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Alice followed his lead, looked through the jumbled bodies, saw the large font, scrolling wide letters:
RINT PARTY END OF PRINT PARTY END…

She didn’t get its meaning; meanwhile the boy had started talking again, but in a new way, faster and more invested—as if Alice had met some kind of standard, one that released his internal spigot. Alice wondered if he was going to provide his name. Unlike everyone in the fashion world, Bushytop definitely gave off a hetero vibe, and was not in any way
un
cute.

He was apologizing, saying this whole thing was his fault, in a way. His buddy Ruggles—the dapper asshole with his arm around that French harpy—had been on him to take a break from work and school. Dragged him to some poker night with the Expats. Which, honestly, had been a trip: great smells from the pots atop the stove distracting you from your middling hands; different spendy crackers and good cheese making the rounds; more than a few glasses of a nice red to boot. Seven-card stud was the game, but with showers of wild cards, crazy amounts, like where you passed the second and fourth cards of your hand to the immediate right. During one of the snack breaks, he’d answered a question about what one in graduate school for computer science
did
.

Alice looked doubtful, but encouraged him to go on.

The boy answered the Expats with an explanation of virtual realities, the possibility of creating—inside one’s computer—a reality and life and system that you kind of
lived,
but simultaneously, along with your life in the outside world. Oliver told Alice this virtual life could
also
be three-dimensional, meaning it would include commerce, entertainment, and sex, of course. A complete parallel reality. Or at least a supplementary one. “Like, it can filter into the real one. You’d start to pay your bills through computers, who knows, even go shopping on them—”

“I could certainly do without salespeople.” Alice laughed. “But buying a dress without seeing it on?” Her eyes rolled. “Let me know how that turns out for you.”

“Right.” He looked chagrined. “The thing, nobody knows what they’ll come up with. But it
is
going to become more ingrained. And what I do—”

“That’s the coding?” Alice asked.

“Yeah.”

“Meaning you what?”

“Okay, so, if you want the computer to do the shit we’re talking about, you better be able to communicate with it, right? So think of the codes as languages. English. Urdu. I was telling your friends here, there’s not even a question that speaking these languages, having conversations where you can direct the computer and create the programs it runs, it’s more important to our future than anything on some fucking page.” He waited. “Yeah. Your buddies bought it as much as you. So much they decided,
Hey, why not celebrate the end of the written word?
”

His arms opened up, toward the rest of the room. “This is their celebration. A bunch of papers with codes are floating around. I guess you write out your name. On the key, each letter corresponds to a number. So you can convert your name to BASIC, binaries. Then you’re supposed to go around the party, introducing yourself to everyone with your code. Since it’s my bright idea, I’m kinda obligated to be here.”

New papers had been brought out onto the counters. Alice grabbed one, bounced a bit in place. She read the code keys, thought for a second.

Immaculate, scripted capital letters followed:

ONE.

The invention of fire

T
ODAY’S AIR-PUFFED MANILA
envelopes included one state-of-the-art multimedia magazine from a group of upstart culture peddlers, and two samplers with the first level of a different three-dimensional role player game. Each mailer represented millions of lines of code—written over months, perhaps years—burnt onto compact discs, and sent out by other hungry young programmers with ambition and dreams and hustle to spare. It was a little depressing, when Oliver thought of it. So Oliver didn’t. He separated the mailers from Alice’s fashion glossies, ignored whatever subscription cards fell loose.

The hidden, smaller envelopes were where the action was. Hospital billing departments sent out statements starting on the twentieth, he knew. Usually the queasy feeling began in his stomach around the twenty-third, kicking up a few notches whenever he got near the mailbox. Especially dreadful was the sight of an official-looking, sky-blue envelope, stuffed fat with pages of billing procedures. Today had none of those. The only hospital bill was a thin envelope, even lighter blue, a type he’d grown accustomed to. This one contained a short payment request: seven hundred dollars, for Alice’s visit of April 11. Across the page, red letters warned: if this amount remained unpaid, the balance would be forwarded to a collection agency.

