The Many Daughters of Afong Moy(115)
So much more to do.
The word that escaped her lips was “Grateful.”
* * *
A week later Annabel found her window seat on the New Empire Builder, the flagship bullet train from Seattle to Chicago. She placed her phone in the slot on the side of her headrest so that when the conductor strolled by in his retro vintage uniform and cap, his counter would show that she had paid for an eTicket.
As the doors closed and the train safety video began to play in English, then Mandarin, Annabel pressed the button to recline her seat, but nothing happened. Her footrest was inoperative as well.
“Those things never work properly, do they?”
Annabel turned to see an elderly Chinese woman hefting a large carry-on bag into the overhead luggage compartment. The short, frail woman struggled to get it above her shoulders, let alone fit it into the small space that was nearly full.
Annabel stood up. “Please, let me help you with that.”
The woman smiled as Annabel hefted the bag, rocking it until it squeezed in, then she closed the compartment door with a gentle click and a sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “Just took a little teamwork, that’s all.”
Annabel went back to her seat as the elderly woman sat down across from her.
“Where are you off to?” the woman asked.
“I’m headed to a place north of Chicago—an artists’ residency. It’s a place for writers, visual artists, musicians, composers, dancers, filmmakers—basically a herd of unicorns. I’ve been applying for years and finally got in,” Annabel explained, fully prepared to be regarded as a life-waster, someone who majored in the arts while engineering, medicine, biochem were the more respected class of jobs.
The woman beamed. “That’s so exciting. What kind of art do you do?”
Annabel hesitated and felt the train begin to move.
“I’m a poet.”
“Good for you,” the woman said pleasantly, much to Annabel’s surprise. “You are giving the world something it truly needs. Look around.” She waved her hand to the other passengers—business travelers, families, college students. Everyone on their phones or tablets or asleep from medication that would make them drift off for the duration of the journey, designed to wear off just as they arrived at their destination. “I think people have forgotten how to be human. Do you know what I mean?”
Annabel found herself nodding in agreement. “I do.”
The woman looked at her with a sparkle of wonder in her eyes. “What kind of poetry do you write? I mean—what do you like to write about?”
Annabel thought for a moment. “I write about my family, mostly. Their stories.” Annabel touched her temple and then her heart. “They’re all in here.”
“That sounds lovely,” the woman said with a sniffle. “Do you know what? I have a favorite line from a poem, would you like to hear it?”
Annabel leaned forward, wide-eyed. “Yes. Of course. Please.”
“Strangers are the people we forgot we needed in this life,” the woman said reverently. “That line has stuck with me for years; I’ve never forgotten it.”
“I love that.”
“Oh, good,” the woman said. “I wish I could remember who wrote it.”
Annabel gazed out the window as the sun was setting, a cotton-candy swirl of orange and pink and red. The trees an evergreen blur. She turned back to the old woman, smiling. “I know who the author was.”
“You do?”
“I do,” Annabel said proudly. “It was my mother.”
* * *
Annabel sat in the back of the driverless car that took her from Chicago’s Union Station to the country estate in Lake Forest that would be her home for the next two months. She thought about the woman on the train. After they shared a meal together she’d asked, “Have you found your special someone?”
Annabel explained that unlike most of those in her generation, she didn’t carry a genetic locator. After Dr. Shedhorn released her work, dozens of other companies sprang up, finding creative ways to monetize what she started. One particularly audacious corporation created an app that combined the aggregate data from the genetic screening of millions of people, along with a geolocator that would ping a user’s phone when they were near someone whom their algorithms deemed they were compatible with. The idea was that if everyone carried the app, they would be able to appraise others who were, biologically and psychologically, a good match. Annabel, though, resisted the idea, preferring to do things the old-fashioned way. Though now that she was in her forties, she was often questioning that decision.
There is a price for being old-fashioned, she thought as she arrived at the estate and quickly discovered that there was no elevator to her third-floor room. Normally, she enjoyed stairs—saw them as a noble adversary—but she was already road weary and in need of a shower. Here we go, she told herself as she ambled up the three flights, carrying her copious luggage, hoping to avoid meeting other residents until she had time to freshen up a bit. Unfortunately, as she turned down the hall to her room she spotted a handsome man with brown skin coming from the opposite direction. As she walked toward her room, he seemed to get more attractive with each step, with long dark hair and a bright, energetic smile. She suspected he was having the opposite experience, watching this bumbling, disheveled stranger shed what loveliness she had as they got closer.