“In the meantime,” said Mr. Grubel, “Jeremiah, I owe you an apology: an important detail completely slipped my mind.”
“All right,” said Jeremiah, allowing himself the tiniest sprig of hope—perhaps there had been a misunderstanding. Perhaps everything would be all right after all, owing to this forgotten but important detail.
“Since you are no longer a guest of Golden Worldlines, it’s inappropriate for you to utilize the guest dining facilities. Katherine can give you directions to the staff cafeteria.”
“All right,” said Jeremiah, more stoically.
“That goes for your sleeping arrangements as well—you’ll have to move into staff quarters. Given your…” Grubel looked at Mr. Roof and the Chapins, gauging their appetite for scandal. “…predilections, I won’t put you in the men’s wing. I won’t have you turning your imminent default into a pleasure cruise.”
“Mr. Grubel, I was talking about my lawyer, not—”
Grubel held up his hand.
“Not another word about lawsuits and lawyers, or I will personally make sure that your evaluations are the worst in the Einstein IV’s history.”
Jeremiah bit his lip.
“Unfortunately,” Grubel continued, “there are no free quarters in the women’s wing.”
“All right,” said Jeremiah again, now suspecting that it would not, in fact, be all right.
“Which is where you come in, Katherine,” Grubel said.
“Sorry?” she said.
“You have one of the staff suites. Jeremiah will sleep on the sofa.”
“No,” Katherine said.
It did not seem that Mr. Grubel was used to hearing this word much, or that he was enjoying the novelty. The silver frames of his empty glasses bit into his cheeks as he squinted. If the frames had actually sported lenses, they would have been fogging up.
“What?”
“I’m not sharing my suite with this man.”
Grubel put on his version of a sympathetic face.
“Rest assured, Jeremiah is not a man in that sense. It will be like your brother staying on your couch for a few days.”
“I don’t have a brother, and I’m not sharing my suite with anyone. I earned that suite through seniority.”
“That suite you ‘earned’ belongs to Golden Worldlines,” said Grubel. “If you want to keep it, I suggest you reconsider your tone.”
“This is all a huge misunderstanding,” said Jeremiah, standing up. “I’m not gay.”
“Jeremiah, sit—”
“He just asked me out,” Katherine said, pointing at Jeremiah, “for the second time.”
“Katherine, calm—”
“I did,” said Jeremiah. “It was totally inappropriate, and I did it because I’m totally not gay. Both times.”
“You can’t force me to let this man stay in—”
“Enough!”
Mr. Grubel slammed his fist on the table so hard that two legs briefly lost contact with the ground.
Mrs. Chapin gasped and clamped her hands over her necklace, as if looting and personal theft could be the only logical sequels to such a breakdown of the social contract. Mr. Chapin took her arm.
Mr. Moakley, who was sitting two tables away, put down his soup spoon, replaced his teeth, and put one hand on his walker, in case he might be required to step in.
“The situation is very simple,” said Mr. Grubel, fixing his crooked glasses. “Jeremiah, unless you want to work another two years for Golden Worldlines, you will sleep where I tell you. Katherine, unless you don’t want to work here any longer, you will accommodate whatever roommate I see fit to assign. After the office closes at five, Jeremiah, you will pack your belongings. And you, Katherine, will show him to his new room. Is that clear? Good. My apologies for interrupting your lunch,” he said to the Chapins and Mr. Roof.
“I’m really, really sorry,” Jeremiah said as soon as Grubel had gone. Katherine refused to meet his eyes, her cheeks scarlet and her arms akimbo.
“I was trying to tell him about my lawyer, and he just wasn’t paying attention, and he thought that I—”
“Just stop talking to me.” Katherine turned away from him and faced his table mates. “Your food will be right out,” she said.
4
Winners and Losers and Which Are You?
