Goodbye for Now

by Laurie Frankel

  We write today with an invitation and a request for your help marking an auspicious moment. The occasion of our six-month anniversary warrants a celebration with all of you who have made this possible. We hope you’ll join us for food, drink, music, and lively conversation—among the living and the dead.

  Much love,

  Meredith, Sam, and Dashiell

  Sam’s tuxedo hadn’t even been unpacked. He found it jammed in the bottom of a box in the study. It brought back memories of his old job and all its attendant pressures. All that seemed so petty now—the ephemeral highs and lows of dating and working for a big corporation seemed sad, gauzy memories compared to the world he now owned and the life and death and afterlife on which he spent his days. It brought back sad, gauzy memories of being single too. He pulled the tux out of the box and put it on then wandered into the bedroom where Meredith was in a bra, earrings, and nothing else.

  “You look amazing,” he said.

  “I’m not even dressed yet.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Which of these dresses, do you think? This one is cute and comfortable though the shoes that go with it are not. This one is more formal and less comfortable though with better shoes. This one might be too formal, but this one might show too much boob.” She held up two dresses. One was blue and involved something shiny. The other was black. Otherwise, Sam couldn’t tell them apart.

  “I like what you have on now.”

  “I’m not sure that’d go over well.”

  “I write the software, baby.” Sam winked and shot her Hollywood finger guns. “I’m the one you have to keep happy.”

  “I think we’re pretty much counting on your support,” said Meredith.

  “Will you indulge me here? There’s something I’m dying to do.” He took out his phone and called her on hers. She looked at him like he was crazy but answered anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Merde?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Sam. Elling? From work?”

  “Hi. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Kinda in a rush right now, actually. I have a party in an hour, and I’m still completely naked.”

  “Sounds lovely,” said Sam. “Listen, I’ve got this formal work affair tonight. It’s poor form to show up alone. I wondered if you’d be my date.”

  “Hmm. Sounds boring.”

  “It may well be,” said Sam, “but I live quite nearby. We can always bail on the party and head upstairs to my place.”

  “Fair enough. It’s a date,” said Meredith. “I’d better go get dressed for it.”

  “Can’t wait. You’ve made me a very happy man.” He hung up and smiled at her. “Sorry about that. Hot date tonight.”

  “Think you’ll get lucky?”

  “Luckier than I am right now? Not a chance.”

  Then the door opened and in walked Dash. Meredith shrieked and grabbed a towel.

  “You can’t knock?”

  “Nothin’ I haven’t seen before.” Dash and Meredith spent an uncommonly large portion of their childhood being photographed naked in various kiddie pools and garden sprinklers. “They didn’t make baby swimsuits?” Meredith once demanded of her mother. “They did,” Julia said, “but you refused to wear them.” For his part, Sam regretted missing her exhibitionist days.

  “What are you wearing?” Meredith demanded.

  Dash had on a powder blue tuxedo with a ruffled front and navy bow tie and cummerbund. “This is my prom tux, sweets. Jealous you’re not wearing the outfit you wore to prom? Would yours even fit?” Meredith recalled the green sequined dress that came down to her knee on the right side but not very far below the top of her thigh on the left. Sam, of course, did not attend his prom.

  “Just because it fits doesn’t mean you should wear it.”

  “I am rocking this tux, and you know it. It was outdated and ironic then, and it’s outdated and ironic now. It’s the beauty of going solo to these things. No one’s outfit can clash with your color scheme or time period.”

  “Now you tell me,” said Sam. “All those dateless years I missed the silver lining.”

  “When you’re wearing black and white, my friend, it doesn’t matter. You could have danced with anyone in the room.”

  Meredith kicked everyone out of the bedroom, split the difference between her two men and chose the bright blue dress, too much boob be damned, and they started downstairs to do last-minute touches. She had resurrected the disco ball from the night before they opened. There were canapés and fancy sodas in mini-bottles and teeny pastries. There were flowers and candlelight and champagne flutes ready to be filled. There were wispy clouds over the sound and windows open to the evening and music and a soft breeze and a sunset. “Before we do this,” said Sam, “can I be cheesy for just one second?”

  “Cheese away,” said Dash.

  “I just want to thank you both. This thing we’re doing was never, never going to happen, and yet it has. We get to change the world. That’s even more amazing than it was improbable. I’m honored and lucky to have you. We’ve had a chance so few people ever get: to do something no one ever did before, to think thoughts no one ever thought before. This has been the greatest adventure of my life.” Sam cringed. This last bit crossed the cheesy line.

  “Having a date to a work function?” said Meredith.

  “Well yes, actually. Having love. A big family. Not just me and my dad.”

  “I’m not sure I qualify as big family,” said Dash.

  “Well, you. Your parents. Julia and Kyle. Livvie.”

  “I only wish you knew her,” said Meredith.

  “I do,” said Sam.

  “You’re like another grandson to her,” she said.

  “Which is weird,” added Dash. “Since you’re more like her god.”

  “Her god?”

  “You created her.”

  “Call her up and see,” invited Sam. “She knows. We’re family. That’s all.”

