“Oh my God!” said one of the writers, staring aghast at Melody’s monitor.
“How can he do this to us?” said the poet, no less horrified.
“To us?” said one of the actors. “How can he do it to himself? I mean, you can tell from his voice how he hates the decision. And it makes no sense. How does getting a job prevent him from shooting more videos?”
“But it isn’t really his decision, is it?” said an oboist. “You heard him—he was influenced. Had a discouraging time at his rendezvous point, got desperate and went for advice from that so-called friend of his—that Ethan guy.”
“Yeah,” said the actor darkly, “that Ethan guy.”
“Yeah,” said the oboist. "Like where does he get off telling someone with a dream they have to face reality? What an asshole.”
“And why am I so upset about it?” said the poet. “I mean, look at me. I’m almost in tears.”
They looked, and she was. In fact, several of them were. And no one could explain it until the philosophy grad student offered an analysis.
This was a rare event since, when he spoke, the philosophy grad student liked to use exactly the right words and would get interrupted by Grant before he could finish. But with Grant as stunned as everyone else, he had a unique opportunity to expound and explicate.
“I would submit,” he said, “that our present emotionality has a lot to do with the bowing and praying that has been going on here. It may have seemed like mockery, and to an extent, of course, it was. But to an extent it was not. Until today, the object of this attention truly inspired our reverence.”
“Oh shove it, prof,” Grant would have said, if he wasn’t so upset.
But he was so upset, and now the grad student, rising from his workstation, began to pace, theorizing as he went.
“The question is, why?” he said. “Why this adulation? Was it his attire? His antics before the camera? Or”—the grad student raised a finger—“was it perhaps his ambition that so entranced us? After all, what did he do when, past thirty, he lost his employment with that journal he continually spoke of? Lower his expectations? Au contraire, he raised them. Raised them literally to the heavens. That was his response to adversity. And next to him we were accountants, actuaries, real estate agents. We were down-to-earth practical people next to him, so naturally we worshipped him. For who else made us seem practical?"
“All right!” said Grant, reviving finally. “Wonderful. Thank you soooo much. Now tell us, professor, what should we do?”
“Do? I don't see that we can do anything.”
“Well there’s philosophy for you. Always improving the human condition,” said Grant.
“Refraining from action is the only course when all action is folly,” lectured the grad student, translating from the Latin.
“Bullshit!” said the sculptor.
“Well then what do you propose?” said the grad student. “That we . . . what? Masquerade as extraterrestrials?”
Grant considered. “Well, maybe we could tell him his platinum’s arrived.”
“No!” spasmed the potter, her worry circuits activating. “It’d trace back. We’d be fired. Melody would be fired. Think about that, Grant. Think about Melody.”
“Yeah, Grant. Think about Melody,” said Melody.
“And even if it did work, at first,” said the grad student, “how soon before he realized he still was not being taken and came to his present decision all over again?”
“Hey!” said Grant. “Hey! All I’m trying to do is be constructive here. Because so far, in case you haven’t noticed, the situation is just lose, lose, lose. Everyone’s unhappy, everyone wants a different outcome, so you’d think there’d be a way to get there.”
“But we’ll all be fired!” wailed the potter.
“I’m not saying it has to be that way.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Actually, Grant didn’t know what he was saying. And still didn’t know the next day and the day after that. And the week after that. And right to the end of January. By which time the new reality on the 23rd floor of the CorpInc Tower had grown depressingly clear.
Jeffery came. Jeffery went. Shift after shift crept by without a hint of starry-eyed optimism and astronomical overconfidence.
Until . . .
“I’ve got it!” he cried, on the forty-first Shmish-less day. And spinning Melody around, he stood over her, pressing her shoulders into her chair and begging, “Mel, please. Say you’ll do it."
“Do what?” said Melody.
“Save us, for heaven’s sake. Only you can save us.”
“Care to elaborate?”
The others wanted him to, as well, and were soon crowded behind him as he splashed away at his keyboard, calling up a website.
Not one of theirs. Rather, the age-old dating site, Match.com.
“I thought we agreed to quit using things like that,” noted Melody offhandedly.
“I’m not using it,” he said. “In fact, I’m in the wrong part of it to use it.” Swiveling his monitor towards her, he showed what he meant. An array of male faces filled the screen.
“Now look at this one,” he said.
He clicked on a face which was only a circle, the submitter having not included a photo. The circle disappeared, then reappeared on another page, where the submitter presented himself in greater detail.
“Didn’t we already check that out, like six months ago?” said one of the actors.
Grant flung back a hand, demanding silence.
While Melody began to read.
M-alien Seeking Fem-alien,
Hopeful dreamer wishes to find someone who believes that she, like him, does not belong here. Let’s explore new worlds together.
But that’s as far as Melody got before Grant was talking at her, making further reading impossible.
“We found this right after the Shmish made his second or third transmission,” he said. “Fourth,” said someone. “OK, fourth then. Anyhow, his big point was—Mel? Melody? Are you paying attention? His big point was that the aliens might not want a human around, if that human was the only one on a spaceship full of other kinds of, you know, races.”