Still Friday (9 days until arrival)
Less than an hour ago, when Jeremiah had found himself the organizer of a talent show in what amounted to an interstellar assisted living community—and its resident matchmaker besides—that had seemed but a temporary speed bump between a productive morning and pleasant lunch. Now, with his cabin forfeit, the dining room denied, and Katherine furious, Jeremiah felt his situation deteriorating sharply, and worried that his brief success with the PEDs that morning had been but a momentary and meaningless spike in a graph trending sharply down and to the right.
So it was with great relief that Jeremiah saw Bernie Wendstrom waiting outside the office door, frowning and clutching to his chest something swaddled in a towel.
“There you are,” said Mr. Wendstrom. “Finally.”
Jeremiah resisted the urge to point out the hours on the door, instead welcoming Mr. Wendstrom inside and guiding him through the opening ceremonies with the ticketing machine.
“This is a delicate and confidential situation,” Mr. Wendstrom said. He nodded his head towards the towel-wrapped PED he still clutched, even while seated, and his comb-over flopped against his forehead like a fish whose years of frustrated thespian ambitions had at long last burst forth into a prolonged rendition of the death scene from Romeo and Juliet.
“Nothing to worry about. Guests come for help with theirs all the time,” said Jeremiah.
“They do?”
“Absolutely. They’re perplexing, infuriating, little devils, aren’t they? Always doing this when you want them to do that.”
Jeremiah had expected this remark to relax Mr. Wendstrom—to give him permission, as it were, to be defeated by his PED. But Mr. Wendstrom narrowed his eyes and clutched the towel even tighter. So Jeremiah tried a different tack.
“I got so frustrated with mine that I threw it in my sock drawer back on the red leg, and haven’t taken it out since.”
Mr. Wendstrom’s concerns did not seem to be allayed—if anything, his suspicion was edging on horror now, and he seemed on the verge of standing up.
“Why don’t you just throw it here on the desk,” Jeremiah said desperately, “and we’ll have a look?”
After a few seconds of consideration, Mr. Wendstrom put the package up on Jeremiah’s desk, hesitating another beat before whisking the towel away.
“That’s not a Personal Entertainment Device,” Jeremiah said.
“Of course it’s not,” said Mr. Wendstrom.
“That’s a—terrarium?”
“Of course it is.”
“Let’s start over,” said Jeremiah. “What seems to be the problem?”
“As I was explaining to you quite clearly,” Mr. Wendstrom said, “the problem is Carolus the Bold.”
“I see,” said Jeremiah, when it appeared that no more information was forthcoming. “And Carolus the Bold is?”
“An iguana. A southern blood-throated iguana. My southern blood-throated iguana. He’s gone missing.”
“And this was his terrarium?”
“Yes. And before you say anything,” said Mr. Wendstrom, waving his finger at Jeremiah, who in fact had been at a loss for anything to say and appreciated the chance to ruminate a bit more, “I know that no animals are allowed on board, but I couldn’t leave him. Iguanas are very social creatures, and Carolus in particular needs other people in his life. Besides, I couldn’t let him die without having read Penultimate Battle Royale and Last Battle Royale.”
“Oh,” Jeremiah said, dimly recalling from his days as a guest a number of conversations that at the time he had tried hard to immediately forget, “that series of books, right? Where the animals are kings and quee
ns and whatnot?”
Mr. Wendstrom’s face turned a raging shade of scarlet. His lips were slightly parted—he seemed to be actually, literally, biting his tongue.
“An anger management technique,” he said when he was calm enough to replace his tongue to its normal place and regain the power of speech. “Jeremiah, Princes of Alcance is a ‘series of books.’ The Kingkiller Chronicle is a ‘series of books.’ The Lord of the Rings is a ‘series of books.’ Crowns on Fire is one of the highest achievements ever attained by the human species. Or it will be, if that damned Michael L. L. Gregory ever gets off his butt and finishes the last two books. Then all questions will finally be answered. We’ll find out who killed Creon the Howlmaster, and what treasure lies in the Ark of Baneling, and most important of all,” said Mr. Wendstrom, his eyes glowing, “who is Andwen Longtail’s real father? I’m on this cruise so that Carolus and I could wait two years for those books instead of 20, Jeremiah. I couldn’t deny Carolus the pleasure of discovering all those secrets with me.”
