Chapter Thirty-One
Thirty-One
During the fall kickoff week, a couple clasped hands on the Du Jour set couch, already repurposed for Josef and me to hold
live interviews. They were excited and friendly, and I was about as bubbly as a wet sock. I forced a smile. “How does it feel
to have one of the biggest new podcasts in the country?”
“Soccer Mom Season has been a whirlwind,” Ann said. “Honestly, the hardest part was naming it. Our publicist tried for ‘Two Moms Named Ann,’ ”
but Ayn here rightfully didn’t want to change her name.”
“Yes. And ‘Fifty Shades of Gay’ was taken,” Ayn quipped.
Josef laughed. “Your story is resonating,” he said. “Two town moms. Kids have been playing together their whole lives. Husbands
in the picture? And then you find you’re fated to be soulmates.”
Both Ann’s and Ayn’s faces tightened a fraction, but they nodded.
“And you’ve made the leap not just as platonic soulmates, but romantic ones. Would you have guessed this would’ve happened
before Soulmail?” Josef asked.
Ayn shook her head. “Both of our marriages were strong. We were never particularly close. Occasional carpool, block parties,
that kind of thing.”
“I didn’t even have her number saved,” Ann said.
Ayn rubbed her thumb against Ann’s index finger. “At first we thought, oh, great! The universe is gifting me with a new best friend.”
“But it was more than that,” I said.
“Totally. There we were, two middle-class suburban moms, kids, and husbands. Content as can be. And then we were suddenly
swimming in these strong, all-encompassing feelings.” Ann whirled her hands in front of her face.
“And then?” Josef prompted.
Ann’s smile was practiced. “And then Ayn tried ghosting me for a week.”
Ghosts. I knew what that was like. I smoothed my too-tight skirt. Its zipper bit into my spine. Focus, Adler, I gritted to myself. “That must have been hard,” I murmured.
“We did everything we could to deny it,” Ayn said.
“Everything,” Ann repeated.
“And then Ann was everywhere. Summer camp drop-off line. Grocery store.”
“Home Depot, hair salon, Whole Foods return line—”
“We were just constantly thrown in each other’s paths over and over,” Ayn said. “The more we tried to resist what Soulmail
was telling us . . .”
“. . . The more the universe kept forcing us together,” Ann finished. “Invisible strings. So that’s what we do on our podcast
now: interview people resisting their Soulmail matches. Every single time, these themes present. Forced proximity, or people
unable to sleep because their soulmate is all they can think about . . .”
“Fate,” Ayn said softly. “Simply put, we’re learning every day, through every story, that Soulmails are undeniably, irrevocably
right. It was an extremely hard lesson, but we were never unfaithful in our marriages.”
The studio lights were bright, but my vision dimmed. Warmth crept over my chest. Crawled the tines of my neck. I made a show of glancing at the list of approved questions, unable to read them. “How are your families adjusting to this new normal?”
Backstage, the physical hum of the crew stilled. My question wasn’t pointedly nasty, but it was both unapproved and unsaid
that their families were probably in some state of upheaval. Immediately, regret sat on my lap. These were nice people, no doubt stuck in a difficult quandary. Their
kids and ex-husbands were just trying to live their lives. I was being unfair because their truth was one I wanted to be my
lie, and there was no one I could tell my feelings to. My college group threads were big enough that I didn’t trust what I
wrote wouldn’t make it public. Natalie had flown to her mom’s from Bali. Caleb, well. Ghost. My parents had ghosts of their
own to deal with.
I wished my sister was alive.
I held up both of my palms, trying to gesture a state of calm support. “We’re rooting for you,” I added hastily.
Ayn’s mouth curved. “We’re a regular Brady Bunch,” she said smoothly. “Adjusting, for sure, but you don’t want to force a
family to live in a situation where a marriage is no longer the right choice.”
Josef pressed his leg against mine in rebuke. “Of course,” he said.
“Well, we’re encouraging everyone to check out Soccer Mom Season,” I said. “I know it’s one of my favorites right now.”
Ayn and Ann relaxed. I hoped I’d recovered it enough. On set, the teleprompter flashed, and as the camera zoomed in to frame
Josef and me, I turned toward it, expectant.
