“I’m okay.” Patricia took a breath, which came out staccato. She stared at the playground rocket ship and the Victorian houses with their pregnant windows. “I’m sort of okay. I just … Do you ever feel like you’re just throwing away the people in your life? Like, being so self-centered that people just fall away?”
Roberta laughed. “I have the opposite problem: I have a hard time disposing of the bodies. Ha ha. Trish, listen to me for once in your life. I know we never got along and I was partway responsible for you running away from home. But one thing I know about you is, you’re a generous person. You’re a big bleeding heart. People have fucked with you, including me—especially me—so you have a lot of defense mechanisms. But you always put yourself on the line for other people. You don’t push people away—you try to do everything for people, and then they don’t get to do anything for you. Please don’t let any idiots tell you otherwise, okay?”
Patricia was bawling, even worse than before, right there in the park. She felt it pour down her face, and she was full of a sense that everything was broken and full of sweetness. She had never realized her sister thought that way about her.
“If anybody tries to tell you that you’re selfish,” Roberta said, “send them to me and I’ll snap their necks for you. Okay?”
“Okay,” Patricia stammered. They talked a bit more—about Roberta’s musical-theater disasters, and her latest attempt to go straight-edge—and then at last, Patricia felt ready to go home and face her roommates, who were on the couch like always. They slid over, without comment, to let Patricia watch TV with them.
*
PATRICIA HAD ANOTHER one of her dreams about being lost in the woods, this time running with a pack of deer, a barbarian yell in her throat and the scent of tree sap in her nostrils. She ran with her elbows and her stomach and her knees, until she couldn’t breathe. Patricia stumbled and fell onto her hands, gasping, laughing. She looked up and there was that big bird-shaped Tree again, with the mindful gaze coming through its branches. Patricia walked up and touched it with her palms against its ropey bark, feeling the power rising and churning inside of it. Touching that weird Tree from her childhood fancies, Patricia felt as though she could heal an entire army with a single breath. Air rushed through the Tree, like it was drawing breath to speak to her in its stentorian whoosh … then she woke up. She’d overslept, in spite of her alarm.
*
PATRICIA WAS FIXING Reginald’s sink, which had one of those glitchy new valves that were supposed to shut off the water after a couple minutes, and she found herself talking about her breakup with Kevin. “I mean, I guess it’s for the best, since it was never going to work. But it’s a symptom of the larger problem, that I never have time for anybody, and I keep isolating myself, and I’m basically doomed to wind up alone forever. Right?”
She expected Reginald to offer some bromides about how she just needed to be herself, but instead he said, “Get. A. Caddy.”
“What?” She nearly bonked her head on the sink.
“Get a Caddy. It will change your life, I am not kidding. At all. You become totally connected to all the people in your life. Not like regular social networking, either. It’s uncanny: You will just run into people you know, in person, when you most need to see them. I could barely afford one on my fixed income, but it turned out to be the best investment I ever made.”
“I always thought they were just for Mission hipsters,” Patricia said. “Anyway, it sounds creepy.”
“Seriously, no. It’s not creepy, and it’s so easy to use. It doesn’t spy on you, or tell you to stalk your friends. I’ve never felt like it was invading my privacy. It just … makes serendipity happen more often. It’s unobtrusive, and doesn’t give you a bunch of alerts. But you’ll always know what’s the one party you shouldn’t miss. I was feeling isolated, even with your much-appreciated visits. And then I got this Caddy, and I feel as though I’m back in my own life again.”
In spite of Reginald’s insistence that the Caddy was not at all creepy, his hard sell was in itself kind of creepy. He sounded like someone who had just joined a cult. Patricia vowed that she would never, ever buy a Caddy. Ever.
Two days later, Patricia was in the Caddy store, near Union Square. It was narrow, with curving walls that drew you toward the counter at the back, like a stream curving around some rocks. The walls seemed to glow. Patricia picked up a Caddy from the display on one wall, and the screen flared to life. There was a swirl of colors, and then it resolved into a wheel shape. The wheel had swirls coming out of its center, sort of like a Daoist symbol, and each of them got bigger at her touch. They included things like Communication, Orientation, Self-Expression, and Introspection.