Oliver paid minimal attention, sorted through today’s avalanche of communications from the insurance companies. Among them, the monthly statement for April; a small packet listing procedures that had been covered for the April 11 visit; some one-page quickies explaining why certain payments for the April 11 visit had been adjusted upward, thereby reducing Oliver’s responsibility; some other quickies explaining why certain payments for the April 11 hospital visit had been reduced, thereby increasing his responsibility….

And a new thing. This envelope lemon yellow. The same shade as the florist’s business card. Oliver’s knees went weak.

But no. It was just from some medical place he didn’t recognize.

—

Entering the apartment, the first thing he saw was that Doe had applesauce all over her face and her bib. She’d turned her tray into a giant shining swamp. Her bright eyes gleamed; she smiled big and wide at Daddy, rocking back and forth in her high chair, then doing little jumps, and Oliver’s fury abated, a tad. He was about to shout
hello hello,
the way his father always used to. But the kid started making an even
bigger
mess now, flinging
more
applesauce.

Next to the high chair, globs dripping off her curls, Alice’s mother looked exhausted and miserable. Someone else was there as well, someone new: brunette, young, Oliver didn’t recognize her.

“This is Samantha,” Alice’s mom said, trying to sound pleasant. “She’ll be helping after I head back.”

Not bad looking: severe bangs, a nose maybe a bit too long, but eager eyes, a well-meaning smile. She held a spoon and the tin. Her efforts had also been rewarded with applesauce: her chin, hands, sleeves coated in it.

Oliver welcomed the girl into his home, but his smile felt odd, and he knew it must have looked halfhearted, and he needed to move, forward, respectfully, but still hurrying, that crumpled letter dangling from his hand.

—

Comforting chimes and wind instruments—soft harmonic sounds came from the other side of the bedroom door, and this irritated him. He pushed in, ready for the usual deal: low lights, a few votive candles along the sill. But not this whole scene: Tilda on the yoga mat, in a beige leotard and caramel-colored sweatpants—kneeling on one knee, reaching upward with both hands, toward the sky. Skin was everywhere exposed, flushed and clammy, and the image brought to mind some ancient wildebeest, heaving and covered with morning dew.

Beyond her, Oliver saw his wife dangling off the bed’s front corner. Wearing her shades, Alice had one of his baseball caps on backward. She was working to keep her arms raised, as if trying to signal a touchdown. She’d gotten both hands above her shoulders, but her elbows were bent, her biceps trembling.

“Seven,” Sparrow said.

From the front of the bed the healer kept modeling a perfect warrior pose. “Breathe. Keep holding it. And exhale. Okay, eight…”

Now Oliver became aware of an aroma, familiar, certainly not incense. Did he really want to believe they were in here baked, doing yoga?

“Remember how that goddamn ER doc wouldn’t let you go with me?” He couldn’t wait any longer. “Well, get your clown shoes on and join the circus.”

Alice remained focused, mouth rigid with concentration.

“Your policy didn’t cover the ambulance ride. Just got the bill. Guess how much.”

She held her pose. Exhaled.

“Twelve hundred dollars. Clown shoes, right?”

The lenses of her sunglasses black, blank.

“I mean, in the large scheme it’s nothing. Only you’d think—”

“I can’t worry about that right now.”

“—the sheer balls—”

“Oliver,” she said.

Don’t overreact,
he reminded himself, though his face was hot.
Sure.
Let them invade every room. Let them have their rituals, their clucking
empathy
. He retreated from the new age coffee klatch, their baked stares of disapproval. Storming past Alice’s mom, he registered the concern in her expression. Oliver surged with the desire to bark her away, rid himself of all these goddamn women.

Out of the apartment, he jabbed at the button, bounced on his feet, and punched his hands in his coat pockets, discovering that he was constitutionally unable to stay in this hallway for the thirty seconds it would take that rickety
bitch
elevator to creak up.

—

The Brow was in the other office, in front of his terminal, shoulders hunched forward, neck jutting. From behind he looked like a shaggy, concentrating turtle.

Had to be a good sign. Maybe even a breakthrough.

Oliver started toward the closest terminal. Low sounds met him. The stanza was rhythmic, short, and muddled—a series of low chords repeating in a manner both monotonous and propulsive. White conical speakers, each located on a side of the terminal screen, further muddled the sound. Still, Oliver recognized that short finger-tapping riff—straight from the eighties with its cheese factor.

