How to Build a Boyfriend from Scratch

by Sarah Archer

  Another day at lunch, Kelly sneaked into the lab to get some work done. With all the extra meetings in her days now, she appreciated these pockets of quiet. But just as she rolled a chair up to a computer workstation, Robbie appeared suddenly from behind a rolling rack, brandishing a screwdriver.

  “I’m in here,” he announced quite loudly.

  Kelly gasped, hand at her chest. “Robbie!”

  “I wanted to alert you to my presence to avoid startling you.”

  “That ship has sailed,” she muttered.

  “And how is Confibot progressing?” he asked, sitting beside her at the counter, his back ramrod straight.

  “Pretty well, actually,” she answered. “How’s Brahma?” In spite of Robbie’s own efforts to the contrary, three separate investors had liked Brahma enough to throw some dough his way as well, and the project was on its feet.

  “Extraordinary. I can’t tell you what it’s like to be building such world-changing technology.”

  “Wow, yeah, I’d love to hear what that’s like sometime,” Kelly replied, trying to keep the sarcasm in her voice at a low volume. Robbie, whether he meant to or not, could push her buttons, jam them and pummel them and wriggle them, more than just about anybody else.

  She didn’t say anything more, worried that she wouldn’t have anything nice to say, but Robbie suddenly spoke from the silence. “You did the right thing,” he said. Kelly set down her pliers, looking at him in surprise. “Even though I know you only got rid of Ethan because of me, I believe you’ll be better for it in the long term.” He kept his eyes trained down on his work as he spoke.

  Kelly hadn’t been thinking of Robbie when she’d powered Ethan down—honestly, his blackmail had been the furthest thing from her mind when she made her choice. But what would she gain by setting him straight? Why not let him have this? “Well, I’m doing all right,” she replied.

  “I do wish you happiness,” he said carefully.

  Kelly picked up her tool again with a small smile. “Thanks, Robbie.”

  Moving on was a bigger problem with Priya than it had been with Robbie. Kelly had tried assiduously to avoid her since their fight, treating her like just another coworker in their sparse interactions. They traded a clipped “Hi” when they passed in the hallways. On occasions when they were forced to share lab time, they passed each other tools without eye contact. And this was a million, bajillion times worse than fighting.

  After the bridesmaid dress debacle, Kelly had half expected Priya to shower her with apologies. When no apology came, she took this as proof positive that her conjectures had been correct all along: if Priya didn’t apologize, that meant that she didn’t realize she had been wrong, which meant that she was oblivious of Kelly’s feelings, which meant that their entire friendship had been a ruse. Thinking about it, Kelly smoothed her blouse and refocused on her computer.

  Kelly’s ability to distract herself from her own feelings had always been something of a point of pride. And she made a gorgeous, gung-ho effort that Saturday: she put in a full day’s work at home, catching up on TechCrunch, digesting journal articles, and doing a Skype interview for a German news company interested in profiling Confibot. She tried out a new hairstyle that allowed more of her natural wave through. She even pulled out her ultimate distraction weapon, a marathon of old-school Olsen twin movies. But no matter how hard she tried to convince herself that she was totally good without her best friend, a thought kept surfacing, like a body discarded in a river. Maybe the presupposition to her entire argument, that Priya was wrong to jilt her at the fitting in the first place, had been false. Maybe Priya hadn’t apologized because she’d had nothing to apologize for. Yes, she had let Kelly down and, yes, she had said some harsh things, but hadn’t Kelly done the same? Hadn’t Kelly been neglectful of the relationship for a while at that point? It was logical to look at the evidence of all her friendships and to conclude that this friendship would likely fail. But such a conclusion was based on the pattern of Kelly’s own behavior. And if she could change that variable, she could change the equation.

  A rencontre at work was clearly not an option, given the avoidance games they were playing. Her texts and calls went unanswered, Priya was mysteriously missing at their usual shared lab times, and she must have been spending an arm and a leg eating lunch out because when Kelly picked up her salad du jour in the cafeteria line, she was never anywhere to be seen. And so Kelly tugged on her big-girl panties and decided that the only way to get her friend’s attention was to do what Priya had been begging for all along: hang out outside of the office. A quick perusal of Priya’s Instagram revealed two things: that she was back with Andre, and that she would be at an open mic night with him that night.

