The Future for Curious People Read online

  It’s a beautiful speech, especially from a woman holding on to a little kid—our Dotty—cursing pretty hard amid flashing lights in a foggy tube during a rock-opera crescendo.

  And even though I can’t see her face clearly and can only make out the squirming shape of our daughter, I see a glint on Evelyn’s shirt. It’s a brooch. Is it a pear brooch? Jesus, it’s exactly like the one found in Wickham Purdy’s safe deposit box.

  “Now don’t barf,” she says. “And let’s go home.”

  Evelyn Shriner. My wife. The mother of at least one of my offspring. God, I love her.

  I stare at the blank screen. My heart seems like it might burst from my chest, and I realize—with a feeling of elation—that I have access to Wickham Purdy’s brooch, which Evelyn Shriner will wear in some future. It’s like a small baton that could pass from my hands and somehow to hers, a baton that could be passed through time, through futures. It’s a kind of lure. If I somehow put it out in the world and she takes it, what would that mean? Nothing or everything? This is about fate. I’m not baiting fate, but I am, yes, testing it a little, maybe shoving it in the chest, like I’m saying, So, fate, you know futures? Prove it. If there’s something here, between Evelyn and me, and it’s true love, and it’s as serious as a heart attack, I can’t give up on it.

  I know I shouldn’t do a damn thing with Wickham Purdy’s brooch and I know that I will.

  Evelyn

  A COLLABORATION

  Shaken by my last disastrous envisioning at Chin’s and the encounter with Adrian, I’ve got new resolve. I go back through my old recordings, put in new endings, and upload them to the database. It takes a while, but I save them—one by one. I reunite lovers and families and push many great and tragic literary figures to better fates, and damn it, it feels good. I’m just now getting back to The Great Gatsby. Mr. Wilson comes over to Gatsby’s with a gun but not to kill him. He invites Gatsby and Nick hunting in some East Egg woodlands. “The boar was almost too heavy for the three of us to lift,” I fake-read. “Gatsby thought it better to just leave it.” I flip a page, for effect mostly.

  I’m getting into the rhythm of it when there’s a knock at the door. I wonder if it’s Binter coming to apologize for . . . what? Wanting me to be not-weird when that’s just not realistic at all? Or it might be someone interested in postcards about Salisbury Cathedral or cable cars (both found in box 2).

  Mr. Gupta says, “Evelyn, can I talk to you?”

  I wonder if he’s mad at me. I’m not volunteering on library time. I can prove this with time cards. “Sure,” I say. A key in the lock again and there’s Mr. Gupta, “Jesus, Evelyn,” he whispers. “Why do you do this in here?”

  I open my mouth to explain, but Gupta raises his hand then squeezes his forehead as if his head is about to explode and he’s trying to mitigate the spray of his brains on the holdings within Special Collections. “Look,” he says. “We got a call.”

  “From who?”

  “A blind person.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know what you’re doing.” He lowers his voice. “And Charlotte’s Web ! That’s for children, Evelyn Shriner! You can’t revive Charlotte and think that sight-impaired children won’t know the difference!”

  “I assume they know,” I tell him frankly. “In fact, sometimes I talk directly to the listener. I talk about sorrow in literature. Sometimes I talk about sorrow in life. Sometimes I whisper to them that it’s just me in a room and that there’s been enough sorrow. Every book has a past, a present, a future, and the future, by definition, is splintered, Mr. Gupta, so I’m being true to a larger order here, if you get what I’m saying.”

  “I do not get what you’re saying. Not at all. What would Salinger think? My God.”

  “I never touched Catcher in the Rye. I feel like you should know that.”

  “This is literature, Evelyn. Literature is a language handed down from one generation to the next. Without that consistency, the world order breaks apart completely! You’re fired.”

  “From my job?”

  “You’re fired from this volunteer effort.”

  “But can you fire a volunteer?”

  “Would you prefer to resign?”

  “I would.”

  “Then . . .”

  “I resign, but I would like you to tell the board—”

  “I’m not going to relay this to the board.”

  “Tell them that I believe in—”

  “What do you believe in?”

