Goodbye for Now: A Novel

by Laurie Frankel

  “How?”

  “However you like.”

  LOVE LETTER

  Dear Merde,

  Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am a genius. But it’s not the same as being smart. We like to call that wisdom, but I feel like it’s more solid and nail-downable than that, or at least it would be for a smarter person. Good plus genius isn’t helping me without you. You were the heart of this idea—its genesis, its center, its moral compass and guide. Without you, I’m not smart enough to know. Are we helping these people? It doesn’t help users mourn to find out their loved one was unfaithful. When RePose violates the loved one’s better judgments and tells secrets they’ve brought to the grave, that may be honest, but it isn’t healing. I tell people, I tell myself, that it’s out of my hands. I don’t make anything up. Projections say what’s real and true. But is that real and true? Is that tiny shred of ourselves we make public and commit to bit code really who we are? Loved ones are loved, but they’re also disappointing. Real people don’t always, don’t even usually, say what we want them to, respond how we hope. So what then is the value of making projections as close to real people as possible? I have no idea anymore. No fucking idea.

  I reread your last e-mail, and it strikes me as ironic how much more you know than I do.

  I love you, you know,

  Sam

  HEARTS WILL BE GLOWING WHEN LOVED ONES ARE NEAR

  Did the holidays bring out the best in people or the worst in people? Sam had heard both and wasn’t sure it was either one. The holidays brought out the stress and guilt and credit cards of people, best he could tell. What they brought out in the projections though was single-minded focus on one thing: shopping. After Livvie’s insistence that she was coming home had killed the love of his life, Sam had added a calendar function for the projections to work into their calculations. Had Livvie realized it was late September, she’d have been talking about leaving, not coming home, and Meredith would still be alive. The dateline omission was the least of Sam’s sins, he knew, but it was one he could fix easily. As a result, everyone’s projections realized it was the most wonderful time of the year at the exact same moment.

  “I think something’s wrong, Sam,” David called from the corner of the salon where he and Kelly were chatting with his mother on a laptop. “My mom’s spent the last ten minutes talking about things she wants to buy online. She’s sending me all these URLs. ‘Do you like this sweater for Grandma? In what color? Do you think Sheila would like this jacket? What size does she wear these days? Do these skis look good for Dad? Do you think he’d prefer Rollerblades?’ It’s weird.”

  “Me too!” said George Lenore who hadn’t been in for a while. Having exhausted early on the list of things only his wife knew the whereabouts of, he hadn’t for a little while seen the point in coming back. It dawned on him only belatedly that he could RePose just to talk to her and enjoy her company. Now she was bargain shopping. “If we buy it here,” she was saying, pasting a URL into a separate chat window, “it’s a hundred and forty-nine ninety-nine, but we have to pay twelve ninety-five for shipping. Twelve ninety-five! What a rip-off. It weighs less than a pound. If we buy it at this place”—another URL came through—“it ships for free, but it’s one sixty-one fifty, but it only comes in black and silver whereas the first site has it in blue too which I think is prettier. What do you think?”

  “What do I do?” asked George helplessly.

  Dash shrugged. “Well, what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About whether the blue one is prettier.”

  “I don’t know. I was never in charge of Christmas shopping. That’s why I got married.”

  On the one hand, the holidays were very good for business. That was the best of people maybe. Users longed to connect with their loved ones, to banish bygones, to include DLOs in family traditions of which they’d always been a part. People missed the ones they had lost—always, of course, but more so at the holidays. But it was hard too. Projections themselves were having days merry and bright. They were cheery, as they’d been in Christmases past, whereas users were depressed without them and offended, in spite of themselves, that they were missing their DLO so terribly and their DLO wasn’t missing them at all. Users wanted to reminisce and reflect. Projections wondered when they had to order by to get guaranteed delivery by December 24.

