The Word Exchange (20 page)

And there were things I felt I needed the Meme for, things that nothing else could do. I.e., when I got home later that night, I used it and the Exchange to translate the strange, faded instructions on the pill bottles Doug had given me—in Chinese, traditional characters—and learned that the pills were antivirals, to be taken three times a day “for abatement of symptoms”—if not symptoms of what. I’d been guessing and taking them only morning and night.

While my Meme had been switched off, I’d received a slew of texts and beams. Several were from Coco. One wondered why I’d never turned up in the studio Sunday; she’d sent a few invitations to things; and her last one, which made my throat tighten a little, said, “Are you all right,
mignonne
? I’m very worried. I love you.” The beam from Ramona, who was the only friend I’d managed to speak to since the week before, said, “U alive? What about yr dad?” There was also a text from the doctor, who said she had something free in two months. (I’d noticed that as
the Meme put more and more doctors out of business, mine had become almost impossible to see.) And there was one from Bart, which gave me a boost; I opened it hoping he might have some news. But it was old, too, from the morning before, when I’d been late to meet him at the precinct because I’d still been down at the cell-phone store. (It asked if he’d gotten our rendezvous time wrong.) I beamed a Françoise Hardy song to Coco with the note, “Je t’aime aussi, I’ll call you soon,” and let the others go right then.

The final one was from my mom, returning my weekend call and wanting to know if I had dinner plans. Unfortunately, the invitation was to join both her and Laird.

I’d loved Laird when I was a little girl. He was an expert at coin tricks, he always brought toffees, and every time I did something even a tiny bit clever, he’d say (usually to no one but me), “See? I told you she’s more than just a pretty face.” He let me swing from his biceps and told me secrets (Vera had once dated a duke; Doug had a covert fear of heights). But by the time I was thirteen the scales had dropped from my eyes. Nearly everything about Laird seemed staged: bearing of a robber baron, voice from forties films. He was the type who exfoliated and got his cuticles trimmed. Even his name was fake: he’d been born Larry Shifflett. He didn’t turn into Laird Sharpe until the late seventies, when he first appeared on Boston’s WNAC-TV. Over the years his appearance had also changed: his nose had become so thin it didn’t look like it could support wire-rims, and he dyed his hair an artful silver-gray. He was, in other words, the anti-Doug. Maybe that was what had drawn Vera in.

That, and she liked the way he looked at her. Some might call it watchful—a good reporter’s steady, bready gaze, sopping up all the messy signals ordinary mortals might miss. It gave me the creeps. But I knew that in the past few years Vera had started to feel transparent, which was partly Doug’s fault. That was another thing, though: I didn’t like the way Laird plied my mother with attention. How he’d swooped so quickly in. Maybe, I speculated, before she and Doug had even split.

I knew I wasn’t really being fair—that my prejudices were puerile, held over from younger years and then further warped by sadness for Doug. Laird was very thoughtful of my mom, making the rounds of all the Botanic Garden special exhibits that had bored Doug to tears, buying her the kind of simple silver jewelry she liked, and rare textiles, and endless potted plants, readily agreeing to attend galas and other parties,
donating to all her causes (without sarcasm), taking her skiing, sailing, hiking—and then, when she had a fall, nursing her for weeks through the sprain: cooking; keeping her entertained. Heartbroken as it made me to admit, Vera seemed more joyful and relaxed with him than I’d seen her in a very long time. And that was worth a lot.

But it didn’t mean I suddenly started loving Laird again, or wanted him as family.

Nonetheless, I was willing to brave his company that night if it meant I could talk to my mom. She was extremely—sometimes painfully—rational; I knew she’d be able to calm me down. Impose a narrative on what seemed to me like terrifying chaos. Whenever I’d had an odd rash as a child, or taken a bad fall, had a fight with a friend, or a less than stellar school report, she’d always been the one to soothe both me and Doug. If I was ever in trouble, especially if I was sick, he’d get nervous and wan himself, start pacing, and quaff seltzer in vast amounts. Vera always kept a very level head.

But the real reason I’d decided to cross the island was this: I missed her. I wanted to put my arms around my tiny mom. So I got in a driverless cab and returned her call, my Meme dinging just before she picked up with a warning that my bank balance was low. I realized I’d have to stop taking taxis if I didn’t want to go begging to her or my grandparents. Things had gotten much tighter since I’d started paying rent myself.

