out here, drinking wine in the afternoon on a barge. With strangers who lived on a barge. Mercer, she knew, would approve.

  “You see any harbor seals?” the man finally asked.

  Mae knew nothing about these people. They hadn’t offered their names and hadn’t asked Mae for hers.

  Far beyond, a foghorn sounded.

  “Just a few today, closer to shore,” Mae said.

  “What’d they look like?” the man asked, and when Mae described them, their grey glassine heads, the man glanced to the woman. “Stevie and Kevin.”

  The woman nodded in recognit
ion.

  “I think the others are further out today, hunting. Stevie and Kevin don’t leave this part of the bay too often. They come here all the time to say hello.”

  Mae wanted to ask these people if they lived here, or, if not, what exactly they were doing out here, on this barge, attached to that fishing boat, neither of which seemed functional in any way. Were they here for good? How did they get here in the first place? But asking any of these questions seemed impossible when they hadn’t asked her name.

  “Were you here when that burned?” the man asked, pointing to a large uninhabited island in the middle of the bay. It rose, mute and black, behind them. Mae shook her head.

  “It burned for two days. We had just gotten here. At night, the heat—you could feel it even here. We swam every night in this godforsaken water, just to stay cool. We thought the world was ending.”

  Now the woman’s eyes opened and she focused on Mae. “Have you swum in this bay?”

  “A few times,” Mae said. “It’s brutal. But I used to swim in Lake Tahoe growing up. That’s at least as cold as this.”

  Mae finished her wine, and felt briefly aglow. She squinted into the sun, turned away, and saw a man in the distance, on a silver sailboat, raising a tricolored flag.

  “How old are you?” the woman asked. “You look about eleven.”

  “Twenty-four,” Mae said.

  “My god. You don’t have a mark on you. Were we ever twenty-four, my love?” She turned to the man, who was using a ballpoint pen to scratch the arch of his foot. He shrugged, and the woman let the matter drop.

  “Beautiful out here,” Mae said.

  “We agree,” the woman said. “The beauty is loud and constant. The sunrise this morning, it was so good. And tonight’s a full moon. It’s been rising full orange, turning silver as it climbs. The water will be soaked in gold, then platinum. You should stay.”

  “I have to return that,” Mae said, indicating the kayak. She looked at her phone. “In about eight minutes.”

  She stood up, and the man stood and took her cup, setting his own cup inside hers. “You think you can get back across the bay in eight minutes?”

  “I’ll try,” Mae said, and stood.

  The woman let out a loud tsk. “I can’t believe she’s leaving already. I liked her.”

  “She’s not dead, dear. She’s still with us,” the man said. He helped Mae into the kayak and untied it. “Be polite.”

  Mae dipped her hand into the bay and wet the back of her neck.

  “Fly away, traitor,” the woman said.

  The man rolled his eyes. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Thanks for the wine,” Mae said. “I’ll come back again.”

  “That’d be swell,” the woman said, though she seemed finished with Mae. It was as if, for a moment, she thought Mae was one kind of person, but now, knowing she was another, she could part with her, she could give her back to the world.

  Mae paddled toward the shore, her head feeling very light, the wine putting a crooked smile on her face. And only then did she realize how long she’d been free of thoughts of her parents, of Mercer, of the pressures at work. The wind picked up, now heading west, and she paddled with it recklessly, spray everywhere, soaking her legs and face and shoulders. She felt so strong, her muscles growing bolder with every splash of cold water. She loved it all, seeing the free-range boats get closer, the caged yachts appear and take on names, and, finally, the beach take shape with Walt waiting at the waterline.

  On Monday, when she got to work and logged on, there were a hundred or so second-screen messages.

  From Annie: We missed you Friday night!

  Jared: You missed a great bash.

  Dan: Bummed you weren’t at the Sunday Celebr!

  Mae searched her calendar and realized there had been a party on Friday, open to everyone in the Renaissance. Sunday had been a barbecue for newbies—the newbies that had arrived in the two weeks she’d been at the Circle.

  Busy day, Dan wrote. See me asap.

  He was standing in the corner of his office, facing the wall. She knocked lightly and, without turning, he raised his index finger, asking for a moment. Mae watched him, assuming he was on a call, and stood patiently, silently, until she realized he was using his retinals and wanted a blank background. She’d been seeing Circlers occasionally doing this—facing walls, so the images on their retinal displays could be seen more clearly. Now finished, he swirled to Mae, flashing a friendly and quick-dissolving smile.

  “You weren’t able to come yesterday?”

  “Sorry. I was with my folks. My dad—”

  “Great event. I think you were the only newb absent. But we can talk about it later. For now I need to ask you a favor. We’ve had to bring on a lot of new help, given how fast things are expanding now, so I wondered if you could help me with some of the new arrivals.”

  “Of course.”

