Video cameras at traffic intersections and retail outlets and airports.
Tiny little chips that monitor the world.
Waiting for someone to connect the dots.
8
“You want to get out of here?” Kelly asks when they are sitting at the table again. For the moment they are alone, the others having left to tap out an impromptu “Cotton-Eye Joe” over by the pool tables. He sits facing her, and little sparks of energy shoot through his body every time their knees touch. Collision events being recorded by his internal detector: 100 percent.
“Sure,” Mike answers. “But where to? Olney may be a science boomtown, but there still isn’t much to do here.”
“What about your place?”
“My place?”
“Why not? I’m sure we can find something to do there.”
“All right, then,” he says, and extends his hand to her. “Let’s get out of here.”
They make their way through the crowd, bouncing between a rogue dancer here, a drunken smoker there, weaving through the entire field of triumphant scientists and technicians toward the door. And then outside he pulls Kelly close so that he can walk with his arm around her.
“Did you just abandon your bill?”
“My credit card is behind the bar,” Mike says. “I’ll get it from Eva tomorrow.”
“The cute bartender,” Kelly observes. “You know her pretty well, then.”
“She’s a friend.”
“Is that what you call them out here in the sticks? Friends?”
“I haven’t slept with her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
His car is only a few rows deep in the lot, and Mike’s heart thunders as they approach it. He admires his own situation, which is that he is about to enter his car and drive home with this intelligent, beautiful creature occupying the passenger seat. He finds it amazing, his familiarity with the mellifluous surface of her lips, with the marbled texture of her tongue. And her wicked smile as he opens the door for her. His quickening breath as he finds his way to the driver’s side, the crush of her mouth against his as they kiss again in the car.
“Why haven’t you slept with her?” Kelly asks, the humidity of her breath condensing against his cheeks. “I saw the way she looked at you in the bar.”
“I—”
Her lips against his again, the saline flavor of her mouth. “She’s very beautiful, after all.”
“She—”
“Or have you been waiting for me?”
“I knew you’d come,” he says.
“Oh, really?” she asks playfully. “Pretty confident, were you?”
Mike leans away from her. Searches her eyes. “This is so trite, I can’t believe I’m even going to say it. But I’ve never met anyone like you. When I broke up with Carrie, I was in no hurry to start another relationship. I was still in love with her. I sort of still am. But when I talk to you, I forget all about that.”
Kelly covers his hand with hers. “That’s very flattering. Thank you.”
Mike leans forward and kisses her again, more gently this time. More leisurely.
Later, when he’s starting the car, she says, “How far away do you live?”
“About five minutes.”
“Can you bring me back here later, then?”
“Sure.”
“Good. And I need to call my photographer. We’re staying at the Holiday Inn over on Main. Would you have time to do an interview tomorrow morning?”
“That sounds perfect.”
“Good.” She leans forward and tastes him again. “You’re a good kisser, you know.”
“So are you.”
Kelly smiles and keys a number into her cell phone. Mike drives toward his house, stealing brief glances at her striking profile, admiring her musical and yet decisive enunciation.
During the conversation with her on the plane, Mike never bothered to really picture her as a member of the news media. So overwhelmed was he by Kelly’s delightful curiosity, so pleased by her intelligence, that it barely registered how perfectly suited her gifts were to anchoring an evening newscast. But now he sees and hears it clearly, how her sweet, pleasant voice is reinforced with gravity, combining feminine appeal with journalistic respect, and he can imagine hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of Dallas-area residents tuning in night after night to see their local news delivered by this stunning and magnetic woman. He hears the water-cooler conversations of attorneys, of car salesmen, of customer service representatives. Did you see that chick on Channel Eight last night? Dude, she has the most fantastic fill-in-the-blank. Hair. Eyes. Lips. Clothes. Makeup. Hands. Whatever. He guesses that she is recognized wherever she goes in Dallas. He pictures an e-mail in-box filled with scores of messages from mesmerized viewers. And this local celebrity, it isn’t the strident, paparazzi fame of Julia Roberts or Jennifer Lopez. It isn’t the distant admiration of millions upon millions of fans who will never lay eyes on the object of their fascination. No, the intimacy of this woman appearing in living rooms across the Metroplex likely breeds an apparent (but counterfeit) familiarity with the viewing public that her station most assuredly wields to hammer the other network affiliates into Nielsen ratings submission. A familiarity that generates not only millions of dollars in advertising revenue but also the occasional wayward fan who mistakes her on-camera charm for personal attention. And perhaps this is another reason why she turned down his request for her phone number after the flight—a mistrust of strangers born out of unnerving encounters with overzealous viewers.
