Madoka had formed an opinion of Helen Kane during the launch experience: incredibly capable and accomplished, unfeminine, respectful, quick, self-contained but professionally kind, and what Yoshi would call “jovial.” She’d not seen the need to add greatly to this idea in the past nine months, since everything Yoshi said about Helen fit into one or two of those categories. She had liked that Helen had made Yoshi a pair of slippers for his birthday. It seemed motherly.
The restaurant had been suggested by Mireille. They are sitting in a garden patio decorated in old-fashioned European-style antiques, not Madoka’s taste at all but pretty in its way. She’s in her travel-work uniform: dark and tailored, with a patterned scarf for style and friendliness. It is always her PEPPER that is the star of the show, but as PEPPER’s ambassador Madoka must not look too robotic herself. The other patrons of the restaurant are both more casually and more elaborately outfitted. T-shirts and mounds of hair and breasts, expensive but no style. Mireille is wearing a silk dress that doesn’t quite fit her: she has pinned the neckline to a more modest décolletage.
Madoka had settled with herself that she would treat Helen’s daughter the way she might treat a Prime employee. She would be friendly and not say too much, ask questions, praise when appropriate. She hadn’t been able to think up a more interesting persona: she’d already used up the secretly insane woman character at the launch.
The problem is that so far, Meeps seemed to have selected the same persona for herself. After the initial entanglement with the scarf, they had settled in to their table, ordered slightly different kinds of salads, and were now engaged in an almost competitive exchange of blandness. They have talked a little about Los Angeles, about Japan, about the latest photos and crew news, about how sad the Weilai 3 tragedy had been, about a space movie neither of them had seen but was supposed to be very entertaining. Madoka feels that while both of them are performing their chosen roles perfectly, neither one of them is particularly happy about it.
“Tell me about your work,” Mireille is saying now. “You mentioned you’re bringing a robotic caregiver—is that the right label?—to a private client?”
“It’s for the client’s mother,” Madoka says. “PEPPER can act as a nursing assistant, but in this case it will be more of a companion.”
“PEPPER?”
“The name of the model.”
“What does she look like? PEPPER, I mean, not the client’s mother.”
Madoka retrieves her screen and brings up a picture of PEPPER. As she does this, she is aware of Mireille watching her carefully, almost as if she’s studying her. There is something greedy in the girl’s attention, or critical.
“Oh, wow.” Mireille smile-frowns at the image of PEPPER. “It looks so much like a robot. I mean, like, when someone says the word ‘robot’ this is what you would think of. Classic robot.”
They are both bent a little forward, looking at the picture of the robot. “She seems nice,” Mireille says. “Does ‘PEPPER’ mean anything? I mean, beyond the English word.”
“No. It’s just the word in English. It’s not easy to come up with a good name for a robot. It has to work for either male or female, because the voice can be set to either.”
“Do more people make her sound female or male?”
“It depends. On who is doing the choosing, on the care recipient, on what primary tasks the PEPPER is assigned to.”
“She’s wearing a skirt.”
“We call it a silhouette,” Madoka says. The subject is certainly a safe one; she can talk about the robot for hours, but she’s not certain Mireille will understand, she might think it all bizarre and inhuman. Americans have funny thoughts about Japanese culture: robots and filthy pornography and obedience and paper crafts. Madoka cannot allow PEPPER to become silly or strange. Right now, she’s all she has.
“I’m trying to picture my grandmother with a robot like that,” Mireille says. “She’s in assisted living. In New York, where my aunt and uncle live. Do you have that in Japan?”
“Assisted living? We do, yes. It is very expensive, though.”
“I don’t know why, I just assumed that seniors in Japan would be looked after by their families, at home. That it was mostly just here in America that we pack them away.”
“Oh, you’ve been told that we have great respect for the elderly in Japan,” Madoka says. “We do, but that doesn’t mean we wish to live with them.”
Mireille starts to laugh, then stops and looks demurely down at her plate and changes the laugh to a polite smile.
Is she imitating me? Madoka wonders. Or imitating what she thinks a nice Japanese business-lady wife of astronaut would be like?
Madoka remembers female friendships in her past. Rolling with laughter on Yuko’s bed, talking, talking, talking. What had she ever had so much to talk about? Emi rushing to Madoka’s dorm room at Harvard and throwing herself in Madoka’s arms because Emi’s mother had died. Madoka’d been the one Emi had turned to at such an important moment, imagine that.
When Madoka puts her screen back in the bag at her feet she sees, under the table, that Mireille is sitting on her hands. She is not imitating Madoka. She’s nervous. Madoka is ashamed. And suddenly, exhausted. It’s not only the travel. It’s this waiting. Always waiting. For what? She tries to think of something kind to say to Mireille.
“I like your dress,” she says. “It’s very pretty.”
“I had an audition.” Mireille releases one hand and fiddles with her doctored neckline. “For a play. This morning. I had to cry, in the scene.”
“That must be difficult.”
“No. Not for me.” Mireille half laughs.