Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel (11 page)

The floodwater was rising. The bill had come due. I was unworthy, always unworthy. “I’m so selfish, Grizzly Bear. I wish I could have found some more HNWIs for you in Europe. Jesus Christ. Do I still have a job?”

“Let’s get you readjusted here,” Joshie said. He touched my shoulder briefly as he headed for the door. “I can’t get you a desk right away, but I can assign you to Intakes in the Welcome Center.” A demotion from my previous position, but tolerable, as long as the salary stayed the same. “We need to get you a new äppärät,” he said. “You’re going to have to learn to surf the data streams better. Learn to rank people quicker.”

I remembered Point No. 2:
Evoke father-like bond in response to political situation. Talk about what happened on the plane; evoke Jewish feelings of terror and injustice
. “Joshie,” I said. “You should always have your äppärät on you. This poor fat man on the plane—”

But he was already out the door, throwing me a brief look that commanded me to follow. The hordes of Brown-Yonsei and Reed-Fudan graduates were upon him, each trying to outdo the others in informality (“Joshster! Budnik!” “
Papi chulo!
”), each holding in his or her hands the solution to all the problems of our world. He gave them tiny bits of himself. He tousled hair. “G’wan, you!” he said to a Jamaican-seeming guy who, when you cut right down to it, was not Jamaican. I realized we were heading downstairs, over to the untamed oasis of Human Resources, straight to Howard Shu’s desk.

Shu, a goddamn relentless immigrant in the mode of my janitor father but with English and good board scores on his side, was dealing with three äppäräti at once, his callused fingertips and spitfire Chinatown diction abuzz with data and the strong, dull hope that he
was squarely in control. He reminded me of the time I went to a conference on longevity in some provincial Chinese city. I landed at a just-built airport as beautiful as a coral reef and no less complex, took one look at the scurrying masses, the gleaming insanity in their eyes, at least three men by the taxi ranks trying to sell me a sophisticated new nose-hair trimmer (was this what New York had been like at the start of the twentieth century?), and thought, “Gentlemen, the world is yours.”

To make matters worse, Shu was not unhandsome, and when he and Joshie high-fived each other, I felt the pureness of envy, an emotion that numbed my feet and shorted my breath. “Take care of Len here,” Joshie said to Howard Shu, with just a thimble of conviction. “Remember, he’s an OG.” I hoped he meant Original Gangster and not Old Guy. And then, before I could laugh at his youthful demeanor, at his easy ways, Joshie was gone, headed back into the open arms that would receive him wherever, whenever he felt the need of their embrace.

I sat down across from Howard Shu and tried to radiate indifference. From behind the helmet of his lustrous black hair, Shu did the same. “Leonard,” he said, his button nose aglow, “I’m pulling up your file.”

“Please do.”

“You’re being docked 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars,” Shu said.

“What?”

“Your expenses in Europe. You flew first-class everywhere. Thirteen thousand northern euros’ worth of resveratrol?”

“It was no more than two glasses a day. Red wine only.”

“That’s twenty euros a glass. And what the hell is a bidet?”

“I was just trying to do my job, Howard. You can’t possibly—”

“Please,” he said. “You did nothing. You fucked around. Where are the clients? What happened to that sculptor who was ‘in the bag’?”

“I don’t appreciate your tone.”

“And I don’t appreciate your inability to do your job.”

“I tried to sell the Product, but the Europeans weren’t interested.
They’re totally skeptical about our technology. And some of them actually
want
to die.”

The immigrant eyes glared at me. “No free pass, Leonard. No hiding behind Joshie’s goodwill. You get your act together or we’ll be conducting exit interviews. You can keep your previous salary level, we’ll put you in Intakes, and you’re paying for every last meatball you ate in Rome.”

I looked behind me. “Don’t look behind you,” Shu said. “Your papa’s gone. And what the
fuck
is this?” A red code was flashing amidst the steady chrome äppärät data. “American Restoration Authority says you were flagged at the embassy in Rome. Now you got the ARA on your tail? What the hell did you do?”

The world took another spin and then a tumble. “Nothing!” I cried. “Nothing! I didn’t try to help the fat man. And I don’t know any Somalians. I slept with Fabrizia only a few times. The otter got it all wrong. It’s all a scam. The guy videotaped me on the plane and I said ‘Why?’ And now I can’t contact Nettie Fine. Do you know what they’ve done to her? Her GlobalTeens address is deleted. I can’t GlobalTrace her either.”

“Otter? Nettie
what
? It says here ‘malicious provision of incomplete data.’ Fuck it, another mess for me to clean up. Let me see your äppärät. Good fucking Christ. What is this, an iPhone?” He spoke into the cuff of his shirt: “Kelly, bring me a new äppärät for Abramov. Bill it to Intakes.”

“I knew it,” I said. “It’s my äppärät’s fault. I just told Joshie that he should always have his on him. Fucking Restoration Authority.”

“Joshie doesn’t need an äppärät,” Shu said. “Joshie doesn’t need a
damn
thing.” He stared at me with what could have been unimaginable pity or unimaginable hatred, but in either case involved perfect animal stillness. Kelly Nardl came huffing up the stairs with a new äppärät box that was itself a rainbow of blinking data and noise, a nasal Mid-Atlantic voice somehow embedded in the cardboard promising me “Duh berry ladest in RateMe tech-nah-luh-gee.”

