by Sarah Archer
“That’s wonderful, dear,” her mom said. “Oh, Gary, I almost forgot! When I was watching the girls the other day, Emma got a hold of my phone and somehow placed a call to Shanghai. I think we’ve got a little businesswoman on our hands! Can’t you just see her, jet-setting and making deals?” She gazed at Emma, who was waiting patiently for the ice cream that had somehow ended up in her hair to drip down into her mouth.
“Don’t you want to hear more about Kelly’s news?” Ethan asked. The table went silent. Kelly paused and looked at him more incredulously even than the rest of the group did. “I think it’s fascinating.” He smiled warmly at her.
“It is?” Kelly asked.
“Do you even know what Kelly does in her lab?”
“Of course, it’s like the Hall of Presidents,” Diane said.
Kelly had to stop Ethan. If he started sharing his knowledge of what went on in Kelly’s lab, this could quickly go south. “That’s basically it, there’s nothing else really to talk about,” she interjected.
“But it’s much more than that,” Ethan pressed. “The Hall of Presidents is an attraction located in Liberty Square at the Magic Kingdom in the Walt Disney World Resort.” Was he just reading off the Wikipedia articles in his brain? Kelly winced, but before she could do anything, he went on. “Its Audio-Animatronic figures of our nation’s presidents carry out preprogrammed sequences involving voice recordings and choreographed mechanical movements. What Kelly is working on is the development of an android model programmed to follow intricate codes of command and to respond to an infinite variety of variables and stimuli, making it infinitely more complex. Furthermore, Confibot will have the emotional intelligence to navigate charged human interactions, while also being precisely controllable. The implications are authentically society-changing. The Hall of Presidents memorializes people who have shaped our world. What Kelly is doing has the potential to shape it.”
Ethan’s eyes sparkled. The whole table was silent until Emma finally captured her drip of ice cream with a ferocious slurp. Diane looked astounded. “My goodness. I guess you understand what Kelly does on a whole different level than we do, Ethan.” She smiled at him for the first time, and Kelly couldn’t help but grin. “Why don’t you tell us more?”
* * *
• • •
Once she had warmed up to him, Diane embraced Ethan with a daunting enthusiasm, calling Kelly three times over the next few days to ask how he was, when Kelly was seeing him next, and, Kelly suspected, to verify that he wasn’t a beautiful hallucination she had dreamed up after one too many glasses of wine at dinner. Kelly was so happy at how brilliantly her plan was working that her enthusiasm carried her over to that Thursday evening, when she arrived a full seven minutes early to the boutique where she was meeting her mom and sister to look at bridesmaid shoes. The only time Kelly had ever shown up early to a family event before was her own birth.
“Hey,” she said excitedly, rising from the velvet pouf on which she’d been sitting when Diane and Clara appeared together a few minutes later. “So the heels are over there, flats are over there, and I’m willing to try anything, but you know how I do with anything over 2.3 inches.”
Diane issued her instructions on what to look for. She was friends with the store’s owner, often referring her own clients there, and had ascertained the exact moment of the spring collection’s availability so that she and Clara could pounce on the latest goods just in time before the wedding. Now, as the three Suttle women set off down the aisles together, Kelly somehow kept finding herself alone. She would look for two seconds at a stacked heel, then glance back to realize that Diane and Clara were already an aisle down on the pumps, moving in tandem without even speaking about it. She put the shoe down and hurried to catch up.
She stood in front of the mirror ten minutes later, stacks of boxes and tumbleweeds of tissue paper all around, Diane and Clara sitting behind her like an Olympic judging panel. She shifted her ankles in the satin kitten heels, testing their stability. “What about these, Clara?”
“We want to avoid too many straps,” her mom replied with authority. “After all, without being heavy-handed about it, we do hope to evoke a vintage vibe.”
“We really liked the first ones you tried on, did you like those?” Clara asked. “All the girls would look cute in them.”