  It was nice to see everyone in their finery. They were surprised—and touched—by how many people showed up. It was like when you were in seventh grade and saw your social studies teacher at the mall or like going to a fancy restaurant and running into a gym buddy you’d only ever seen sweaty and spandexed. It wasn’t because everyone was so dressed up—they tended to come to the salon pretty coiffed anyway, wanting to look nice for their DLOs. It was their lightness. It was pleasant but still strange to see them smile and laugh so easily.

  “I wasn’t sure anyone was going to want to come to this,” Sam confessed to Eduardo Antigua, user the first, who therefore held a special place in Sam’s heart. He’d stopped coming after a few weeks, and Sam had been worried about him.

  “Awkward?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “It is an honor to celebrate with you.” Eduardo clinked his beer gently against Sam’s. “You gave me an incredible gift, Sam. You let me say goodbye which I was simply never going to get to do. I am honored to be with you tonight.”

  “I can’t tell you what it means to hear you say that,” said Sam, a little choked up (in which state he stayed most of the night). “When you stopped coming, I thought maybe you’d soured on the whole thing, had a bad experience or something.”

  “Nah, man, not at all. I talk to Miguel almost every day. I just do it at home now. We used to cook together a lot. Our mother was a chef in Colombia before she came to this country, and she taught us well. So I put my laptop on the counter, and we cook together most nights. How about you? You look tired.”

  “It’s been a hard … stretch. Starting the business. Making and remaking and refining the programming. Dealing with the press. Everyone here is so sad all the time. It wears you down.”

  Eduardo hugged him. “We appreciate it so much, man. Thank you. Next week, I’m going to bring you dinner. Miguel and I make a mean tamale.”

  Sam laughed. “Do me a favor and e-mail me the recipe?”


  “Sure. Do you cook?”

  “Not really. But this is going to be a huge help to an old friend of mine.”

  Meredith was in the corner talking to Avery Fitzgerald and Edith Casperson.

  “I didn’t realize you and Sam were partners,” said Edith, delighted. “I mean, I realized you were partners, but I thought just business partners, not romantic partners.”

  “Both.” Meredith smiled. “It’s intense.”

  “Since when?”

  “Last summer. It’s been a year.”

  “Are you talking marriage? This would be a great space for a wedding. Look how nice it looks.”

  “Doesn’t seem necessary,” Meredith laughed. “We already work together and own a business together and live together.”

  “Still, you have to make it official,” said Edith.

  Meredith waved vaguely around the salon. “It’s pretty official. And we’ve got time. It’s just not on the priority list right now.”

  “Marriage is the opposite of children,” Avery sighed. “They tell you children will be such a joy, and they are, but they’re also such a huge pain so much of the time. Marriage, they tell you, is long and hard and lots of work, but it isn’t. Well, I guess you hope for the first. For me and Clive, our marriage was the best and easiest part of our lives. It’s what made all the things that were harder—raising kids, work, bills, whatever—doable. And worth doing.”

  “You’re lucky,” said Edith.

  “Was. Was lucky.”

  “No, you’re still lucky. At least you have your memories.”

  “That’s what everyone says but—”

  “And they’re enjoyable. I have memories of Bob and marriage too, of course. But they’re all … complicated.”

  “You’re in here chatting with him all the time,” said Avery.

  “No, I’m in here yelling at him all the time,” said Edith, and Meredith suppressed a smile because it was true. “It’s okay to laugh. It’s funny. Well, it’s funny now. It wasn’t at the time. I bet when you kids thought this thing up, you didn’t expect bitter widows like me in here kicking dead ass.”

  “We really didn’t,” Meredith admitted.

  “You know, at the beginning, we really connected, once upon a time. But then you fall into these patterns. He got to go to work and travel and meet interesting people and use his brain and contribute things. I got to stay home and take care of the kids and the house and him. The kids learned to take care of themselves. The house too really. We had one of those central vacuum systems. But Bob never did. That was fine, I guess. It was a different time. But for thirty-five years he acted like serving him was a privilege, and he was working so I could be on vacation all the time when really he had the much easier job. I would have liked to go out and do all the exciting things he got to do every day. And he would have hated staying home and doing what I did every day. But still, he thought I was dumb and lazy and getting away with something.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t think you were dumb—” Avery began.

  “Maybe not, but he acted like he did, and that’s even worse. He loved me. I know that. But that makes it worse too. To be treated like that by someone who didn’t care about you would be easier. If someone I disliked didn’t think I was very smart or worthwhile either, I wouldn’t mind so much. But my husband? Bob loved me. He just didn’t respect me. He cared for me. He just didn’t ever think to tell me that.”

  “Does yelling at him make it better?” Meredith asked.

  “It does. It’s good to feel the words come out of my mouth after so many years of scripting them in my head. He can’t really understand me. Sam said it’s because I never did it before. No one ever yelled at Bob in life, so he can’t understand it in death.”

  “That must be so frustrating,” said Avery.

  “I’m used to it, actually,” said Edith. “He never listened to me in life either. I’d say something; he’d be thinking about something else. Maybe I could have tried this when he was alive after all. It seemed like such an impossibly scary thing, but the projection is right—he’d never have understood being yelled at because no one ever contradicted him.”