  Edith came back one week before Christmas. Celia offered to shoo everyone out and give her some privacy, but she said no, they were all family here. Avery came over and held her hand, just out of frame, and Dash and Sam stood cowardly and cowering behind the front counter. A hush fell over the whole place as everyone furtively whispered that they’d call their loved one back in a little while then tried to look busy doing something else, but no one made a move to leave.

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Sam. “I could mess with his programming. I could run him again.”

  “I want to.” Edith waved him off. “This is a conversation my husband and I evidently need to have. It’s been a long time coming.”

  “You could just stop,” Dash offered. “Maybe you’ve already gotten out of this all you came for.”

  “No. I like being able to speak my mind finally,” Edith said. “I’m not ready to give it up. So now I guess I need to let it talk for once.”

  She called, Bob answered, and Edith took a deep, shaky breath. “So Bob,” she said, aiming for casual but missing by a mile, “you have something to tell me?”

  Even from across the room, Sam could see Bob lose his color. He never ceased to be amazed what this algorithm knew. But Bob was ready. Sam was right about that too. He couldn’t get unburdening his heart out of his head.

  “I have to tell you something,” said Bob, and Edith was already looking at her lap and nodding slowly. “It’s going to sound worse than it is, but keeping it from you is killing me, and I need you to listen to the whole thing because the end is important too. I’ve been … I’ve … um …” The projection was having a hard time getting it out, and Sam wondered fleetingly if it was going to end up saying something else altogether. “Leanne and I have been having an affair. Had an affair. It’s over.” It wasn’t. Because it hadn’t even begun. Or maybe, in some other ways, it had. “I’m sorry, Edith. I’m sorry I betrayed you. I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry about the whole thing. I made vows and should never have forgotten them.”

  “You’re worried about the vows?” Edith said.

  “Our relationship has … struggled some, especially recently. That’s not an excuse. That’s my fault too.”

  “Recently?” said Edith.

  “I don’t say it enough, but I do still love you.”

  “That’s not the point, Bob. It’s not enough.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t tell you how hard I know you work. I don’t tell you how much I appreciate all you do. You’re the steady one. You’re the backbone here. You hold us together.”

  “It’s not easy,” said Edith.

  “I know it’s not. It can’t be,” said Bob. “I couldn’t do what I do if you didn’t stay home and do what you do so well. I know that.”

  “Why didn’t you ever say so?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not good at that part, I guess.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  “I didn’t,” she said simply, not looking up from her lap.

  “What?”

  “I mean I won’t.” She finally showed him her face—composed—but Bob’s was soaked and wrecked.

  “They say if you cheat you shouldn’t tell because it makes you feel better, but it makes your wife, the victim, feel so much worse. But not telling was like cheating on you again. I tell you everything. You’re my best friend, Edith.”

  “You do?” she said. “I am?”

  “Of course. When things are good at work, I tell you. When things are bad at work, I complain to you. When I travel, you’re the one I come home to. You�
��re the reason I come home.”

  “But we hardly talk anymore.” Edith looked incredulous.

  “Really?” said Bob. “I feel like we talk all the time. Maybe I do more than my fair share. I know you want to know why—why I’d do this to my best friend—and I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Edith pressed a finger and a thumb against squeezed-shut eyes then looked hard at him. “I don’t care why. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Anymore?” Bob wondered.

  “Ever. It never mattered why. It doesn’t matter why.”

  “Because I love you?” Bob said hopefully. “Because that’s what matters?”

  “Well, that and some other things.”

  “Yes, and I know what those are. I know I have to make it up to you. I’ll come home earlier at night. I’ll skip business trips. Maybe it’s time to retire even. We could go on vacation more often. We could spend more afternoons doing not much of anything. We could be together more. Get rid of the stuff that doesn’t matter. Just be with each other again. Talk. You could take some classes if you wanted. I could cook for you for a change. It’s been a long time since we’ve just been together. That’s what I want. It’s been so long.”

  “It has,” Edith agreed.

  “Would you like that?”

  “I would.”

  “Do you still love me? Even now?”