But while Mike couldn’t care less about Kelly’s fame, some part of him is pleased that he currently occupies a position hundreds of thousands of male admirers in Dallas could only hope to achieve: That she is sitting in the passenger seat of his car, arranging with her photographer the particulars of an interview with
him,
with Mike McNair, and all this is occurring as he drives through nighttime Olney toward the hard-to-imagine destination of his very own house.
9
Larry’s hands grow increasingly less reliable as he works to install the electronic equipment.
He’s having a ridiculous time getting the fucking miniature video recorder to capture the signal from the fucking camera.
He keeps imagining the moment when he first plays the tape, the first glimpse of Kelly Smith’s naked starlet body.
But it’s affecting his work, this anticipation, and the more excited he gets the more unlikely it becomes that the recorder will capture any footage. If Mike and Kelly even come back here at all.
Yeah, right. Their romantic encounter tonight is a foregone conclusion. And it’s not lost on him, this full orbit of fate. The three of them have been headed for this conclusion for years.
Because you’d have to be an idiot not to recognize the regal character of Mike’s life. You’d have to be fucking crazy to question his ascension to superstardom, to the gilded stratum of truly fortunate men who have everything, on whose life the sun always shines while, godlike, they trample the balance of humanity. Who can possibly be blind to the way Mike steps upon normal men, men who crane their necks upward to regard him with scorn and envy, men who can’t seem to get the fucking video recorder set up because they have to stop to unbutton their pants and grab themselves, so jittery with anticipation are they at the possibility of seeing naked their object of fascination, and so quickly do they bring themselves to orgasm that the ecstasy is fleeting and must be coaxed back for another round?
And a sound not unlike that of a key being fit into a lock.
And the creak of hinges as a door swings open somewhere to Larry’s southwest.
And no time now to further tune the recorder, evasive action must be taken at once, and footsteps on the hardwood floor, a flotilla of shoes tapping and shuffling down the hallway, unintelligible human voices between sounds of moisture, of the soft and wet surfaces of individual organisms in constant and luxurious contact, Larry scrambling from his place beneath this desk, moving stealthily across the carpeted floor of the study and into a nearby closet, pulling the door almost shut, almost shut but leaving a crack just wide enough through which to watch the hallway. And there go the two lovers, past the study, their echoing footsteps becoming silent as they enter the carpeted room adjacent to this one, the master bedroom, where he hears the faintest sound of a mattress succumbing beneath the weight of two individual organisms glued together as one. And when sufficient time has somehow passed, when it becomes obvious that the two organisms are hopelessly locked together and not likely to soon disengage, Larry pushes open the closet door, which squeaks but surely not loud enough to be heard by the preoccupied lovers, and he steps across the room and crawls again under the desk. The work goes quickly now, and with his four-inch monitor he is able to finally tune the recorder, the image from the adjacent room now appearing in bright, lucid color, granting Larry visual access to their coupling. Kelly Smith’s golden hair is draped over Mike’s lower torso, her head moving gently up and down and then up again, and because no speakers are mounted to this monitor he is forced to endure the barely audible sounds drifting out of the master bedroom and into the study. But it’s enough somehow, the faint tremors in the atmosphere that persuade the tiny bones in his inner ear to vibrate and transmit electrochemical impulses to his brain, somehow it’s all enough, the crystal-clear digital video and distant analog audio, to bring Larry to orgasm again, his envy shooting upward like a geyser, sticking to the underside of the desk.