“Oh, darling,” she said, arching her shapely brows into her Meme’s camera. “I didn’t mean tonight. We have dinner with the Perelmans. I meant tomorrow, for Thanksgiving.” I’d forgotten that I’d dropped her a hint about Max’s mother being “sick,” our normal holiday routine changed “last-minute.” And without warning my eyes began to sting. This one last little disappointment was just a bit too much, after everything else. I’d really wanted to see her.

I thumbed over my own camera. Let myself shed a few silent tears into my sweater sleeve, mostly for Doug and what had become five days of silence—his departure so strange, so confounding, the timing so wrong, it could be explained only by something I couldn’t say aloud. But the sadness didn’t stay contained, and a few tears fell because I was sick and I was alone and afraid. Because of what I’d seen in the Creatorium, and the empty space left in its wake. And now the canceled launch and the deal with Synchronic.

That was the last time I’d cry for quite a while, and it didn’t go on very
long. After I’d been dark and quiet on the line for a minute or two, my mother’s voice chirruped from my lap. “Anana? Is something wrong?”

Gathering myself, dabbing my eyes, I uncovered the lens. “Sorry,” I said, with as much composure as I could. “Just dropped you on the floor.” But I knew she’d use her secret mother sense to intuit my distress, so I added, shrugging, “And I forgot it was Thanksgiving. Which is kind of weird.” That, of course, was true as well.
⁵

My mother peered at me suspiciously, and in that moment I assumed it was because she was trying to guess what was really wrong. I thought I could almost hear her thoughts:
Is she upset because it’s only the second Thanksgiving that Doug and I have been apart?
It’s not about you, I almost wanted to say. Although of course it was, in part. “That sounds unsettling,” she offered carefully.

By then my cab was approaching Fifth Avenue, not far from what I still thought of, after more than a year, as my mother’s “new apartment,” and the Meme turned itself to mute so I could redirect the car back across town.

“So?” Vera said after a moment. I saw Laird’s manicured hand pass her a sweating glass of yellow wine. When his fingers grazed her arm, I flinched a little.

“So, what?” I asked. Vera didn’t answer. Took a sip of wine. Murmured to Laird. Laughed lightly. “Mom?” I said, annoyed. Then realized she couldn’t hear me. I turned mute off on my Meme. Said, “Sure, dinner tomorrow sounds nice.”

“What was that?” she said, her face hardening a little. I checked the mute again, but it was off. That was when I realized, with a tumbledrock feeling in my gut, that she might not have understood me. “Yes, tomorrow,” I repeated, trying to smile.

“Good,” she said, smiling back. “Come at six.” Offscreen I heard Laird say, “Tell her five.” He murmured something else, and she added, “Tell Max he doesn’t need a jacket.”

My eyes pricked again for just a second, but I nodded brightly. As the cab dodged two slow, down-coated tourists crossing the Sixty-sixth
Street transverse, I could see her steeling to hang up. I debated for a moment. Then said, “Mom? Can we talk about one more thing?”

There was a pause. The shadow of a crease darkened her brow. “What is it, Anana?”

“It’s about Dad.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Took a few steps toward the fridge. “What about him?” she said, her voice hushed and a little strained. “I’m worried.

I think something might have happened to him,” I said.

At least that’s what I meant to say. But Vera looked perplexed. “You’re what?”

“I said I’m worried about Doug,” I repeated, frustrated, scared, wishing we could talk in private, without Laird hovering so close to her.

“Anana, are you all right?” my mother said, frowning. “You’re not making sense.”

I nodded. Tried to say, “I feel fine.”

But I didn’t. And I wasn’t just upset, I was hot and headachy. Queasy. I hoped it was carsickness or something psychosomatic, not my symptoms coming back. The Meme slowed the taxi as it took a curve. I wondered if I should have the car take me to a walk-in clinic. But what would they say? The Meme, like the coil device, hadn’t been able to diagnose me; I wasn’t sure a clinician could. And I didn’t have the money.

I inhaled and exhaled. “I said I’m
worried
,” I tried again. “About Dad.”

“Oh,
worried
,” she said, taking another sip of wine. “Well, that’s not surprising.”

