Something New Under the Sun

by Alexandra Kleeman

  The elevator doors open onto a space so bright that the dank below-ground garage feels like a false memory, something that never existed. Bounded on all sides by pale-blue glass and pierced by shafts of cool light, the feeling is like standing in the center of a gigantic ice cube, chilly and indifferent. Families and hand-holding couples crisscross the vast interior, drifting from one sample booth to another, clutching in their fists little plastic cups filled with neon-pink vitamin-enriched WAT-R Feminine Mystique and banana-scented WAT-R Rainforest Tropicale. At the top of a twisting glass staircase sits a rooftop tasting bar, where orders of premium WAT-R by the glass come with a free shot of vodka or blue curaçao. The Arm stands in the center of the WAT-R Welcome Rotunda, near a large fountain with an ice-sculpture centerpiece of a WAT-R bottle. He looks back and forth as though trying in every direction at once. The crowd parts seamlessly around his unmoving figure, reconstituted on the other side, like water flowing around a river rock. From the fountainhead, liquid slurps forth in great slow glugs. Patrick realizes that the kid is searching the faces, every face, but for what?

  “Pat, dude,” Horseshoe says, placing a hand on his shoulder, “do you have the list from Brenda?”

  Patrick pulls the paper from his pocket and hands it over. He’s faintly ashamed to be caught gaping, like Horseshoe’s poor lost friend, at this place that is ordinary to so many.

  Horseshoe scans the list and hands it back. “Most of this stuff is bulk; we’ll have to request it at the bulk desk. They prepare the order while we bring our vehicle around.”

  “So how long will it take?” Patrick asks. “I need to pick Cassidy up at five, and I was already late once this week.”

  “Five isn’t impossible,” Horseshoe replies thoughtfully, “but it isn’t likely. It’ll take at least an hour to make it through the different antechambers of the store, not to mention ordering and waiting at the bulk service desk. I think six-thirty is a better bet.”

  The Arm runs up to them, frantic, gesturing around.

  “I saw a girl,” he says, distraught, “I saw a girl that looked just like her.” They turn around to face the crowd, but nobody looks like anyone they know. The faces fail to light up with smiles of recognition: the odd and discrepant features arranged in the same rough order as those of your loved ones, the eyes and ears and nose all present but not like theirs, not like them at all. Pop songs with the words erased seep blurrily through the speakers. A woman drops her handbag on the polished marble floor and picks it up again; she drops it a second time and wanders away. Then an employee in a tight blue WAT-R logo tee holds a megaphone up to his mouth and announces there’s a new sample available at Booth Six: WAT-R Fruit Snack Quenchers, a chewy candy carapace filled with sweetened enriched water. The crowd murmurs, takes the shape of a parade: all Patrick can see now are backs, as the people move as one singular organism toward the exciting new product, the exciting new taste.

  As they walk from the rotunda to the innards of the store, Patrick asks Horseshoe if there’s any way to get to their destination faster. Shouldn’t there be a path straight to the dedicated bulk-ordering station for people on tight schedules, VIPs, elderly customers who lack stamina? But Horseshoe assures him that the store is deeply democratic in design: every person, no matter how rich or poor, walks the same long path. There’s wisdom in the path, which leads past countless fake rooms, even whole fake houses, each one decorated with care. There’s an upscale metrosexual loft kitchen stocked with premium WAT-R in the now familiar diamond-faceted bottles, a cozy Scandinavian kitchen with bottles of WAT-R HyggeBurst on display next to a carved wooden bird. A petite woman with a ponytail urges shoppers to “Go with the flow!” and “Dream yourself into your own WAT-R lifestyle fantasy!” To Patrick, the naked commercialism on display here, the marketing muscle that’s gone into making a basic drinking liquid aspirational, is repulsive. But when he sees the girls stripping off tee shirts to reveal genuine bikini tops, taking selfies in front of a replica Caribbean beach with bottles of tropical-infused WAT-R Coconut Vacation! hoisted toward the camera lens, he can’t help but wish he were young again and able to join in the pageant without self-awareness, without guilt.

  “Why is there a whole store for water?” the Arm asks, his head swiveling.