Kelly bit her lip. Her mom and sister probably didn’t even notice the “we” thing. But Kelly did. “Sure,” she said, her spirits flagging.
“Well, try them on again, we want you to like them,” Clara urged. Kelly slipped out of the strappy kitten heels and back into the delicate peep-toe pumps. She walked back and forth across the carpet, one foot in front of the other. Clara squealed approvingly. “They look so good on you, Kel! How are those to walk in?”
“Should be fine as long as you don’t have me scaling any cliffs.”
Clara mapped out the scene in front of her with her hands. “So let’s see, you’ll be coming up from the—”
“South side of the lawn,” Diane supplied.
“So it’s pretty level, right? You’ll be over here, and here’s the flower arch thing, and Jonathan and I will be here—” As Clara talked, Diane watched her with eyes growing wet. Finally, she burst into tears.
“Mom, what’s the matter?” Clara asked.
“I’m just picturing it all, you on your wedding day. I can’t believe it, my little girl is getting married!”
“Oh, Mom . . .”
“Will you still go shopping with me when you’re a married woman? Will we still do things like this?” Diane gestured around the store.
“Of course I will! You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried!” Clara folded Diane into a misty, sloppy hug.
Kelly stood alone at the mirror, scuffing her toe against the carpet. Suddenly she wished she had Ethan there with her, though what he could contribute to shoe shopping she didn’t know. Family dinner had been so pleasant with him there. His presence was a safe retreat, a buffer. When she spotted a passing salesman, she flagged him down, relieved at something to do. “I guess I’ll take these. We’ll take these,” she said.
* * *
• • •
After Diane went home to their dad, Clara and Kelly decided to grab a bite for dinner. They went to Café Whole, a small shop lined in subway tile and bleached wood. Clara loved the place, and Kelly admitted they did a solid smoothie, though she found their menu almost overbearingly hippie-ish, with all the dishes named things like “Peace” and “Duality.” Everything came topped with microgreens.
“I think I’m going to do Humble, it’s sooo good,” Clara said as they waited to place their orders. “What are you thinking?”
“Magical,” Kelly mumbled. She felt silly saying it.
“What?”
“Magical!”
The woman in line in front of them turned and stared.
When they were seated, Clara immediately faced Kelly with a broad smile. “So. Ethan,” she said.
“No, I’m Kelly, remember? Your sister.”
“Come on, tell me all about him!”
“We’re just kind of seeing each other casually.” Kelly was happy that her family had now met Ethan. But the less they knew about him, the better.
“Bringing him to family dinner? It can’t be that casual,” Clara said with a sly smile.
“Ethan’s close to his family, so for him it’s normal.”
“Oh yeah? Do they live out here?”
“Um—no.” Kelly figured it would be safer to have Ethan’s parents far away. “But they’re metaphorically close. They talk a lot.”
“Have you talked to them yet?”
“Yes. I mean no. I mean we talked about it, we talked about me talking to them. But I haven’t talked to them yet.”
“Have you—”
“Why so many questions about Ethan?
” Kelly said, with a light yet strained laugh. “Jonathan’s the one who’s almost family, tell me what’s going on with him.”
“Oh, you know his parents went to Phuket recently? Let me show you the pictures.” Kelly relaxed, ready to just let Clara talk. But before her sister could tap open the album, she stopped and looked up at Kelly again. “Has Ethan traveled much?”
“No, he grew up here,” Kelly said.
“So his family is from here.”
“No. Yes.”
“You just said that they don’t live here.”
“Well, they did, but they don’t. Why do you care so much?” she asked with sudden anxiety-ridden frustration.
“Geez, pardon me for taking an interest in your life,” Clara said, taking a bite of her burrito, which had just arrived.
“I figured Mom would have filled you in on everything going on in my life anyway. Why do you even need to ask me?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Clara set down her burrito.
“Come on, like you don’t know.”
“I don’t!” Clara was genuinely bewildered, but Kelly couldn’t bring herself to spell it out. It suddenly felt childish to complain about Clara’s closeness with Diane.
