“Is everything all right?” he asked. “I’m sorry if I upset you. It seems to be an upsetting issue for some—”
“Richard asked me to marry him,” Cat said.
Cat could barely see Finn except for the silver of his eyes, reflecting the moonlight.
“I see.” He didn’t say anything more for a long time.
Then: “Congratulations.”
Tears welled up behind Cat’s eyes. She took a deep breath. It passed.
He is a program.
“I haven’t said yes yet.”
Another long pause. The music changed. Cat could barely hear it now.
“Why not?” said Finn. “Don’t you want to get married?”
“I don’t know.” Cat collapsed onto the wet grass. Her head no longer seemed attached to her body. “Would you marry me?”
The words left her mouth even though she didn’t mean them to. They hovered in the air between Cat and Finn, chiming like tree branches covered in ice. Cat slapped her hand over her mouth. She suddenly wanted to throw up. Rose-colored vomit.
“I believe you understand that’s not possible,” Finn said. “I can’t get married.”
“You don’t feel anything,” said Cat. “You’re a machine.” Finn didn’t say anything. He knelt down in the grass beside her. Cat was going numb. She was icing over. If Finn kissed her, if Finn touched her, she would shatter.
“I am a machine,” he said. Cat closed her eyes.
They rode back to Cat’s apartment in a taxicab. The lights of the city flashed over the windows and moved in long liquid lines across the contours of Finn’s body. Cat watched him out of the corner of her eye. He stared straight ahead.
There was an ache in her limbs, a twisting in her belly. When they came home she took off her cowboy boots and left them lying in the doorway. She combed her fingers through her hair, sticky with sweat and cigarette smoke. Finn regarded her silently from the corner of the room. She pulled the dress up over her shoulders—in the light of her apartment she saw the beer stain closely for the first time, a streak of darkness running down the front—and threw it across the living room floor. For a moment she stood, one hand on her thin cotton underwear, hair falling across her eyes, feet bare and sticking to the hardwood floors, and tried to breathe.
“Would you like me to stay with you?” asked Finn. She heard him take one step forward. Another. With all her strength she lifted her head. She twisted her torso around, looked at him over her shoulder.
You can’t have him.
The way the shadows had fallen across his face, he almost looked concerned.
No. You can have him and not have him, at the same time. She nodded.
* * * *
Two days later, Cat dug Richard’s wedding ring out of the kitchen drawer and carried it into the living room. She sat down on the edge of her couch. She flipped open the lid, stared down at the ring. The curtains were drawn and so it didn’t catch the light like before. She shut the box. Picked up her comm slate from the coffee table. She pulled up the messaging program and then shook her head. No. She should call him.
It only rang twice before he answered, his voice guarded when he said her name: “Caterina.” No Hello.
“Richard,” she said.
“I thought you’d blown me off.”
Cat looked down at the ring. “I did,” she said. “I guess. I had to . . . had to think about some things.” She paused. “I decided on yes, if it’s not too late.”
There was silence on the other end. Cat wasn’t sure he would accept her acceptance, so long after the proposal; she wasn’t sure she wanted him to. She felt hollow.
“Are you still there?” Cat said.
“Yeah, I am.” Richard laughed. “I’m just . . . I’m stunned, Caterina. I really thought I’d never hear from you again.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you wearing it?”
“What?”
“The ring. Are you wearing it right now?”
“Oh.” Cat glanced down at the box, the lid shut tight, the ring hidden away. “Of course.”
Richard laughed again. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “Why aren’t we together right now? Get over here. Or I’ll go over there. Are you at your apartment? Stay there. We need to celebrate.” Then she heard him shout, away from the comm slate’s speaker: “I’m fucking engaged! She finally said yes!”
Cat sighed, stared at the curtains flattening themselves against her living room window. Richard was saying something to her: the ring. He was asking how the ring looked. She didn’t have an answer. She flipped open the box, pulled out the ring, slipped it on her finger. It fit perfectly.