“An astute observation,” contributed the grad student, “given that native Americans brought to Europe in the sixteenth century invariably succumbed to—”
“He was worried that the aliens would be worried that he’d die of loneliness,” Grant went on. “So he offered to find a female to get taken with. And then, pretty much instantly, this ad turned up, which we discovered since a couple of us still use Match.com.”
“And you’re sure it came from him,” said Melody, “just because it happens to mention new worlds and aliens?”
“What? No, of course not. If you’d only read it, you’d see. Why aren’t you reading it?”
Once again, she tried to.
I am fairly tall (for a man who lived before, say, 1900) and am actively losing weight. I have reddish-brown hair and a variety of interests.
“But Grant, you know it never attracted anybody,” said a writer. “If it had, he’d have mentioned it. So why dredge it up now?”
“Because I’m trying to waste everyone’s time, goddamn it. Will you let her concentrate?”
And yet again she tried to.
As for work, well, to be perfectly honest, at present I am experiencing the vicissitudes of an industry beset by the natural (and surely temporary) consequences of transition. But that doesn’t mean I am idle. You might like to watch my videos, on a website called ComeTakeMe.com.
She looked at Grant warily. “Okaaay . . .”
“Okaaay . . . ,” said Grant.
“I know!” said the poet, struck by an insight. “Grant wants to break up with Melody and give her to the Shmish, in exchange for him making more videos.”
“Or maybe just loan her,” suggested an oboist.
“Ridiculous,” said Melody. “Grant would never suggest something like that. Right Grant?”
“Right,” said Grant.
“Good.”
“I’m just asking you to be open-minded.”
She stared at him.
“Look,” he said, trying to get it all out before she stopped listening. "He thought he’d get taken if he had a partner, right? So suppose someone contacted him—someone amazing like you, Mel—and said she’d go. Wouldn't that make him happy again, and hopeful, and shooting more of his videos even if he has to take some lousy job? What’s wrong with that? Actually, it’s about the nicest thing anyone could do for the guy, who otherwise, I might point out, has nothing. Nothing! So come on, Mel. Think about it.”
“I am,” came a return hiss. "And it has to be the most dishonest—”
“But why?” Palms up, Grant surveyed the others in a state of what appeared to be shocked incomprehension. “What’s dishonest about it? Well, maybe it’s a bit harmlessly gray-area dishonest, but it’s not like you’d be leading him on or—”
“Not leading him on?” she shouted. “NOT LEADING HIM ON?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what pray tell would you define leading on as?”
“Well, lots of things. Like, oh, say, offering to be his girlfriend. You would definitely not want to give him the impression that—”
“But offering to go into space with him, that isn’t—”
“No, of course it isn’t. 'Cause it’s not gonna happen, remember? 'Cause the website’s a fraud, remember? Remember getting tied in knots over that a few weeks ago? But now, finally, when there’s a chance to use that fact for good, instead of jumping at it you—”
“Oh, yeah, right. That’s what you’re thinking of. Good. Doing good.”
“Well, it’s not all I’m thinking of.”
“You’re thinking of videos, Grant. Lots of funny new videos.”
“So?”
“So . . .”
“So hold on,” said a writer. “Even if Melody agrees to this, where’s the benefit? Like, how’s it different from pranking him about his platinum? He still doesn’t get taken. Still gives up. We’re back to where we started.”
“But not for months,” said Grant, “or even years if giving up means letting Melody down. And when finally he does quit, who knows? Maybe he’s got more going for him.”
“And maybe we’re outa here,” added an actor.
“Excellent point,” said Grant.
“So what’s Melody supposed to do?” inquired the other actor. “Give him her phone number or something? Skype him?”
“Unnecessary,” said Grant. “Because look!” He pressed a finger against the Match.com ad. “See? He gives his location. Somerville, Massachusetts. Which, as it happens—”
“No!” interrupted Melody.
“—is not too far from Needham, Massachusetts, where Mel’s parents happen to live and where she’ll be visiting in a couple of—”
“There is no fucking way,” interrupted Melody again, in a tone which suggested there was indeed no fucking way.
“But why?” implored Grant. “One hour. One coffee. One time. And think who you’ll meet."
“But . . . ,” she said, beginning to answer him. But didn’t continue, as it was so obviously pointless.
Instead she turned to the others.
“Well?” she said, surveying them. And they looked back at her, their faces full of friendliness and approval.
“Well?” she repeated. “Don't any of you see anything wrong with this?”
And they continued to look at her, still friendly, still approving, but now also puzzled, and even, in some cases, frustrated that she didn’t call off the fussing and get with the program.
“Come on,” urged an actor finally.
“It’s not like you’d be hurting him,” added a writer.
“He’s hurt now. He’s sad now,” noted the poet.
“Absolutely,” said Grant. “And will be staying that way”—he gazed wistfully upward—“unless some amazing actor gives him his hope back.”