But when I tried to recite my preloaded lines, my voice locked in my throat. Josef glanced at me and swooped over my words,
absorbing them as if they were meant to be his.
“We’ll leave you today with some sad news out of Rhode Island this morning.
Jesse Ringwater, a much-loved high school history teacher and happily married father, is in a coma.
Ringwater tried to take his own life after learning his soulmate was a fourteen-year-old he’d never met—who he learned come September was his incoming freshman student.
Sources say Ringwater wanted to spare both himself and his family the embarrassment of being soulmates with the student and made the attempt before he learned that the fourteen-year-old was actually the biological daughter he never knew he’d had from a prior relationship. ”
Thankfully, this news was so sobering that I didn’t have to smile, because there was no world in which I could right now,
considering the fact that I wasn’t even breathing properly.
“And now back to Richard for the weather, and your local weatherperson where you are.”
“Cut,” called the set director. I slumped against the back of the couch.
“Head between your knees,” Josef ordered, rubbing my shoulders. I blinked, consciousness dipping in and out, dizziness swarming
my head, my jaw, my fingers. I heard Samantha snapping for our on-set medic.
Ayn or Ann shoved a glass of water in my hand. “That history teacher news is so upsetting,” she said. “It’s normal to feel
the way you’re feeling.”
“Clear the set,” Samantha ordered from yards away.
“She’s so empathetic,” Ann whispered to Ayn as they left.
But Josef stayed with me. “You breathing?”
I was. Oxygen lapped at the dizziness, battling it back. “I’m okay,” I lied. “I think I’m LBSing.”
“Low blood sugar is a rookie mistake.” Josef eyed me.
“I was out of bagels this morning.” And I was stuck in a jail the universe had created, but there was no way to explain that.
“You know, this job sits very close to unexplained things.” Josef squeezed my shoulder, a pulse of fatherly comfort that made my rib cage hitch. “It’s okay to be angry with the world, the universe.” Josef paused. “With Soulmail.”
The truth of what he said tunneled through me, wind beneath an overpass. “I think I feel trapped,” I whispered. “And I don’t
know who to blame other than myself.”
Josef bent low to my ear. “Sometimes when people feel this way, they create a villain to direct their anger toward, when the
truth is there’s no villain at all.”
“Bet you’re happy,” Samantha said as we walked out of a meeting to discuss my newsy sign-off phrase in late September. “Taglines
can make a career.”
In the end, network heads usually won, and this time, Tate’s advocacy for the Du Jour catchphrase to remain as-is was by default
my win. It had become such a part of daily lexicon that people complained when I anchored and didn’t use it.
“Sure. ‘And that’s the daily Du Jour’ lives on.” I paused. “Hey, for my documentary, I have a hypothesis I want to test that
people prone to addiction who have living Soulmail-mates are more likely to stick to sobriety practices than people whose
soulmates are dead. What do you think?”
Samantha slowed her steps. “How can you test this idea?”
“I can run an anonymous poll. Maybe on Reddit? Or our socials?”
Her frames were black now, a light tortoiseshell pattern on the tips. I’d Googled the price of the glasses and, despite my
inflating bank account, a small-to-medium-sized portion of my insides had recoiled. She pushed them up. “I can see it being
true. Having a guaranteed support around and all that.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “But won’t you need years of data to
back up its longevity?”
“Yeah. I guess I was thinking the one-day-at-a-time perspective.”
“Maybe,” she said. “You’re not wrong, but we just may need more distance to learn. Keep chewing.”
Hair and makeup spent more time on me now that I was co-anchor. The only thing that saved me through those first early wakeups,
longer workdays, and general scrutiny of the public was that Dola and Al were reassigned to be my main team.
A week into my new role, I sat in the makeup room, my head splitting open with the kind of cracking headache that reminded
me of the payment for pulling all-nighters in college.
Dola ran a gelled brush through my eyebrows. “What’s going on? Did I get something in your eye?” She frowned.
When I tried to shake my head, my left eye twitched. “Uh-uh. Headache.”
“Light hurts?”
“Yeah,” I said. My voice was a croak.