EIGHT
Cat knocked on Felix’s door, clutching a bottle of expensive wine by its neck. Trickling through from the other side of the door was the faint murmur of voices, the occasional starburst of laughter, the hum of music. She rubbed at the place on her finger where Richard’s ring should be—currently, it resided in the bottom of her purse—and felt an immeasurable gulf between herself out in the hallway and her friends in the apartment.
The door swung open. Felix, his hair fashionably mussed, had one arm slung around Miguel’s shoulder.
“Miguel,” said Cat, surprised to see him.
He grinned at her. “Nice dress.”
“You look like my fucking mom,” said Felix.
Cat glanced down: she was still wearing the dyed linen sheath dress from the engagement party at Richard’s condo. Another dress she hadn’t bought for herself.
“I have a bottle of Château Margaux,” she said. “You want it or not?”
“Oh shit, are you serious?” Felix straightened and dropped his arm to his side. “Where the hell did you get that?”
For a moment Cat’s heart thumped inside her chest. My engagement party. But she only shrugged, lifted the bottle up in the air, and glided into Felix’s apartment. The same worn-out beige carpet as always, the same ugly floral-patterned thrift store couch. He’d switched out the pottery lining the bookshelves, though.
“So what brings you around on this lovely Friday night?” Felix walked over to the dry bar, pulled out a trio of wineglasses.
“The better question,” said Cat, “is what brings Miguel?”
Miguel slouched on the couch, kicked his feet up on the coffee table. “We’re an item.” He rolled his eyes. Over in the corner, Felix laughed.
“Seriously?”
“Since the rent party.” Miguel took a wineglass from Felix. “We made enough to pay for two months, by the way. So fucking grateful.”
Cat smiled. Felix plucked the wine bottle out of her hand and tucked it under his arm. “I want to go out on the balcony.” He walked across the room and slid open the glass door. Miguel shrugged at Cat. They both stood up, followed Felix outside. The air was warm and dry from the early summer sun. Cat sank down on a sagging patio chair. Felix opened the wine.
“I’m assuming,” said Felix, as he filled up each of their glasses, “that you got this from the reg.”
“The one and only.” Cat swirled the wine, so dark it looked like ink.
“What’s the occasion?” Miguel asked.
For a long time Cat only stared down at the surface of her wine. When she glanced back up, Felix and Miguel both watched her.
“Sweetie,” said Miguel, “is everything okay?”
“I’m engaged,” said Cat.
Neither Felix nor Miguel spoke. They didn’t move. A wind picked up, blowing heat and car exhaust across the balcony.
“Shut the fuck up,” said Felix.
“Where’s your ring?” said Miguel.
Cat sighed and slumped back in her chair. “In my purse.” She flicked her head toward the balcony door. “If you want to see it, you can go get it.” She sipped from her glass. The Margaux tasted like wine, maybe a little better than the cheap sort they served at parties in college. The alcohol burned the back of her throat.
Felix set his glass on the balcony cement
and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. He slid out two, lit both of them, handed one to Cat. She accepted without question.
“Congratulations,” said Miguel.
“Thanks.”
Silence settled around them, heavy as heat. Felix and Miguel sat down on the cement, their backs pressing against the metal grating.
Cat finished her wine and poured another. So did Felix; so did Miguel. They drank until the bottle was nearly empty.
“Okay,” said Felix as he finished his glass. “So Cat is getting married.” He lit another cigarette, and smoke curled like a halo around the crown of his head.
“Are you going to move out to the suburbs?” Miguel asked. He and Felix looked at each other and laughed.
“So are you going to have the three and a half kids they tell us to have?” Felix said. He dragged contemplatively on his cigarette. “Would you rather have the bottom half or the top half?”
Cat allowed herself a smile before draining the last of the wine in her glass. “I have no idea. The top, I guess.”