  It’s totally fine, Kelly thought as she stood in line backstage at the cigarette-scented club, waiting with the other comics for her turn to go up. Yes, that’s right, Kelly Suttle was doing an open mic night. Most of the other participants were reviewing their notes on their phones or on little scraps of paper, noiselessly rehearsing their routines, but Kelly had something better. She had a straightforward plan. She had already seen Priya and Andre settle at a table, Andre bumping fists with friends in the crowd. All she had to do was get onstage, a platform from which Priya could not avoid or ignore her, spout her apology, and get off. She wouldn’t even have to tell a joke, she consoled herself. She inhaled deeply as she advanced to the front of the line. Time to get this over with.

  And then she saw Priya’s long hair flip behind her as she disappeared into the restroom—right before the emcee called out,

  “Kelly!” Kelly froze. She couldn’t go up until Priya was back in the audience. She tried to stall, shaking her head furiously at the emcee, but he just laughed and ushered her into the glare of the spotlight, forcing her out. She stared wildly into the packed house. She wasn’t supposed to have to tell any jokes. A joke? What was a joke? Who are words?

  “What—what’s black, white, and red all over?” she asked quietly.

  “We can’t hear you!” yelled a guy in the audience.

  “A newspaper!” she shouted. She tried to bring it back down a notch. “Newspapers, right? Who remembers those?” She stared into the audience for a long minute, hoping that someone would say something helpful, such as “I do!” They did not.

  “All right, give it up for Kel—” But Kelly had to stop the emcee. She had to stay up here until Priya was out of the restroom. She thought desperately back to what had made Ethan laugh.

  “My sister fell out a window! I mean—no, wait, it’s a joke—” Just in time to hear this, Priya emerged and saw Kelly onstage. She halted, looking as shocked as if she had walked out the door into Oz.

  “Priya!” Kelly exclaimed. “I’m sorry! You were right about Ethan, and I should have listened earlier but I freaked out when things didn’t go my way. I’m trying not to do that anymore. It’s been hell not having you around. I want to talk to you. I want to meet Andre. Hi, Andre.” She waved at him. He waved back numbly, very, very confused. “Will you give me a chance? I promise I’ll make more time to hang out together. I’m here, right?”

  Priya crossed her arms. “Tell me a joke,” she called out.

  Kelly searched. Suddenly she thought back to the model number of a certain vibrating motor she had once witnessed Priya, in one of her self-titled moments of genius, construct in the lab: 3X2D5L. “What are the ingredients of a perfect date night?” she asked. “Three Xs, two Ds, and five Ls.” Priya stood there for a moment. And then she got it. She roared with laughter, bending at the knees. The rest of the audience was starting to boo, restless, but Kelly didn’t care. She laughed, too, even while the emcee physically guided her from the stage.

  “Come here, come here,” Priya gasped weakly, gesturing her forward while grasping her own side. “I’ve missed you, you moron.” And Kelly didn’t even notice the stares of the audience as she made her way toward the waiting arms of her friend.

  As difficult as it had bee
n to avoid Priya, ignoring Kelly’s entire family was even harder. As the next family dinner loomed on the horizon, her mother’s voicemails and e-mails multiplied, backing up Kelly’s phone like a rest station toilet. The phone had buzzed as she sat in her office, designing facial prototypes for a female Confibot. She had silenced it, irritated at the visions that floated unbidden into her mind of the family ringed around the dinner table, all staring at her. Her amazing, perfect fiancé was a hoax. Her dad sighing and turning his attention to dinner, dryly unsurprised; Gary explaining to her nieces where Ethan went, the girls laughing at their batty aunt; Clara smiling with sweet sympathy, holding Jonathan’s hand; her mom clucking with disappointment, making plans to sell the wedding dress to some other girl at the shop—that dress her mom had worked so hard on …

