Friday morning of the same week that Jay made his radio announcement, Mary left a note for her house cleaner: Dear Trisha, I have company coming this evening. Please wash the ocean-side windows and check the wine glasses for spots. She realized it was a silly request as soon as she was in her car. Trisha always did a fine job on the glasses, and Jay probably wouldn’t notice the windows anyway. For a moment she considered going back and tearing up the note.
On her way home from work she picked up two bottles of very expensive champagne, and again she wondered if she wasn’t being foolish. But what was more seductive than good champagne? At least the ceviche, which she’d prepared the night before, he would enjoy since he liked sushi. She wanted the evening to be special; there was so much to celebrate.
As Cliff Thompson had predicted, LiveCell’s stock price accelerated throughout the first week and passed thirty dollars a share like a Porsche around a hay wagon. LiveCell now sold two versions of their phone—with and without the black box, the plain one fifteen dollars less. Though the naked phone could only communicate with other LiveCell phones, almost everyone ordered this version. Who wanted to pay for phone service when it could be had for free? The night after the interview, Mary watched the news, and the story of the free telephone crossed the nation like a cheer. Two days later the media attention disappeared without explanation. This worried her, and she wasn’t sure what she could do about it.
But the influx of phone inquiries was staggering, and within less than a week LiveCell was swamped, then deeply submerged with orders. To ease the demand, Jimmy Hakken suggested he run his crew around the clock in eight-hour shifts, and Jay had to agree, stipulating that the extra work load only last a few months until they were caught up. He also explained to Hakken that he required ten minutes alone with each batch of newly matured phones, which occasionally was as often as three times a day. Hakken never raised an eyebrow: he never questioned a Chevalier decree. Deirdre ran two shifts yet produced almost double Hakken’s output because of her factory’s extra capacity. Jay worked constantly, administrating the company, infusing phones at both factories, fending off reporters. Yet even in his exhaustion, Mary had never seen him so content.
Now as she waited for him to arrive, she kept impatiently walking to the window to check for his car. Finally, at the end of her road there was a drift of blue smoke, and the Cutlass thumped up her driveway. She went down the stone steps to greet him.
“You finally made it,” she said.
“Sorry I’m a little late.”
“I mean, you finally made it here, to visit me.” She gestured for him to come in, feeling slightly awkward, excited to be alone with him again.
He followed her into the house, and ignoring the expensive fawn-gray interior she was so proud of, he headed immediately for the floor to ceiling windows. He looked out across the water for a moment as she waited; then he reached into his sports coat pocket.
“I brought you something.” He held out a small unwrapped pale-gray box on the flat of his palm.
She lifted it from his hand. “Shall I open it now? Or would you like something to drink first?”
“As you wish.”
She studied his expression. “I’ll open it.” She delicately lifted the lid, her heart pounding more than she would have liked. She unwrapped the blue tissue paper. When she saw the face she knew what it was.
“Your watch.”
“Swatch mailed me an early prototype.”
The three colors of orbiting light radiated just on the surface of the crystal.
“Jay, it’s beautiful.”
“I think they’re doing an okay job. You said you wanted one.”
“It’s mine?”
“Of course.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She placed the watch on her wrist, buckled the muted-silver band, held out her arm to admire it, viewing it from various distances. “It’s even more incredible than I thought it would be. You really are something.” She continued studying it, thrilled when the color mixed to neutrality for an instant as the dots of light met. “Would you like some champagne? I don’t even know if you like it, but I bought two special bottles.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever had good champagne. You are my guide in these things.”
She went to open one, pleased to be his guide in something. She returned with tall flutes, handed him one, the bubbles rising madly. “How about a toast?” she said. “To LiveCell.”
They drank. “It’s very good,” he said. “You keep introducing me to new things.”
They walked out through French doors onto the large crescent-shaped redwood deck and settled into two teak Adirondack chairs angled toward the sea. The gilded rim of evening was just beginning to show as a mid-September breeze lifted off the water, blunting the warmth of the sun. Jay still removed his jacket and tossed it over a vacant chair.
“Your arm looks much better.”