“But you’re not saying that Carolus the Bold—that is to say, he hasn’t actually read the Crowns on Fire series?”
“Of course he hasn’t, Jeremiah. He’s an iguana.”
“That’s a relief. For a moment I thought you meant—”
“I read it to him.”
“I see. Well, let’s start with the basics: where and when did you see him last?”
“Between breakfast and lunch. I gave him a few treats—Aunt Mildred’s Organic Iguana Treats—shouldn’t you be writing this down?”
Jeremiah took a pad of paper and pen from the desk and jotted down the word “TREATS.”
“Anyway,” Mr. Wendstrom continued, “when I got back from lunch, the terrarium was empty and Carolus was gone. What else do you need to know?”
Jeremiah tried to remember what questions the police asked on the missing person procedurals that Lana had loved. He tapped his pen on the pad.
“Any enemies?” he asked.
“He’s an iguana.”
“I meant you.”
“Of course I have enemies,” Mr. Wendstrom said. “A man doesn’t reach my position in life without enemies—especially not a man who actually made his credit. Do you know how much they hate that? It flies right in the face of every lazy thing they’ve ever learned. They’d rather just repeat ‘credit makes credit, people make people,’ over and over. I have compiled a long list of losers who hate me for upsetting their worldview, and who blame me for their own failures. I couldn’t possibly name them all.”
“All right then,” said Jeremiah, “that ought to be enough to get started.”
“What milestones should we set for you?”
“I’m not sure I understand,” said Jeremiah, who was actually sure he didn’t.
“Jeremiah, do you know how I made the credit I was just talking about?”
“Books, right? And waves? Self-help stuff?”
Mr. Wendstrom bit his tongue again, until this round of fury passed.
“I hate that term, Jeremiah. How can the self possibly need help, when the self is the solution?”
“I just—”
“There are only two kinds of people in the world, Jeremiah: winners and losers. Do you know which one you are? You’re a loser. I’m not trying to insult you! Most people are losers at everything. Life, business, backgammon. That’s where I come in: I turn losers into winners. And I’m good at it. Believe me—I’m very, very good.”
“I believe you,” Jeremiah said.
“Then believe that the long road from loser to winner is lined with milestones. Say you wanted to lose 30 pounds. Would we weigh you just twice, once at the beginning and once at the end? Of course not. We’d break your weight loss into smaller goals—five pounds, then ten, then fifteen—and weigh you every week against those milestones.”
“That makes sense,” said Jeremiah.
“So on your own journey from loser to winner, what will your milestones be?”
“I mean, it makes perfect sense with weight loss. But what milestones are involved in finding an iguana? Either I’ve found him or I haven’t.”
Wendstrom grunted and squinted his eyes.
“You’re sharp, Jeremiah. Maybe there’s more winner in you than I thought. Fine, no milestones—we’ll do daily status reports.” He stood up. “You’ll need a place to put Carolus the Bold when you find him, so I’ll leave the terrarium.”
“How does this thing even open?” asked Jeremiah, turning it around in the vain search for a latch of some kind.
“Hand it over. There’s nothing to it: first this, then this, and then like this.”
The top of the terrarium popped off, as if spring-loaded, and clattered on the desk.
“It takes practice. Maybe,” said Mr. Wendstrom almost wistfully, “that could have been one of your milestones.”
* * *
After Mr. Wendstrom had taken his leave, and Jeremiah had stowed the terrarium safely behind the desk, he checked the clock. It was 1:21. Jeremiah synthed himself a coffee. He sat down in the antique office chair and sipped his coffee. It was 1:23. He fiddled with the height and reclining distance of the chair until further adjustment in any direction reduced his comfort. Jeremiah looked at the clock again: it was 1:26, and not a single new guest had required service. On the plus side, guests who didn’t get service from Jeremiah couldn’t review him negatively. On the minus side, he had just gone five minutes without entertainment or distraction—which was more than he had gone in two years—and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last.
