It was true what Pandora said about her father’s dating. He’d not had a single romantic encounter since his wife died. He’d had an excuse early on, but Pandora could take care of herself now, and he still wasn’t doing anything to address his own, personal singularity.
Not that Roger wasn’t curious. Especially during the winter, when Pandora was at school and he didn’t have any clients to counsel, he’d cruise Quire, looking up girls he’d had crushes on in high school, inspired by his yearbook from the now defunct Gold Stream High School. Their team was called the Prospectors, and the mascot was a cartoonish sourdough with outrageous whiskers, wearing a battered wide-brimmed hat, plaid shirt, denim pants, and unlaced boots and carrying a pickax. Whenever the team scored, he’d kick up his heels and yell “Goooold!” instead of “Gooooal!” coming down on the d at the same time his heels hit the hardwood floor.
But looking at the high school pictures compared to the Quire profiles was an exercise in masochism. How had everybody gotten so old? Roger didn’t feel like he had—not that much. With the exception of his thinning hair, he felt like he was in his late twenties, thirties, tops. It was only on Quire that he felt ancient, which was why he kept promising himself he’d delete his account, even if he did work for them. You didn’t have to eat McDonald’s every day to work there—and probably shouldn’t. But he kept coming back for more abuse—something one of his clients suggested was no accident.
“Let’s say,” he let him say, “certain algorithms have been optimized for user dependence. It’s like when you finish a good book and miss the characters and want to start reading it all over again. Or like after the last line of coke wears off. Point is, Quire’s designed to be missed after you close it, which is why the always-on feature has become the default setting. Users can change it; ninety-five percent don’t.”
After that, Roger asked Pandora to show him how to change the setting, but when she asked if she should click okay, he stopped her.
“No,” he said. “I just wanted to know how. In case.”
“In case what, you get a life?”
“Something like that.”
“Listen, I’ll pimp for you,” his teenage daughter offered. “Give me your specs, and I’ll roam Fred Meyer until I find the perfect woman. Or good enough woman, beggars being, you know.”
“Thanks, kiddo,” Roger said. “You should try your hand at therapy.”
“Getting or giving?”
“The latter,” her father said. “The kickbacks from antidepressants alone would be enough to live off of.”
“Is this the point where you accuse me of being a carrier for depression?”
“Is this the point where you’re going to prove my point?”
They stopped, facing each other. Paused. Took a breath.
“Thanks, kettle,” one of them offered.
“Back atcha, pot,” the other accepted.
“Okay,” Roger said, deciding they were finally ready. “You want to know the truth?”
Pandora nodded.
“I’ve made my peace with dying because without it, there’d be no you.”
Pandora thought he was talking about the mother she’d never met, who died giving her birth. “You mean Mom?” she said.
“No, what I’m trying to say is that if parents didn’t die, there’d be no reason to have children and every reason not to. For one thing, there’d be no place to stand after a few generations.”
“So you’re saying that having kids is what it’s all about and once you’ve had them you start waiting to die?”
“Not me,” her father said. “Darwin. Which is another thing you wouldn’t have without death: evolution.”
“Have you checked out that Match.com stuff I sent you?”
“Are you saying I need to get out more,” Roger asked, “or suggesting people haven’t evolved all that much?”
“I’m telling you sex might be more trouble than it’s worth,” Pandora said. “Plus, half those profiles are bots anyway.”
“You’re not telling me—”
Pandora cut him off. “I’m telling you I don’t want to live on in my children,” she said. “I want to live on in me. And I’m fine with evolution stopping.” She paused, smiling her biggest, goofiest smile. “Why mess with perfection?”
“Can we go back to bots?” Roger asked.
Pandora cleared her throat. “If she’s claiming her English seems awkward because she’s not from America,” she said, “she’s a bot.”
“Good to know.”
“In case?”
“In case.”
“You know what I think about when people mention immortality?” Roger asked, not exactly out of the blue.
“No telling,” his daughter said from the kitchen, stirring some steaming something in a pot.
“The first VCR I ever had,” he said. “I was living in the basement of my friends’ parents’ house during college, and the VCR was like a time machine. I didn’t have to be at a certain place or time to see my favorite TV show. I’d program it to record and watch it later. And you know what happened?”
“No telling,” Pandora called back, watching the steam from her cooking feather into ice once it reached the kitchen window.
“I wound up with a stack of tapes this high,” he said, holding his hand up to his belt. “I’d watch them when I got the time,” he continued. He paused. “That still hasn’t happened, me getting the time. That last episode of Seinfeld? I just kept putting it off.”
Pandora turned off the stove, ladled stew into bowls. “And your point is?”
“I think that’s what immortality would be like,” Roger said. “Never getting anything done because you literally have all the time in the world.”
Pandora set down her father’s bowl, then hers. “They don’t make VCRs anymore. You’ll have to buy one on eBay if you want to get caught up on your shows. Or better yet, search Netflix. Click on the magnifying glass. I wouldn’t count on any of that old stuff showing up as trending or popular.”
“Not the point I was making,” Roger said. They sat at the table then, the tink of their spoons hitting bowls punctuated by slurps, quick blowing, and then more tentative slurps.
“How about this,” Roger said. “What if people only died as the result of an accident? Can you imagine the unbearable grief when it happened? Can you imagine the paralysis that such a condition could lead to? No one would do anything for fear of having an accident that could kill them.”
“So you’re saying that death is the kick in the pants our species needs to not turn into vegetables.”
“Basically,” her father said. “After all, look what their long life span has done for trees.”
“Knock on wood?”
“Okay,” Roger said, “bring your head over here.”
“Over my dead body,” Pandora countered.
“Cute.”
36
The great thing about Mr. Nosy was this: it was the next best thing to being there. Unfortunately, that was also the problem with Mr. Nosy. While convenient for Pandora, who was able to keep tabs on her grandmother without actually having to venture out into the Alaskan winter, it was also depriving Gladys of face-to-face contact with her only remaining relative who still gave a crap.