Goodbye for Now: A Novel

by Laurie Frankel

  “So it’s not about being honest with their projections. It’s about being honest with themselves. About themselves,” said Sam.

  “Something like that,” she murmured.

  “How do I make it stop?”

  “You don’t. They tell. You fix it. You put the fabula in tabula rasa.”

  “Huh?”

  “Erase and try again.”

  Indeed, the wipe was half a solution, but it wasn’t a good one. Starting over took time, energy, money, courage. Users had already been through so much. The dying. Then the death. And then working up the nerve to come into the salon. And then that first e-mail, that first video, the mix of relief and horror that was seeing their projection for the first time. All the confessions. All the tears. To wipe and have to start from scratch was like losing their loved one all over again. The learning curve was steep and thorny—user and projection both had so much to take in—so having to start over felt like a serious setback for people who had already suffered so many. Avoiding the news and thus the wipe seemed the way to go.

  Sam wrote up a list of yamas and niyamas, RePose dos and don’ts, the very first bold-printed fourteen-point one of which was: FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY, DO NOT TELL YOUR PROJECTION THAT IT’S DEAD!!!! Meredith wrote a half dozen sample scripts—suggested ways in. Dash got an L.A. friend to make a short film, starring himself, which they screened for new users before they began, explaining what to say and what not to say, explaining why telling your loved one it was dead was not a good idea. Users nodded and sniffled and understood. For a while, Sam had a little quiz afterward that he made them pass before they could proceed. For a while, he made them sign an oath: “I promise not to tell my projection that it’s dead.” They told anyway. Everyone. First goddamn thing out of their mouths.

  Projections did not take this news well. Mostly, they weren’t upset. They were confused. It was one of the most important events in their lives, their deaths, but it was also the one thing for sure they had never really experienced. There was no predicting how they’d react to their own deaths based on their e-mails or browser histories or Facebook posts or anything else. There was often a lot of reaction in those archives to other people’s deaths, but that proved to be an ineffective predictor of reaction to one’s own. Furthermore, they couldn’t be convinced of it. Here they were, after all. They could see themselves, hear themselves. They could move a hand and see it move in the little window of their video chat. They could read an e-mail reporting their death and write back, “Hey, I’m not dead,” or reply, “Nope, no worries—I’m fine.” First-generation DLOs had never heard of RePose, and so it could not be explained to them. Folks who hadn’t been ill—accident victims, heart attacks out of nowhere, electrocution, this sort of thing—had no reason to believe, no basis for belief at all. Or sometimes projections were angry. Once told, they’d send ranting e-mail after ranting e-mail on how they’d given up smoking, given up meat, given up wine, given up croissants, given up skydiving, only to realize now that it hadn’t been worth it, hadn’t, in any case, been enough.

  When the film and the scripts and the quiz and the oaths and all Sam’s warning and cajoling didn’t work, his next solution was the Orpheus route. He put but one condition on his benevolent miracle of allowing you to take your dead loved one up from the underworld: don’t turn around. Do not let them know they’re dead. He simply made it verboten. He put in a kill switch. You told—it wiped automatically. Sam shut it down, wiped it clean, and if you wanted it back, you had to start from scratch. He wasn’t trying to be controlling or cruel. But since telling them not to didn’t work, he had to try something else. But the Orpheus route didn’t work either (not even, of course, for Orpheus). Users sat cowed, tongue-tied, afraid to proceed. They were afraid to say anything at all for fear they’d tell accidentally because whatever else they had to say, the subtext was always: look at this gigantic hole in me.

  Soon enough, Sam decided to include the first wipe free with the start-up fee. Soon enough, he killed the Orpheus autowipe and left the decision in people’s own hands. Inevitably though, users who told mea culpa’d and requested the wipe, often again and again. Users would wipe and begin again, screw up, say the wrong thing, become annoyed, become frustrated, wipe and begin again, sadder but wiser, knowing what to avoid from last time, falling into new traps instead. It was like a video game. Both projection and person, loved one and user, the dead and the living, died and were reborn into new lives again and again and again.

  PENNY

  Sam’s solution to all problems had always been: more work. Sam felt head down, feet grounded, firmly seated—in for the long haul—was the way forward. Software engineering was ideally suited for this approach. You just sat and coded, recoded, let it build, looked at what happened, coded some more. While things built, you read stuff online in another window. Sam spent a lot of time sitting down.

  “You’re going to fuse physically to that chair,” Meredith warned.

  “It’s a good thing you sprang for the ergonomic ones then.”

  “You need some exercise, fresh air.”

  “I walk the dogs with you. Often. Sometimes.”

  “You need contact with humans.”

  “I have nothing but contact with humans.”

  “Live ones.”

  “I see you. I see Dash. I see our clients.”

  “I was thinking we could invite people over this weekend.”

  “Who?”

  “We used to have friends,” said Meredith.

  “We still do.”

  “Nonelectronic ones.”

  “Oh, no one has those anymore,” said Sam.

  “You should come with me to the game.”

  “I can’t, Merde. I have to fix these bugs.”

  “My grandmother would want you to.”

  “Take Dash. Your grandmother would want you to take Dash.”

