June, this year #4
I hate lying to this kind man, but what else can I say? I can hardly tell him the truth. I barely understand what the truth is, especially in terms of what specifically compelled San Francisco Millie to suddenly fly to Chicago.
He nods slowly. “Okay. You said Bonnie is fine now? Were you able to help with her . . . issue?”
“Uh, yeah. I was. She was having a relationship crisis, but I talked her off the ledge. They’ll be okay, I think.”
“Good,” Evan replies. “I like Gus, he seems like a good dude. Seems to make her happy, most of the time, right?”
Gus? I guess that’s the guy with Bonnie in the photo. I’m happy to hear Evan has met them — that must mean we’re still good friends in this life, even if we don’t see each other much.
“Yeah.” I smile back at him. “I won’t worry you again, promise.”
I’m making a promise his real girlfriend will have to keep after I leave, but I figure that’s her problem. Assuming her mind, her consciousness, her essence will return to this body once I’m gone.
After all, as much as my curiosity got the best of me about this life, I won’t stay here.
I just want a weekend glimpse into what it’s like to be a tech billionaire’s girlfriend.
I’m only trying on this life before I move on.
And, lying in this soft bed with this beautiful man, it doesn’t suck so far.
“I hope not,” he replies. “Come here.”
Come here. That’s what Rufus said to me, twenty-four hours and one universe ago. But this time it’s said with warmth and affection. Desire too, yes, but a desire born of love, rather than control.
Still, even though he’s super cute, I barely know this guy. And this body might be in a monogamous sexual relationship with Evan, but I had sex with someone else yesterday. It just doesn’t feel right.
Evan smiles gently at me, reading my hesitant body language. “Still too sleepy, huh? Okay, how about you nap here a while longer, while I hop in the shower and then fix us brunch? I’ll give you a ping when it’s ready.”
Ping. He probably means a text through my Contact lens.
I take him at his word, drifting in and out of a light doze for another half-hour, before reaching down to yesterday’s jeans for the capsule in my pocket.
I take it into the bathroom and spend nearly five minutes struggling to put the lens back in my eye.
Eventually, after much blinking and redness, I get it into place, and then jump in the shower.
As I’m drying off, after I’ve readjusted to the green type in my vision, a new Context from Evan appears.
YOUR brUNCH AWAITS YOU, MADAME. XX
He seems very thoughtful and indulgent. I can definitely see why I fell for this guy.
I pull on a fresh set of clothes from a huge walk-in closet full of designer gear that I’ll totally have to examine more thoroughly later. Downstairs, Evan has whipped up mushroom and cheese omelets, a side of brioche toast, and fresh orange juice and coffee.
Once again, I’m impressed.
We spend the entire afternoon chatting easily, Evan not seeming to notice as I carefully get him to reveal things about our life together.
“Remember the night we met?” I ask him, over a glass of ice tea around four p.m., my feet on his lap as we lounge on the patio couch by the pool. He nods, rubbing my soles with his thumbs.
“I’ll never be more glad to have been covered in a tray full of champagne.” He laughs. “If it hadn’t been for that clumsy server . . .”
A clumsy server? Oh yeah, I vaguely remember that. But in my world, Evan managed to dodge him, and kept going.
Maybe that was the difference.
“What do you suppose would’ve happened instead?” I ask, one eyebrow raised. “If, as you say, it hadn’t been for that clumsy server.”
He grins, looking out over the shimmering flat surface of the infinity-edge pool.
“Well, I wouldn’t have had all that champagne tipped over me, right?
My phone call with Sanjeet wouldn’t have been interrupted, so I guess I would have continued out to the lobby to take it, and you and I might never have spoken again.
You wouldn’t have seen the whole thing and come to my rescue, even though all you could do was dab at my suit with a napkin.
My custom Tom Ford, ruined.” He shakes his head.
“But it was totally worth it to keep talking to you.” He pats my legs, and pushes them off his lap.
“Speaking of fancy galas, we need to get ready. We have to leave at ten after five if we’re going to make it there for six.
Cynthia hung your dress in its bag on the closet door. ”
I can’t ask who Cynthia is, since I’m evidently supposed to know, but I assume she’s some kind of housekeeper or assistant who deals with our dry cleaning and probably a bunch of other stuff. I mean, Evan doesn’t strike me as a guy who needs to do his own chores.
“Okay, I’ll be up in a few,” I tell his back as he disappears through the sliding-glass wall into the living room.
Well, this is not a bad life at all. Super weird, given the sci-fi technology, and also just foreign to me, being in California. But undeniably fabulous and luxurious.
Upstairs, I dress in an angular, one-shouldered, violet-colored midi dress and black Jimmy Choos.
With this haircut, I barely need to do anything but brush my bob into place and give it a light spray.
I add a black choker, and put my lipstick and pale-powder compact into a Dior clutch, along with my house keys and lens case.
Evan drives us in his red Tesla to the Ritz-Carlton in downtown San Fran, tossing the keys to the valet waiting ahead of the grand, pillared entrance. We are swept along a red carpet under the porte cochere, where several photographers are waiting. They shout out when they see Evan.
“Evan! Millie! Over here!”
We pause a moment, smiling, Evan’s arm around my waist. He’s careful to look at each photographer in turn, giving them their shot, while I mostly smile at him.
He murmurs in my ear. “That should be enough.” We turn and join the sweep of other guests entering the opulent lobby, and are guided to the elaborate ballroom with its many chandeliers.
The event is some kind of technology industry foundation launch, looking for donors, and Evan — as a previous Tech For Global Good award winner — is evidently the guest of honor.
We’re seated at the top table for a dinner of sea scallops and halibut, and Evan is called on to stand up for a round of applause during the after-dinner speeches.
As Evan schmoozes with tech types, I’m temporarily standing alone by our table, sipping on pink champagne. A tall man approaches me — middle-aged, with black hair graying at the temples, and a well-trimmed goatee beard.
“Ah, the luminous Millie MacKenzie,” he says, reaching out an immaculately manicured hand. “I’ve been hoping to meet you. I’m a big fan of your partner’s work, of course, and I know you have played a large role in that. Amir Habib.” He has an unidentifiable accent, maybe Saudi or Israeli.
I shake his hand with a smile. “Thank you. But I don’t know how much of a role I’ve played in Evan’s achievements. That’s all him.”
Amir lets go of my hand, and tilts his head graciously. “Oh, my dear, you are too modest. Your influence on Contact and its success is legend. Even your Mr. Chen himself has proclaimed, in every interview I’ve read, that the company’s breakthrough would never have happened without you.”
What?
That can’t be true, surely. I know precisely squat about technology — I can’t have influenced it that much.
“He gives me too much credit,” I reply, with a smile that I hope hides my sudden fluster.
“Not at all,” Amir says, determinedly. “I’m a big follower of Mr. Chen and Contact Technologies, and his story is consistent.
He was about to give up on the company, which was floundering without a true purpose.
Then he met you, and you convinced him that, quite aside from the main purposes it is used for by consumers today, his technology could do so much to augment the vision of partially sighted people, as well as helping deaf communities and others with disabilities.
He reapplied his work with renewed vigor and a fresh mission, all because of you.
” Amir smiles, revealing perfect white teeth.
“Of course, nobody ever expected adoption to be so widespread among the general public, did they? Or that it would prove to become the pervasive communication medium of our generation, stuck in every eyeball in the Western World.”
I stare at him, my glass poised halfway to my lips.
I influenced all that? Without meeting me, Evan’s company would’ve failed, and people would still be using regular smartphones like in my world?
But I didn’t get together with Evan in my world. And his company did fail.
It’s the butterfly effect.