“Actually….” People who don’t haggle might come off like a sucker. No one respects a sucker. “I require housing.”
The interviewers exchanged glances.
“You have dorms—several buildings. I’ve seen them.”
“You plan to live here,” the Provost said, as if perhaps she’d misunderstood.
“Yes. I do. Forgive me if it’s presumptuous to negotiate the terms of my compensation now—”
“If housing is part of the package,” the HR woman said, “Then yes, we can certainly make you an offer in line with our other starting professors. But the dorms are old—nothing like the composite houses you’re used to. And you would have to share a bathroom.”
“But the room itself is private?”
“I can’t vouch for its condition, but yes.”
“Then if an offer is on the table, I’m definitely interested.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ON THE SHUTTLE home, Lee rehearsed telling his parents about his new job all the way back to the Sector. Once the professorship offer was made and accepted, he’d gone back to HR to fill out paperwork and look at the hard numbers. Income tax was just as steep as he’d been warned, so he’d negotiated discounted meals, three credit hours free tuition for himself, and an early move-in date two months before the start of the fall semester.
Polytechnic Sixty-Two seemed much more able to pay him in perks and bonuses—in benefits—than in cash. Lee suspected he’d actually appreciate those benefits now that he actually understood them for what they were.
He approached the only home he’d ever known. Already, the tidy row of composite houses looked small and sterile in comparison to the sprawling expanses of crumbling brick and wood on campus. In his mind, Lee had already moved to the Taxable District—yes, him, the man who was so sheltered he tried to pay for Orange Malt with a comb. The thought of living there was definitely terrifying. And yet, he had to admit…it was exciting, too.
Of course, there were a few more hurdles to consider. Moving his books and furniture. Stocking up on sugar.
Telling his parents.
The first thing Lee noticed when he walked through the front door was that the house smelled like soy sauce. That meant dinner would be stir-fry. Which meant Dad was cooking. Which meant Mom wasn’t home…because she detested his father’s attempts at stir-fry, even if she was too frugal to dump it down the compost chute.
Lee joined Dad in the kitchen, where ricey water was bubbling out from beneath a pan’s lid. He turned the heat on that burner to low, and the lid stopped clattering.
“Had to make some last-minute recipe adjustments,” Dad said. There was a recipe? “I keep forgetting Emma’s gone.”
And soon, Lee would be, too. “Did you have any plans together, you and Mom, for after we moved out?”
Most people would have taken the opportunity to ride Lee about the fact that he was still at home, but not Dad. He didn’t have a sarcastic bone in his body. “You know your mother, she always had all kinds of plans. When we were young, she wanted to be an artist. Can you imagine? She even sold a little painting once—at your baby shower, in fact. One of her great aunts was admiring it and bought it right off the living room wall.”
Lee had never imagined his mother’s creative endeavors stretched beyond crafting. “Oh.”
“We were just going to use your sister’s old room for storage, but maybe Mom would like a studio instead. Somewhere other than the living room to paint and sew.”
“Good idea.” It was comforting to know that his parents would go on with their lives even after both he and Emma had moved on. “And what about you, any old hobbies you wanted to revisit?”
“Hobbies? I don’t need to keep myself busy. I’ve got a family—that was all I ever wanted.” Was it? Or was it just what he was expected to want? “When I went downtown to trigger the Algorithm and your mother’s contact information came out of the slot, that tiny slip of paper was the first day of the rest of my life. We met the very next day. I remember your grandfather thought she was too old—she was almost thirty—but the Algorithm is never wrong.
“I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on her. I thought, there she is, the mother of my future children, my lifelong companion, my soulmate. I’d been daydreaming about my Algorithm match since I was old enough to understand what weddings were about. And all that time, she’d been waiting for me, too.”
Once you got Dad started, he did have a tendency to ramble. Lee sat quietly, listening to an extensive wedding anecdote he’d heard a dozen times before.
All the while, he was dying inside as a horrible realization crept up on him.