  “It’s not water,” Horseshoe explains patiently, “it’s WAT-R.” He says the last half of the word with a harsh, downward intonation, vaguely robotic. Horseshoe is starting to look a little worried, though Patrick thinks he’s trying to mask it. “You know I love you, man, but are you doing all right?”

  “Why is it so big?” the Arm says, as if he hasn’t heard his buddy’s question. He examines a courtesy-sized bottle of WAT-R Basic, then shakes the liquid vigorously until a layer of faintly blue froth forms at the top. He hands it over to Patrick.

  “Is he making a joke?” Patrick says to Horseshoe, who shrugs.

  The plastic bottle is warm in his hands as Patrick stares at the thin blue film swirling on the surface. It reminds him of the little rafts of bubbles he would spot riding the calmer, shore-bound waves when he went to the Cape as a child: detergents from nearby factories, his mother told him.

  “What’s that floating on top?” he asks, handing it over to Horseshoe for inspection.

  Horseshoe squints through the cheap plastic, and immediately looks bored.

  “That’ll go away if you just leave it alone for a while.”

  “But what is it?”

  “I don’t know what you call it,” Horseshoe says. “It’s fine, it’ll disappear. My buddy who’s in science told me that it happens because WAT-R is a little more ‘social’ than the old stuff. It boils at a slightly higher temperature and freezes at a slightly lower temperature. It forms stronger bonds inside the molecule, and with other molecules. So sometimes they clump together. Hence the occasional foam that doesn’t really matter and that nobody cares about.”

  “I thought WAT-R was supposed to be the same thing, though.”

  “Yeah, it’s the same,” Horseshoe says, distracted. “It’s the same as water, just a little bit more so.”

  The line for bulk orders stretches all the way into the showroom, so Patrick waits in place as Horseshoe and the Arm go to check out the snack bar. He takes out Brenda’s instructions and reads over the list again: two dozen cooler-ready five-gallon containers of WAT-R Pure, two pallets each of WAT-R Energy Surge and Energy Surge Plus, five eight-gallon dispensable Quenchers of WAT-R Basic, along with extra spouts, and a case of WAT-R Diamante Dreams. In the margin, there’s a note: “The Diamante is for the wrap party, do NOT store in main office or we will have theft!!!” He has no idea how much all of this will cost, only that it should be charged to a ten-digit account scrawled on the back of the paper in Brenda’s ferociously sloppy handwriting. Over at the far end of the vast warehouse, Horseshoe and the Arm order WAT-R slushes in flavors of boysenberry and oat milk. Half-frozen WAT-R tumbles in infinite circles inside the machines, shades of fuchsia, burgundy, and ochre visible through the clear plastic casing. The Arm drops his slush on the ground and all over someone’s sneakers, but Horseshoe helps him clean it up. Then they get back in line to purchase a replacement.

  At the bulk desk, the bulk girl wears the same logo tee as all the other employees, but someone’s written on it in marker, turning the hyphen into a sloppy, makeshift E. She logs his order with careless efficiency, asks him if he’ll be paying for delivery or hauling it himself, offers him a WAT-R Solutions credit card with a 10-percent discount on today’s order, and tells him that if he buys another pallet of Energy Surge Plus, he’ll get a free pallet of Energy Surge Pro, which he declines. But when he hands over the account number in Brenda’s scrawl, her pale forehead furrows.

  “Where did you get this number?” she asks.

  “My boss wrote it down for me,” he says. “Brenda Billington and Jay Arvid. Film producers. This is all going to thei
r studio in Alhambra.”

  “I need to ask my manager,” she replies.

  The manager comes over. The two ponder the ten handwritten digits, entering keystrokes into the computer system and shaking their heads. The format isn’t the same as their other account numbers, explains the manager, a twentysomething with wire-frame glasses. He leans over and shows Patrick that there are ten digits in the number he gave, whereas their account numbers are supposed to be nine digits long. They’ll have to call someone higher up to see what’s going on. Behind Patrick, the line grumbles.

  Horseshoe comes up, his mouth stained an unearthly color. “Sun’s setting,” he says. “Brenda and Jay are going to be pissed at us for being late.” He wraps his lips around the plastic straw; hot-pink slush travels up the narrow corridor in irregular gasps.