  “He’s in meetings. You’re here.”

  “Yeah, but you know what fixes bugs, Merde?”

  “What?”

  “Butt plus chair. It’s the only thing.”

  It was Opening Day, and truly, Sam was excited. While his builds were running in other windows, he was reading predictions and spring training stats and DL prognoses. He was thrilled it was baseball season again. But he also thought this was why they had a TV and a radio—so he could work and have the game.

  “It’s tradition,” said Meredith.

  “Yeah, yours,” said Sam. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go with her. It was that they’d staked everything on this, and in all the world, truly, only he could make it work. “Take Penny.”

  “My grandmother’s neighbor?”

  “Our neighbor.”

  “I don’t know. She’s been pretty out of it since her husband died.”

  “All the more reason,” said Sam.

  Meredith went down to invite her to the game. Sam’s phone rang two minutes later.

  “I know you’re having a love affair with that chair,” she said, “but you have to come downstairs right now.”

  Penny’s place was exactly Livvie’s two floors down—same layout, same kitchen, same bath fixtures, same balcony and wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, same view—but like their apartment in an alternate universe. In fact, Sam could only assume the view was the same—the windows were covered in thick, dark green velvet curtains. He felt his pupils inhale just to take the place in. It was dark not just from the heavy curtains but also from scant, dim lamps and walls papered dark gold and wall-to-wall stained, matted-practically-to-tile navy carpet and dust all over everything. He took in two ragged leather chairs and a sofa with patched, leaking cushions and two wood tables so old their grain had worn smooth and black. There were dirty dishes on the tables, on the chairs, on the sofa, on the floor. The kitchen counters and sink were full of crusty empty soup cans, empty frozen veggie bags, empty cottage cheese containers, empty ice-cream cartons. There were piles of clothes—hers and his—all over the apart
ment like anthills, so Sam had to zigzag insectlike between them to find Meredith. The bedroom was a similar riot of clothes, plates, water glasses, prescription bottles, dirty towels and sheets, old magazines, dusty books in stacks. By the bathroom door was a tumbling pile of leftover programs from Albert’s funeral. The date on it was two months before Livvie died. Meredith and Sam exchanged a long, sinking look.

  “I’m sorry the place is a bit of a mess,” Penny apologized, waving vaguely at the air around her. She was wearing one tennis shoe, one slipper, and a raincoat and didn’t look like she’d had a bath anytime recently. “I wasn’t expecting company.” Like it was just a little cluttered. Like it just needed picking up a touch. Was it that the place had fallen into such disarray while she’d been taking care of her dying husband? Or was it that she hadn’t had the energy—or inclination—to do anything since he died? How could it be that no one had noticed?

  Meredith told Penny they’d be right back and pulled Sam out into the hallway. “Should we call an ambulance, do you think?”

  “She seems okay,” said Sam. “I mean, she seems confused and in need of a live-in maid, but she doesn’t seem like she needs an emergency room.”

  “No,” agreed Meredith. “Maybe a change of scenery would help. I’ll take her out to get some groceries and supplies. Maybe even to lunch and the ball game if she feels up to it. You start cleaning up here.”

  “How?”

  “Clorox. Trash bags. Toss and organize.”

  “I don’t even know her, Merde.”

  “She was my grandmother’s best friend. She’s got kids, but they don’t live nearby. I forget where, and she’s in no state to … We can’t just leave her like this.”

  “No,” agreed Sam.

  “So do you want to stay here and clean, or do you want to take her out to the ball game?”

  “Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,” said Sam. He fetched trash bags and cleaning supplies and got to work—head down, feet grounded, in for the long haul, work.

  It’s hard to go through other people’s stuff. Sam found it dizzying like anything else without perspective. Was this envelope on the floor because it was trash, or was it precious but mislaid? Sam could look, but he didn’t want to read her mail, and that wouldn’t really tell him anyway—maybe it would clearly be a love letter, or maybe it would clearly be a credit card offer, but anything in between and he’d be lost, and hell, what did he know? Maybe she desperately needed a credit card. Multiplied by an entire apartment’s worth of stuff. An ancient-looking address book, a stapled packet of poetry, a seven-year-old flyer for a talent show at an elementary school, a faded baseball cap missing half its plastic closure—were these treasured memories or wandering possessions or trash begging to be culled? No way to know. Looking through someone else’s things also seemed invasive and embarrassing to Sam. Actual stuff felt different from electronic stuff. Much more real. Much more present. People’s e-mails spoke for themselves, were those people speaking for themselves. Their books and T-shirts and board games and posters and old souvenirs and decks of cards and stashed photos and half boxes of crayons and silverware and towels and old reading glasses and back magazine issues? Not so much.

  Penny was happy to go to the ball game with Meredith and then out for an early dinner and then to the grocery store to restock the house. She was happy to go wherever Meredith led. By the time they got home, Sam had filled fifteen trash bags and made mountains of everything else. Mt. Clothespile in the living room was all of Albert’s clothes. Mt. Clothespileette in the bedroom was all of Penny’s. Near the kitchen, he had Mt. Miscellaneous Paperwork next to Mt. Seemingly Sentimental Stuff. Just outside the bathroom was Mt. Probably Trash But Maybe Not, really more of an active volcano than a dormant peak. It was better, but it was still a mess.

