by John Yunker
“There’s hope for you yet, Ethan,” she said, ruffling his hair.
That night he logged on to eCouplet.com to find that she had removed the block on his account.
* * *
Annie suggested a Mexican restaurant in North Park. They each ordered black bean tacos (no cheese) and margaritas, his with salt, hers without. When they’d first met, Ethan noticed that Annie always seemed to be looking off to one side, as if her mouth were gently caught on some invisible hook, and he’d assumed she was bored with him. But now, as he studied her, he realized that it was just the way she was. Knowing this gave him hope that she would not walk out, or toss her margarita into his lap, when he told her the truth about how they met.
“I have a confession to make,” he said. He told Annie that he worked for eCouplet.com, about his blatant manipulation of algorithms and, indirectly, of her. And then she laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“You must be one hell of a computer geek,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Because whatever you did with that algorithm, it must’ve worked,” she said. “You’re my one and only eCouplet success story.”
“I am?”
“Success is relative, I suppose. But my dates don’t usually make it through to dessert,” she said. “Either I walk out, like I did with you, or they come down with a sudden case of the flu.”
“Why?”
“I come across as a bit, I don’t know, abrasive. Like when I told you I despise anyone who eats meat, fish, or cheese.”
“Oh.” Ethan had never considered that she might have difficulty meeting men. Nor had her activism struck him as offensive. Perhaps it was because her animal-rights narratives and environmental vocabulary were as exotic to him as his technical jargon probably were to her. They were like tourists from two different countries: There was no pressure to get along because they weren’t supposed to have met in the first place.
* * *
When Annie’s roommate got a job in Seattle, selling her condo and leaving Annie without a place to live, Ethan offered up his apartment. “You can stay as long as you want,” he said.
She moved in, and they made love that first night in the bathtub. She floated up and down on his arms, weightless. He watched her eyes close and her head fall back. She moaned, louder and louder, and he nearly lost himself listening. Afterward, they dripped over to his bed and he massaged her body dry with a towel, meticulously following the flowing lines of her tattoos, ending at her feet. He kissed her toes and her ankles and worked his mouth back up her body, until he reached her eyelids, closed again. He wanted to say right then that he was in love with her, but she was somewhere else. He often lay awake watching her sleep, wondering where her mind was, wishing that he could be there too.
She said from the beginning that she didn’t want a relationship, that they were only “roommates with benefits.” Ethan was happy to abide by her semantics, just as long as she returned to him each night. He thought he could convert her, make her fall in love with him over time. It did not occur to him that she might also be trying to convert him.
“I signed up to volunteer with the Cetacean Defense Alliance,” she told him one evening over dinner. She told him about their anti-whaling battles down in Antarctica. The ships they had sunk during the five years since they began their missions. The larger ship they had recently purchased. “It’s called the Arctic Tern,” she said. “And if I’m lucky I’ll get to join the crew this season.”
“Going to Antarctica?” Ethan asked.
She nodded, then invited Ethan to volunteer with her.
“Does the boat have Internet access?” he asked, half joking. But this wasn’t the answer Annie wanted, and Ethan spent the rest of the evening alone at his computer. He wanted to be as free as she was, and he didn’t want to lose her, but he wasn’t quite ready to join up with a bunch of outlaw activists, to plan on leaving his job for months at sea.
Since meeting Annie, he had returned to his algorithms with renewed energy. He developed an opposites attract feature, which matched people with their apparent opposites. He named it Antipodes. And when he told Annie about it, he thought she would see that she was the inspiration, that she was needed here, here with him in San Diego. But she didn’t seem to care. She was too busy organizing another environmental extravaganza, a whole weekend of events taking place throughout San Diego County. She had invited the über activist Adam Cosgrove to deliver the keynote at the Hillcrest Community Center. She pointed him out in an issue of Vanity Fair—a tall, scruffy blond man standing topless on a black sand beach. He had served time in Oregon for burning down an animal-testing lab. He had been interviewed by 60 Minutes. He had dated Hayden Panettiere.
Ethan asked her if she had a crush on Adam.
“Of course,” she said. “You would too if you were a woman—or a true activist.”
Ethan shouldn’t have let her comment bother him, but she was right; he wasn’t a true activist, and it was just a matter of time before Annie left him for someone who was. Ethan began to imagine the many ways that she could exit his life. He worried about the men who paused by her register. She was the prettiest clerk in that store, and men would surely go out of their way to be in her line. They would talk about vegan foods with genuine knowledge and interest; they would make her laugh. And she would forget about him.
He asked her to quit the job. But she refused. He asked where their relationship was headed. “There is no relationship,” she reminded him. “Just two people sharing an apartment, taking it one day at a time.”
In a parallel universe, Ethan told himself, Annie was his girlfriend. She had decided to settle down, had decided that she wanted children after all. A programmer always considered multiple outcomes for every scenario, and Ethan stayed focused on the outcomes that favored his dreams. The challenge was in knowing how to effect this change. Annie’s mind did not work like any algorithm he had known, and every day his mind kept busy trying to debug it.