  “That sound at the end of the slushy,” the Arm says in a drifting voice, “that gurgle. That’s the sound the world will make when it ends.” He drops his drink on the floor again, but no one moves to help.

  “How long have you been drinking this WAT-R stuff? Personally, I mean?” Patrick asks.

  “What’s WAT-R?” the Arm asks.

  “Hmm,” Horseshoe says thoughtfully, ignoring the Arm. “Nobody around here asks a question like that. It must be your East Coast perspective on our situation.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through the calendar app, going back one year, then two. “I’d place it around two years three months. I was kind of an early adopter, you could say. I drank it before we had to drink it, because of the cool flavors and concepts.”

  “Someone told me they don’t think WAT-R tastes like the real thing,” Patrick says, thinking of Cassidy’s profile in the dark, edged in bright fire, smelling of ashes. “What do you think? Don’t you miss regular water—no decisions, no choices?”

  Horseshoe tosses his emptied drink into the trash without a glance. “Again, not a thing we talk about very much here. Do you ever have convos back at home comparing the flavor of tap water in different counties? This is like that.” He grows quieter. He’s watching the Arm study his fallen slush with grave intensity. The Arm’s eyes flicker back and forth across the trail of emerald sludge; he nudges the plastic cup with the toe of his shoe. Suddenly, he frowns. He starts scanning the crowd, as if searching for the person who left it there. Horseshoe sighs, kneads his smooth chin wearily. “You know, now that I try to remember, I can’t really recall much. That’s the way of regimes. My grandmother says that after Trujillo was assassinated all the music from his time began to sound faded and old-fashioned, and she could barely remember the words. Or maybe she said she didn’t want to remember them. But it’s like, does it matter? Water never came in flavors like Melon Shatter or Tangerine Tango. Water didn’t have different textures for different uses—I mean, I used to wash my hair with the same stuff I boiled spaghetti in. How does that even make sense?” His face lights up with a broad smile. “You know what I get when I try to conjure up that old long-lost taste of lowercase water? I taste Tangerine Tango Energy Surge. Have you tried that stuff? It’s like an orange on LSD!”

  At the edge of his vision, Patrick senses a crowd forming. Customers from the bulk-orders line are leaving their places, collecting near the checkout counters. He moves a few feet to get a glimpse, but their backs form a human wall, armored in poly-cotton and stretch jersey. From the human clot, someone shouts for an ambulance, then more join in, and soon the word rings all through the cavernous hall, stacked with WAT-R pods and WAT-R coolers from floor to ceiling. An ambulance is called; help is only six and a half minutes away, but they’ll have to park it at the front entrance and make the long, convoluted journey through the different WAT-R lifestyle suites to get here. The vast room fills with a vast murmur; the line breaks. He gravitates with the rest of them toward the unseen emergency whose presence is beginning to fill every corner of the room.

  At the center of the pulsing crowd, a curly-haired woman about Alison’s age writhes slowly on the polished concrete floor. Belly-up and panting, she stares unblinking at the fluorescent lights overhead. With her arms she reaches slowly out and back, like she’s swimming in place, like she’s swimming in slow motion through dark water, the surface as still as glass. From time to time, someone bends down to grab a limb and help haul her to her feet, but the woman’s body is as heavy as a corpse, and the leaden strokes hold unexpected force. When their grasp fails, she falls back to the ground with a gruesome thud. Patrick stares at her face as she squirms, rigid and set and showing no clear emotion. It’s worse, he thinks, that she doesn’t know she’s suffering, it’s more pitiful that she can’t sense the pity. The mouth fixed open, the eyes still and flat, like pieces of painted plastic.

  “Sir, excuse me,” comes a hushed voice from behind him. It’s the bulk-counter girl, with a brief hand upon his shoulder. “I just wanted to let you know that we were able to charge your account. Everything’s settled now. You can get your car and come around to the pickup area; just show them your card or give them your account number. Have a happy hydration!” Patrick points toward the woman on the floor. “Is she going to be okay?” he asks, the fear giving his voice a harsh tone. The girl smiles. “Yes,” she says brightly. “The ambulance is here. They’re already making their way through the shopping corridor.” She turns to go. “Wait,” Patrick says suddenly. “What was wrong with the number?” She looks surprised. “Oh, the number was fine. It’s just that none of us had seen one like that before. It’s a VIP account; only founders get them. The system didn’t even charge you for your items.” A sharp cry from the center of the circle breaks his concentration. Another bystander has tried to help the woman up, but she’s fallen again, and harder. After so many falls, her hands are blackened from the floor, her long floral skirt is torn.