Instead, she shoveled down a bite of her grain bowl before grabbing her purse and rising. “I’ve got to run, I have work to do.” Seeing the hurt look on Clara’s face, she almost turned back and apologized. But instead, she fished some cash out of her wallet and plunked it on the table. “Here, I’ll pay.” The cramped restaurant suddenly seemed very long as she made her way out.
Driving home on Highway 101, the sun tipping below the broad horizon, Kelly called Priya while she was sitting in traffic. “Am I just crazy?” she asked after filling her in on the day’s events.
“Clearly you’re crazy, we knew this,” asserted Priya. “And you could have handled the situation better. But I don’t think you’re wrong to feel left out.”
“I mean, I hate to be reductive and just say that Clara’s the favorite child, but sometimes it feels that way.”
“Oh, she’s totally the favorite child,” Priya said. “I’m a favorite child. Takes one to know one.”
“You’re the favorite?” Kelly had heard stories about Priya’s strict parents and three brothers, but had never met them since they were all on the East Coast.
“I’m a medical engineer and they think I’m still a virgin. Of course I’m the favorite child.”
Kelly sighed. “Well, thanks, I guess. Though I’m not sure this talk made me feel any better. Actually, I may feel worse.”
“So Clara’s the favorite, so what?” Priya exclaimed. “Maybe your mom just clicks with her more easily, it doesn’t mean she loves you less. Besides, you’re my favorite. And no offense to your mom, but we all know my opinion is gospel.”
“I don’t know, you did decide to be friends with me. What’s that thing about not wanting to belong to any club that would have you for a member?”
“Listen, woman, I do not have time for circular logic.” Kelly laughed. “Anyway, just relax,” Priya went on. “Don’t get all in your head about what other people think. What you really are is more important.”
“Yeah . . . now just to work on that part.” Kelly sighed as she turned onto her exit.
eleven
• • • • • •
On Friday evening, Kelly was doing what any other successful, mature twenty-nine-year-old businesswoman does on a Friday evening: watching BattleBots. It was such a stupid show. It reduced her life’s work to a Jackass stunt. She couldn’t stop watching.
Ethan sat beside her on the couch as she gazed at the screen, where a spiny robot called Crushosaurus was obliterating a black-and-yellow bot with a long retractable spike and “Stinger” emblazoned on its side. “Wow, he must bee smarting,” she said as Stinger sustained a blow, sliding her eyes sideways at Ethan.
“Yeah, totally,” Ethan responded, completely serious, concentrating on the screen.
“I mean, he’ll be lucky to come out a-hive.”
“I know, right?”
Kelly was grinning, but still nothing from Ethan. Now it was her turn to stare at him and concentrate. Okay, her jokes were bad, but they weren’t that bad. Thus far, Ethan had passed among people all over the city with no one batting an eye, except maybe to flirt at him. His language had developed a less formal, more conversational cadence. Yet something was still missing. He had no sense of humor.
This was a challenge. She had worked, along with the rest of the engineering team, to develop response modules for all sorts of social situations—how to make small talk, how to be polite, how to order food at a restaurant or explain a problem to a cable rep over the phone or thank a relative for a Christmas gift. As complex and charged as Kelly had realized all human interactions were, humor was one of the most complex. It was so universally and wordlessly instinctual, yet also so individual. How could she teach Ethan when to laugh?
She pulled her e-reader off the arm of the couch and downloaded a book called Monkey See, Monkey Do: Follow Me to Funny Land! As soon as she saw the wide-lapelled miscreant grinning from the front cover, she wondered if she was making a wise choice. But it was the number one download in the category, and she was a sucker for numbers.
“Here, take a look at this,” she said, handing Ethan the device. “I think you might find it interesting. Give it a read and let me know if you have any questions.”
“Of course, thank you, Kelly,” he said excitedly.