“My question was serious,” said Miguel. “You don’t seem like the suburban type.”
“Well, she does in that dress,” said Felix.
Cat ignored him. She wanted another cigarette. She stretched her legs out in front of her, remembering the engagement party—Richard’s condo made balmy and hot from the crush of too many bodies, sweat pooling at the base of her spine as he stood her up in front of all his friends and employees for a toast. This will be a dry run for our wedding, he’d told her as they laid out the catered hors d’oeuvres before everyone arrived.
“So what I want to know,” Miguel said suddenly, “is how your android friend is taking this. Finn.”
“Android?” Felix perked up. “Did I miss something?”
“You’re not supposed to know about him,” Cat said. “You might sell him off to the government for a billion dollars.”
Felix gasped. “Don’t even,” he said. “Do I look like your fiancé?”
They all laughed, although Cat’s laughter sounded like an engine failing in the middle of a freeway. She looked down at her hands.
“He wouldn’t do that,” she said. “He . . . likes robots. He treats them like people.”
Miguel frowned. “Doesn’t have a problem selling them off, though.”
Cat didn’t answer. Felix looked between Cat and Miguel. “Seriously,” he said. “How come I didn’t know about this?”
“Because I didn’t tell you,” said Cat.
“He was at my rent party,” said Miguel. “She danced with him for like four hours.”
“Wait, that was an android?” Felix lit another cigarette. “Okay, that is not what the androids at your meetings look like.” He paused. “It looked . . . human. You know. Real. Not creepy.”
“He looked human,” said Miguel gently, placing one hand on Felix’s wrist. Cat felt uncomfortably warm. Too much wine, she thought. The heat from the cigarettes.
She knew that wasn’t it.
“Anyway,” said Miguel. “You never answered my question.”
“What question?”
“How’s he taking it?”
“What are you talking about?” She smiled like she was made of plastic, her blood rushing through her ears.
“You know. You getting married and all.”
“He doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel anything.”
“That,” said Miguel, “is bullshit.”
Cat fumbled for another cigarette.
“I can tell these things,” he said.
“Yeah, you know so much about robotics,” said Felix.
“Hey, we’re discussing human consciousness here. You go sit in the corner with your pottery. Let the big kids talk.” Felix dove toward Miguel with a lit cigarette, pretending to burn him. Miguel laughed and shoved him away. Cat walked up to the railing. When she picked up Felix’s cigarette pack, her hands shook. She looked out over the city. The freeway stretching off into the distance was a river of light. She smoked her cigarette down to the filter and then flicked it out into the darkness. Her heart raced and raced.
Miguel and Felix shrieked behind her, their voices rising and falling and then silencing completely. When she glanced over her shoulder, Felix nuzzled Miguel’s shoulder. They didn’t notice her.
She picked up her dirty wineglass and let herself back inside, where the air-conditioning swallowed up the heat and the bright lights swallowed up the darkness. She could not stop shaking.
* * * *
Just after the summer storms started up Cat drove Richard down to her father’s house. It was the first time she had seen her father (or Finn) since she’d accepted Richard’s proposal, and the drive seemed to take longer than usual. At one point Cat reached over to switch on her music but Richard asked her to turn it off.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I really need to concentrate.” The light from his comm slate reflected two white pinpricks in the center of his pupils. He tapped the screen, glanced up at her, and smiled.
“What are you doing? Are you talking to Ella?”
“We’ve got this huge deployment two weeks from Tuesday. Huge. World changing.”
He talked about all his business ventures that way—world changing. Cat didn’t say anything. They drove in silence for a few minutes longer, the sound of the tires spinning against the asphalt pulling Cat into a fugue state. Then: “Don’t you want to know what we’re deploying?”
“What?”
“You never ask about what I do.”
“I thought you were bus—”
“It’s a fully automated housekeeping system.”
“They already have those.”
