Crosstalk

  This was going to take all day. Briddey held her phone close to the desk and rapped twice on the desktop with her fist. “Come in,” she called, and put the phone up to her ear. “Listen, my appointment’s here. Can I call you back?”

  She hung up and, with a feeling of “out of the frying pan, into the fire,” checked the twenty-two messages from her family—correction, thirty-one—to make sure they still didn’t know, starting with Mary Clare’s in case she’d decided Maeve was possessed by demons and had scheduled an exorcism or something.

  She hadn’t. She’d read an article online about the negative influence that gender roles in movies had on girls, and wanted to know whether Briddey thought she should block Maeve from watching them online.

  Good luck with that, Briddey thought, and checked Kathleen’s, which were all, “Need to talk to you about Chad,” her latest in a long line of odious boyfriends. Aunt Oona’s messages—except for three “Where are you, mavourneen?” inquiries—were all reminders that Sean O’Reilly was planning to read “The Passing of the Gael” at the Daughters of Ireland meeting, and the whole family was going.

  That is, if they’re not at my apartment trying to talk me out of having the EED, which she was sure they’d do as soon as they found out. They didn’t like Trent, as they’d all made perfectly clear when she’d gone to dinner at Aunt Oona’s last Saturday.

  Mary Clare thought he spent too much time on his smartphone (and not enough listening to her fret about Maeve), Kathleen thought he was too rich and good-looking to still be single and therefore had to be hiding something, and even Maeve, who usually sided with Briddey in family debates, had made a face and said, “His hair’s too combed. I like guys with messy hair.”

  Aunt Oona had, of course, rejected him on the grounds that he wasn’t from Ireland, even though she herself had never set foot on “the Auld Sod” in her life. Not that you’d know it to look at her. Or hear her. She talked in a brogue straight out of Angela’s Ashes—or an old Bing Crosby movie—and twisted her graying red hair into a straggling bun, wore baggy tweed skirts and Aran Isles sweaters summer and winter, and put a shawl over her head when she went to her incessant Daughters of Ireland meetings. “No one in Ireland has dressed like that in the last hundred years,” Briddey wanted to shout at her. “And you’re not Irish! The closest you’ve ever been to a peat fire was watching The Quiet American on TCM!”

  But it wouldn’t have done any good. Aunt Oona would simply have clutched her rosary beads to her ample chest, called upon Saint Patrick and Briddey’s sainted mother to forgive Briddey’s blasphemous words, and redoubled her efforts to fix her up with a “foine Irish lad.” Like Sean O’Reilly, who was forty, balding, and still lived with his mother—also a Daughter of Ireland.

  I don’t want Sean O’Reilly or any of Aunt Oona’s other aging “lads,” Briddey thought. Or any of Kathleen’s ne’er-do-wells. That’s why I’m dating Trent. And why I’m going to have the EED with him, no matter what you say.

  She tried to call him again, but he was apparently still on his phone. And now his message box was full. She emailed him.

  Mistake. When she clicked SEND, nineteen new emails popped up on her screen, all but three of them headed, “OMG EED! Congrats!” The three that weren’t were from Aunt Oona: “It’s checking your phone you need to be. There’s something wrong with it” and, “Is it an accident you’ve had?” And from Maeve: “You have to talk to Mom. She won’t let me watch The Twelve Dancing Princesses or any of the Frozen movies. Or Tangled, which is like my favorite movie next to Zombie Hordes!”

  Thank goodness Mary Clare doesn’t know Maeve’s watching zombie movies, or she’d really have apoplexy, Briddey thought, and her phone rang.

  “Where are you?” Trent said. “I’ve been trying to—”

  “Hello!” she said eagerly. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear the sound of your voice. Last night was so wonderful.”

  “I know,” he said. “You have no idea how happy you’ve made me.”

  “And how happy we’re going to be when we—”

  “Yeah, about that. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. I talked to Dr. Verrick’s office, and his nurse said they’re not going to be able to get us in till late summer.”

  “Well, we knew he had a waiting list—”

  “His nurse said we were lucky to get in that soon, that some patients have to wait up to a year.”