  Sam had also found a change of everything in the bottom of the linen closet and put new sheets on the bed and new towels in the bath and in the kitchen. This proved most useful of all because Penny came home and looked around, smiled pleasantly at Sam, and said, “Oh my, you didn’t have to do that,” and crawled immediately into bed—in her clothes, including shoes and coat, with the lights still on, and with Sam and Meredith still standing bewildered in her living room. Meredith put away groceries, Sam stabilized his mountains, and they left a note that they’d be back to check on her in the morning.

  Upstairs, Meredith scoured Livvie’s address book to see if she could find Penny’s kids, and when that yielded nothing, she tried Livvie herself. “I’m sorry,” said Livvie. “I don’t understand.” Then Meredith left a message with the building manager to see whether Penny maybe had a next of kin on file and one with her own GP to see if she could make Penny an appointment for the morning. When the building manager hadn’t called back within the hour, she went downstairs and started pounding on his door.

  “Don’t be mad,” said Sam when she came back upstairs with no new information, just as restless as she’d been when she left, “but maybe we should just chill out for tonight. We’ll go back tomorrow and see how she is. Maybe she knows her kids’ names and phone numbers. Maybe she knows her own doctor. It seems premature to panic.”

  “You saw that place,” Meredith said shrilly. “That wasn’t the apartment of someone having a bad day. That was the apartment of someone having a bad day every day for the last six months. I’m so … I can’t believe I haven’t even checked on her since my grandmother died. What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “She’s got kids, Merde. And she’s an adult. She’s not your responsibility.”

  “Of course she is.”

  “Why? Just because she was Livvie’s friend?”

  “That and I’m here. We’re here. Who else did you have in mind?”

  “Don’t be mad,” Sam said again, “and I’m happy to help her, of course. You know I am. I just worry about barging in like we own the place.”

  “Her apartment?”

  “Her apartment. Herself. Her dementia. Her kids. Her health issues. She’s eighty-some years old. She probably doesn’t want a babysitter.”

  “For a guy who goes through people’s e-mails and private conversations for a living, you’re pretty worried about boundaries here.”

  “I am only suggesting that we foray with caution into someone else’s life.”

  “That’s not really my thing,” said Meredith.

  “I noticed.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “It’s what I love most about you,” Sam said then reflected, “Well, it’s a long list. But it is one of the things I love most about you. You see people hurting and you want to fix them. It’s sweet and generous, but it’s also hard. Where does that come from?”

  “Congenital butting in?” she said.

  “Faith that you can help,” said Sam.

  She shrugged. “Who knows? Too much time spent on my own maybe. Too much time with wood glue instead of other little girls. My first job was at a vet’s. Did I ever tell you this?” Sam shook his head. “The vet was a friend of my folks. He basically made up a job for me as a favor to them: pet petter. My job was to sit with the animals when they were prepped for surgery or coming out of anesthesia or waiting for their owners to come back for them. I petted them, kept them calm, comforted them. Dogs especially always come out of anesthesia crying. Animals are much more stoic than people, but somehow that just makes it more heartbreaking when they’re scared or in pain. It was a hard job because how can you really comfort a hurting or sick or frightened animal? What do they really want? I had no idea.

  “My second job was waiting tables, and that was so much easier. What do people want? Ask them and they’ll tell you. They want a Coke, so they say they want a Coke, so you bring them a Coke, and they’re happy. They’re mad that their burger is undercooked, so you take it back and cook it some more. When people are in restaurants, their deepest desire isn’t usually much more complex than ranch dressing or an extra scoop of ice cream with their pie. And I could do that. It was so
easy to make them happy, and it was so great to have clients who had desires that could be both expressed and fulfilled. It’s nice when people have needs you can meet.”

  “You think Penny has needs we can meet?” said Sam.

  “Sure. I don’t know what they are exactly, but it’s not like she’s a poodle.”

  In the morning, Penny seemed new-made. Her house was still a wreck, yes, but she was much more embarrassed about it, about everything from the day before, and that comforted Sam immensely. He did not care about the state of her apartment, but he was very concerned about the state of her head. She was showered and clean and wearing reasonable clothes and an expression that managed to combine mortification with gratitude. Sam was relieved. Meredith was down to business.

  “We can go through the piles together today. Figure out what you’re still using, what you want to keep, what we can take somewhere. We donated a lot of Grandma’s things to a shelter downtown. They do hard work for a good cause, and it would free up some space for you. Then we can start getting things put away. What’s in your other bedroom?” Penny’s place, like Livvie’s, had two bedrooms. Her second one had been locked the day before.

  “Oh, that’s the computer room,” said Penny. “I guess there’s some storage space in the there.”

  “You have a computer?” Sam and Meredith said together.

  “Of course. Everyone has a computer. I’m not that old.”

  “What do you use it for?” Sam condescended.

  “You know. E-mailing the grandkids. Video chatting with Livvie when she abandoned me for Florida every year. Online banking. Ordering groceries, clothes, books, gifts. Facebook. The usual.”