Chris Adrian - The Children's Hospital

“I figured it out,” she said to Jemma. “Truly caffeine-free espresso.”

“What’s the point of that?” Jemma asked.

“You have to try it,” Karen said. “It’s guaranteed — not even a picogram of caffeine, but you’d never know the difference. I don’t know the difference, and if anybody could tell it would be me. Anyway I verified it up in the lab. There’s a set of HPLC columns in special chem.”

“I trust you,” Jemma said.

“I don’t,” said Chandra, “this business about Pudding and the sexbot is too much.”

“Ask Jordan,” Karen said, “but get him good and drunk first. And it wasn’t a sexbot, it was a three-dimensional simulacrum of his wife. And he was just looking at it. There’s no evidence at all for any other sort of… activity.”

“There’s no evidence at all, period,” said Chandra.

“You turn everything dirty,” Karen said to him, and put a tiny little cup down in front of Jemma, not one-tenth the size of the one that sat in front of Dr. Chandra.

“Are people making sexbots?” Jemma asked, taking the briefest little sip of the coffee, and gagging.

“Of course not,” said Karen. “Stop spreading lies,” she said to Dr. Chandra.

“You’re the gossip monger,” he said. “And anyway, fuck off. You’re not my boss anymore. I’m out of the program, lady.”

“Sirius, Sirius,” she said. “You’ve got to let that go. Do you know that was in one of your letters, when we were talking about you at the selection meeting? He’s a worrier, the letter said, in that obligatory negative sentence. He tends to hang on to things.” She set down another huge cup in front of him, full of hot milk, and poured in the espresso, making an expert design, a perfectly symmetrical spirograph flower.

“I’m never going back,” he said calmly, poking a finger into the foam and bringing it to his mouth.

“Maybe I should just have some milk,” Jemma said.

“Milk for the baby then,” Karen said, sweeping up the little cup and drinking it herself. “I can’t tell the difference,” she said. “Not at all. Could you?”

“I’m not very experienced,” Jemma said. “About the sexbots — maybe we should talk about them in the Council. It could get pretty weird, artificial people running around and mixing with the real people. What if we couldn’t tell the difference?”

“There are no sexbots,” Karen said, looking among her shelves — once they’d held old charts and admission protocols — for a milk mug. She selected a bowl, like Chandra’s, poured the milk, and started to steam it, so Jemma could only pick out a few words when she continued to talk. “Artificial vagina… imaginary… his was like a formal portrait… just visiting… the angel wouldn’t… trust me.”

“Can I have a paper cup?” asked Dr. Chandra. “I’m not going to stick around here and be persecuted.”

“I have a nice relaxing tea,” said Karen. “You should try some. It would make you less touchy.”

“I don’t even like tea, and I’m not touchy,” he said, and tapped his finger on the bar. Karen gave him an aluminum mug with a rubber lid, and he transferred his drink.

“You ruined the flower,” she said. “Want me to fix it?” She held up her little metal pitcher of milk.

“I’m late to fuck my robot,” he said, and shuffled off.

“Pull up your pants!” Karen called after him, and whispered to Jemma, “He’s very lonely. He comes here every day to tell me how much he hates me, but sometimes I think I’m the closest thing he has to a friend.”

“Some people are having a hard time,” Jemma said, holding her bowl in both hands and sipping at her milk. Vivian had given her a calcium quota to meet each day. She could not remember how much was in a bowl of milk. “Not knowing what to do, and not having any work.”

“He hated work, too,” Karen said. “Some people are just never happy. It’s something I learned, being chief. You bend over backward for some people and they’re like, I wanted raspberry and this is strawberry, or this is 2 percent and I wanted 1 percent, and you’re like, What’s the fucking difference you are one of a hundred residents, can’t you just give me a break and do your work? Children are dying out there.”

“Not anymore,” Jemma said.

“You know what I mean. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you. Okay, I can… you’re chief of the whole hospital. It’s a huge job, but you’re doing swell. I mean it, and I know it. Your approval rating is 86 percent.”

“I have an approval rating?” Jemma asked.

Karen laughed. “You’re so funny sometimes.” She called down the bar to the two women sitting at the far end, interrupting their conversation. “Isn’t she doing a great job?” Carla nodded vigorously, and Helena Dufresne held up a single thumb. Karen refilled their cups, and pulled another espresso for herself. “This is the real stuff,” she said, and detailed for Jemma the process by which she and the angel had increased the potency of the beans until they practically trembled, and all the new uses she was finding for fancy coffee, and how she was not certain if she was pulling new uses out of the old thing, or making something entirely new when she experimented with the replicator. “When I ask for anti-wrinkle coffee,” she asked, “is she making it from scratch or just bringing forward a property already inherent in the bean? It’s so hard to tell with her. She can be so squirrely.” She poured out thick coffee in a solid dish and had Jemma soak her cuticles in it.

“Did you enter?” Jemma asked her.

“Of course,” Karen said. “I hope Siri did, too. I asked him but he wouldn’t tell. How about you?”

“It would be gluttony,” Jemma said, putting a hand on her belly.

“There are more kids than adults,” Karen pointed out.

“It would still be weird,” Jemma said. “My fingers are tingling.”

“It’s the natural enzymes,” Karen said. “They’re giving you a manicure.” She leaned forward and said, “Ella Thims. She’s my first choice.”

“A sweet girl.”

“I’ve known her forever. I took care of her every July for three years in a row, and I was there when she came slithering out of her mama. That was some initial exam, let me tell you. Where’s the vagina? Where’s the anus? I thought it was because I was a stupid intern that I couldn’t find them. I visit her every day — we’re practically a family already.” She brought her hands to her heart. “It makes me nervous to talk about it.”

“The coffee probably doesn’t help,” Jemma said.

“Oh, I’m immune,” she said, but everyone who came here knew that she got more chatty and jumpy throughout the day, and that by closing time she stood on the bar proclaiming stomping cheers for her favorite customers.

“Now they’re numb,” Jemma said, taking her fingers out, sure she’d see the ends dissolved down to slender bone.

“That’s the baby,” Karen said, pushing her hand back in. “It’s a thing I never understood. Numb toes I got, if the baby’s sitting on a plexus, but fingers? Something about hCG, but then why does it get worse in the third trimester? I had it too, with Abbie…” She clutched at the back of Jemma’s hand and burst suddenly into tears — they fell, fat and full, onto the highly polished counter and splashed back into Jemma’s flat dish of coffee. “Oh God!” Karen moaned. “What’s wrong with me? This is so stupid. I promised myself I wouldn’t… It’s all fine now, I should really know better. Am I cheating on her, though? That’s the thing… that’s the stupid, stupid, stupid thing. I know better in here — she pounded on her chest — in here I know that none of them belong to us and they pass from one to the other and Abbie is somewhere now, cared for just like I’ll care for Ella but still it feels like a big fat betrayal and I know I’ll tuck Ella in at night and they’ll be out there, Abbie and Carl, just so angry at me because I’m cheating.”