  “It’s all right,” she said. “I can wait—”

  “Well, I can’t! This screws up everything!” he exploded. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you, sweetheart. It’s just that I want us to be connected now so I can—so you can know what I’m feeling—”

  “Which I’m guessing is frustration,” Briddey said.

  “Yes! I’m trying to see if there isn’t some way to get us in by May, and in the meantime, we need to fill out the preliminary paperwork—sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he said. “Hold on.” His voice cut off for a minute and then came back. “Where was I?”

  “Filling out the preliminary paperwork.”

  “Right. His nurse will be sending a medical history and some questionnaires, and you need to fill them out and get them back as soon as possible so that if he can get us in earlier, we’re ready. And meanwhile, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do if Schwartz doesn’t come through.”

  “C.B. Schwartz?”

  “Yes. He’s supposed to have some ideas for the new phone that I can present at today’s meeting, but I’ve been emailing him for the last two days with no response, and he isn’t answering his phone either. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Half the time when you’re talking to him, he doesn’t even hear you. It’s like he’s off in another world. Hamilton thinks he’s a genius, the next Steve Jobs or something, but I think he’s mentally unstable.”

  “He’s not unstable,” Briddey said. “He’s just a little eccentric. And he is really smart.”

  “The Unabomber was smart, too,” Trent said. “Let’s hope he’s not homicidal, and that he’s enough of a genius to come up with some ideas to tide us over till the one I’m working on is ready, or we’re dead. We’ve got to have something ready by the time Apple rolls out the new iPhone, and now that—”

  His voice cut off, and Briddey thought he must have another call, but a few seconds later he said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to unload on you like that.”

  “That’s okay. I understand. You’ve got a lot riding on this.”

  He laughed harshly. “You have no idea just how—” His voice cut off again.

  “Trent?” Briddey said. “Are you there? What happened?”

  “Bad connection,” he said. “What I was trying to say is, I want everything—the phone, the EED, everything—to be perfect for us, and I can’t stand the idea of having to wait to be together, really together. I love you so much.”

  “I love y—”

  “Look, I’ve got another call coming in. I’ll see you at the meeting. And till then, check your email. I sent you something.”

  He had, a virtual bouquet of golden rosebuds, which opened into lush yellow roses and then morphed into butterflies.

  How sweet! Briddey thought, watching them flutter around the screen to the tune of “I Will Always Love You.”

  The butterflies morphed again, into letters forming the words “Now that you’ve said yes, our troubles are over!”

  Except for me telling my family, Briddey thought. Which I have got to figure out how to do now, before they come over to see why I haven’t answered their messages.

  There was a knock on the door. Oh, my God, it’s them, Briddey thought, but it couldn’t be. They never knocked. They just walked in. Which meant this must be Charla. “Come in,” Briddey said, and Charla opened the door and leaned in, looking bemused.

  “Art Sampson and Suki Parker want you to call them as soon as possible,” she said, “and you got a message from C.B. Schwartz.”

  Let’s hope it’s his ideas for th
e new phone. “Did you put it on my computer?” Briddey asked.

  “No, I mean a message.” Charla held out a folded piece of paper as if it were a poisonous snake. “He wrote it by hand and everything. I mean, who does that anymore?”

  “He’s a genius,” Briddey said absently, reading the note.

  “Really? Are you sure? He never answers his emails.”

  The note read, “I need to talk to you. C.B. Schwartz.” If this was something about his ideas for the phone not being ready, she’d better talk to him before the meeting, so she could warn Trent.

  She asked Charla for the number of his lab and called him, but there was no answer, and it didn’t let her leave a message. “Get me his cellphone number,” she said to Charla.

  “It won’t do any good,” Charla said. “There’s no coverage down in that sub-basement where he has his lab.”

  “What about our voice-texting function?”

  “It doesn’t work down there.”

  That was ridiculous; it was designed specifically for areas with poor reception. “Give me the number anyway, in case he’s not in his lab.”

  “He’s always in his lab.”

  “Well, then I’ll text him,” Briddey said, and Charla reluctantly gave her the number.