  “I think it’ll be a cinch for you. Let me show you. We’ll head back to your desk. Renata?”

  Renata followed them, carrying a small monitor, about the size of a notebook. She installed it at Mae’s desk and left.

  “Okay. So ideally you’ll be doing what Jared used to do with you, remember? Whenever there’s a stumper and it needs to be bounced up to a more seasoned person, you’ll be there. You’re the veteran now. Does that make sense?”

  “It does.”

  “Now the other thing is that I want the newbies to be able to ask you questions as they work. The easiest way will be on this screen.” He pointed to the small screen that had been placed under her main monitor. “You see something appear here you know it’s from someone in your pod, okay?” He turned on the new screen and typed out a question, “Mae, help me!” on his tablet, and the words appeared on this new, fourth, screen. “Does that seem easy enough?”

  “It does.”

  “Good. So the newbies will be here after Jared trains them. He’s doing it en masse as we speak. There will be twelve new people here by about eleven a.m., okay?”

  Dan thanked her and left.

  The load was heavy until eleven, but her rating was 98. There were a handful of sub-100s, and two lower-90s that she followed up on, and in most cases the customers corrected their rating to a 100.

  At eleven she looked up to see Jared leading a group into the room, all of them seeming very young, all of them stepping carefully, as if afraid to wake some unseen infant. Jared positioned each of them at a desk and the room, which had been utterly empty for weeks, was nearly full in a matter of minutes.

  Jared stood on a chair. “Okay everyone!” he said. “This is by far our quickest onboarding process. And our quickest training session. And our most maniacally fast first day. But I know you all can handle it. And I especially know you can handle it because I’ll be here all day to help, and Mae will be here, too. Mae, can you stand up?”

  Mae stood. But it was obvious that few of the newbies in the room could see her. “How about standing on your chair?” Jared asked, and Mae did so, straightening her skirt, feeling very silly and visible and hoping she would not fall.

  “The two of us will be here all day to answer questions and take stumpers. If you have a stumper just forward it, and it’ll be routed to whichever of us has the lightest load. If you have a question, same thing. Send it through the channel I showed you in the orientation, and it’ll go to one of us. Between me and Mae, you’ll be covered. Everyone feel good?” No one moved or said a word. “Good. I’ll open the chute again and we’ll go till twelve thirty today. Lunch will be shorter today to account for the training and all, but we’ll make it up to you on Friday. Everyone ready?” No one seemed ready. “Go!”

  And Jared jumped down, and Mae climbed down, arranged herself again, and was immediately thirty queries behind. She started on her first, and within a minute she had a question on her fourth screen, the one for newbies.

  Customer wants their entire payment record from last year. Available? And where?

&n
bsp; Mae directed the newbie to the right folder, then returned to the query in front of her. She continued this way, being pulled away from her own work every few minutes by a newbie question, until twelve thirty, when she saw Jared again, standing again on a chair.

  “Whoa. Whoa,” he said. “That’s lunch. Intense. Intense. Right? But we did it. Our overall average is at 93, which is normally not so good, but okay considering the new systems and increased flow. Congratulations. Get some food, some fuel, and see you at one p.m. Mae, see me when you can.”

  He jumped down again, and was at Mae’s desk before she could get to his. His expression was one of friendly concern.

  “You haven’t gone to the clinic.”

  “Me?”

  “Is that true?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You were supposed to have gone your first week.”

  “Oh.”

  “They’re waiting. Can you go today?”

  “Sure. Now?”

  “No, no. We’re too swamped right now, as you can see. How about at four? I can handle the last shift. And by the afternoon all of these newbies will be better honed. Did you have fun so far today?”

  “Sure.”

  “Stressed?”

  “Well, it adds a new layer to things.”

  “It does. It does. And there will be more layers, I want to assure you. I know someone like you would get bored of just the regular Customer Experience stuff, so next week we’ll hook you up with a different aspect of the job. I think you’ll love it.” He glanced at his bracelet and saw the time. “Oh crap. You should go eat. I’m literally taking food out of your mouth. Go. You have twenty-two minutes.”

  Mae found a pre-made sandwich in the closest kitchen and ate at her desk. She scrolled through the third-screen social feed, looking for anything urgent or needing a reply. She found and responded to thirty-one messages, feeling satisfied that she’d given careful attention to all those that required it.

  The afternoon was a runaway train, with the questions from the newbies constant, contrary to the assurances of Jared, who was in and out throughout the afternoon, leaving the room a dozen times, talking on his phone with great intensity. Mae dealt with the doubled flow and by 3:48 had a personal score of 96; the pod’s average was 94. Not bad, she thought, considering the addition of twelve new people, and having to help them, for much of three hours, singlehandedly. When four o’clock came around, she knew she was expected at the clinic, and hoped Jared had remembered. She stood, found him looking her way, and he gave her a thumbs-up. She left.