“Will it be a big ceremony?”
“More like a party. And I’d guess it’ll be big. Mom doesn’t really do things on a small scale. Don’t worry—you’ll get a plus-one. You can bring V.”
Tom’s tone was 91 percent playful as he said this. But J still couldn’t help but think,There it is. I knew it.
Tom’s simple statement—You can bring V—could be interpreted in two ways:
1) V is your girlfriend, and of course she will be your plus-one. How nice it will be to have her there.
2) May I remind you that I, Tom, was on a second date with V the first time you met her? And while I appreciate that nothing happened between the two of you until months later, well after V decided there wouldn’t be a third date with me, and while I have come to peace with the fact that V’sdecision to not go on a third date with me was in no way related to the fact that she wanted to go on a first date with you, and while I naturally feel like farthest point of the triangle whenever the three of us get together, since I don’t currently have a girlfriend myself to balance such situations out—despite all this, I hope I have proven to be nothing but welcoming to the fact that the two of you have proven to be a better couple than she and I ever would have been, and expressing my desire to have her at my mother’s fourth wedding is merely another gratuitous confirmation that I am totally okay with the fact that had I not brought my date to that party, the two of you might never have met.
“I’m sure she’d love that,” J replied, addressing (1) instead of (2), just as most men would.
“Wonderful! I’ll tell Mom.” (How much,J wondered,does Mom know?) “Do you have your calendar on your phone?”
Soon a few dates were sorted, and Tom’s mother was called on speakerphone. J appreciated how unapologetic she was about the fact that she and George were getting married for a fourth time, as well as the fact that at no point did she promise that this would be the last time, that this would in some way be different. No, it sounded like they just wanted another spin on the dance floor...and if they wanted him to play some songs as they followed their steps, who was he to say no?
Now, nearly two months later, the wedding is upon them, the weekend following Jun and Arthur’s wedding.
V isn’t sure she can attend.
“If Thor has to fly out for this meeting in New York, I have to go with him,” she tells J. “You know this.”
Thor (not his birth name) is V’s boss. V can sense that J would love to say,Thor’s a big boy—he can take care of himself. But theproblem is that while Thor is still a boy, he’s not a particularly big one. Rarely can he take care of himself. He’s only nineteen, and it’s an open debate whether he’s a genius or just really lucky.
When J and V first reconnected after her inconsequential dalliance with Tom, the conversation seemed to hit an invisible fence when J asked her what she did for a living.
“I can’t tell you,” she said. “It’s a secret project.”
She didn’t say this to tease, but as a contractual obligation. J could tell she was embarrassed to find such words coming out of her mouth. So he let it slide, and over the course of their next few dates, he pretended she worked for an organization called Secret Project.
This had unintended consequences.
Before working for Thor, V had been working at a publishing house, and when it shut down, she looked for employment with a certain desperation, since her time in publishing had not led to a deep reserve of savings. When she was approached about Thor’s endeavor by a friend of one of her former professors, she wasn’t too interested. Then they told her the starting salary, and she became very interested. Long story short: As a kid, Thor had started programming an online world-building system for himself and his friends, where you’d design an elaborate space for your friends, invite them over to experience it (like a party), and then when the party was over, the space would go away and you’d start all over again. And that had been the jumping-off point for something much larger, involving a whole lot of new technologies that V barely understood.
V was brought on to do PR, thinking it wouldn’t go anywhere. Much to everyone’s frustration, while Thor was good at world-building, he sucked at words, and for far too long, the site was only known as Untitled Thor Project. Then one day, V made a joke in a meeting about how the guy she was dating called it Secret Project...and that was the missing piece, the phrase that got everyone excited. In what could only be called a frenzy, Thor got more funding thanmost charities ever saw, and big American companies started sniffing around, thinking they smelled The Next Big Thing. At this juncture, the sniffers had turned into suitors, and it was decided that V’s ability to judge character was crucial, since Thor would have probably sold the company for jellybeans if they’d been the right color.
J still likes to think of V’s employment as something between a lark and a dark comedy. Most times, V agrees with this assessment—the stakes shouldn’t be high when dealing with imaginary worlds. But she will also admit (often to herself, occasionally to J) that she’s become invested in Secret Project’s fate. Both literally (if it becomes the nextMinecraft,she will have more money than she ever imagined having) and figuratively.
After telling J that Thor might need her in New York, she prepares herself for the joke, the jibe, the groan. She is unprepared for J to lean in the doorway of his bedroom and say, “I know he needs you...but I would love for you to be there. I have no other plus-one in my life.”
“Come on,” she says, keeping her voice light. “It’s her fourth wedding. I missed the first three. I can’t imagine my absence will be noticed.”
“I’ll notice it,” J responds. There’s a vulnerability in his voice that’s not characteristic; he doesn’t usually get pre-show jitters. “It’s going to be weird for me. Besides Tom and his family, odds are good that other people will be there who’ve known me since I was a tadpole. I want it to go well...and having you there always helps.”
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I doubt the trip will end up happening. The money guys want to make the Americans come to us. And if we’re going to New York, it’ll probably take more than a week to organize. Thor is neck-deep in the Beta, and I don’t think the design team wants to lose him, even for forty-eight hours.”
“I don’t get it,” J says.
“Which part?”
“Why do they call the demo stage ‘Beta’? Shouldn’t ‘Beta’ be second? Whoarethese people?”
They’ve swapped back to their old positions—now J is joking, and V is feeling like the serious one.
“Also,” he adds, “how many chances do you get to see the same people married for a fourth time?”
V knows she should take some satisfaction in being so needed. But instead of filling her up, it drains her a little, and she isn’t even sure why.