He glanced at the scar on his bicep and rubbed it slowly.
“Do you ever get cold?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You always wear just a T-shirt, no matter how cold it is.”
“Where I grew up we didn’t have coats, just big wool shirts. I guess people donated more shirts than coats, so we would just keep piling on the shirts the colder it got outside. If it was anything above the mid-fifties we wore T-shirts. I got used to dressing that way.”
“Do you ever buy anything for yourself? Except those toy trains.”
“How about a car? I was going to ask you what to get.”
“You’re going to buy a new car?”
“The Cutlass is burning oil. It won’t pass the emissions test again without major work, and the body’s not that great, so I need something else.”
“Let’s go tomorrow,” she said eagerly. “I’ll help you find the perfect car.”
“Not new though, and nothing fancy.”
“Jay, why not? Do you realize how much you’re worth? You could buy anything you wanted. We could get you something really nice. A Ferrari maybe. I’ve always wanted to test-drive a Ferrari. Let’s.” Her eyes pleaded with him.
“I’d rather have an old car. A fancy new car would make me uncomfortable. Besides, I like bench seats. I bet Ferraris don’t have bench seats.”
“Do you only like old stuff?”
“I like things people have touched, with their marks on them. They absorb joy and pain and a sense of time, or at least a sense of time passing. And if they haven’t been discarded over the years, there must be one good thing about them. Maybe they develop a kind of integrity for me because they’ve survived.”
“You still don’t have to drive the worst car in California.”
He smiled, and she shivered a little. She excused herself and went inside the house, returning in a button-down cardigan, carrying a silver bucket with the champagne bottle sticking out of it.
“Are you hungry?” she said, filling their glasses.
He shook his head, examining the champagne against the light of the sky, the thin lines of bubbles rising. “I’m surprised I like this wine so much. You know, I think I prefer drinks with carbonation.”
“Didn’t you drink in college?”
“I just studied.”
She took a long sip. She knew what that was like, but she didn’t want to interrupt when he might talk about himself.
“Remember when I told you about my grandfather?” he said.
She nodded.
“What I didn’t tell you is that he made his own liquor. In the two years I was with him I became quite a drunk.”
“You?” she said.
He nodded.
“No way.”
“Way,” he said and smiled a little. “We drank every day. It was a wonderful couple years.”
She never knew when he was going to surprise her. “Is he still alive?”
“He died a few months after I left him. Sometimes I think he was waiting for me to come to him before he died. He taught me so many things I needed to know.” His eyes went out to the horizon. She followed his glance. The gradual shifting tones of sunset had intensified over the darkening water. He took a long sip of wine, examined the horizon again. “I think we might be in for quite a storm.”
“I doubt it. It would be very unusual for this time of year.” She paused. “Jay—” He turned to face her.
“Will you tell me how the phones really work?”
“You’ve already sensed that I want you to know.” He upended his drink and nodded slowly, set the glass on the arm of the chair. “This wine is wonderful. Nice to drink it outside like this with the air so fresh and clean.”
She noticed again how much he enjoyed certain things, how he paid careful attention to everything around him. He would be a good lover, probably a great lover. She filled their glasses, emptying the bottle, thought of getting another but wanted to hear what he was going to tell her. Maybe champagne was the secret to loosening him up. She hoped so. He rubbed his scar again absentmindedly, glanced out at the ocean and began talking.
“The phones can communicate with each other because their final matrix is identical, because they are all cloned from the same cells, all modified by the same viral DNA.”—his, she couldn’t help but remind herself—“Just as two similar human brains can sometimes know what the other is thinking, like identical twins for instance, LiveCells, being exactly the same, have complete synergy.”