“Thanks,” Shu said, and waved Kelly away. Seven years ago, before
the mighty Staatling-Wapachung Corporation bought Joshie out for a grotesque sum of money, Kelly, Howard, and I used to occupy the same rung of what was then called a “flat organization,” one without titles or hierarchies. I tried to catch Kelly’s eye, to get her on my side against this monster who couldn’t even pronounce the word “bidet” properly, but she fled Howard’s desk with nary a shake of her friendly backside. “Learn how to use this thing
immediately
,” Shu told me. “Especially the RateMe part. Learn to rate everyone around you. Get your data in order. Switch on CrisisNet and follow all the latest. An ill-informed salesman is dead in the water these days. Get your mind in the right place. Then we’ll see about putting your name back on The Boards. That’s all, Leonard.”

It was still the lunch hour by my calculations. I went over to the East River with the äppärät package continuously hollering under my arm. I watched unmarked boats bristling with armaments form a gray naval chain from the Triborough down to the Williamsburg Bridge. According to Media, the Chinese Central Banker was coming to take the lay of our indebted land in about two weeks, and security all over Manhattan would be profound for his visit. I sat down on a hard, wiry chair and stared at the impressive all-glass beta skyline of Queens, built way before our last dollar devaluation. I opened the box and took out the smooth pebble of the new äppärät, felt it already warm in my hand. An Asian woman of Eunice’s caliber projected herself at eye level. “Hello,” she said. “Welcome to äppärät 7.5 with RateMe Plus. Would you like to get started? Would you like to get started? Would you like to get started? Just say ‘yes’ and we can get started.”

I owed Howard Shu 239,000 yuan-pegged dollars. My first stab at dechronification—gone. My hair would continue to gray, and then one day it would fall out entirely, and then, on a day meaninglessly close to the present one, meaninglessly
like
the present one, I would disappear from the earth. And all these emotions, all these yearnings, all these
data
, if that helps to clinch the enormity of what I’m talking about, would be gone. And that’s what immortality means to me, Joshie. It means selfishness. My generation’s belief
that each one of us matters more than you or anyone else would think.

There was a commotion on the water, a needed distraction. With a burble of warm white spray behind it, a northbound seaplane took off so gracefully, so seemingly free of mechanics and despair, that for a moment I imagined all our lives would just go on forever.

THE NEXT PLANE HOME

JUNE 9

CHUNG.WON.PARK
TO
EUNI-TARD ABROAD:

Eunhee,

Today I wake up sad. But no problem! It will be OK! Only your father is very mad at you. He say you bohemia. What is this? He say you go to rome and you do not protect the mystery. He call you bad word in korean. He say you probably with black man. So shocking! He say only bohemia people go to Europe and bohemia people is bad people. He say maybe he stop being podiatrist and become painter which is always what he want but he grew up oldest son so he has responsibility to his parent and brothers. You are oldest sister. So you have responsibility. I say this already. We are not like American, don’t forget! Which is why now Korea very rich country and America owe everything to China people. Daddy say you should come home and take LSAT again but this time study, but maybe Daddy a little wrong because now there is army in the street and it is dangerous. Reverend Cho tell Daddy he is sinner and he must throw away of himself, to be empty inside, so his heart will be fill only with Jesu. Also he say he should see Special Doctor to talk to and maybe take medicine so that he don’t hit. But Daddy say it is shameful to take drug. Eunhee! Prepare yourself for LSAT to make Daddy happy and we can be good family again. Please forgive me because I am bad mother and bad wife.

Love,

Mommy

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
Sally, I’m taking the next plane home.

SALLYSTAR:
It’s not so bad. Don’t listen to Mommy. She’s trying to guilt
you. I’m staying over at Eunhyun’s this whole week. I’m so busy studying for chem I don’t even have time to deal.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
If you can’t deal, then who’s taking care of mom? If we’re both out of the house he’ll start blaming her for EVERY LITTLE THING. He’ll say she drove us away and turned us both against him. She’s completely un-protected. You know she’ll never call the police or even Cousin Harold if he hits her.

SALLYSTAR:
Don’t use that kind of language, please.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
What kind of language? That he HITS her.

SALLYSTAR:
Stop it. Anyway, I still have dinner there every night so I know what’s going on. He hasn’t done anything major.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
Not to her, you mean. What about you?

SALLYSTAR:
I’m okay. Chem is killing me.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
I know you’re lying to me, Sally. I’ll be on the next plane back and I’ll see what he’s done.

SALLYSTAR:
Stay in Rome, Eunice! You deserve to have a good time after college. One of us should be happy. Anyway, next week I’m going to DC for that thing so I won’t even see him. Don’t worry about Mommy. Cousin Angela is staying over while I’m gone. She has job interviews in the city.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
What thing in DC? The march against the ARA?

SALLYSTAR:
Yes. But don’t call it that. Some of the profs at school say we shouldn’t mention it on GlobalTeens because they monitor everything.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
Did Daddy call me a ghee jee beh?

SALLYSTAR:
He had this crazy night where he thought you were sleeping with a black man. He said he had a dream about it. It’s like he can’t tell the difference between dreams and reality anymore.

EUNI-TARD ABROAD:
Did you tell Daddy I help out at the shelter in Rome? Don’t tell him it’s for trafficked Albanian women. Just say it’s for immigrants, okay?