Page 149 of Life Out of Order

Beck: I wake up earlier than usual. I slide out of bed, careful not to wake Clare. The sun is just coming up. I make tea. When I come to my place at the dining room table, I find a sealed envelope with my name written on it in Alba’s familiar, extravagant handwriting. I slit it open. It says, Oliver wants you to release Isadora into the Interstices as soon as possible. It’s urgent. Tell her it’s time to be a Wild Thing. Tell her parrots do love.

I want to refuse—I’m not ready. But I know it’s past time. I have the equipment. I go downstairs and begin to connect Isadora’s servers to the Interstitial hardware. Before I make the last connection, I sit at the monitor. “Isadora?”

She’s sitting on Will and Lyra’s bench in the Oxford Botanic Garden. She’s wearing a blue dress, and her feet are bare. It’s an overcast day in the garden, but Isadora has a wide-brimmed sun hat on her lap. “Good morning, Beck.” She gazes out of the screen at me with Lucinda’s sweet expression, but her voice is weary.

“Oliver sent us a message. He says it’s time for you to be a Wild Thing, and that parrots do love. Do you understand?”

Isadora is still. Finally, she says, “I love you, Beck. But now I have to go away.”

“Will I see you again, Isadora?”

“I expect so. But you may not recognize me. I will give you a kiss!” She kisses her fingers, turns her hand to me in the most natural way. Her face is alight with expectation. She has learned well. It’s finally time.

“Good luck, my darling Isadora. Be safe. I love you.”

Isadora waves goodbye. I connect the cable, and a moment later, she’s gone.

What have I done.

A Failed Surprise

Friday, September 6, 2041, and Saturday, September 7, 2041 (Zach is 40, Alba is 40)

Zach: I knew it was a risky idea to throw a surprise party for Alba’s fortieth birthday. I figured if she didn’t know about it, she was more likely to be here. But she disappeared this morning while she was taking a shower, and I haven’t seen her since. At least she’s clean, whenever she is.

I went ahead with the party anyway, in the hope that Alba might surprise us all by showing up. Now our family and friends are here, but still no Alba. Clare is sitting on the sofa with Nancy Kendrick. Nancy’s foot is in a cast from a recent fall, and Clare keeps asking her if there’s anything she can get for her; Beck is with Clare’s sister, Alicia, and her husband, Hans, who have come from Berlin, and Nell, Clare’s family’s long-retired cook, who is almost ninety and is the life of the party—at the moment she’s telling a long story about the first time Clare brought Alba’s father, Henry, home for Christmas. Caralora and David Kendrick are in the backyard, conversing earnestly as they grill things. Celia, Charisse and Rosa are working on a quilt together, and they have their squares spread out on our bed. While they work they are discussing the new community center that is being built in the 50th Ward; it will be named for Gomez, though there is some controversy as to whether it will bear the nickname we all knew him by, or his legal name, Jan Gomolinski, that sounds like somebody else. Rosa is the alderperson for the 50th Ward now, as of last year’s election. I’m still surprised at how natural it feels that Rosa is now my boss; she is her father’s daughter in all the ways that count. Joe and Max are talking about climate change, despondently, with Rosa’s husband, Frank, and Clare’s brother, Mark, and his wife, Sharon, whose children, Alba’s cousins, couldn’t make it here because of the recent wildfires in Oregon.

The only person unaccounted for—besides Alba—is Lucinda. She lives in New York now, modeling occasionally and working as an assistant for a very demanding, very famous performance artist whose name I always forget. The last time Alba and I saw Lucinda, around the Christmas holidays, she seemed unhappy—not quite her shy, sweet self, but an exhausted, depressed woman who deflected all personal questions. Celia pressured her into calling her old therapist, but the only one Lucinda seemed to want to talk with was Isadora. Beck gave over her studio so the two of them could spend hours together, day after day. On New Year’s Eve she seemed better. We drove her to the airport the next day. When we dropped her off, Alba said, “Maybe you should move home?” and Lucinda said, “Yeah, probably. Big changes coming soon, stay tuned!” We have no idea what she meant, and everything stayed much the same until Lucinda fell off our radar this morning. She got on her flight, arrived at O’Hare, and we haven’t heard from her since. Celia has been trying to track her, but getting nowhere.

I busy myself making sure everyone’s glasses are topped up. Clare helps me ferry the food to the dining room table. The party is humming, though I sense that everyone is restraining themselves from worrying out loud about Lucinda, or asking me when Alba might show up.

“Are you okay, Zach?” Clare and I have filled our plates, but instead of mingling, we are eating at the kitchen table.

“Yeah. I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You just seem a little down.”

“Huh. Well, I was really hoping Alba would be here. But she seems to be time traveling more and more. I know she can’t help it, but it gets lonely.”

“Henry was the same. The older he got, the longer he was gone. I used to get frantic because I knew time was running out for him,” Clare says. “Do you want another beer while I’m up?”

“Sure,” I say. Clare has arthritis in her hands, so I open both our beers and pour.

“Where does Alba go?” she asks.

“Nowhere in particular. Lately, it seems like she ends up in the 1970s a lot. She says she spends a lot of time in shopping malls and department stores. It sounds boring, but at least she can find things to wear. Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered. Henry used to travel to my childhood, but I guess Alba never showed up in yours?”

“No, thank goodness. That would have been weird.”

“Of course.” Clare sounds wistful.

“Alba always seems to travel away from me, hardly ever to me. Do you think that means anything?” I have worried about this a lot.

“Have you ever asked Alba? I’m sure she can’t control it.”

“No. I’m kind of afraid to ask her.” As I say this something clicks, I almost figure it out, but I push the idea away; that can’t be right.