Jasper lowered the volume. The ad’s content wasn’t as sexy as he’d hoped. But her body was great—that’s what he needed to focus on.
“We work one-on-one with people whose wishes can’t be answered by mainstream technology,” the woman continued. He had to stop himself from staring at the water, watching it ripple.
He realized he was hoping a dolphin might appear.
Sighing, Jasper watched as another bikini-clad woman pushed a quadriplegic male amputee several decades her senior down the beach in a wheelchair. Two more women—also bikini clad but wearing safety goggles and unbuttoned white lab coats—were approaching. They were carrying something together, balancing it on their right shoulders. Was it a kayak?
It was not. They stopped and stood it upright in the sand. It looked like the back half of a rigid wet suit. Together, the three women picked the man up and snapped the suit around the back of his body like a cell-phone case.
And just like that, he was standing upright. The man let out a high-pitched whistle and an unmanned Jet Ski came bounding across the water at high speed. It stopped at his feet like a well-trained dog, idling. The man climbed onto the Jet Ski. How old was he, exactly? Eighty-two? The bikini-clad woman who’d been pushing his wheelchair then climbed onto the Jet Ski, and he lowered himself down so she could climb atop his shoulders. The other women joined too, stepping out of their lab coats, tossing their safety goggles to the sand, wrapping around the man in a big sandwich. They Jet-Skied off into the water and somehow even over the motor, even as they receded farther into the distance, the sound of them giggling together was very clear.
“The possibilities of tomorrow can be yours today,” the voice-over encouraged. “Come to Biotech Medical and let the future help you. Biotech, a subsidiary of Gogol.”
13
HAZEL MOTORED INTO THE HOUSE TO FIND HER FATHER SITTING BETWEEN Diane and his newest doll, also a redhead. “Knock first!” he yelled.
“You could also lock the door, Dad.” Hazel stood and turned around, surreptitiously taking the brick of cash out of her pants, then placed it on the coffee table. “Here’s some cash. It’s about a year’s rent. But I have a better proposal—I’m taking you to Gogol’s medical facilities. I appreciate it that you didn’t want to tell me, and if you want, we don’t have to talk about it at all. You can just pack a suitcase and we’ll get into a cab. The whole way there, we can talk about the weather or baseball or make a ranked, ordered list of the ways I’ve most disappointed you. I won’t bring up the cancer. I’ll come spend each day there with you too, or if you’d rather be alone that’s fine. I’ll visit as much or as little as you’d like. You can call all the shots.”
“I know I can call the shots, Hazel. It’s my damn life.” Looking at him nestled there between Di and the second doll, what struck Hazel was how the dolls’ expressions stayed unchanged and bubbly no matter what words were said around them. It was as if they were in a country where they didn’t speak much of the language and had misinterpreted the conversation as a lighthearted one, or were willfully trying to keep the party going despite a developing scuffle. Maybe she could talk to Byron about this. Gogol surely could make a sex doll whose face was appropriately responsive to conversational stimuli. Then again, that was probably a terrible idea. Hazel felt a pang of nausea imagining the customers who’d be delighted to have a doll whose face looked worried when yelled at, or a doll who cried.
“I agree; it is your life. So let’s go save it.”
He slid his glasses down to the end of his nose and squinted, which was what he did when super-perplexed. As a teenager she’d called it his “Chancellor Moleman” expression. He looked like an underground creature who’d had to surface for a practical errand, to file some sort of paperwork on behalf of his species, and was repulsed by everything he saw in the daylight.
“That’s why I didn’t bring it up, Hazel. I knew you’d want me to go to some crackpot laboratory. I didn’t want you to take it personal, kiddo. It’s not like if we got along better I’d want to try to live forever. I’m done with treatment.”
“What you’ve tried is basic compared to what’s possible. You can’t just give up and die.”
He smiled, which to Hazel hurt more than anything. She wanted him to yell and tell her it was none of her business, or say that he probably got sick in the first place from worrying about all her bad decisions. He could even tell her she was such a failure that dying would give him some peace. Anything to keep some distance from this gruff man she’d always cared about despite herself.
Distance had always been their agreement. It was how he’d been able to go his way while she went hers. This smile that drew her closer was not something she could protect herself from. “Hazelbear,” he said. She felt ill. When had he last used that name? “Too much of anything is torture. I’ve seen the movie. I know how it ends and I don’t need to sit through it again. I’d hoped you’d be moving along about the time the going gets rough. I don’t know how much longer that will be, but I wanted to spare you. How’d you find out?”
Hazel considered lying: she wanted him to believe she’d figured it out by herself, through her very own cleverness.
“Byron. This Sleep Helmet I wore. It diagnoses illnesses in those around you.”
He made the Chancellor Mole face again. “Do you see what I mean? It’s my time. The world that made sense to me has retired.”
“Don’t end your life over a stupid helmet invention.” Hazel wanted a reason for his giving up that she could accept, and she hadn’t heard it yet. “Is it because of Mom? What you saw when she did the treatments?”
“It’s because I’m done. And I want to spend the short time I’ve got left in my own home surrounded by beautiful women. Or replicas of them. Whatever. I’ve never been picky.”
“Okay,” Hazel said. She let out a long exhale. Despite what this meant for his health, she had to work not to smile. She felt so relieved that she didn’t have to go back to The Hub. “Well, I’m here for you. I’ll be here with you till the end.”
Her father shook his head. “I appreciate that, Hazel. I don’t think it’s wise though. You always have a hard time staying out of trouble, but the stench of crisis on you now is at an all-time high.”
“Dad, don’t die alone.” Also, don’t kick me out, she thought.