  I grip my copy of The Great Gatsby and my digital recording device. “I believe that nothing is set in stone. That each reader is an interpreter. Reading is collaborative. I was just . . . collaborating.”

  Gupta sighs.

  “And I hope we’re still on good terms otherwise,” I say. He’s my boss after all. I don’t want to call him a father figure, but there’s something there.

  “You’re on secret probation. I’m worried about you,” he says, as if reading my mind.

  “Don’t worry about me!” I say, but I’m worried about me, to be honest. I feel shaky and loose in the knee joints. Why did I think I could change endings to great works of literature?

  Gupta opens the door for me. There’s Binter, sitting there at his desk, looking completely unwittingly good-looking. I want to say the right thing. I’m trying to be not-weird. “I’m sorry about the complaint you got,” I tell Gupta in a formal tone. “I’m sure it was embarrassing. And I didn’t mean to . . .”

  “Well,” Mr. Gupta says quietly. “It wasn’t exactly a complaint.”

  “What was it then?”

  “Technically, it was a fan.”

  “A fan?” I glance at Binter to see if he’s overhearing this. He’s staring at his computer, oblivious. “I have a fan?”

  “Actually, a couple. One of them wanted to convey his gratitude. This person said, ‘Tell her I like what she did with Anna Karenina.’ Evidently, he’d listened to it many times and, well, found your version refreshing.”

  “I see,” I say, trying to take the high road. “Well, I hope you told them that we aim to please.”

  “We don’t aim to please,” Gupta says. “We’re a library of books. They are fixed in time and space by language.” He opens the glass door to Special Collections.

  I give a wave to Binter, saying, “Bye-bye, Binter!”

  And as the glass door swings closed between us, I’m sure I hear him say, “Bye-bye, weirdo.” Just like that, but that’s fine by me. My weirdness got me more than one fan; I have plural fans.

  Gupta peels off, duck-footing toward the front desk.

  I get my coat from the mail room and then make my way out the main doors, down the large marble steps. I wish I could walk straight into Mr. Chin’s waiting room. I close my eyes and try to imagine it. But all I see is Gatsby floating in a pool. Sometimes I wonder if the future is the future, and no matter what you do, you’re bound to meet it. A fast car, a gunshot, a crumpled bike.

  Inevitability. What if every fork in the road is leading to the same conclusion? This scares me most of all.

  It hits me that Chin was right and wrong about me. I’m an obsessive, but I’m not obsessed with the promise of a man in my life or even love and family, which aren’t antifeminist but noble, damn it! I’m obsessed with the future and the future only. I’m terrified of not knowing what will happen to me—and my heart, yes, my ever-calcifying, one-love-at-a-time heart. Is this a young-life crisis? Is there such a thing? I once knew step-by-step what would happen next and next and next. I went to high school. I graduated wearing a black gown. I went to college and then got my master’s in library science. I graduated in another black gown. And now the rest of my life lies before me, stretching on and on.

  I do not know how to get from here to there—I do not know where there is. If I knew that, I’d have a better chance of getting there. I am not a grown-up. I ride a bicycle and glue flowers on my rain boots. Last year, I hosted a cocktail party but realized I didn’t know
how to make any cocktails. We drank out of mugs and jelly jars. I have a job and a best friend who steals things like a juvenile delinquent. We talk about our crushes. What if life goes on this way—on and on. It can’t. Once, I was an eleven-year-old who was terrified that I would never be able to give up playing with Barbies. I’d be a closet Barbie player my entire life—a dark hidden shame. Were there more like me? Was there a support group? And then one day I realized I hadn’t played with them in ages. It was over. How will this part of my life be over?

  And worse, why would I want it to ever end? So that I can become my parents and stop yearning?

  I know that life makes demands on a person. It wants things that you don’t want to give. Sometimes it asks for your firstborn. Sometimes it wants you to love a child you can’t love. Sometimes it says just try to divide up your grief between two people. You still won’t be able to bear it.

  I need to know something. And Chin can provide a piece of the future. I will keep going back until I have that one fucking thing. Is that thing love? Love is how you build family, how you combat loneliness; maybe it’s how you fill a deep unfillable hole. I can’t stand the futures—millions of them—chaotically rolling out before me in all directions.