Yes, he could avoid marriage by fleeing to the Taxable District and accepting whatever tax penalties dodging the Algorithm would entail. But where would that leave his match?
He’d been so worried about himself, he’d never really pictured what would happen to the woman. Was she experiencing the same sorts of prejudices he was beginning to encounter? Housing, jobs…and that infernal question, when are you getting married?
Gosh, I don’t know, whenever my gay Algorithm match can’t take it anymore, caves in to societal pressure and pulls the trigger.
Mom got home while Dad was in the midst of retelling the part about how he didn’t know how to untie his tie, and she was too tipsy to help him. She sighed as if to say, That old story again?
Someday, Lee’s Algorithm match would no doubt have a similar tale, one in which she had scarcely two months to plan a wedding because her husband had waited so long….
“What’s with that weird look on your face?” Mom asked him.
“I got a job,” he said hollowly, because he realized it no longer mattered. Hopefully, his match wouldn’t be too traumatized about living in the District. “A full professorship.”
Mom’s expression was surprised. And then pleased. And then, in typical Mom fashion, brusquely pragmatic. “Well, I guess you’d better buckle down and finish writing that thesis.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE WEDDING HALL was bursting with paper streamers and shiny balloons in burgundy and gold. Waitstaff circulated through the crowd carrying trays of champagne flutes. The waiters had Taxable District accents, the trays weren’t silver and the champagne carried a sour aftertaste, but it was plentiful and cold, and that’s what mattered.
Lee snagged another flute from a silvery plated tray, and downed it. His fifth glass? Maybe his sixth. It didn’t matter. His response to “When are you getting married?” had felt foreign and ungainly, but only the first few times he’d said it. And now it flowed just as easily as cheap champagne.
One of his great uncles, a ruddy-faced man who used to bring lemon drops for him and gummies for Emma whenever he visited, wasted no time in getting to the subject everyone seemed so obsessed with. He leaned in and, over the drone of the band, said, “Congratulations, kid, after tonight, you’ll be the only cousin not married. So get a move on, otherwise Mary’s oldest is gonna beat you to it. Can’t let yourself be lapped by the next generation.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve turned in my thesis, and I’m heading downtown to trigger the Algorithm tomorrow.”
Behind Lee’s head, champagne flutes clattered together as one of the waiters flinched. It was just a minor misstep—no cascade of champagne and broken glass with which to regale the kids when the wedding anecdotes were paraded out in moments of maudlin sentimentality. Only a tiny chime, like the tinkling of glassy bells.
Lee turned to find Roman staring at him over the tray of trembling flutes. His dark eyes were wide and his posture was rigid, making his shoulders look twice as angular. His lips were slightly parted…the only lips that Lee had ever kissed.
It was just a moment, the span of a single heartbeat, and then a barrier slid down behind Roman’s eyes as he eased back into the role of the stranger. The servant. “Champagne, Sir?” he said, in an accent deliberately thick, with just the hint of a smirk.
Lee stare
d, guileless and blindsided. Eventually, Roman’s cocky expression slipped. He turned away and lost himself in the milling crowd. “I don’t pity you,” Lee murmured. But by then Roman was long gone.
The ubiquitous band had been limping through an old standard, but it switched gears and launched into the preamble to the wedding march. Boomers, ever obedient, filed to their respective sides of the aisle to settle in for the ceremony.
When Lee approached his customary seat beside his sister, he was startled to find Howard there instead. He stood there staring as if he’d never seen the man before. The couple was holding hands, and their fingers were intertwined. It looked like a bear trap. Emma extricated her hand and told her husband, “Skootch down one and make room for Lee. I haven’t seen him in ages.”
Emma moved over, too. That would put Lee between his sister and mother—and he’d avoided sitting beside Mom at weddings ever since his own unmarried state became awkward. But now, he supposed, with his plan firmly in place, there was nothing left to do but fit himself in. Lee and Emma sized each other up for a moment, then at the same time, both blurted out, “Are you okay?”