  “I doubt if it’ll do any good,” Charla said. “He refuses to carry his phone with him. Suki says he never even turns it on.” She frowned. “You’re not going to make me take a message down there, are you? The sub-basement’s freezing, and there’s nobody down there but him. And he creeps me out, the way he lurks down there and never talks to anybody. Like that guy who lives in the dungeon in that movie, the Hunchback of Notre Dame.”

  “You mean the Phantom of the Opera,” Briddey said. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame lived in a bell tower, not a dungeon. And C.B. doesn’t have a hump.”

  “No, but he still creeps me out. I think he’s crazy.”

  “He’s not crazy.”

  Charla didn’t look convinced. “He wears a wristwatch,” she said. “Nobody does that anymore either. And he dresses like a homeless person.”

  Briddey didn’t have an answer for that. He did. Even by Commspan’s casual, Silicon Valley–style dress code of flannel shirts, jeans, and running shoes, C.B. looked terrible, as if he’d grabbed his clothes randomly off a thrift-store rack, and they always looked like they’d been slept in. Which they probably had.

  “Suki says he doesn’t believe in answering emails or going to interdepartmental meetings,” Charla said, “and those earbuds he wears aren’t connected to anything. I’ve even seen him talking to himself. What if he’s a serial killer and he’s storing the bodies in his lab? Nobody would ever know, it’s so cold down there.”

  Don’t be ridiculous, Briddey thought. This is Commspan. They’d know within nanoseconds. “Well, serial killer or not, I need to talk to him, and I don’t want to go all the way down to his lab. Keep trying to get in touch with him,” she said, and went back into her office to text C.B.

  In the five minutes she’d been gone, she’d accumulated nine more “Congrats!” emails and twelve more voice messages, including one from Darrell in IT telling her he thought having an EED was “Totally phenomenal!” and one from Rahul Deshnev’s assistant wanting her to call ASAP. Briddey did, hoping it meant the meeting had been postponed, but when she got on the line, Rahul Deshnev’s assistant said, “I’m so glad you’re getting an EED! Greg and I just had one, and it’s even better than they advertise. Now our relationship is totally open and honest. We don’t have any secrets from each other, and we never fight. And the sex is amazing! Greg—”

  “Sorry, but my nine forty-five just got here,” Briddey said, and hung up, thinking, Maybe going down to see C.B. would be a good idea. Staying here, she wasn’t going to get a moment’s peace, and the fact that there was no reception in the sub-basement meant she wouldn’t be able to get calls or texts there. And since Charla thought C.B. was some sort of horror-movie monster, she was unlikely to venture down there after her to deliver a message.

  Best of all, since C.B. didn’t carry a phone and never checked his email, he wouldn’t know anything about the EED, and she wouldn’t have to engage in another time-consuming conversation about it. She could find out what he wanted and then go into one of the storerooms and figure out exactly what to tell her family without fear of being interrupted.

  She started out the door, nearly colliding with Charla, who said, “Suki Parker called again. And your Aunt Oona. She said she needs to talk to you about the poetry reading. And your sister Mary Clare is on line one.”

  “Tell them all I’m in a meeting,” Briddey said. “I’m going down to C.B. Schwartz’s lab.”

  “But how will I get in touch with you?”

  You won’t, Briddey thought. “I’ll be back by ten thirty,” she said.

  “Okay,” Charla said doubtfully. “Do you really think you should go down there by yourself?”

  “If he tries to kill me, I’ll hit him with an icicle,” Briddey said, and to make sure Charla didn’t follow her, she added, “I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. He does look a little like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Or the guy in those Saw movies.”

  “I know. You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

  Absolutely. If I can just get down there without being waylaid by anyone else. She opened the office door and looked cautiously out, convinced Suki would be lying in wait, but for once the “luck of the Irish” Aunt Oona constantly invoked was with her. There was no one in the corridor or the elevators, and she made it safely down to the sub-basement without any more encounters.