In the absence of clues, Ethan figured his best strategy for winning her over was plain old proximity. He attended all of her protest events and fundraising drives. He joined activists holding angry signs at busy intersections as drivers honked at them. And he sat next to her the evening that Adam Cosgrove delivered his keynote speech at the Hillcrest Community Center. The room was crowded with people who looked and dressed a lot like Annie and Adam—hemp clothing, long hair, tattoos; Ethan felt like more of an outsider than ever before. Physical proximity alone, he had begun to realize, was only making him feel more distant from her. He needed to go further if he wanted to be a part of her world. His mind whirled as Adam spoke about protests and animal rights, his battles with the law and his time in prison. And when he asked for questions from the audience, Ethan was the first to raise his hand.
“How would one go about building an incendiary device?” Ethan asked. “Like the one you used?”
To answer, Adam demonstrated. He picked up an apple-juice container from the potluck table. You needed only to fill it with fuel, he said, then to shove an old cotton t-shirt into the top and insert a slow-burning fuse. He held up a cellular phone and his iPod. He explained how to set the device off remotely, at a precise time.
Ethan had no idea how soon he would regret asking that question, how soon he would be running the scenario through his head over and over again, as if it were an algorithm he could go back and fix—the if/else equation that worked reliably in computers but always led to surprises in real life.
If Adam had not answered the question. If Adam had not provided such detail. If an unfinished condominium development in La Jolla had not been set on fire later that evening by a similar type of device. If Ethan had not raised his hand, none of these things would have happened—and Adam would not have been arrested by the FBI the following morning. And Annie would not have left Ethan to run
to Adam’s defense.
So many ifs, all set in motion by one question. Ethan had always lived in a world of undos, of parallel universes. But he could not undo what he said. He could only watch as Annie slipped out of his universe and into someone else’s.
Jake
Unwilling to accept defeat, Jake remained at the conference through the final day, lingering in the halls. He never saw Aeneas again. He watched as tables were drained of books and signs, as people packed up displays. He paced the hallways, then circled back into the hall once more, finding it empty. The vegan t-shirts and tattoos had disappeared, replaced by suits, rolling luggage, and a full-color sign announcing a radiology conference.
He sat at the hotel’s bar, ordered a Guinness, and stared up at the baseball game on the television.
“Where’s your bracelet?”
Jake looked over to see the woman he bumped into yesterday, or who bumped into him. She was wearing a white t-shirt and a wraparound skirt, a small pack slung over one shoulder.
“I must have lost it,” he said.
“I’ll bet you did.”
She took the seat next to him and ordered a vodka on ice. She didn’t look at him.
“I wasn’t being completely honest with you earlier,” he said. “I only recently became a vegan.”
“If only there had been some clue.”
“Now you’re making fun of me,” Jake said. “I guess I deserve it.” He held up his beer. “At least this is vegan.”
“Not quite.”
“I can’t drink beer? I give up.”
“You can drink most beers. Just not Guinness. Guinness uses isinglass, which comes from fish, to remove the excess yeast. But those other beers on tap are vegan.” She smiled and downed her drink. “So is vodka.”
He suspected by the way she let her shoulder rub against his as she rummaged through her bag that his lapses might be forgiven. He bought her next drink before she could find the money she was searching for. She bought the next round while he was in the bathroom. They did not talk of food or animals or each other. They watched the baseball game; she rooted for the Red Sox, and he rooted for the Dodgers. When the Dodgers lost he drained his beer. She wiped the foam mustache off his upper lip and licked her finger.
“What’s your name?” Jake asked.
“Noa,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“Jake.”
“It’s a good thing you’re a vegan, Jake.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t sleep with carnivores.”
Jake followed her to her room. There was a large nylon backpack in the corner, a rainbow-colored Tibetan prayer flag draped across the TV.
“What are you praying for?” he asked her as she removed his shirt.
“Peace.” She removed her top. “Love.” She untied her skirt and let it fall to the floor. Jake cupped her breasts in his right hand and kissed them.
“And happiness.”
No more words were spoken that night. The sex felt at times angry and at other times playful. She giggled when he licked her calves. He squirmed as she took him in her mouth, and she gave him a look that said relax, and he let go and let her take charge. She wanted his body, and he gave it to her and gazed up at her as she writhed on top of him, eyes closed, grinding, arched back, grabbing him at his base, to feel him and her as one.
The next morning they made love again until the bed was stripped of sheets and pillows and he had collapsed onto her. He fought back sleep as she kissed his chest.
He awoke while she was in the shower and stared at her backpack. Something told him that it contained most of what she owned, and he felt intoxicated all over again—not only by Noa but by her lifestyle. He imagined leaving his own life behind, following her and her Tibetan flag. He could see them hitching through Russia, sleeping under the stars in New Zealand, tending bar in some Caribbean country. Off the grid.