  Now Kelly imagined her mom alone in the shop, running a duster over the shelves, straightening bolts of silk, the dress staring at her the whole time, fluttery as a ghost. No matter how much her family had pressured Kelly, even belittled her unintentionally, it hadn’t been fair to lie to them about Ethan, and it wasn’t fair to ignore them now. Kelly knew that her mother did love her. Even if she sometimes showed it the way a two-year-old shows her love for her favorite doll, rendering it bedraggled, crayon-faced, one-armed, and bereft of all will to live. And Kelly did love her family—even if, she mused, she was programmed to, in her own biological way. She knew down inside that they would keep coming back to her no matter what, just like Ethan had done, and that she would do the same.

  But that didn’t make her feel any less apprehensive as she picked up her phone.

  Kelly wondered how exactly she was supposed to start this conversation as the family sat around the table in thick silence that night, cautiously testing their mackerel surprise. Hey, remember that time my fiancé turned out to be a robot? Kelly noticed Clara lean in toward Jonathan, nudge him, and point to her plate—some inside joke. They smiled at each other. Both looked considerably fresher-eyed than they had a couple weeks ago.

  “Your boyfriend died,” Bertie declared suddenly into the silence. She stared unblinkingly at Kelly as she spooned applesauce into her mouth with a slurp.

  “Bertie—” Gary began reprovingly, but Kelly stopped him. She had no idea what the consequences would be, but she knew that she needed to own this. She was taking a risk—but this time, it was a smart one.

  “Listen, I understand that what happened at the presentation was probably a nasty shock for all of you, and I—I’m sorry. I didn’t do any of this because I wanted to lie, or trick you. I was trying to make things easier by having a date to the wedding and, I don’t know—I just didn’t want to disappoint everyone anymore. Guess I blew that.” She looked down at her plate, running her fork through the sauce and letting it drip slowly off, like molasses. Time dripped just as slowly in the silence.

  Carl wiped his mouth with his napkin and put down his fork. “Well, I for one was pretty damn impressed,” he declared.

  Kelly looked up at him. She couldn’t have been more surprised if he had opened his mouth and belted out a Verdi aria. “You were?”

  “Of course,” Diane agreed. “You made Ethan. How could that disappoint us? I mean, how on earth did you do it? He was a masterpiece.”

  “I’ve never seen such technology in my life,” Carl affirmed.

  “Yeah, but … he wasn’t real. I was never actually engaged,” Kelly said blankly.

  Diane sighed. “I know, that’s the sad part. I went ahead and packed up your wedding dress already to make sure it doesn’t get damaged—acid-free paper and everything. That way it’ll be in perfect shape when you do find a man. Or make one!” She patted Kelly’s hand across the table. “Whoever he is, he’s out there,” she said gently before returning to her food. Kelly felt embarrassed, seeing in a flash that this whole debacle must have exposed the true loneliness she had felt, the frustrations with her own inability to find a partner, to her family. But maybe letting her family understand her vulnerabilities was not such a bad thing.

  “So how did you do it?” Clara asked eagerly.

  “Yeah, can I have one?” Gary asked. “I could use some male company around the house. The other day, I shaved one of my legs without thinking about it. Then I had to shave the other one, or I wouldn’t have looked right.”

  The whole family was looking at Kelly with full attention. Tentatively, she began to open up.

  “Well, believe it or not, I put the whole thing together in one weekend.”

  “No way,” Carl said. Kelly put her own fork down, beginning to smile.

  “Yeah. Though I had to make some modifications later. He did some pretty odd stuff in the beginning …”

  That night was possibly the most pleasant, certainly the most animated conversation they’d had at family dinner for as long as Kelly could remember. It was a delightful surprise, seeing how well her family took the whole thing, how impressed they were with her work. But Kelly knew better than to sink herself too wholly into the high of this approval. There had been plenty of times before at this table when she had felt low about herself, and there would almost certainly be such times again. Even if the whole family had been angry with her for this transgression, or further entrenched in their view of her as the hopeless, forever single one, she would have been okay, she reflected—at this point, she’d certainly been through worse and come out the other side. Her family’s opinion mattered to her. But it was beyond her control, outside of her. It wasn’t who she was.

