To be entirely clear: I’m not saying I thought that Fon had sent words through the skin of her hand into the skin of mine. What I’m saying is that it seemed that she—through the skin of her hand into the skin of mine—was signaling friendship.
Seemed. It seemed. I’m not claiming certainty. I had (and have) a lot less confidence in the reality of our handwich telepathy than in that of, for example, inan sentience. Whether or not the telepathy was itself real, though, I was certain—became certain, felt certain—that Fon and I, over the course of the touching/sandwiching/handwiching had become friends.
I was handwiching a friend.
A friend of mine was being handwiched by me.
Perhaps this handwich—this emblem of our friendship—had itself been a force behind our friendship’s creation. Perhaps the handwich was only emblematic. It didn’t matter so much. What mattered so much: we two were now friends.
And in the end, the thought of our friendship made me happy. The erotic falloff of the taction: I welcomed it. Which isn’t to say that once I’d realized we were friends, I wasn’t any longer attracted to Fon, but rather that I continued to become less and less attracted to Fon (I no longer, for example, required the lap cover provided by the counter), and—because it would make our friendship less fraught—I looked forward to becoming less attracted to her yet.
* * *
I was just beginning to kind of passively wonder how much longer the handwich could last—all the leaning forward and reaching across had started to stiffen my shoulders and neck—when the elevator bell xylophonically dung. Or dinged. Fon sat back, both hands in her lap. I sat back in turn, and twisted and tensed, emitting a glorious congo roll of spinal pops.
From the mouth of the stairwell came the clap of rushed footsteps, and Triple-J’s greetings. “Hi, guys, sorry, I’m sorry,” he said. Entering the turret, he waved around a parcel: gift-wrapped, fist-size. “I’m so late,” he said. “I was almost here just a little bit late—like I was in the elevator—when I realized I forgot your gift in the production house. I don’t know what I was thinking—I guess I wasn’t thinking—because I should have taken the wallwalk back to get it, but instead I took the sidewalk, and all these kids kept stopping me and talking to me and bragging on their Hangstrong times and so on…Anyway, this,” he said, victoriously slamming the fist-size parcel on the counter of the hibachi, “is for you, Belt. I hope you like it.”
I unwrapped the parcel. Inside it was an IncuBand just like the one I had under my bed.
“You shouldn’t have,” I said.
“Get outta here with that,” he said. “I told you yesterday: I wanted to. And I talked to Tessa, just like I said I would, to see if she had any, and it turned out she did—she has a ton of them—but by the time I called, duh, it was already too late to overnight anything, so, on a hunch, I went digging around in the hoarder house, and that’s where I found it. It used to be my dad’s, I guess. Go ahead. Try it on.”
“The hoarder house?” I said, fastening the band to my wrist, behind the bangle.
“It’s next to the production house—the one the events were right in front of.”
“We usually call it the cellar house,” Fondajane said. “Or the relics house, if we’re feeling particularly full of ourselves.”
“It fits okay?” said Triple-J.
“It’s perfect,” I said. I extended my arm, turned my hand and head side to side, and smiled, as if examining a diamond engagement ring.
“Where’s your marble?” Triple-J asked. “Let’s see it with the marble in. Or wait. Did it hatch?”
“It didn’t, no. Thing is, I didn’t bring it, though. I thought…I guess I thought that, well…that brunch might be too formal for CureSleeves?”
“So that look you’re rocking with the Sambas and the jeans and the poly-blend Mexican wedding shirt—that’s how you do formal?”
“Trip,” Fondajane said, “don’t be rude to your guest.”
“I was trying to be funny.”
“I don’t think it was funny.”
“Not at all? I think it was at least a little funny, Fon,” he said, squeezing her trapezia. “Belt knows I’m just messing around with him, right? I look up to him, and he knows that. You know it too. It makes me kinda nervous that we’re actually hanging out. That’s why it’s funny for me to say something that seems disrespectful. Because of how unexpected it is, I mean. I think Belt gets that. Don’t you get it, Belt? Actually, no. You don’t have to answer that. In fact, please don’t. Please forget I even asked. I’m seeking reassurance instead of sticking to my guns or making amends, and those are the only two mature options to choose from here, the only two options a decent person would entertain, and so instead of seeking reassurance, let me just tell you that if I hurt your feelings, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to. I don’t care how you’re dressed. Maybe I’m a little off-key today or something. Can I show you something cool in the hopes it’ll make up for me acting all bitch-ass?”
He sat on the stool between me and Fondajane, and opened his sleeve. A standard pale-black cure climbed out. It wasn’t, by any means, merely standard-cute—even before I’d interacted with it, I felt it exerting above-average charisma, the kind only the older ones ever possess, and I’d have guessed its age to be two years—but given whose sleeve it had just been inside, I suppose I was a little bit disappointed. The “Aww” I cooed was forced, polite.
Triple-J set the cure in the center of my placemat. He told it, “Say hi.”
“Hello!” the cure said to me, then turned to Triple-J.
“Invite it on board, Belt. This’ll be cool.”
I put out my hand. The cure climbed in, raised its eyes expectantly.
“Now tell it who you are.”
“I’m Belt,” I told the cure.
“Magnet,” the cure said, matter-of-factly.
“That’s right!” I exclaimed. And, at least for the moment, I was actually delighted. Not because I thought the cure somehow recognized me—I assumed Trip had trained it to respond to the sound of “I’m Belt” with “Magnet”—but because I’d never heard a cure say “Magnet” before.
“Magnet,” it said again.
“Yeah,” I said. “Wow. That’s me. I’m Belt Magnet.”
“I’m Magnet,” the cure said.
“I’m Magnet,” I said to it, pointing at my chest.