Then he remembered who he was and what he was doing here. And Gordon. What would he tell his boss? That circumstances had changed? Priorities had shifted? He could hear himself talking like an agent, hiding behind third-person sentences, euphemisms, excuses. But the truth was that he had failed. He hadn’t gotten the access he needed, and now it was too late. Maybe it was time for a new career. Or no career at all.
Right then he wanted nothing more than to leave Jake behind—but more than that, he wanted to relinquish Robert, too, before he got completely lost in bureaucracy and undercover assignments, before he lived so many lives as other people he would no longer be able to tell the difference. Noa was real, genuine. He wanted to follow her, and her Tibetan flag, wherever she was headed. It would surely be more exciting than where he was headed.
Noa entered the room, towel hanging from her breasts.
“Where are you going from here?” he asked.
“I’m catching a boat to Norway.”
“Can I come?”
“You serious?” She cocked her head to one side.
“Of course I’m serious.”
“We’ve got a full crew, but I could squeeze you on. We’d have to share a bed.”
“I think we could manage. Do I need a ticket?”
“No. You’ll work for your passage.” Her towel dropped as she walked toward him. “We all work for our passage.”
“We?”
“The Cetacean Defense Alliance. CDA. We’re a new anti-whaling group. Only a year old. Ever heard of us?”
She kissed him on the lips and then began working her way down. A flash of light caught his eyes—a reflection from a descending plane. And he realized that now he, too, was back on course. Despite himself, he had achieved his objective. It was a sign, he realized, not only that he—Robert—was back on course but that Jake was meant to live just a little while longer.
“CDA,” he said, closing his eyes as Noa’s tongue reached his navel. “I think I’ve heard of them.”
Ethan
Ethan glanced across the courtroom from his modest perch on the witness stand. He’d expected a larger venue for a federal trial: wooden floors and wrought iron railings, like in the movies. But the San Diego federal courthouse was a low-rise office building, and the courtroom had a conference-room feel—the faded carpeting and low ceilings, the knee-high glass barrier separating the actors from the gallery. There were few seats in the gallery, as if to discourage spectators, and Ethan scanned each one in hopes of seeing Annie. He touched the envelope in his pocket, the one from the travel agency, and felt foolish for bringing it. She was not there.
It had been six months since Annie moved out, soon after he was called to give a deposition. She’d blamed him for Adam Cosgrove’s arrest, he knew, but at least she’d stood by him, though not as closely as she stood by Adam. She spent most of her days working in Adam’s defense—but at night, it was Ethan she came home to, and because of this he allowed himself to hope they might still have a future together.
Until the deposition. Just lie your ass off, she’d instructed him, and he intended to do just that. But when the prosecutor stared him down and threatened him with perjury, Ethan ended up telling the truth. Because of Annie, it had still felt like a lie.
Not long afterward, Adam was charged was one count of distributing information on explosives with the intent of inciting others to commit acts of violence. And not long after that, Annie packed her things. Ethan knew what he’d done wrong, but he didn’t know how to fix it.
He hoped to see her here today, at the trial, thinking that maybe he would do now what he had failed to do before. He wanted to start over. And although he did not see Annie in the gallery, perhaps it was that urge to begin anew that compelled him to respond the way he did—to say, when the prosecutor asked him to repeat what Adam had done that evening in Hillcrest, that he could not remember. Even when the prosecutor repeated himself, asked him the same question in three
different ways, each time Ethan told him that he could not remember.
The prosecutor’s voice grew louder, the judge chimed in, the gallery began to applaud—then came the pounding of a gavel, and, mercifully, a recess.
Ethan stood alone at the far end of the hallway, looking out the tinted windows. He didn’t want to be near the activists who clotted together at the other end of the hall talking in whispers, or near the government agents, the men with close-cropped hair, checking email on their cellular phones.
“Ethan.”
He turned to see Annie standing behind him. He leaned toward her, but she backed up a step.
“Hi.”
“That was a brave thing you did,” she said. “There’s hope for you yet.”
“You were in there?”
“I heard.”
“It was nothing,” he said, and decided to take a chance. “Come home with me tonight.”
She smiled. “I think it’s time I leave San Diego. I’ve been holding out for a spot on the CDA ship. I should know next week.”
Ethan reached into his pocket and held out the envelope. “There are other ways to get to Antarctica.”
“What’s this?”
“It’s a cruise ticket.”
“A cruise?” She wouldn’t take the envelope. “Ethan, I’m trying to protect the environment, not pollute it.”
“You always wanted to go to Antarctica, right? We could go together. I know going on a cruise isn’t the way you wanted, but at least it’s a ride down there.”
She looked at him sadly. “If CDA doesn’t work out—” She stopped. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“That’s a start.” He pressed the envelope into her hand. “The ship leaves in three weeks. The trial will be over, we’ll both be free. Just think about it.”
“Ethan—”
“Don’t decide now,” he said. “I’ll be on the boat, waiting for you. Just two people sharing a cabin. Roommates with benefits.”