Her face softened. “Stress? Lack of sleep? Hormones?”
“Is this multiple choice? How many answers can I pick?”
Dola dimmed the lights, bringing a wave of instant relief so enormous tears of gratitude filled my eyes. She removed an ice
pack from the fridge, draped it over my neck, and pressed a pill into my hand. “Excedrin Migraine,” she whispered. “Phoebe
used to get them.”
I had a migraine? That fit, but I’d never had one before. “What about the makeup lighting?”
“I’ll do touch-ups after with your eyes closed. Now—do you want me to distract you? I could also play some soft music, or
we can just be quiet.”
“Tell me about things with Trent,” I whispered. The coolness rushed over my neck, and I sank into it.
“Soulmail is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Trent Foster is my four-seasons love.”
My forehead creased, sending a jolt into my skull. “Like the hotel brand?”
Dola’s laugh was quiet. “You think I’m crashing at one of those? I mean we’ve got year-round love.”
“The ‘all relationships go through seasons’ thing?”
“Nope. It’s something my mom always said. Your person needs to balance all four to be endgame. You need the kind of partner
who has the same goals for how they’d want to spend summer vacation. Fit in with family and friends. In autumn, things are
punchy. Exciting. Spiced everything. Are you a match in bed? And then in winter, cold days are like rough patches, so your
person must be warm, solid, dependable.”
“And spring?”
Dola shook a setting spray. The liquid was two-toned when it sat on the counter, a silvery white top over a vial of Caribbean
Ocean. I anticipated her incoming command and closed my eyes. “Everyone’s always talking about spring being rebirth, but it’s
more that it’s unexpected. It’s lighter for longer, even if the temp drops. Spring is bright colors and dark nights, and it
can look nice and feel like hell. The first sign that things might not go as planned. Sunburns on a soccer field when it’s
forty degrees. Mom’s hypothesis is, how we react to the unexpected is who we really are.”
“And you have that now?” I blinked. To my dawning relief, my headache was more whisper than shout.
“One million percent. No matter how in love they are, you wanna know what every one of my brides or grooms freaks about while
they get ready?”
“What?”
Dola’s smile was rueful. “Doubt,” she said simply. “It’s human nature to wonder if there’s more. But now, with Soulmail?” She shrugged. “It’s almost like getting together with a money-back guarantee. The confidence in the match is, well, unmatched.”
Wells. My tongue thickened in my mouth at the thought of my universe’s dictated endgame.
“Oh, there’s another secret that never fails to comfort my brides and grooms.” Dola cupped her hands around her mouth and
bent toward me. “Divorce exists,” she whispered.
My laugh surprised me. Most people didn’t enter marriage with that end goal, but if we went through with it, I guess I had
that fallback.
Dola busied herself with cleaning, wiping her products with alcohol pads. “You know, I wish you could’ve seen yourself that
first day we picked you up. Never would have known how much my life was about to change.”
I snagged the lint roller from the counter and ran it over the emerald sheath the network had selected for me. “Yeah? How’d
I look?”
Dola’s face cleared. “Everything was so tense and so rushed, and so weird, we had no idea what state you’d be in when we picked
you up. But there you were. You looked . . .” She met my eyes in the mirror.
“Freaked out?” I suggested, thinking of warm bathroom floors, of someone else’s pale breasts, of bedroom chandeliers, and
one of those gut feelings that everything was about to change for good.
“Oh, no. Relieved,” Dola said finally.
I dropped the lint roller. Samantha poked her head into the room. “I have Alanna here for touch-ups. Adler, you’re on in ten.”
She was gone as fast as she appeared.
My headache blinked again, like a curtain shoved aside to see if it was raining. I frowned. Zero part of me wanted to go on-air
today. With a pang, I thought of Jesse Ringwater, that dad who’d tried to take his life because of his Soulmail.
Alanna Sorensonn, government expert extraordinaire, sailed in. “You’re on with me today?” I asked around the pounding in my head.
She nodded. “About the government memo. Real estate tax breaks for the Soulmailed.” She winked. “Rumor has it there are two
West Coast senators who sit in two diametrically opposed parties that are soulmated, but you didn’t hear that from me.”