I start plucking at a piece of dry skin on my upper lip. “I don’t know anyone in the Valley,” I say lamely.
She pauses and her voice is half a degree softer when she says, “And you think this is a good way for you to spend your short time on earth?”
I feel like the shallowest person in the world when I say, “Yes.”
“Then that’s what you should do.”
“Thank you, Dr. Stein.”
Dr. Stein looks at her watch, a thick black band that tells her a number of things, including the time. “Well, good luck,” she says, shuttering her little window of humanity.
“I want… I would love to return, when the time is right,” I say. “I just thought I’d explore the option.”
“Consider it explored,” she says. “And I really do mean good luck. It’s brutal out there.”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“This isn’t about me, it’s about you,” she says. She takes off her glasses and her eyes get a little smaller. “I had high hopes.”
“Well, you never said.”
“I’m your adviser, not your therapist. Now go, I’ll sign whatever paperwork you want me to sign. Surat Chowdhury wants to transfer to my lab and I can give him the good news. At least someone will end up happy.”
And that is how I leave my coveted place in Dr. Stein’s lab, with a stupid wave and a promise to keep in touch. When I tell my parents, I try to cast it in a better light—I tell them it’s a little break, more like a sabbatical: a chance for technology to catch up with my ideas—and within weeks, Cyrus and I move to New York and, because there is nowhere else to go, into my parents’ half-converted basement.
* * *
I had neglected to think about where we were going to live in New York, and Cyrus never thinks about things like that. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about where we are going to sleep, it’s more that things always seem to work out for him. I feel like I’m living with Inspector Gadget. Most of the time it’s less exhausting to just see what fate will throw his way—in this case, my parents and their basement. I don’t want to return to Merrick, but the basement is free and takes some of the edge off my new status as a dropout. My mother and father can tell their friends how happy they are to have us at home. Like most Bengali parents, they’re still surprised I ever left.
We have no savings and no income, so Jules is going to move in with an aunt, and the three of us are going to live off his allowance. The aunt lives in a co-op on the Upper East Side, but Jules is scrupulous about dividing his allowance equally, so we’ve committed to a regime of subways and lunchboxes for the foreseeable future.
We take a weekend to drive our things down, an afternoon to unpack our few possessions, and then we are ready for our adventure.
Four
I HEART NEW YORK
Li Ann greets us at the door, looking like she stepped straight off a magazine spread for super-smart yet totally hot women. When I see her I am immediately gripped by paranoia, imagining it’ll only be a matter of time before she and Cy screw each other’s brains out. Then I scold myself for a) doubting Cyrus, b) being unsisterly and assuming that all women are out to fuck each other over, c) making a kind of heteronormative assumption about Li Ann’s sexuality, and d) ruining the first day of my exciting new life. I get a grip and try to enjoy the moment.
Li Ann, Marco, and Rory give us the drill. “We’re happy to welcome you to the community,” Li Ann says. “We just wanted to go over the ground rules and make sure you don’t have any questions.”
“We’re glad to be here,” Cyrus replies, following my explicit instructions to come with us on the first day, introduce himself, and be nice.
“We wanted to let you know that one of your obligations as members of the community is to sit on the admissions committee once a year. We all take turns. It’s actually quite fun.”
“Last week,” Marco tells us, “we had a detailed pitch from an apocalypse-porn company.” He raises his eyebrows, daring me to take the bait, but even though I’m itching to know how apocalypse porn is different from regular porn, I don’t ask.
“The other rule is that you don’t talk about Utopia to anyone. You don’t talk about other people in the community, you don’t post on socials, you don’t give people tips on how to get in.”
Jules and Cyrus and I look at each other. “Okay,” we say, nodding, “sure.”
Rory asks if we’d like a tour. He seems friendlier today, but it’s hard to tell because his face moves so little.
We take the tour. The place is like a combination of laboratory, yoga studio, and toddler playroom. In some of the spaces, there are hardly any desks. People sit on the floor with their laptops or balance on giant balls or recline on squishy, unformed sofas. There is a gym, a swimming pool, and a meditation room. And then there is Rory’s lab, which we are not allowed to enter. Through a small window we see two people in white lab coats hunched over long tables, surrounded by walls covered in plants.
“We’re trying to grow vegetables without soil—just electricity and cell regeneration,” Rory explains. “That way, when the bee population collapses and there are no more farms, humanity won’t starve.” I check to see if he’s joking, but of course he’s not.
Finally, we arrive in an open-plan space with big industrial windows and concrete floors. The arrangement in this room is more conventional, with two rows of sleek desks facing the large windows. “This is you,” Li Ann says, gesturing to the empty side of the room. “You’re sharing the space with Consentify.”
Destiny, of the pink hair, smiles to signal her welcome. Behind her on the wall is a framed poster of the girl from Pulp Fiction. NO MEANS NO, it says in red letters.
Li Ann leaves us to get settled. “If you need anything, come knock on my door.”
And just like that, we are Utopians.
* * *
We don’t have the faintest idea what to do next. We consider our row of desks and twelve pristine ergonomic chairs.
“So?”
“So.”
“Here we are,” I say.
Cyrus nods. “Living the dream.”
Jules, who has taken in the tour without a word, erupts. “Oh my God, Cy, you look like you just stepped in dog shit. You’re going to ruin this whole thing. Did you hear what she said? Free food! Free desks! Free yoga!”
“You hate yoga,” Cyrus says.
“Not anymore, my friend, not anymore.”
I had worried about the wrong thing. I didn’t expect Cyrus to be won over by Utopia, but I thought he would at least be a little impressed with Li Ann and her doomsday prepping. But he had hated it on sight. I’m seeing it through his eyes now, everything shiny and engineered, the expensive artwork, the reminders that we are products of extreme privilege, solving problems that most people would be lucky to have. I feel bad, because of course he’s right, but I also resent him for taking the air out of my moment.
“What do you think it will be like?” I ask, trying to change the subject. “I mean every day.”
Cyrus doesn’t care. “Do you know, Jules?”
“Not really. I ran Sellyourshit.com from my bedroom.”
“It won’t be like we’re running a hamster wheel, right?”
“No, Asha, it totally won’t be that,” Jules assures me. “It’ll be like it was before, except with other people.”
“What other people?”
“The people we have to hire.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about that.
“We get to choose the people.” It’s becoming clear that none of us knows anything about starting a business. We’ve hardly even had jobs.
“Let’s make a plan,” I say brightly.
I spot a whiteboard on the wall, but if I stand up in front of it, Destiny and her Consentify team will see me writing down my inane thoughts, so I rustle around in my bag and take out a pen and a notebook.
“I need coffee,” Jules says. “Let’s go downstairs.”