Before either of them could react, the preamble wrapped up and the wedding march began.
His young cousin Beatrice rustled down the aisle in an absurdly poofy white gown trimmed in gold, hauling a massive bouquet of burgundy roses and gilded baby’s breath. At her side, her Algorithm match, just as young, looked uncomfortable in his burgundy bow tie. Hopefully Bea wouldn’t be too drunk to help him out of it later.
The vows and the documents were a blur. Lee attended a friend’s or family member’s wedding once or twice a month, ever since he could remember, and Bea’s wedding was no different from any of the others. Maybe in Howard’s social circles there was a budget for creativity and extravagance, but not here. Same band, same hall, probably the same chicken, too.
At least, Lee supposed, he knew what to expect on his own big night. Though the thought of kissing his Algorithm match—while Roman watched from the sidelines with a tray in his hand—made the sour champagne in his belly threaten to repeat.
At the Notary’s command, the couple kissed. Awkwardly. But they came up smiling.
The music swelled and the newlywed couple bustled away for photos before planting themselves at the head table in the dining hall.
Dinner wasn’t dry chicken after all, but rubbery beef with roasted potatoes. Maybe Beatrice was more of a rebel than Lee thought. Conversation at the table lit on him briefly as Mom regaled everyone with news of Lee’s new job. They seemed confused when she proudly announced he’d be teaching at Polytechnic Sixty-Two. “Isn’t that in the District?” one of his aunts wondered. But before the extended family could decide whether Lee had taken the job out of desperation or hubris, they were distracted by another round of sour champagne. Lee lifted his glass. The smell of acidic ferment made his throat flutter, so he excused himself and headed over to the bar for a proper drink.
He was wondering whether the vodka would taste like winter—like Roman’s lips—when he realized the District bartender was looking at him a little too hard for polite scrutiny. And that he’d seen the curly-haired, broad-faced man before. “You’re Roman’s roommate,” Lee said.
“Troy.” He grinned. “And you’re the guy who’s so fond of toast.”
So everybody knew how well Lee had fit the role of the insufferable Boomer. Fantastic. “I’m sure Spike was pleased to hear it.”
“Yeah, she pretty much lives to be vindicated.” Troy turned away to hand out a few beers, and by the time he came back, another familiar figure had slipped onto the barstool beside Lee: the Officiant Notary.
She seemed even shorter and stouter up-close, but that didn’t make her any less intimidating. Although she was in his grandparents’ generation, her hair was an unlikely shade of dark brown without even a hint of gray. She carried her weight like a weapon, and when she heaved herself up onto the barstool, even over the old standard the band was laboring through, Lee felt the furniture creak.
“Got anything to rinse the taste of that horrid champagne from my mouth?” she asked Troy.
With a faint smile—one that clearly wished it could be broader in polite company—he presented a bottle of Riesling for her inspection. She peered at it through her reading glasses. “Yep, that’ll do.”
Lee slid her a sideways glance. He’d always figured Notaries would be more, well…formal. He supposed he’d never actually encountered one who wasn’t in the midst of officiating a ceremony.
Troy poured her a glass, filling it much higher than the customary third that wedding bartenders usually did, then tipped the bottle toward Lee.
“Have anything stronger?” Lee asked.
Troy waggled his eyebrows and produced a passable vodka from beneath the bar. In another life, Lee might have asked for sour mix, or ice. But with the acid champagne causing memories of Orange Malt to resurface, he had no compunctions about drinking it neat. Especially since that left so much more room in the glass for the alcohol.
“That’s it,” the Notary said, and raised her glass to Lee. “Drink up. It’s a wise man who truly appreciates an open bar.” She downed her wine and motioned for Troy to refill the glass.
Troy didn’t mind her ordering him around. Instead, seemed genuinely amused. Smiling, he poured. “You must see a lot of weddings,” he said.
“On a typical week? Five, minimum. In wedding season, sometimes more. Two a day, even three.”