His eyes came back to her. “This sameness is a rare occurrence in nature, and LiveCells don’t have chromosomes that alter genetic makeup over time—they remain identical. This makes them unique, like nothing else in nature. When two LiveCells communicate with the black boxes installed, the boxes send the call and log it for billing, but, as you now know, they aren’t required.”—maybe that’s why Duncan was so confused—“I wanted to keep that secret, until LiveCell gained more momentum. When LiveCell calls are being sent over conventional pathways, the black boxes translate the brain waves into digital code to be sent as radio waves. I had hoped to leave the black boxes in longer, but my hand was forced.” He took a slow sip. “I knew once the phone was free and the calls untraceable, real trouble would start. Now you understand why I couldn’t patent the phone, besides the obvious fact that DuPont would’ve sued for the intellectual property. If certain people learn how the phone works, LiveCell will be simple to destroy.”
He searched her face as he took another sip. She remained quiet, hiding her emotion.
“So two human brains can hear each other talk through the LiveCells, and depending on the natural intuitiveness of the user, sometimes more. As the human brain forms low-frequency wave-code, as it thinks words, the LiveCell absorbs the code over the short distance we hold the phones from our brains, and instantly the other person’s LiveCell knows the coding, and that user’s brain absorbs the words through their LiveCell. At first I was worried that LiveCells wouldn’t be able to differentiate specific users, but through my program infusion they can. The unusual part is really in the programming.” He paused, as if deciding how to tell her.
“Mary, I believe there’s a continuum of energy. Anyone who really wants to can access this energy in varying degrees. It allows one to perform and create beyond conscious ability, to understand things outside of conscious thought, and it allows one to simply know things; it’s like the clarity we sometimes get in pure nature. You and Kelly can both access it, I know that. Others can, even if they’re not sure that’s what they’re doing. There is so little that we really understand about the human brain.”
She hugged her chest, felt the cold air on her face, her hair unruly in the increasing wind.
“I program the phones by accessing this energy. My brain becomes a conduit from this vast intelligence into the LiveCells. When I’m infusing, the closest phone responds and then the energy spreads rapidly through the other phones. You’ve seen it, but it happens so quickly it seems as if they all infuse at once.
“I think much of our creativity or wisdom comes from this same source. Those years with my grandfather changed me. Without realizing it at first, my intuitive abilities, or my abilities to access this energy, kept increasing. It guided me in my eight years at the forgotten laboratory.”
She still said nothing. Her mind was a confusion of conflicting thoughts and emotions, not to mention champagne. He watched her now expectantly, as if he needed her to say something, to respond to what he’d told her. He reached—she thought almost nervously—and picked up his glass from the teak arm, was about to take a sip when he noticed it was empty.
“Shall we open the second bottle?” she said.
“That’s up to you.”
“Let’s.” She reached for the empty bottle. She wanted to stand up and do something. Anything. She really needed another drink. She was realizing more and more that LiveCell wasn’t just another phone company, and Jay certainly wasn’t just another CEO.
“Can I get it for you?” he said.
She shook her head. “I’ll be right back.” She watched him from the French door, his head leaning against the slats of the Adirondack chair, above him infinite chaos, the minute points of colored light that make up an evening sky.
She retrieved the wine and handed him the bottle. He screwed it down into the ice of the bucket.
“Jay, I think I’m getting overwhelmed by all this. I mean, you definitely told me all along what LiveCell was up to; I guess I just didn’t realize the magnitude. This is all much more involved and complicated. It’s giving me a very odd feeling.”
He reached down for the fresh bottle. His hands made quick work of the neck-foil, and after a moment’s study he unwound the wire stay to the cork. He looked at her. “I’ve never opened a bottle of champagne.”
All she had to do was imagine opening it, and there was a delicate pfft. She’d chosen the brand simply because out of all the expensive bottles in the wine shop, the silver of the neck-foil was her lucky color.
He poured. “I have a toast.” He lifted his. “To you. We could never have accomplished what we’ve done, without you.” He leaned toward her, stretched out his arm, and they touched glasses.
She wasn’t sure if she believed him—he still acted as if he didn’t need anyone. But maybe he did need her?
He’d been correct about the storm. The summit of color at the horizon was past, the advancing clouds a dark blind slowly and methodically pulled shut. They listened to the call of a last mockingbird as it found a roost for the night, the only voice besides the wind and the waves, the rumble of breakers brought to them more and more fiercely as the storm approached.
“I have a favor to ask you,” he said. “More than just a favor.”