  “I still do,” she said. “Even now. Merry Christmas, Bob.”

  “Merry Christmas, love,” he said.

  She hung up and sat and wept. Dash walked over and kissed her full on the mouth.

  “What was that for?” She was fake-appalled but grinning under eyes enthusiastically abandoning their mascara.

  “Mistletoe.” He nodded at the ceiling and then told her congratulations.

  “For what?”

  “You’re a free woman.”

  “It doesn’t feel like that.”

  “Give it time.”

  “It’s been quite a year.”

  “Next year will be better,” he said.

  “There’s only one way to go,” said Edith. Then Muriel hugged her and Celia hugged her and Avery simply brought her her coat.

  “Where are we going?” Edith asked.

  “Out,” said Avery. “I know all about losing your husband, and in this case, the first step is margaritas.”

  LOVE LETTER

  Dear Sam,

  Merry Christmas. It doesn’t seem fair not to be with you for the holidays, not to either of us, but it seems like that every day, so why should the holidays be any different. I’ve been remembering last Christmas a lot. My parents were mad at me; my grandmother was gone; RePose had me scared to death. But I was so happy, underneath all of that and over it too, just to be with you. That’s what you do for me. You simply outweigh everything else. That’s how love should be, I guess. I guess that’s what love means.

  I know you’re having your doubts about RePose. I know not everything it does is good. But where would I be without it?

  I know. I love you too.

  Merde

  HOLY NIGHT

  Everyone had been asking shyly whether they’d be open Christmas Eve. Sam didn’t care. He didn’t have anything else to do or anyplace else to be, so he might as well be there. Dash was staying too.

  “I don’t need a babysitter,” said Sam. “You can go back to L.A. or go be with your family or whatever.”

  “You are my family,” Dash said. “You know that, right?”

  “It’s Christmas,” said Sam. “Maybe you want to be with your friends or your folks or something.”

  “I do,” said Dash. “But not as much as I want to be with you. It’s Christmas. You’re my family, Sam. That’s all.”

  They were all family, it seemed. Edith had been right about that. Users had other families—so did Dash and Sam for that matter—families who needed them during these first holidays after they’d lost a loved one too. But it was hard to tear away from the salon because it was at the salon that everyone understood, and dead loved ones weren’t entirely gone. Dash had decorated—holly, tree, mistletoe, lights. On Christmas Eve morning, Eduardo came and made natilla with Miguel for everyone at Salon Styx. David brought his guitar and led users and DLOs alike singing Christmas carols which a surprising number of projections were able to do. Almost everyone brought cookies or peppermint bark or something else to share. Penny had made a seeming hundred batches of spiced nuts and filled a seeming hundred glass jars with them. These she’d labeled with everyone’s names and decorated over what must have been months. Some were gorgeous and delicate, intricately detailed, painted with tiny, pristine scenes of a snowy farm or winter in the city. Some were made by the other Penny and looked decorated by a kindergartner, a mess of glitter, paste, and ribbons strangled with pipe cleaners. Penny handed them all around warmly though, a little sheepish about the messy ones, a little aglow at the ones her shaky hands had nonetheless managed to make beautiful, all endowed with the spirit of the season. But it was a pretty muted celebration otherwise. Josh came in, dragging an oxygen tank in his wake. David told everyone he’d gotten in early at Stanford but wasn’t sure he would go. He and Kelly both looked disconsolate. Emmy came to drop off a gift for Mr. and Mrs. Benson, and even Oliver was subdued. It was a sullen Christmas Eve, but no one seemed to mind. It was where they all belonged.

  As the afternoon wore on, people started regretfully trickling home. It got dark early. Dash ran upstairs to unwrap a celebratory cheddar—he’d deemed the occasion worthy—and Sam turned off all the lights but the ones on the tree and walked around the salon shutting off computers in the dark. He looked up at one point, and it was snowing out. He looked up again, and Meredith’s mother was standing at the door.