Lee wondered, briefly, if “wedding season” would coincide with his Algorithm trigger. And then he decided it didn’t much matter since it was all out of his hands, and knocked back his vodka.
Troy refilled his glass. He said, “I hear congratulations are in order today for a member of the bride’s family, too. Mr. Kennedy here just finished his degree—after how many years?”
Lee realized the alcohol was hitting him when he tried to formulate a comeback and found he had no idea what to say. Not only had his family carefully crept around the implications—even Mom—but he was baffled that Roman and his friends took any interest in him at all.
Before he could fumble out some incoherent reply, the Officiant Notary declared, “I hope you like your chosen field, whatever it is. You’ll be shoehorned into doing it the rest of your damn life.”
“Kind of like marriage,” Troy said, off-handedly.
The Notary nodded, staring into her wine. “The Algorithm matches you with your spouse, but whatever chooses the course of your life is even more cryptic and nebulous. Family. Tradition. Social station. All of that and more. Makes it feel like your whole existence has been plotted out, and the only thing left for you to do is force your way through the paces.”
Lee fidgeted with his glass. Was the woman a Notary, or a mind-reader?
Troy topped off her Riesling. Again.
She downed a long swallow, then said, “It took me too damn long to figure out I wasn’t responsible for other people’s feelings. Let’s say you come from a long line of bankers, and your whole family expects you to be a banker too. But you want to be a…a shuttle switcher. They’ll just have to get over it, won’t they?”
Lee supposed one of the positions in that equation correlated to “notary,” but was unsure whether it was the “banker” or the “shuttle switcher.” And he supposed if she’d wanted him to know, she would’ve come right out and said it. “But what if, theoretically, your happiness actually harms someone else?” he wondered.
“Well, obviously you can’t get your kicks by going around and slapping people,” she said.
Troy uncorked another bottle of wine and floated the question, “Let’s say, theoretically, some Boomer decides he’s not too keen on tying the knot. What then? It’s not as if he’s gonna hurt the Algorithm’s feelings.”
“It happens sometimes,” the Notary said. “Nature versus nurture—when they meet, some couples despise each other even though they’re genetically compatible. Lots of paperwork involved in
getting an Algorithm re-trigger. Mountains of it. Not to mention the tax penalties.”
Lee presumed he was drunker than he realized. She could not possibly have said what he thought he’d just heard. “You can re-trigger the Algorithm?”
“A do-over,” Troy said. “I totally figured it was an urban legend.”
Lee’s heart started pounding. Hard. “And how could that even work? Does the Algorithm have to match each of them with another miserable couple somewhere, or…?”
The Notary turned in her barstool, wobbled, and righted herself. She looked Lee up and down. “Not at all. I thought you were an academic—didn’t they teach you how the Algorithm works?” Maybe. But it probably sounded too much like math for him to understand. “You’re thinking of a static system, like you’re matched with a bride at birth and, voila! But that’s impractical. People relocate. People die. And a few of ’em stay in school for a helluva long time. The Algorithm is dynamic. It takes into account all the best possible matches, at the time. So if your situation were to pull you out of the marriage pool, there’s not some poor woman sitting around waiting for her ovaries to rot. Whoever she might have been, she’s long since married off.”
“Good to know.” Troy slid Lee a meaningful look.
Lee clenched the bar to stop himself from leaping up off the barstool and letting out a victory cry. His Algorithm match, the poor faceless woman who’d been haunting him ever since he’d admitted to himself that he was gay, did not exist.
And that changed everything.
The Notary pointed to her half-full glass where it rested on the bar and said to Troy, “Don’t touch that, kiddo, I’m not done.” Then she toddled off in the direction of the bathroom.
The servers and guests who’d been swarming the small bar all night were suddenly absent too, and Lee was alone with Troy, who was still grinning. Had he known about the workings of the Algorithm all along? Hard to say what was taught in District schools…though he supposed he’d soon find out. “Why are you asking her about the Algorithm?” Lee demanded.
Imperfect Match Page 10
