Will McIntosh - Love Minus Eighty

“There’s a window down there.” Rob looked over his shoulder at the picture window down the hall. It looked out on the tops of gorgeous hybrid cypress yaupons.

“I can’t see it.” She couldn’t turn her head at all. He wasn’t allowed to touch her to turn her head, and surveillance cameras were monitoring them. He wasn’t sure he could bring himself to touch her even if he’d been allowed.

“It feels like my head is a block of stone,” she said. “All I can feel is my face.”

Rob nodded, not sure how to respond.

“Tell me something happy,” Winter said. “Something warm. I don’t want to think about my life.” When she saw Rob struggling, she added, “What do you love to do?”

“Play the lute.”

“The lute ? That’s right, you’re a musician. I didn’t know anyone played the lute.”

“No one else does,” he laughed. “When I was ten, I heard an old man playing one in a park near my house, and I…”—he cast about for words—“it just called to me. I can’t explain it.”

“You’re an old soul, then. You must have played one many lives ago.”

He smiled, not sure if she was speaking figuratively, or if she really believed in reincarnation. “When I’m playing, everything else fades away. It’s the purest joy I know.” He spoke quickly. He felt like every word should be meaningful. Winter was speaking quickly too; as quickly as she could, given the stiffness in her jaw and mouth.

Eighty seconds left. Five minutes was an astonishingly brief period of time.

“Will you bring your lute next time, and play for me?” The hope in her eyes told him it was not an idle request.

“Absolutely.”

“Maybe you could play while I’m waking? I’m so disoriented then. Music would give me something to focus on.”

“Do you have a favorite song?”

“No, nothing I know. Something ancient, from the time when lutes were popular.”

He nodded. “I can do that.”

Thirty seconds now. He wondered if he should tell her. “Is it easier if you don’t know when the time is up?”

“Oh, God. The time is almost up?” The panic in her voice was unnerving, somehow made worse by the distortion. “How much do I have?”

Rob glanced at the timer. “Only thirteen seconds.”

She whimpered. “I want to go home.” She looked at Rob. “Promise you’ll come back soon?”

“I will. Don’t worry. It’ll seem like an instant.”

That didn’t seem to comfort Winter. “It won’t. It’s not like sleeping—”

The fear drained from her eyes, leaving emptiness.

As soon as Rob got outside, he took out his handheld. She’d said her ex-boyfriend’s name was Nathan. Maybe Nathan would be willing to coordinate visits with Rob, if Rob could locate him. There was only one possible way to locate him with nothing but a first name. He scrolled to the text message he’d received from Winter’s friend Idris the day after she confronted him at the entrance to the dating center.

I miss her so much. You have no idea who you took from us.

He had never replied to the message. Now he did. Can you please tell me the last name of Winter’s ex-boyfriend Nathan? I need to contact him, for Winter’s sake.

Idris appeared via screen before he made it to the end of the block. “What do you mean, for Winter’s sake?”

Rob explained what he was doing, and how Nathan might help.

Two teenage girls passed Veronika, one wearing a falsie—a skin that looked like a system but didn’t actually do anything. She was speaking in inflected speech, her subvocalization nothing but nonsense syllables. Her friend, who didn’t even have a falsie, seemed impressed.

As the girls passed out of her view, Veronika returned to watching the Hudson creep by between the chrome slats of the bridge while helping Dora McQueen swap text with a guy who was completely wrong for her. FaceQ had Dora rated a four point four. She was a squat, stubby-legged woman with a big head and thin hair. The guy she was flirting with was a solid six point two, and Veronika knew the type—he was looking for someone who would not only happily do it doggy-style on their first face-to-face, but agree to wear a collar and a leash and let fifty of his friends watch. Most of her clients eagerly took her advice about how to meet someone, but so few listened when she offered expert advice on whom to meet.

Across the bridge and down a ways, a pedestrian caught her eye. Like countless others who’d stopped over the past six months, he was taking in the view, but there was something about his posture—a tightness, an unease.

He put a hand on the rail, and lingered.

He looked around and, spotting Veronika sitting on her portable chair on the other side of the bridge, quickly looked away. Even from this distance Veronika could see he was a big man, six-five or taller.

As Veronika pretended to work, he kept glancing over; soon Veronika was reminded of kids attempting to cheat on tests, back in the days of her brief, disastrous stint as a high school teacher. A glance to see if she was looking, then a quick look away when he saw she was.

Her heart began to thump. He might well be planning to jump. After all this time, finally.

She leaned forward in her chair, intending to stand, to go over and talk to this man, then sat back. It would be a long, awkward walk over there, and all the things she’d imagined saying to a potential jumper now seemed absurd.

The man glanced at her yet again. Veronika rotated her chair so she was facing away, toward the water, then discreetly opened a screen up in the rafters of the bridge.

When the man saw she was no longer facing him, he pulled a handheld from his pocket, worked it for a moment, spoke a few words into it.

Then he dropped it over the railing and watched it tumble, growing smaller until it splashed into the Hudson. He looked around, lingering on Veronika, evidently making sure she wasn’t about to turn around. He grasped the railing with both hands.

Shit, he was really going to do it. Barely able to breathe, Veronika leaped from her chair and rushed toward him. The deafening bleating of a microbus horn startled her; she’d stepped right into traffic, was nearly clipped by the bus as it sped by. Shaking both hands impatiently, she waited for a break in traffic as the man struggled to get over the railing.

“ Wait ,” Veronika called, waving at the man, whose front leg was on the outer girder, his back foot still hooked by the rail. Veronika skirted across a thin opening in the traffic and sprinted down the curve of the bridge. She reached him just as he set his second foot on the girder.

“Wait. Hang on,” she said, breathless.

The man turned. His entire face was trembling. “What do you want? Get away from me.”

She grasped the rail with both hands. “Don’t do this. It’s a mistake. I know you’re feeling hopeless right now, but that feeling will pass.”

The man gaped at her. He was a black man, with a boyish, innocent face that seemed out of place on his tall, powerful frame. “Leave me alone. This is personal .” He looked over his shoulder, down at the river.

Veronika was taken aback by his reaction. She’d expected sadness, despair. That she understood. But he was angry. He also seemed embarrassed.

“What’s your name?” Veronika asked.

He reacted as if the question startled him. “I’m not telling you my name. Go. Leave. ”

“Let me buy you a cup of coffee. Let’s talk. You can always come back later.”

“What is wrong with you?” he growled. “Just get the hell away from me. Do you understand? I don’t want you here.”