  “Maybe you’re lucky too,” said Avery. “RePose works for you. For me, it’s just sad and makes me miss him more. It’s an awful lot better than nothing. But it falls pretty far short of … enough.”

  “Whereas for me, this Bob is so much easier. I miss him, but also, to be perfectly honest, in some ways I’m happier now that he’s … Oh but honey, you and Sam won’t be like that,” Edith said, turning to Meredith. “Don’t let me sour you on marriage. It’s a different era. And look at Avery. She’s a much better model than I am.”

  “It’s true.” Avery smiled weakly. “Just don’t let him die.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t know you two were together. I’m usually better at sensing these things,” Edith said.

  “You couldn’t invent something as incredible as RePose unless it was for someone you really loved,” said Avery. “That level of brain spark is kindled by only one thing.”

  Dash was entertaining everyone—his strong suit—but especially Penny. There’d been a debate over that one. Sam thought she could use a night out but not too far out—a chance to get dressed up and eat good food and meet new people but only a one-floor elevator ride away from home if she felt ill or ill at ease. Meredith worried about how they could explain the salon without explaining RePose, and if they told her about RePose she’d want to use it, and if she wanted to use it, they’d have to come up with some reason why she couldn’t without revealing what they knew about Albert. Finally, on a trip to the grocery store the week before the party, Dash told her about the business they ran on the floor right above hers connecting people via electronic communication with projections of their loved ones who had passed on.

  “You mean like you can e-mail dead people?” Penny said with wonder.

  “Yes. Or video chat or any other form of electronic communiqué.” He braced himself for whatever might come next.

  “Oh you young people,” Penny laughed. “What will you think of next?” She had not the slightest inclination to RePose evidently, but she was delighted to be invited to a party. She wore an elegant, floor-length black dress and ivory gloves up to her elbows and went around on Dash’s arm getting introduced to everyone. She greeted them all warmly, took their hands, listened generously to their stories, answered patiently the questions shouted overloud in her direction as if, just because she was small and old and a little bit stooped, she were also hard of hearing which she was not. Edith said wasn’t she sweet to take care of Meredith in Livvie’s absence, but Penny insisted Meredith took care of her. Celia Montrose said didn’t she look nice in her dress and gloves, but Penny said, “Oh, I’ve had this dress forever. Finally, it’s back in style again.” Avery said how hard it must be for her to live alone after so many years with her dear husband, and Penny, recognizing a kindred spirit when she saw one, patted her hand and said, “Yes, honey, oh yes. You too.”

  At some point, Dash went upstairs and fished an ancient dartboard out of the back of his grandmother’s hall closet and spent the rest of the evening tutoring George Lenore. Mr. and Mrs. Benson spent a lot of time talking to Kelly Montrose about colleges. David Elliot spent a lot of time talking to Kelly Montrose about no one was sure what, occurring as it did very low in her ear and amid much giggling from the both of them.

  “Thank you, Sam,” said Meredith with wet eyes when they were getting ready for bed later. “I needed that. I needed to see that they were happy.”

  “Me too, actually,” he said. “I hadn’t realized it, but it was such a relief.”

  “You are smart. But you are better.”

  “Better than what?”

  “Better than you are smart. You are very, very intelligent Sam, but you are an even better person. Your genius is up in the nine-point-fives, but your heart is off the charts.”

  “Yours, too,” he said. “We
make a good couple. We should date.”

  She laughed. “And I love you, you know.”

  “I do,” said Sam, who did. “I love you too.”

  ST. GILES

  That held them for a while. The press backed off a bit, and Meredith got better at managing it. The tech settled down a bit, and users got better at using it. Meredith felt better, and Livvie did a better job of chatting with a cheerful Meredith than an unhappy one which was a circular proposition: Livvie had trouble with a troubled Meredith which made her more troubled; Livvie did better with a happy Meredith which made her more happy. Then one Saturday afternoon at the end of August they got a call from a Dr. Dixon at St. Giles Hospital. “I think you need to get over here and see what’s happening,” he told Meredith. They were at Lincoln Park, reading books on the beach and watching the ferry come and go and looking out over sound and mountains—sunshine, wind, and water—a blissful afternoon. They packed up right away to head over. They didn’t know what they’d find there, but they suspected it would be far from blissful.

  Dr. Dixon brought them to a cheery-looking bright yellow ward on the third floor of the east wing with lots of toys and big windows and fresh air and a fake forest with cute animals painted on the walls. It was the most miserable place Sam had ever been in his life. Dr. Dixon gave them this heartbreaking speech on the way over: “There are three kinds of kids here: the kind who are going to recover and be fine or at least functional, the kind who are going to die blessedly quickly, and the hard kind, the kind who are going to linger and get worse then get better then get worse again then get hope then get a little better then get a little more hope then get a little worse then much worse then a little better. Then they die. They live their tiny lives here, and then they die here. Their parents live their tiny lives here too. And they also die here. They are the hard part of this job. You are making it worse. I thought you should see.”