“Not like this. It’s a house. A sentient house, sort of. We think we’ve found the sweet spot between sentience and autonomy—so you can have the benefits of sentience without worrying about exploiting a robot or whatever.”
Cat stared at the road disappearing to a point in front of her. Richard tapped against his screen.
A few hours later the car pulled into the gravel-lined driveway of her childhood home. It had been too long since she’d come back. Everything was unfamiliar. An arabesque pattern she swore she had never seen before twisted around the porch railing. They climbed out of the car. Cat smelled the rainstorms on the horizon and she was jolted with the shock of nostalgia, thrown back to the time right before she started high school, slipping across the muddy banks of the river, her hands pressed against the damp cypress trees for balance—
“Kitty-Cat! You made it!”
A trio of bangs from the front porch: the screen door slapping against the frame. Cat’s father leaned over the railing and waved. The sunlight slanting through the trees made him glow like an X-ray. He looked different. Thinner.
Cat waved back, and when she dropped her hand to her side, Richard took it up in his own. Cat shifted her weight from one foot to the other, suddenly uncomfortable.
“So I hear you proposed.” Cat’s father strolled across the yard, his hands tucked into his pockets. His clothes hung loose on him. He squinted up at Richard, flicked his eyes over to Cat. Back to Richard. “Never thought anybody’d be able to convince my little girl to take the plunge.”
Richard beamed, threw his arm around Cat’s shoulder. “Definitely looking forward to our merger here.” Richard laughed.
Cat looked down at her feet. The grass was still crackly and golden from the recent drought, although a tinge of green grew up from the roots. The storms.
“Well, I managed to whip up something to eat—and by whipped up I mean bought. You like fried chicken?”
Richard nodded, though Cat knew he didn’t eat fried foods.
Her father turned and trudged back to the house. “Jesus,” said Richard. “He’s looking pretty rough.”
“He’s fine.”
“Sure hope so. I’d hate to think he’d miss the wedding. Plus I wanted to hear his thoughts on our deployment.” A strong damp wind pushed through the trees in the
woods, picking up the dried-out leaves. The sky was gunmetal gray and hung lower than normal, like the oppressive ceiling of an old office.
“Please,” said Cat. “Let’s not talk about work.”
* * * *
The storm rumbled in while they all sat down at the dusty table in the dining room, a box of fried chicken from the run-down restaurant in town propped open like a centerpiece, buttery yellow biscuits piled up beside it.
“Sorry I didn’t cook.” Cat’s father pried the cap off a beer. “But, you know. Never learned.”
“You look like you haven’t been eating at all,” said Cat.
“This is fine.” Richard picked up a piece of fried chicken, dabbed the grease off with one of the flimsy napkins. “Looks great.”
At the other end of the table, next to Cat’s father, Finn sat with his hands folded in his lap.
“So, Dr. Novak.” Richard peeled the battered skin off his chicken and draped it over the edge of his plate. “You working on anything exciting? SynLodge has got something really spectacular lined up.” He grinned. “It’s a secret.”
Cat sighed.
“What?” said Richard. “I was just asking.”
Cat’s father took a swig of beer. “I’m doing work on the lunar station.”
Richard’s eyes widened. “The lunar station!” His mouth opened and closed like a fish. “The one STL is funding?”
Cat’s father nodded.
“Ho-lee shit.” Richard crossed his arms and looked at Cat’s father in the casually appraising way he used when sizing up potential rivals. “Robotics, I’m assuming?”
Cat’s father set down his piece of chicken and wiped his hands on his napkin. “No,” he said. “I don’t do work with robotics anymore.”
Cat went numb.
“May I ask why not?” Richard glanced at Finn. Only for a second.
“Politics,” said Cat’s father.
Silence. Richard nodded. Cat’s father picked up a biscuit. “I’m just working as a contractor,” he said. “Developing a circuit for the shuttle—just a tiny thing, an offshoot of what we made for the Mars landing.”