And on the monitor, visible around the Brow’s body, that abandoned space station—its industrial background, its darkened caverns—was every bit as familiar.

Angles went jittery, red orbs flying past and lighting up the screen.

That goddamn centered hand, returning Taser rounds of fire.

“Enough with fucking Doomguy,” Oliver said.

He asked the Brow to email him files of the previous day’s work. It wasn’t a request.

He withdrew from his pocket the small pad that served as the repository for his scribbled coding changes—each note purposeful, just two or three keywords, as few symbols and numbers as possible, the hope being that concision would engage him, force his mind to re-create the bulk of his old work, trampoline him into a strong workday.

He learned nobody had called from the house.

He lay lengthwise on the couch, unfolded his laptop.

Of course it was a given Alice shouldn’t be dealing with money stuff—he was completely wrong to even bring it up. But was he supposed to just stuff every concern inside him? He takes care of her and she gets to decide his worries are of no concern? Meanwhile, if she’s always crying how that kid’s so important, then why is some nobody shoving applesauce down Doe’s yap while Mommy’s getting high in the drum circle?

He grabbed a soda from the fridge, paced the office, unscrambled his headphone cord.

In the notebook, besides his scribbled notations and ideas, were pages of columns: the costs of the taxis he and Alice took to and from hospitals on appointment days, untold amounts of money that had been set on fire. Plus totals for however much they still owed New Hampshire. And were still trying to get a final tally on the out-of-network costs from the old policy at Whitman. Two grand a month going up in smoke for the new family policy. Another six hundred for rent on the new office. In addition to his regular monthly nut. And the fifteen an hour he was paying that idiot to play videogames. Plus a hundred a session, plus expenses, for that fucking healer. Whatever that tight little tush of a nanny was going to pull, also full-time.

Then again, more than a few friends owed six figures from college and grad school.

And pretty much the whole goddamn nation lived with debt, no?

They’d find a way. The immediate answer was to get Generii to market.

—

More than a few afternoons he’d moseyed past those workrooms. Cavernous spaces, usually, with naked lightbulbs hanging from overhead wires, minimalist style to the desks and lamps. Alice was inevitably working on some garment, her hair messy and in a scrunchie, that lovely mouth holding a swatch of pinned fabric. Even in splattered designing overalls and a little tee beneath, she’d look astonishing, good enough that deliverymen and sales reps would hang around, searching for excuses to chat her up. But whenever a member of the species
Modelus dramaticus
arrived—for a fitting; for a shoot; to get sized, pinned, or altered; to drop off whatever garment needed to be returned—their ethereal natures were obvious, as was their growing cynicism, blasé attitudes acting as both protective wall and mask. Every bit as apparent to Oliver were Alice’s earthbound and worldly curves, her face’s open nature. Oliver not only found humor but took joy in how little Alice cared for the implicit pecking order between freelancer and model, whether it was Alice volunteering her thoughts about the lines of a dress she was hemming while one of the swans lingered around her table, or asking about the mass-market paperback that happened to be peeking out of some teen’s three-thousand-dollar shoulder bag, or complimenting the ballet flats this girl was wearing around town. Oliver would watch her engage with and draw out these children, and the difference between her—this almost-plump, thoroughly decent woman—and those spoiled, fawnlike babies made him swell. He felt a clumsy pride, being the guy who was dating her, the man whom
she
chose to hang around, whom she undressed with and shuddered for and collapsed on and then looked at with such intimate wonder, that intense purity.

Her affection elevated him as well, turned him toward those better angels. Through the power of her smile, he became less confrontational toward others. Enabled by the faith of Alice’s goodwill, he was able to make small talk at a social event. Oliver still could jam his foot into his mouth; he still had a propensity for saying the exact wrong thing. At least now he would be aware; now he’d apologize. And the more time he spent with Alice, the more Oliver realized he needed to up his game even further. Become that much more attentive to personal grooming. Be solicitous toward others. At least pretend to be attuned to the world and culture at large. If he wanted to keep this amazing woman looking at him like that, to somehow make this luminous creature
his,
he had to become kinder.