  And this is how I know I’m not an obsessive anymore. I’m a junkie.

  Godfrey

  LEARNING TO ABSTRACT

  Every day is fix-our-relationship day at the Madge and Godfrey estate, and I’m running late. I’m in Fontana’s Super Mart and Pawn Shop. Mr. Fontana is turning the pear brooch around in his hands, holding it up to the fluorescent lights, as if that’ll do anything. I shouldn’t be here. I can’t stop thinking of Evelyn. I want to hear that speech one day in a foggy tube of flashing lights. This is what I can’t explain to anyone. Who would understand? “I’ll give you five bucks if I sell it, and frankly, I doubt I’ll sell it. It’s pretty much crap.”

  “You can keep all the money, Mr. Fontana. All I want is for you to give this note to the person who buys it and not to share this information with Madge.”

  Fontana reads the note aloud. “We should have lunch. I think we’ve got a bright future together. Sincerely, Godfrey Burkes.” And then he reads my phone number. He looks at me and smirks, his chins squeezing together tautly. “Is that supposed to be romantic or some kind of job application?”

  Because I don’t trust Fontana, I say, “A kind of job application. And can you display it prominently?”

  Fontana scratches his chin. “That’ll cost you.”

  “But I’m already giving you the entire proceeds!”

  “This isn’t about proceeds, is it?”

  He’s got me there. I give Fontana ten bucks and he promises to keep it out from under the glass, right near the cash register.

  WE’RE ON DAY 4 in Dr. A. Plotnik’s workbook, and Madge is so happy she doesn’t even care that I’m late. As soon as I see her beaming face, I remember how happy Madge and I can be together. I decide, right then, that I will call off my brooch deal with Fontana as soon as humanly possible. No excuses. No rationalizing. I love Madge, and I love how she’s throwing her energy into fixing us. I don’t need to test fate. This is fate—me and Madge. Right, right ? Dotty doesn’t even really exist. She’s a figment. What kind of a name for a little girl is Dotty anyway? I wouldn’t ever name a child Dotty. And no one would actually let loose a fog machine in an elaborate Habitrail for human children.

  I’m with Madge. I can do this.

  Honestly, the envisioning experience can really warp your mind. I mean, I fell in love with a girl in rain boots while watching my future self locked up in prison and then fell more deeply in love with her because of just one beautiful heart-pumping speech? After a good night’s sleep and with a happy Madge, things are a lot clearer.

  The expression “serious as a heart attack” does come back to me from time to time—it does—like an unpredictable missile attack. But I keep going.

  Madge marked this day on the calendar that hangs in the kitchen with a big heart. Inside the heart, Madge scribbled, Abstract painting—4:30 p.m. Every month on the calendar is a different kitten. February is a Maine coon wearing a scarf dotted with hearts and a matching beanie. I’m not going to lie, it’s cute as fuck.

  Today, our living room is half–art supply store. I feel like I’m at summer camp. I used to be a counselor at summer camps. That’s where I first figured out I’d like to teach kids, before I tamped that down deep. Today Madge is head counselor. She’s going to teach us how the abstractness of abstract art is going to save our relationship. Out of sheer confidence and optimism, Madge invited Bart and Amy over after for cheese and finger foods, things that you would find on the decks of yachts, things that don’t actually equate to meals.

  “So it’s not a dinner party?” I ask Madge. It’s hard to hear her. She has her computer plugged into the stereo speakers, almost full blast. I’m not familiar with the band; I’ve never heard these songs before. See, this is how a relationship can be made new—little things.

  “No, just hors d’oeuvres.” She looks me up and down, lingering on the down, and frowns. “No jeans,” she tells me.

  For just a split second, I want to say, So we’re having a dinner party but with no dinner. And I have to dress up for this dinnerless dinner party where our only guests are just Bart and Amy? But I don’t. I just go and change because saying those things would be petty. Pettiness is one of the traits to avoid, as listed in Dr. A. Plotnik’s “Guide to Romantic Success.”