That made my hair stand on end. “Wait,” I said, chilled. “What do you mean?”

But my mother just sighed. “He can have that effect on people,” she explained. “Is it something specific?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?” Her eyebrows lifted.

I nodded, feeling sick. “I guess you haven’t heard from him?” I tried. I had to repeat myself.

She confessed it had been a while—since before her trip. “Though … the last time he did seem a little agitated,” she acknowledged. “I assumed it was because of the launch.”

Agitated: so I hadn’t imagined it. I thought back to the night he’d
named me Alice in the train. It seemed as if it had been forever, but it had been less than two weeks. “How long has he been gone?” Vera asked, lightly biting her bottom lip.

And for some reason I didn’t really understand at the time, I lied. “Since last night,” I said, guiltily glancing down at the dirty floor mats. I liked to think I was an honest person, but lately I’d been lying a lot. Sometimes our subconscious is wiser than we are.

My mother frowned. “Last night? Anana, I don’t think that qualifies as a disappearance,” she said in the indulgent tone she reserved for my “theatrics.” Inherited, apparently, from Doug. But then she said something else that would prove invaluable. Draining her glass, she asked, “Have you tried the murk?”

At first I didn’t know what she meant. “The murk?” I said. Imagined Doug in a headlamp and waders, trudging through a dark marsh.

But even as she added “The Mercantile Library,” I knew she was right.

The Merc was Doug’s favorite place to hide out: a small private library somewhere in the forties on the East Side. One of the last of its kind. Libraries, like bookstores, theaters, cinemas, had mostly died out. Been turned into condos, boutiques, restaurants, spas. Even the New York Public Library was used mostly for events. But when I was a child, Doug had taken me with him to the Merc many times. Where I’d been bored out of my mind.

“Try the second-floor reading room,” Vera offered. “The librarians were always catching him napping under the piano. He may be there now, poor man. Although I’m sure it’s closed for the night.”

I was nearing Forty-ninth—my block. It made more sense to go home. But my mind snagged on the thought that Doug might have at least visited the library at some point in the past five days. It was irrational, but I could picture him perfectly, snoring under the baby grand. Of course he couldn’t still be there, if he’d ever been. But maybe someone had seen or spoken to him. It was at least worth a try. I was willing to follow even the faintest footsteps by then.

And I assumed Vera was wrong—the Merc couldn’t be closed; it wasn’t even five. My Meme said I should be fine. As the cab slowed in front of my building, I said, “Mom, thanks. See you tomorrow,” and
hung up. Then I sent the taxi shuttling back across town, even though my Meme chimed again, louder, and said,
“You do not have the funds to make the return journey home.”

By the time the car dropped me in front of the Merc, it was dark. A siren blared a contrail of sound as I approached the stone façade. I tried the door; it was locked. A small placard on the glass said the library had closed early for the holiday. But I noticed a few lights on inside, and when I peered in, I thought I saw shadows stirring. When I tapped the glass, though, nothing happened. If I’d seen someone inside, they’d seen me, too, and stopped moving. I waited a bit longer. But nothing.

I ducked into a nearby deli to buy a tea for my walk home. When I stepped out again a few minutes later, I glimpsed someone in a red watch cap approaching the library. He was camouflaged by baggy winter clothes, but something in his height and build and the way he walked, stooped slightly, made me think of Dr. Thwaite.

I called out to him, but he didn’t seem to hear. I called again as he unlocked the door, and this time he looked around, tense. But I was blanketed in shadow under the deli’s scaffolding. He peered into the gloom, then hurried in and shut the door. And when I knocked a moment later, there was no response.

Disquieted, I trudged numbly toward home. But I didn’t want to arrive there. It would be dark at home. I’d be alone with my thoughts. I took a long, circuitous route, past Rockefeller Center’s slow gyre of skaters. Down through Times Square’s manic lights, where I saw the slightly bygone sight of a tired but fiery proselytizer passing out pamphlets. Maybe I’d seen him before, maybe not; either way, I dropped the papers he handed me in the trash unread after I rounded the corner. (Most people, of course, didn’t take them at all.) Then I went north again, up the few blocks still violate with peepshows on Eighth. And as I turned the corner back onto my block, walking into a grainy blast of wind, I thought I saw a man scuttle from the entrance to my building.