  Far away, at the other end of the SuperCenter, two medics push a wheeled stretcher past the model sophisticated urban loft, past the model farmhouse kitchen, past the model luxurious hotel bathroom. They wheel their empty stretcher through the model Caribbean beach and past a replica of the Statue of Liberty, assembled entirely from mint-green bottles of WAT-R Drastic Clean!, an edible mouthwash substitute. In front of the rustic woodlands cabin model, loose bottles of WAT-R One, a one-calorie hydration aid, litter the plastic grass, gleaming beneath the boughs of artificial trees. At the nearby hydration station, they pause and help themselves to a complimentary bottle of WAT-R Five, a five-calorie thirst aid. “I like the Five,” says one medic to the other. “It has a crisp taste, like apples but without the apple flavor.” The other takes a sip and considers. “Sure, it tastes good,” he admits, “but what’s the point of having five calories?” By the replica Brutalist living room, they stop again to admire the brisk, clean lines, cold stone turned to human home. There’s something about the décor that implies a simpler life, just some minimalist vases and a couple of art books. It might be nice. But they press on: there’s still a long way to go, and the daylight is growing dimmer through the tinted blue glass that encircles them all.

  * * *

  —

  Hours late for the scheduled pickup, Patrick pulls up in front of the studio and sees a crowd gathered in front of the soundstage entrance, watching the collapsing catering tent. A few staffers struggle to straighten the sagging poles, hard metal drooping at the joints. Others try to push at the sliding brackets that support the tent’s roof, though it is clear that the tent will never stand upright unless someone gets control of the tarp. They know that they aren’t making much progress; dismay and boredom are struggling listlessly in their expressions as they try to hold the pieces in place. But most people are gathered around watching, drinking from catering-company coffee cups as they observe the staffers struggling amidst spilled coffee, overturned dispensers, their shoes sliding against a mulch of sandwich and pulverized candy. He’s surprised at how many of the onlookers seem actually happy, actually carefree: it’s fun to watch something collapse, as lo
ng as you’re not beneath it.

  A grip sips from a clandestine beer. Two hot girls from Wardrobe are giving each other palm readings; one spots something hopeful, and they laugh together, the highlighter on their orbital crests gleaming in the twilight. Horseshoe and the Arm climb out of the van and head into the crowd, talking and pointing, first at the tent’s canopy and then at the legs. Suddenly everyone seems happy, the Arm seems normal, functional. The struggle of the tent has energized those around it, inspired them to plunge more joyfully into their catastrophe-free lives. But Patrick can’t stop thinking about the woman at the SuperCenter, not much older than his wife, not much older than himself, squirming on the floor of the warehouse, her sickness bared to the crowd. He watched as one bystander bent down and blew gently on her face, clearing the thin layer of dust and debris that had settled onto her cheeks, her gaping mouth.

  In the shadow of the building, he sees Cassidy leaning up against corrugated metal, her facial expression inscrutable in large, chrome-rimmed sunglasses that take up half of her little heart-shaped face. She’s staring down at her phone and typing something at breakneck speed. Patrick’s phone buzzes. A new message from Cassidy Carter: Wish I were the one paying you so I could dock your pay. Patrick parks the van in the middle of the lot and spies on her in plain sight: the indignant pucker of her lips as she texts a series of question marks that pop onto his phone a moment later, and then the letters E, T, and A, followed by another spatter of squiggles interrogating nothing, marks without a question. He watches her yellow hair twitch in the breeze as she checks the phone again and again for a response. When she finally spots him, her lips utter an inaudible curse as she stalks toward the van.

  “Two hours and fifteen minutes waiting around like an asshole,” she says, pulling open the passenger-side door and climbing into the sweat-scented cabin. She points at the tower of boxes propped outside, her brow smooth, white, and unlined. “Fetch,” she says, but when she sees him go to do it, a haunted look on his blotchy face, she gets out and helps him heft the boxes, one by one.