At this point, a moment of clarity stabs him: He is crouching in his boss’s study, his
friend’s
study, his friend, Mike McNair, who really has never done any intentional thing to hurt Larry, despite all the flawed memories to the contrary, and he realizes that he can leave now, can take his recorder and monitor and sneak out of the house and forget that any of this ever happened. He will have to direct his attention to another unsuspecting celebrity, or perhaps drop altogether the idea that he will ever lure a member of the high-profile, jet-set sorority of fame into his home, into his bed. And is such a future really so terrible? Isn’t it likely that he will someday meet a nice girl who will treat him well? Does it matter if she’s merely plain looking as long as she treats him with respect and loves him in spite of his flaws? Would it really be such an awful thing to let go of Jillian and Carrie and graduate to true adulthood, where real relationships are much more than hair and makeup and short skirts—
Except on the monitor now Kelly has climbed on top of Mike. She is sitting on him, grinding in a way that brings Larry immediately to attention again, the muscles in her ass almost seeming to grasp Mike like a hand, calling forth a groan from somewhere deep in his throat, there is nothing faint about
that
sound. And Larry takes himself in his hand again, knowing that he can never let go, that he has gone too far to turn back now.
A little while later he leaves them alone.
Alone except for the camera and recorder.
10
Mike and Kelly are standing in the kitchen. It’s late now, maybe two in the morning, and they’re taking turns eating chocolate ice cream out of the container. She feels wonderful. She feels guilty. And not just because of James.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“Sorry? About what?”
“I misled you about my beliefs on the plane. And in my first e-mail. I challenged you about science and Genesis when I don’t really believe it anymore either.”
“I thought I’d blown it,” Mike answers. “Twice. First on the plane and then by recommending that book to you.”
“The reason I. . . . Look, I wasn’t always Unitarian. It’s really difficult when something you believe for so long, when it stops making sense. You don’t know where to turn. You have no idea what sort of foundation your life is based on, because until then it’s been like someone else was looking out for you. You know? Someone was in charge, and you knew who He was, and if you follow His set of guidelines, everything will be all right. You won’t be alone.”
“What happened?” Mike asks her. “What changed your mind?”
“It was the intolerance. Every denomination is different, I guess. Even from one local church to the next. But more and more our congregation was speaking out on social issues like abortion and homosexuality and what have you. Our preachers said all the right things about God loving everyone but then didn’t back that up with their actions or political preferences. And I would think, ‘I’m here to celebrate God and love, not condemn people different from me.’ So I just stopped going. And then this girl I met in Dallas invited me to her Unitarian church one day, and it was wonderful. They loved
all
their neighbors. They didn’t try to use their beliefs to influence politics, except to express their support for the separation of church and state.”
Mike says, “I’m glad you found that. I can tell it means a lot to you.”
“It’s still hard sometimes,” Kelly admits. “I challenged you because I wanted to hear the opinion of someone who had good reason not to believe, because I’ve already listened to enough harassment from my mom. I love her to death, but when I left our church she acted like I’d just gone off and murdered Jesus.”
Mike leans forward, kneads her neck and shoulders. She leans into him.
“But see, I still believe. I believe in
some
thing. I know it’s probably just an evolutionary thing, some need to belong. But even though I can see the Bible now as just a book, I still feel like there’s more to this world than I can reach out and touch. It’s why I was so interested in your ‘collective reality’ idea. I’m not so cynical anymore about spending all that money to understand the quarks and stuff. Because I sort of made fun of it on the plane, if you remember.”
“I remember,” Mike says. “You were pretty hard on the photons.”
“But now I think it would be cool if you could understand the universe well enough to find . . . I don’t know . . . something else.”
“I think it would be, too.”
Kelly turns around, takes Mike into her arms. His body is warm and comfortable and foreign to her. “Is that why you became interested in physics? Because you were looking for meaning?”