She waited, conscious of her own breathing. She knew there was something else!
“It’s crucial to what I’m trying to do.”
“Tell me.”
“I want you to learn how to infuse the phones.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Jay, that’s crazy. How could I learn to infuse the phones? You think I can simply connect to this continuum thing?”
“Mary, I shouldn’t tell you this. And I don’t want you to worry, but I’ve had a death threat. It’s most likely a prank, but it made me realize that as things now stand, if they kill me, LiveCell will end. I need someone to carry on if I’m not here.”
It was then that the storm reached them from out of the blackness—first a wave of sweet ozone, then large raindrops striking the deck with careless fury. She just sat there, feeling even more scared. Neither moved. Eventually Jay drained his glass and stood, gathered his jacket and the bucket.
“Shall we?” he said.
Once they were inside sitting at the dining room table, with only a low table lamp on, the storm lashing the west-facing windows, he filled their glasses again.
“This is so odd, this storm. It never rains this time of year.” She tried to see out through the streaming glass. Just saying something simple made her feel better.
“You’re wet.”
“I don’t mind.” She took off her sweater, draping it over the back of a chair. She combed her hair behind her ears with her hands. The rain had soaked the front of her blouse and her bra straps were visible under the dark-pink linen. She could feel the wet material against her breasts, against her nipples. She heard the heat in the house come on.
“Do you have any idea who the death threat is from?”
“Does it matter? When they figure out what I’m up to, that their imperium might be in jeopardy because people’s consciousness is changing—you know they’re going to have to stop me.”
She nodded. The anxiety she’d been feeling on and off for months was clear now. A violent gust drove a sheet of rain against the window and she started.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told you all this,” he said. “I thought if you understood, it would help you find what you need to infuse the phones.”
“You really think I could infuse the phones?”
“You once asked me why I wanted you to work for me. I always had the gut feeling, ever since Kelly told me about you, that you were the one who could do it.”
“You’re a very unusual person with abilities others don’t have. I’m just ordinary.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Jay, I’m not sure I understand all this. I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Let’s not worry about it now. Let’s drink our wine.”
She sensed that he was embarrassed, that he felt he’d revealed too much, been too vulnerable for a moment. He was beginning to withdraw again. She got out of her chair, walked behind him, put her hands on his shoulders, his muscles reacting to her touch. She wanted to slide her fingers over his damp chest. Did he want her to? All these months and she still didn’t know. If only he would give her an indication, any kind of a sign about how he felt. She waited. Then her hands took on a will of their own, the champagne guiding her, her emotion guiding her, and she began to massage his arms, the lean dense muscle under her touch. It made her feel calmer immediately. He turned his body toward her, rose out of the chair.
“Mary!” But as he started to say more, she brought her hand to his lips. Her mouth followed her hand, and with her heels lifting off the floor a little, she kissed him, his mouth at first unyielding, then beginning to open, her tongue now tracing the inside of his lips in a slow circular pattern, the wet tip against his teeth. She felt him shudder, a spasm that ran through his entire body; felt him harden against her center as she clutched him tighter, her hands working across his back. She was getting very excited, and feeling more daring, slid her hand lower to his front, rubbing him through his jeans.
And he pulled away.
Even in the dim light his eyes looked frightened. She had never seen him like this, and she couldn’t move. He seemed about to speak, but suddenly his body brushed past her. She still didn’t move, her heart hammering in her chest. She heard the door open and click shut, the storm louder for that instant. Heard his car start. Heard him turn in the driveway. Listened until there was only rain lashing the windows.
She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge door. She lifted out the plate with the thinly sliced translucent snapper carefully arranged in a circle on the ivory ceramic with tomatoes, peppers, and olives in the center. She forced herself not to remember what she’d been thinking about him as she prepared the fish. She carried it into the dining room and set it gently on the table as if she were serving him. About to return for a fork and a clean plate, she saw his jacket still hanging over one of the chair backs. She sat down next to it and almost reached for it. Instead, her left hand moved to her face; her thumb and forefinger gripped the bridge of her nose as her eyelids squeezed tight to the point of pain.