  I put on khakis and walk back to the living room.

  Madge says, “Sit down on the rug.” It’s the old Burt Reynolds – inspired shag, which sometimes makes me feel slightly less masculine because I’m just not that furred.

  Somehow the music gets louder when I’m on the floor. And I really don’t like the music. I guess hot air rises, but shitty beats lower themselves, probably heading for the graves they know they’re destined for. The devil is still probably listening to Creed.

  Do I say any of this? No, I do not. Self-restraint is listed as a positive quality to have in Dr. A. Plotnik’s “Guide to Romantic Success.”

  Madge sits across from me, Dr. A. Plotnik’s workbook in her lap. Between us, there are two canvases, paintbrushes, paint. While Madge flips through the workbook, I wonder how we’ll afford to eat next week.

  I say, “Who is this?” I point to the air, then my ears.

  “Oh,” she says, smiling. “They’re called the Babymakers. They’re a local band.”

  “Oh, local.” Baltimore’s local scene has its highlights. This isn’t one of them.

  “They’ve got a gig at Club Q coming up,” she says. “I think we should go.”

  We both sit on the floor and listen for a minute. Most likely this is a self-produced EP. The Babymakers haven’t recorded more than four songs, but Madge has them on a continuous loop. But why?

  “Do you like it?” Madge wants to know.

  “ ‘You are only aware of love when your lips are drenched in sun,’ ” I say, quoting the song that’s playing right now. “It’s just that same line for like four minutes straight.”

  “Well, what do you think he’s saying?”

  “That she really gets off on being outside?”

  “Oh, Godfrey.” Madge actually puts her hand against her chest. “They say so much in such a simple way. It’s heartbreaking.”

  “It sounds like it was made in a bedroom.”

  “It was,” she says. “Adrian said it was all made on his MacBook. An entire song done on one computer, all made next to a bed and dresser. Can you believe it? Those aren’t even real drums. The drummer got mono or something.”

  Listening to the songs, I want to say, Yes, yes, I can absolutely believe it. Then I think a little longer. Adrian, I don’t know an Adrian.

  “Who’s Adrian?” I say.

  “The lead guitarist and backup singer.” Madge’s face says, Obviously. Keep up, dumbass. You shouldn’t fail a take-home test.


  “You know his name?”

  “Yeah,” she says a little quieter. If I weren’t sitting so close to her, I wouldn’t have heard her. Then Madge straightens up like something climbed up her spine. I think of a wooden roller coaster. “He’s the one who gave me the demo, along with this.” She reaches across the living room floor for her purse and pulls out a flyer. She hands it to me.

  It’s a cheap cutout, something mass-produced in a hurry, with THE BABYMAKERS written in a bold, all-capped font on the top. Underneath the band name: GET YOUR ASS OFF THE SOFA AND LIVE A LITTLE. Am I jealous? It’s not like me. Maybe it’s because I just envisioned my future with four women from my past and a stranger I’m afraid I fell in love with. See how these little secrets erode trust, I tell myself. See?

  “I don’t really know him,” she says, and then she holds up a book. Abstraction: The Past, Present, and Future of Abstract Art.

  “Hey, hey!” I say. “That’s cheating.”

  The catch about this Dr. A. Plotnik assignment is that we’re supposed to make an abstract painting “of our own relationship.” I don’t even know what abstract painting is, but Madge urges me to relax. “It can be whatever we want it to be.”

  I bet the book told her that.

  “It’s just research,” she tells me. “To save . . . whatever this is.”

  “You mean, to save our engagement?”

  Madge begins to read from the workbook. “ ‘Be in the same room but barely.’ ” She looks at me. “She must mean that we’re together but aware of our selfhoods most of all.” I’ve never been clear on Madge’s use of the term selfhood, so I just nod.

  “ ‘Take exactly one hour.’ ” Next to her is an egg timer. “Okay,” she says, “it’s all ready to go. Any questions before we start?”

  “Which color is that?” I say, pointing to one of the darker colors in the middle of the paint pile between us.

  Madge barely has to look at it. “After Midnight Blue.”