  Julia looked like a ghost. Julia looked like an angel. Sam had both on the brain. Once he realized she was real, Sam wondered at how often he confused the living in his life with the dead. And vice versa. Julia was white like the snow, white like the moon, not just pale but giving off light like that, glowing and luminous. Phosphorescent. She was wrapped in white layers—coat, scarf, hat, mittens—so bundled that Sam could see only eyes and white, cascading hair. For a long time, Sam stood on one side of the door and Julia stood on the other, and they looked at each other through the glass and didn’t move or blink or breathe. Her eyes were wild and determined all at once, wise or maybe just weathered, beaten, but mostly they looked like Meredith’s, and maybe it was that and not the white light that made Sam think of ghosts and angels. Finally, he pulled the door open. “Merry Christmas,” he said.

  “Merry Christmas, Sam.”

  “Where’s Kyle?”

  “I came alone.”

  “I was just finishing up here. Dash is upstairs getting dinner started. Come on up.”

  “I need to see her.”

  Sam had known why Julia was there the moment he laid eyes on her. He hadn’t seen her since the funeral. He had hardly seen anyone since the funeral, but he knew that Dash had both invited her out and offered to go to her several times. Dash’s parents had also tried to see Julia and Kyle without success. This need to hide, to avoid, to be alone, to wall up and isolate, this Sam understood. It was about all he understood these days. So while Dash worried and schemed ways to lure her into company, Sam was sympathetic to Julia and inclined to leave her be. This was hard though when she was unwrapping and disrobing, headed already toward one of the computers, flipping on the monitor as if her daughter might appear right there automatically.

  “Dash has decreed we get a cheese for Christmas.” Sam offered this up as good news. “Did you know he’s making cheese these days? Let’s go up and say hello.” He tried to steer her by the elbow toward the door, but she wrenched out of his grasp.

  “I’m not going up there. I’m not going in that apartment.”

  “I understand. Let me run up and get Dash—”

  “You can do it from here, right? That’s the whole point of this place, isn’t it?”
/>   “Or you could stay with Penny tonight. Her kids don’t come until the morning.”

  “Sam, I need to see Meredith now. Then I’ll go back home. I don’t need dinner or someplace to sleep. I need to talk to my daughter.” She was clasping the teardrop locket at her throat in white-knuckled fingers.

  “Where’s Kyle?” Sam asked gingerly, not looking at her.

  “I came alone,” Julia said again.

  “Why?”

  “He didn’t want to come. Why does it matter?”

  In fact, it didn’t matter to Sam. Had Julia brought everyone she knew to rally for her cause, he still wouldn’t have let her talk to Meredith. But Julia and Kyle went nowhere separately. And he suspected the two of them had already had the fight she was about to have with Sam.

  “He didn’t want you to come?”

  “In fact he did not. He is entitled to that opinion. But here’s the good news,” she whispered nastily. “I’m an adult, and I don’t have to give a damn whether he wants me to come or not come. Do the thing, Sam. Whatever it is you do. Let me talk to my daughter.”

  “No,” said Sam.

  Then she screamed. Not shouted, more like howled. Not like at the moon, more like at the end of King Lear. She stood in the middle of the salon surrounded by piles of her own winter clothes with the snow coming down outside and the soft glow from the Christmas tree lighting up her face and bouncing off the locket full of her daughter around her neck and howled. Sam put his hands over his ears like a four-year-old and waited for her to be done. Then he said “no” again.

  She grabbed his upper arms with both hands and began talking to him rabidly through clenched teeth. “Do not tell me no. You talk to her. I know you do. This godforsaken technology killed my baby. It was the death of her. It is the death of me. If you had only let my mother go. If you had only let her be. If you had only let it go at that. If you had only kept this to yourself. If you had never met her. If you had never moved here. If you had never been born. Any of that would have worked for me. But that didn’t happen. So now we have this. Only this. And you will give it to me. You will. Because you owe me.”