  The elevator opened onto cement emptiness and the sharp, cold smell of a walk-in freezer. No wonder no one came down here. It was absolutely glacial. Ice crystals had formed on the metal door of C.B.’s lab, which had a printed sign on it saying DANGER—NO ADMITTANCE—EXPERIMENT IN PROGRESS and a handwritten one that said, KEEP OUT—THIS MEANS YOU. And when she looked through the door’s glass-and-wire mesh window into the lab, C.B. was wearing a pea coat, a wool muffler, and fingerless gloves. And cargo shorts and flip-flops. He was hunched over a lab table, doing something with a circuit board and a soldering iron.

  Briddey was glad Charla wasn’t here because he looked appalling even for him. He had a two-day stubble, and his hair was even messier than usual. Maeve would probably like him, Briddey thought.

  He looked like he’d spent all night here again. Which is good, she thought, knocking on the metal door. He won’t have overheard anyone talking about the EED on his way down here this morning. Though he wouldn’t necessarily have heard it even so, since he was wearing the earbuds Charla had mentioned.

  He didn’t look up. She knocked again, and when that didn’t have any effect, she opened the door, went in, walked over to where he was working, and waved both hands in front of him. “C.B.? Hello? Are you in there?”

  He looked up, saw her, and yanked the earbuds out. “What did you say?”

  “I’m sorry to bother you when you’re working,” she said, smiling. “But you said you wanted to talk to me?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “You’re not seriously thinking of getting an EED, are you?”

  “If everybody minded their own business,” the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”

  — LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland

  “Wh-what…how?” Briddey said, stammering in her surprise. “Who told you I was getting an EED?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” C.B. said, putting down the soldering iron. “It’s all over Commspan. And if you want my opinion, I think you’ve lost your mind. Don’t you already have enough information bombarding you, what with emails and texting and Twitter and Snapchat and Instagram? And now you’re going to have brain surgery so you can hear more?”

  “The EED’s not brain surgery. It’s a minor enhancement procedure—”

  “Where they drill a hole in your head so all your se
nse can leak out. Only you don’t need to have that done because it’s obvious yours already has! Do you have any idea how dangerous an IED is?”

  “EED,” she corrected him. “An IED is a kind of bomb.”

  “Yes, well, wait till it blows up in your face,” he said. “What if the scalpel slips and the doctor cuts the wrong nerve? You could end up paralyzed. Or a vegeta—”

  “It’s a completely safe procedure. Dr. Verrick’s performed hundreds of EEDs without anything bad happening.”

  “To him. He’s making a pile of money convincing couples they’ll be able to read each other’s minds. Just because some quack in an Armani suit and Italian loafers tells you he can—”

  “Dr. Verrick happens to be a well-respected surgeon with an international reputation in neurological enhancement. And you’re not able to read each other’s minds. The EED increases your ability to connect emotionally with your partner.”

  “Connect emotionally? What ever happened to kissing? What ever happened to hooking up?”

  “I am not going to discuss this with you,” Briddey said stiffly. “It’s none of your business.”

  “Yes, it is. You’re the only person I can talk to around here, and if you’re a vegetable—”

  “Shouldn’t you be working on your proposals for the new phone? The interdepartmental meeting’s in an hour—”

  “I am working on it.”

  “Oh, is that it?” she asked, pointing at the circuit board he’d been soldering.

  “Nope,” he said. “That’s the control panel for my space heater.” He pointed toward a large metal box with a bunch of wires hanging out of the back. “As you can see from the Antarctic atmosphere in here, it’s on the fritz again. I’ve been trying to fix it, but no luck. Speaking of which, do you need a jacket?” He went over to the couch, which had clothes and blankets heaped in the middle of it, and began rummaging through them.

  “No, I’m fine,” she said, though actually she was starting to shiver.

  She looked around at the lab. The walls were covered with pinned-up schematics and lists, assorted KEEP OUT signs, a movie poster for Scanners Live in Vain, and a pinup of some 1940s movie star. The lab tables were as cluttered as the walls, piled with laptops, hard drives, and disemboweled smartphones. A pink plastic radio with an old-fashioned tuning dial stood on an even more ancient television set, and the floor was a maze of snaking wires and power cords. She didn’t see any bodies, but then again, there was no telling what was in all those file cabinets.