  Kelly went to the trouble of fixing herself a special dinner one night after work, making a lasagna from scratch. She enjoyed cooking when time allowed these days, even without Ethan around to pitch in, or to playfully shoot a cherry tomato into her mouth from across the kitchen when they mixed the salad. But nothing would ever make her tastes normal. When the lasagna was almost finished, she melted a few slices of cheddar cheese on top.

  Maybe it was because she hadn’t gone out and done anything special in a while, with no one to do anything special with, but she felt like doing something different that night. She stayed in her pencil skirt and blouse from work rather than changing immediately into something wonderfully comfortable and frightfully unsightly. She ate at the table rather than in front of the television, or at her desk. She even lit a candle, but after a few minutes, she blew it out. Even for her, pumpkin spice didn’t sit well with lasagna.

  She still thought about Ethan every day, though not as much. As the light that streamed through the windows redressed her apartment in the golden hue of May, the memories that every room held changed, too, melting into a hazy distance. But try as she might, she couldn’t go back to being happy with spending her nights alone.

  The free trial she’d accepted on that dating site, which seemed like a lifetime ago, had of course expired. The credit card form stared at her expectantly from the screen. It was asking for $19.95 for a month of use. One month, in the course of what she could reasonably anticipate to be a long lifetime, was statistically quite small. And $19.95, in the sum of a lifetime of earnings, was really not significant. And some risks, demonstrably, were worth the taking.

  Kelly almost laughed when she saw the profile she’d set up before. It was like reading the biography of a stranger. The picture she’d used was small and blurry, barely showing her. She uploaded a new one, the picture she’d submitted to be used with the press release about Confibot. It captured her in a fleeting moment of hair glory.

  She remembered filling out the section about herself with basically whatever she thought would sound normal and nonthreatening. It read stiffly, like something cooked up by an alien trying to convince everyone that, really, he promised, he was not an alien. It was true, she did now occasionally indulge in a walk through the mountains, but this biking business she had written about—she doubted her foot would ever touch a bike pedal unless at gunpoint. She supposed her mountain walks could count as hiking—she put down hiking. What did she do for work? Well, that had a long answer an
d a short answer. She went with the short answer.

  I’m a robotics engineer, kind of like the people who created the Hall of Presidents. If you’re interested, I’d love to tell you more.

  Then came the part where she described him—what was she looking for in a guy? She skimmed down the long list of requirements she’d made. Love of Twinkies? Wears V-necks? Her eyes blurred looking at the list. Even Ethan hadn’t had half of these. And, sadly, Robbie had several. All those rules didn’t mean much of anything, really. She frowned and considered. I’m just looking for someone who will like me for me. Maybe it was cheesy, but she pressed Submit before she could change her mind.

  While the wheel turned and turned, Kelly’s stomach felt like it was doing something similar. She almost impulsively reached out and clicked the red X at the top of the page, but just before she could, her results came up. Results, plural. Amazingly, this time, she had matches. She wondered skeptically if these were actual, real men or just some sort of bot. Then she realized that if they were bots, she really had no room to judge.

  Some were clear nos—the guy wearing a ninja mask in every picture, the man whose bio was simply “Girthy,” the one who looked eerily like her own father. But one picture caught her eye. Michael was washing a sheepdog, laughing and ducking as the dog shook and sprayed him with foam, what looked like his family in the background. His profile indicated that he was looking for:

  Someone who’s smart enough to know when my jokes are dumb, but who laughs at them anyway.

  Kelly took a breath and clicked the Like button.

  It only took a minute of her scrolling through other options for Michael to message her.

  Hey, Kelly! Okay, your description of your work has me intrigued. I’d love to take you out sometime and hear about it.

  Kelly blushed instinctively, smiling to herself. She typed a reply.

  Sure.

  Too simple, this was her first impression and it had to be strong.