“Almost. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”
Destiny and Manishala are leaving next week to sell Consentify to school districts around the country. It was Manishala’s idea to get the app approved by school boards and sex education teachers before launching to the wider public.
“Those Bible Belters are going to love me,” she says. “Wait till I tell them I used to be a stripper.”
I can always count on her to cheer me up. “I miss you, girl.”
“With all those enormous egos around? Aren’t you too busy trying to find an air pocket?”
* * *
Jules and I ignore Cyrus’s vanishing act until the third day. On the third day, we start to worry. Should we call the police? What would we say? No, he hasn’t been home. No, he hasn’t replied to any of our calls or messages. No, he hasn’t logged in to his email. He also hasn’t taken any money out of our bank account, but that doesn’t surprise me or Jules because we both know Cyrus can subsist on very little.
I’m surprised he hasn’t been spotted by one of the WAIs, but I’ve kept tabs on the platform and all our socials, and no one has speculated on his absence, even though Jules had to front a video saying that Cyrus was taking a break from the WAICast but would be back soon.
* * *
Jules, Destiny, and I are at the diner. “He’s totally fine,” I announce. “I made him mad, and now he’s licking his wounds.”
Jules is more worried than I am. “I thought he would at least reply to my email.”
“He’s not checking his email,” I tell him. “I’ve got access to the system.”
“Doesn’t he have a Gmail account?”
“I hacked it on day one. Trust me, he’s not checking.”
Destiny suggests we go to a movie.
“Why would we go to a movie?” Jules asks.
“Because that way, for two hours, we can’t check on Cyrus.”
My phone rings. It’s my sister. I don’t answer.
After the movie, which exits my brain immediately, we make our way to a small bar with a blue awning. AGAVERIA, it says on the door. It’s four p.m. and I have a shitload of work to do, but Destiny and I decide to get drunk. It turns out Agaveria is a tequila bar. I don’t think I’ve had tequila more than a few times, but other than the fact that it burns my throat on the way down, I don’t have anything against it. Soon Destiny and I are sprawled on a sofa in the back, and Jules is plying us with water. He calls Gaby, and Gaby turns up in a taxi, and we all pile in and return to the office.
By the time I turn my phone back on, it’s dark. I’ve had three hours in the sleep pod and a vitamin drip courtesy of Rory, and I’m feeling great. There are six missed calls from my sister, so I call her back.
“He’s here,” she says. She exhales loudly and creates a huge static cloud in my ear, which makes me suspect I’m still a little drunk.
Even though I’ve been searching for the whereabouts of only one person over the last three days, I say, “Who?”
“Your errant husband.” She sighs. “Who else would turn up in tears and crawl into Ammoo’s lap like a teacup pig?”
“We had a fight,” I say. “Did he tell you?”
“He hasn’t said a word to me. He just showed up at the house, Ammoo fed him, and he’s been hiding in the basement ever since.”
“He’s probably meditating,” I say. “Or sticking pins into an Asha doll.”
“I’ve done that—it doesn’t work.”
“Why didn’t you call sooner?”
“Bitch, I’ve been calling you all day. Ammoo wouldn’t let me before.”
I’m going to have to rescue my husband as if he’s an alcoholic on a bender, except instead of being in a dive bar, he’s with my parents, and I am the one who’s drunk. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I could take a cab, but I don’t want to be trapped with someone else’s sad breath, so I start walking to Penn Station.
* * *
The LIRR seats always stick to my thighs, and today is no different. Fluorescent lights, and the announcer whose accent I can only describe as Annoyed Conductor, all reminding me of the hundreds of times I’ve gone home before, the warmth and the feeling of slight dread and the anticipation of food, trying to shadowbox all the questions my mother will ask.
Mira’s car is at the Merrick station. I climb in the back and give Gitanjali a kiss on the forehead. “How’s the baby?” I ask.
“She sleeps all day and screams all night, so, the same. Oh, do you mean your baby? Well, I heard him moving around downstairs, so at least we know he’s still alive.”
After I’ve gazed at my niece’s face for long enough to make me feel human again, I squeeze through and jump into the front seat. “Good. I don’t want to enter a murder scene.” Then I think, Would Cyrus do it, would he off himself? Should I have that fear somewhere in the back of my mind whenever I disagree with him? More things to worry about.
Mira is about to start the car but then pauses to look over at me. “I want to tell you something.”
“You want to stop covering your beautiful head.”
“No. I want to tell you that the only way I can poop right now is to stick my thumb into my vagina and push it out.”
“Why, why the fuck would you tell me that?” I press a button and the window rolls down. “That is the worst thing I have ever heard.”
“Not so loud, you’ll set off Gitanjali.”
“Then don’t make it Halloween in here. Goddammit it, now I’m imagining it.”
“I’ve been awake for eight thousand hours. I smell like yogurt. I weigh two hundred pounds. And even though my tits are fabulous, I can’t let Ahmed anywhere near them because if he even looks at me that way, I want to murder him.”
“I’m an asshole.”
“No, you’re not. You’re the only person who can code that thing that is taking over the world. But you’re also my sister, and if I can’t shit unassisted, you have to hold that in your big brain along with everything else.”
* * *
Cyprus is expecting me. Sitting with his legs crossed as if he’s the Buddha.
“Everything’s approved, Cyrus. We’re going to buy Obit.ly. Ren and I have some great designs for the integration.” I show him.
He nods.
“Can we go home now?” I ask.
Cyrus isn’t done. For the next forty-five minutes, he talks at length about all the ways my outburst was destructive, and I have to admit, yes, he’s right, I shouldn’t have questioned his judgment in front of everyone. And then I try to say that maybe he should’ve given me a little more airtime when I expressed my misgivings in private, and he says yes, maybe, but the important thing is that I have an anger problem and I need to address that.
My mother calls us up for dinner, and I’m hungry, so I just say yes, that’s true, I was angry, and we hug, and I say sorry about a thousand more times.
* * *
“So,” Auntie Lavinia asks, “when are you two going to make us grandparents?”
“Cyrus and I already have a baby between us, a very demanding baby who keeps us up all night.”
“Means you have practice,” she says.
“I think Gitanjali is enough baby for now,” Mira says.
Cyrus is plowing into my mother’s shrimp and okra curry. “Not a lot of white people like okra,” I announce, desperate to change the subject.
“It’s time you stopped calling him white people,” my father says. My father hasn’t had an opinion in several years, so I feel I shouldn’t disagree.
After dinner, my mother leads me into the kitchen, hands me a pineapple, and says I should peel it very thinly, then go around and around and dig out its eyes and cut the whole thing into triangles. This takes me about a year and gives her time to impart some wisdom.
“Your father has his head in the clouds,” she says. “Cyrus reminds me of him.” She’s chopping some green chilies to go with the pineapple.
“Oh, great. So I married my father. That’s not a cliché.”
“I always knew, even when we came here and started a family, that I was going to have to leave him to his dreaming. When you take people like that and force them to carry a job, responsibilities, they don’t always react well.”