He would have waved Appleton, but there was no terminal. He might have listened to music or watched something, but there was no PED. By 1:29 he was so desperate that he actually dug out the pamphlet Grubel had forced on him, and—after a few minutes of turning it over in his hands—began to read. In the process, Jeremiah discovered three things.
First, that he still didn’t understand special relativity, even when it was explained to him with important concepts called out in bold type. He could parrot the fundamental tenets of faith involved: that as the Einstein IV accelerated to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, those on board would experience time dilation, which was a fancy way of saying that the passage of time would slow down for them, and after a two-year journey among the stars they would arrive home to Earth to find that 20 years had passed there meanwhile. But—all due respect to Mr. Einstein, who had a reputation as something of a smarty-pants—Jeremiah could not wrap his mind around this obvious absurdity, or at some level even believe it, and he would not have been completely shocked to arrive back on Earth and discover that 20 years had not passed there, but only the same two years he had experienced, and that he and all the other passengers had been the victims of an elaborate hoax or at best unwitting participants in a psychological experiment mapping the bounds of gullibility.
Second, Jeremiah discovered that he did not enjoy having ideas presented to him with important concepts called out in bold type, which started to feel like watching a wave with a personal assistant standing by his side and hitting him on the head with a foam noodle every time something important happened on screen, so that he kept feeling the phantom noodle smack against his noggin even after the assistant had long since been punched in the mouth and hauled away to a session of revenge water torture.
Third and finally, that he should have signed up for the Golden Worldlines Rewards Program before departing on his cruise, as he would be at this very moment earning frequent-flyer light-seconds, which upon his return to Earth could be redeemed for valuable prizes—assuming, of course, that his imminent default did not invalidate his participation in the program.
After this thorough perusal of the pamphlet, which he estimated must have shaved at least a half hour off his sentence, Jeremiah checked the clock once more. It read 1:34, which was the strongest evidence for relativity that Jeremiah had seen yet.
* * *
When Reynolds arrived at the stro
ke of five for his evening check-in, Jeremiah practically pounced on him, pouring out the whole story as fast as he could give words to it: how between lunch and the close of business Jeremiah had somehow found himself responsible for a talent show, a mime’s love life, and the tracking down of an AWOL iguana who was, to hear his owner tell it, the Socrates, Newton, and Einstein of iguanas all rolled into one, and apparently quite bold to boot.
“Sounds like a fine day,” said Mr. Reynolds. “A fine first day. Apart from signing up to organize the talent show—that was a mistake. Event planning is the hard part of the job. But never mind, you’ll manage.”
“What am I supposed to do?” asked Jeremiah.
“Did you check the playbook?”
“Just for the PEDs,” said Jeremiah.
He opened the three-ring binder slowly, with suspicion, as a volunteer from the audience might open a box at the urging of a magician.
“Always check the playbook first, Jeremiah. Take it to bed with you tonight and read the section called ‘Event Planning.’ You’ll have that talent show up and running in no time.”
“The talent show? That’s the least of my worries. How do I get Mrs. Abdurov to fall in love with Mr. Drinkwater? How do I find Mr. Wendstrom’s iguana? You’re not telling me that’s in the playbook?”
“Probably not,” said Mr. Reynolds, “but it’s worth a look. Ah, I almost forgot to tell you—make sure you reset the numbers on the ticket machine every night. We don’t like the guests to have to count too high. After a certain age, people start getting nervous with numbers above 50.”
“I can handle the ticket machine just fine, but what do I do about Mr. Drinkwater and Mr. Wendstrom?”
“You do get the odd problem now and then, working the service desk,” said Mr. Reynolds. “But I wouldn’t worry too much—you’ll figure something out.”
“How often is ‘now and then’?”
“Oh, just occasionally and so on. The tough ones always seem to come in the afternoon. Now get some dinner and then some rest, Jeremiah. You’ve had a fine first day—a very fine first day.”
World Enough (And Time) Page 4
