Emergency Contact(61)

“Why would Esmerelda leave her husband?” Andy asked. “He’s rich. He’s in love with her. They’ve been in a relationship for decades. The sex, for what it’s worth, is okay.”

Penny tried to imagine sex between seventy-year-olds.

“What would the motivating factors be? She’s not in the market for it. Not explicitly anyway.”

“Well . . .” Penny thought about Vin, the younger guy. “Is he Esmerelda’s person? Does he say good morning to her in a way that’s reassuring? To where it feels as if he’s holding her hand for the entire rest of the day until he says good night? Would she be happy for him if his happiness meant that she couldn’t be with him?”

“Sure,” said Andy flippantly. “But Jackson’s loaded.” That was Esmerelda’s husband.

“You can be with the same person for a long time and have it be fine and meet someone else who instantly makes you see that it’s broken,” she said.

“Just like that?”

“Basically.”

“God, women are such fickle bitches.”

“It’s not women. It’s humans. It’s like a design flaw or something.”

“Right,” he said. “I guess that’s why your story’s as dismal as it is. Robots glamouring humans to kill their babies and put them in prison.”

“First of all, they got off,” she said. The parents had stood trial but not done considerable jail time. “And second, it’s only dismal from the family’s side of things. It’s actually quite triumphant from the machine’s point of view.”

Andy laughed. “The point of view you strongly identify with, I suspect.”

“Obviously.” Penny smiled.

Suddenly Penny knew why she wanted the Anima to win. The parents were real life. Their stories were fixed. Their mistakes were their own. The Anima’s future was unknown. And, unlike Penny, whose life-altering events had happened to her, the Anima shaped her destiny.

It is the fate of parents, of all creators, to want better for their children, their inventions. Penny wanted more for the Anima than she had had. Penny wanted to give the Anima a choice.

Penny wrote a quick note to herself on her phone, and Andy continued to talk.

The morning was beautiful. She thought about taking off running ahead of him in an explosive bout of enthusiasm, then changed her mind. She wasn’t a zany manic pixie dream girl or anything. She’d probably pass out from the exertion.

“You should let me take you out sometime,” Andy said. Penny stopped walking.

“What?” Penny was flabbergasted. “I thought you were dating Mariska or Misha or whatever her name was.” Andy was very forthright about his leggy exploits.

“I am,” he said, and then smiled. “Also who says ‘dating’? I’m hanging out with Mariska and I am not opposed to similarly hanging out with you.”

“What, like purchase for me a food unit in a romance-conducive setting?”

Andy scoffed. “Sure. Or watch with you a movie-unit in a comfortable area with flattering lighting conditions.”

Penny considered this. Andy was handsome, though his teeth were too uniform. He was funny, too. Whenever they talked, the back-and-forth crackled with something unspoken. They were birds presenting plumage and making guttural noise. If nothing else it seemed surreal that Andy could ask Penny out. Insane even.

“Can I think about it?” she asked.

“Nope,” he said, though he didn’t seem mad. “Here, let’s keep walking.”

They trudged in silence for a moment.

“Thing is, if you have to think about it, it means you’re not into it, and that’s difficult for someone like me to accept.” Andy gestured to his Adonis-approximating physique in his spaceman jogging outfit. “I can’t be into someone who isn’t into me.”

Penny smiled. “Fair,” she said, relieved he wasn’t upset. “It’s just that I’m hung up on someone.”

“Is that why when I asked you the definition of love you had thirty sappy platitudes at the ready and sounded as if you wanted to die?”

Penny nodded.

“That blows,” he said, and then, “God, I’ve been there.”





SAM.


“I thought only dilettantes drank iced coffee.”

Sam was reorganizing the tea drawer while sipping on a tumbler of iced mocha. The tea drawer was an overstuffed cubby under the coffee machines. Fin made a habit of ripping open a new box of tea instead of rooting around for the desired flavor, so there were countless half-used boxes and orphaned bags. Sam only ever reorganized it when he was in an especially foul temper.

Lorraine kept her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. She grabbed his glass and took a sip.

It had been thirteen days since their last encounter. Just shy of a fortnight since she’d air-kissed him as if she were some movie star, dropped the bomb about the ghost baby, and pranced back into the street without a care in the world.

“What do you want, Lorraine?” Sam hated how much of a sitting duck he was running the local coffee shop. Anyone could come see him whenever they wanted. A hit man could take him out with zero prep. In fact, if the shooter did it at the right time, he could wait until Sam was in a baking mood and snatch roadie desserts on his way out.