You Had Me At Christmas: A Holiday Anthology(56)

Maybe that was the issue. He didn’t know what he was looking for other than something else to occupy his mind. Some intricate, interesting problem to solve. Something with a minor detail out of place where the solution would hit him over the head and a small edit in the code would make an audience of investors open their checkbooks.

A life of leisure had turned out to be really f*cking boring. And it had only been a week.

“And you were given the chance to stay on when we sold Terry, too. You refused.”

Marc took the next turn as Curtis was silent again. They’d been friends long enough for Marc to imagine what his friend was doing. Curtis was probably sitting at his desk—before they’d sold Terry, they’d both been at their desk 95 percent of their waking hours—rolling his eyes at the wall. Curtis always rolled his eyes when he thought he was right but the other person was still arguing.

“Satellite lost,” the GPS woman said in her tinny voice. For the past two hours, it was all she’d been able to say. Occasionally she’d say, “Satellite found,” but mostly lost.

“Come on, Betty.” He’d started calling her that yesterday, the second time he’d made a hairpin turn in the middle of nowhere in Idaho, centermost middle of nowhere state. He and Curtis had this joke that if you named technology, it would behave better. ’Cause it felt loved, ’cause you were furthering its ability to take over the world Matrix-style, ’cause it made swearing at it more satisfying. The two of them had had different ideas about why you had to name technology.

Marc named technology because he loved it. Curtis wanted to take over the world. They both liked swearing.

“Look,” he said to the screen as he pulled his brand-new Land Rover over to the side of the road. “I’m sorry it took me a day to give you a name. I get it. You’re still mad. But I’ve named you. I’ve apologized. Now just tell me where the f*ck I’m supposed to go.”

That request wasn’t a complete joke. When he’d started out this morning, he hadn’t put a destination into the GPS. His grand plan for the past week had been to drive around, pull over at every overlook and random historical site, and reconcile his whirring mind to his new situation as he drove from ski resort to ski resort. So far, all he’d done was solve Terry’s biggest hitch and call Curtis.

Once safely as far over to the side of the road as he dared, he reached for one of the phones sitting in the passenger seat. Veronica, his Verizon Samsung had no bars. He tossed it back, grabbing for Megan, his AT&T Motorola phone. He huffed. No bars. His favorite phone was failing him now, too. He set it on the seat next to the Samsung and snatched up the last phone, Holly, his Sprint HTC. She didn’t have bars, either. When he pitched Holly back to the seat, she bounced once, then slid off onto the floor.

By now, Curtis had to have realized that the call had been dropped. Marc sighed. Well, at least his friend would have extra time to consider that Marc had a solution to their problem and would come to his senses. Because Marc needed something to do in empty hotel rooms after driving around all day.

“I owe you another apology, Betty,” he said to the GPS. Having lost his call with Curtis, he only had the machines to talk to. “It’s not your fault we’re lost. Clearly an asteroid has hit Earth somewhere, wiping out all possible technology, leaving me to fend for myself in the wilderness.”

An opportunity, the f*cking voice in the back of his head said. Drive out of here, head south, and announce to Curtis and everyone on that huge company campus that you can write the code to save the planet.

He laid his head in his hands on the steering wheel and looked to the passenger seat. His three phones represented all the communication he had with the outside world anymore, short of the brief conversations with hotel desk clerks and fast-food cashiers. Which, he reminded himself, was what he had wanted. After the tight living of writing Terry and the stress of selling her, he had needed time to himself, to figure out who he was and what he wanted to do next. Disappearing into the woods was a time-honored path to discovery. It wasn’t as though he’d be bored forever. He had ski vacations booked through the rest of the winter. The restlessness would pass.

He shifted into reverse and turned the car around. He’d head down the mountain. There were towns at the base where he could take a break from driving. And when he landed back in civilization and checked his e-mail, he told himself, there would be something from Curtis saying he wanted Marc’s help.

Marc drove until Betty announced the glories of satellite reception. Then, before he could lose his connection to the modern world, he asked his favorite phone to give him directions to food. As backup, he asked Betty, too.

They directed him to the parking lot of an old-fashioned, run-down diner. His SUV crunched and bumped in the pothole-studded asphalt. The fissures in the earth must have been left over from previous winters, since it was only the beginning of December and winter hadn’t attacked northern Idaho with the full force of her power yet. His eyes skimmed the building as he made his way toward it. The E in the neon OPEN sign was out, and the N flickered. The door opened just fine, though, and it smelled like bacon and sausage inside, so he sat himself, as the sign instructed.

A waitress in her late twenties walked up to him with a menu in one hand and a globe of coffee in the other. Her bright, yellow-blond hair was bluntly cut at her chin and swung about her face as she walked. Her red lips were turned down, and when she got closer, he realized that she was younger than he’d first thought, early twenties probably.