A half hour later, she was hard at work in her home office, watching demos from a recent robotics conference in Japan of a new caregiver robot on the market. She was deep in thought, scrutinizing the way the elderly woman at the demo lit up when the robot did certain things for her, or uttered certain phrases.
All of a sudden, Ethan barreled into the room, wearing his pants up around his chest, Urkel-style, and struck a pose. “Take my wife, please!” he cried. He fell out of the pose, a crease on his brow. “I’m not sure that I’m doing this right.”
Kelly didn’t even ask what was in the book. She closed out her work and took Ethan to a late movie. There was only one out-and-out comedy playing at the theater closest to her, a raunchy college road trip story. It was silly, but it did have some funny moments. Kelly got into it and laughed a little. At first Ethan was staring at the screen intently. But he sneaked glances at Kelly laughing. As the movie played on, he started to laugh too.
“So did you see how that was supposed to be funny?” she asked him as they walked to the car afterward. The night air was getting less and less chilly. Kelly had finally switched to her lighter jacket this week.
“I think so,” he said. “Breasts are funny, anuses are funny, penises are funny, and testicles are funny.”
“Well, yeah, there was a lot of that. But I liked the scene on the plane best. It was so unexpected.”
“So things that are unexpected are funny?”
Kelly thought about it, frowning. “Yeah, I guess.”
“But if I walked out into that street and got hit by a car, that would be unexpected, right? But would it also be funny? Wouldn’t people be crying and upset at a car accident?”
She shook her head in frustration. “I don’t know how to explain it. I guess it’s just something you pick up on.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you find funny?”
Kelly walked a few more paces before responding. “I never told you how Clara and Jonathan met, did I?”
“No,” said Ethan.
“Well, Clara had just moved into her first apartment on her own after college. She’s into DIY stuff and she really wanted to get it all set up herself. So she had a mattress delivered and when Jonathan, who was living below her, saw it coming up the stairs, he asked if she needed help setting it up and she said no. But the mattress was rolled up real
ly tightly and shrink-wrapped, and when she cut it out of the wrapping, it all sprang out at once and threw her out the open window. She caught on to the fire escape and there she was, dangling in front of Jonathan’s window. He opened it and was like, ‘Now would you like a hand?’ The rest was history.”
Now Ethan and Kelly were laughing together. “I guess you could say it was love at first flight,” he said.
* * *
• • •
By now Kelly found herself going out with Ethan less, maybe because she enjoyed staying in with him more. The two of them were developing an easy rhythm, anticipating each other’s words, moving around each other like the gears of a clock. In the mornings, they knew without speaking that Kelly brushed her hair while Ethan brushed his teeth, then they rotated at the sink for Kelly to brush her teeth while Ethan brushed his hair.
On Saturday, Ethan was going to pull a book from the shelf when Kelly sat down at her home computer. He paused behind her. “You have good taste,” he said suddenly.
“What?” she asked.
He nodded at her computer monitor, which Kelly had filled with a desktop background of carefully arranged images of historical robots, from an ancient Chinese automaton to Leonardo da Vinci’s robot, clad in armor like a miniknight, to the wide-eyed gold Maschinenmensch from Metropolis. She had spent some time composing the layout, adjusting the colors until everything looked just right together, a supple flow of silver, gold, and bronze. Kelly the IKEA Queen hadn’t put much thought or personality into anything else in her apartment, but this—this was a point of pride. “Oh, the desktop?” she said now, shrugging. “I had fun with it. I’m not sure anyone would say I have good taste, though.”
“No, you do,” he said decisively. “It’s lovely. You have a real aesthetic.”
It was entirely possible that Ethan was just being nice to her because that’s what he did, but the praise brought a flush to her cheeks. He would know what was aesthetically pleasing—after all, the bouquets he designed for her were works of art. Kelly had never thought of herself as a person who possessed an aesthetic. Looking around her blocky beige apartment, she realized that it looked a little drab. Less like a safe, neutral space and more like the inside of a cardboard box. Maybe it was Ethan’s vividness that threw everything else into dull relief.
