Now, she would be safe at all times, Clarisse said—the house’s sensors would know if she got out of her playpen, if she toddled too close to any stairs or kitchen appliances, if she took a fall. Both Scott and I would get instant alerts on all our devices.
Clarisse shook our hands. We were in.
At my request, the house obediently changes the temperature settings for the bath but I’m no longer in the mood. I drain the tub, go downstairs, and get on my laptop.
There’s an app we installed on all our computers and devices that lets us access the SmartHome portal to report any bugs and malfunctions, among other things. I think that trying to boil me alive counts as a bug. Plus, this is part of the reason for the trial—to help them improve the system. At the price of some occasional boiled toes and burnt palates, I guess. I click on the app impatiently, and it loads in the blink of an eye. I click Report a problem.
The house’s operating system is named Saya. Each house on the street has its own: The one to the right has Sandy and the one on the left has Sophia. Always women’s names, and the default voices are soft and pleasant.
Any malfunctions with Saya? Let us know! prompts the page.
I enter the date and time. Microwave oven setting malfunction, I type in. Bath temperature malfunction. The system registers both.
Used the wrong name, I type, then backspace. Did it actually use the wrong name? I can’t be sure. Maybe I misheard. My ears were ringing from the impact. While temperature screwups merely caused annoyance, this one makes me nervous. So much for the unique DNA signature. Who on earth would Lydia be, anyway? We were the first to live in this particular model, Clarisse said. And if “Lydia”—if that’s what I actually heard—is real, why would she take her bath at eighty degrees Celsius?
I decide to forget about it for the time being. The important thing was the temperature, and that’s taken care of. I’m so sorry you experienced this inconvenience, the page informs me. Please accept our sincere apologies on behalf of SmartHome.
This does little to mellow me out. “Saya,” I say out loud.
“Yes, Cecelia?”
“Can you find me some vegan recipes, please?”
Number one item on my to-do list is to prepare for the party tonight. Party is a bit of a strong word for what’s going to be more of a pretentious dinner.
“Of course, Cecelia. Today’s most popular vegan recipes are uploading to your tablet.”
Scott’s colleague’s wife is a militant organic-vegan who I suspect actually has some form of an eating disorder. So although she’ll be the only vegan at the table of six, no dead animal flesh must come within a mile of the kitchen.
“Never mind,” I say after a moment’s thought. “Find me some vegan caterers who are available for tonight.”
“Of course, Cecelia.”
Of course.
* * *
As usual, Saya—and the last-minute caterer found by Saya—doesn’t let me down. All the food is in place, waiting for its time in the vast downstairs refrigerator. Only a couple of items need to be heated up beforehand. The menu is basically different combinations of various rabbit foods, profoundly unappetizing.
Not that I’m all that hungry to begin with. Little work to do means little energy expenditure. Taryn has been picked up and is safely absorbed in her tablet, in one of the many educational games I downloaded on it. It makes me feel less bad that the games are educational. She’s not just out of my hair for an evening—she’s also learning about the fauna of African veldts or something like that.
Scott shows up pretty much at the same time as the guests. Which is not a surprise—since another handy app on my phone sends me a notification when he leaves work and when he’s approaching the house. But still, it’s a small annoyance.
Scott’s coworker is Kyle, and his wife, the rail-thin, red-lipsticked vegan, is Emma. The other couple was invited, I’m guessing, for my benefit: one of Scott’s old friends from his previous job and his wife, Mia, who I used to get along with quite well. I alienated most of my real friends over the last few years, the dark years of the fertility struggle. And the few who remained dropped off after all the drama went down.
I can’t blame them. No, that’s not true. I totally blame them, even though it’s hardly their fault. They just never were the type of friends to stick around in dark times. More the fair-weather kind, far more common these days, more suited for wine-soaked girls’ nights and shopping sprees. That’s who I surrounded myself with because that’s who was available. In the age of smartphones and apps, there’s no need to stick around for someone’s moping. Why bother when a brand-new partner in crime to sip wine with is just a tap of a fingertip away?
Lounging in the living room while Scott goes to make drinks and uncork bottles of wine, Emma the vegan and Mia politely admire the house, like they’re supposed to. I say I wish I could take the credit but everything was here when we moved in. Emma runs her hand appreciatively along the lacquered surface of the hardwood coffee table, tracing the whorls in the exotic wood frozen forever beneath the thick layer of gloss.
“Good materials,” she says. “Hard to find these days. Everyone cuts corners where they can.”
I think of the tree that had once been, a magnificent exotic species from South America or maybe Africa, sawed into neat slices meant to adorn rich people’s houses. That doesn’t seem to bother her, for all the posturing about ecological footprints and animal rights. Then again, if her five-hundred-dollar pumps aren’t genuine leather, I’m willing to eat them.
But you don’t point these things out. Not in this crowd.
“Yes,” Mia chimes in. “My sister had a house built to measure last year. Cost a ton of money. Imagine her surprise when she dropped in on the contractors to find them painting her walls with six-dollar-a-gallon paint.”
Emma commiserates, while I wonder what I could possibly talk to them about. Scott tops off Emma’s wineglass and gives me a meaningful look. Or maybe it just seems meaningful, because the conversation is now about swapping renovation horror stories. Not a direction I like at all. My face grows warmer. I fidget on my chair.
He gets it and comes to my aid. “Food, anyone?”
The women are annoyed at the interruption but the husbands eagerly agree so we move to the dining room.
As we sit down to the rabbit-food feast I set out on the dining room table, I can tell the drinks are starting to kick in. Everyone visibly relaxes, and the slight air of formality slides off them as they tuck unselfconsciously into their appetizers. I excuse myself before picking up my tablet and remotely starting the preheat of the main course, some kind of tofu curry.
“Lucky, lucky you,” Mia says to me. “You must get everything done in the blink of an eye with all this tech around.”
“I won’t lie,” I say with a chuckle. “There are advantages.”
“She’s being coy,” Scott says. His face is a bit flushed, and I wonder how many times he’s refilled his wineglass. “She loves it here. Who wouldn’t?”
Later, once the main course has been eaten (or, in Emma’s case, picked at and left mostly intact) and the third or fourth bottle of wine has been opened, I realize I’m actually having a good time. I’m relaxed in my comfortable chair. The lights appear to have dimmed—I don’t remember presetting that but it’s nice. It smooths the edges of everything.