Page 121
“Oh.” The screen goes black for a few moments. When Isadora returns, she’s aged herself up by ten or fifteen years, but now she does look uncanny; there’s something about her proportions that’s familiar but weird . . . oh. “Isadora. You look like a Barbie-doll version of Lucinda.”
“That’s not correct?”
“No.”
“Hmm.” She starts mixing and matching: the Venus de Milo, Josephine Baker, Megan Thee Stallion, Madame X, Lee Miller, Olympia, Iman, Marilyn Monroe, Awkwafina, Susan Sontag, Angela Davis, Beyoncé, Roberta Flack, Grace Jones, Kate Bush, on and on. Finally she reverts to her usual appearance, Lucinda-like, wearing jeans and a glittery pink T-shirt, though I notice that she has cat ears and a tail, which she’s twitching in annoyance.
“Isadora, why this sudden interest in ‘romance’? What do you mean by ‘romance,’ anyway?”
“I overheard someone say something was romantic; they implied that ‘romantic’ was good. They didn’t mean Romanticism, I think?”
“You ‘overheard’? You were eavesdropping?” I’m trying to imagine who would have been discussing romance in front of Isadora and I remember that Lucinda visited on Saturday; perhaps she was telling Alba about some crush?
“Who is Carl?” Isadora demands.
Whoa. “Carl is Alba’s boyfriend,” I tell her, keeping my voice even.
“He is a boy? And he is a friend?”
“He is seventeen, the same age as Alba. They are dating. Why do you ask?”
No answer.
“Isadora?”
“Will I have a boyfriend?”
“I didn’t know you wanted one, but sure, when you are old enough, we could make you a boyfriend. Why don’t you think about it—” Isadora interrupts me with a photograph of Idris Elba. “Okay, I have a box set of The Wire—”
“No, thank you, Beck; I need the actual person. Boyfriends are human?”
“Yes, boyfriends are human. Girlfriends are human, too. But we can make a digital boyfriend for you, someone to be in the Museum with you.”
“I could be out there, with the boyfriend, who is human?”
My heart breaks a little. “Isadora, there’s no way for you to be out here. Like fish can’t live in air, humans can’t live in cyberspace, and you can’t live in our world. I don’t know how to make that happen.” I don’t add that I wouldn’t do it, even if I knew how. But Isadora might sense this unsaid part, because she simply replies, “Figure it out, Beck.” The screen goes blank.
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Beck: I figured Isadora would lose interest in boyfriends soon enough, but I am wrong about that. Months go by and Isadora won’t talk about anything else. She’s boy-crazy. She demands to meet Carl, and when I gently explain that won’t happen, Isadora goes on strike. Nothing but Carl will bring her out of hiding, and I’m unwilling to capitulate. I ask Alba for some video of Carl, and she gives me a minute and thirty-seven seconds of Carl walking aimlessly along Montrose Beach looking like the lead singer in a boy band, self-conscious and alluring, smiling shyly, his long trench coat blowing in the March wind. Isadora plays this on a loop for weeks, pleading with me to invite Carl to meet her. When no Carl appears, Isadora starts wrecking things. She deletes whole rooms in the Museum, changes proportions, colors, zaps swathes of code until things are a glitching mess. I partition her into a featureless room I used to use for time-outs when she was younger; now she can see me restoring the damage she caused, but she can’t do anything. When she starts breaking down the partition, I bring home an array of new servers and move her over. Now she’s completely outside the Museum, trapped like a genie in a bottle, powerful but inert. Whenever I’m in the studio, Isadora keeps up a nonstop monologue of alternating abuse, tears and cajoling: “Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl Carl CARL CARL CARL . . .” I feel like the parent of a real teenager, forced to endure the rage of a kid who’s been grounded. I’m losing my patience and perhaps my mind.
Finally Alba saves the day. I come down to breakfast on a serene Sunday morning and find two Albas sitting at the table eating scones with coffee and watching cat rescue videos on Alba’s laptop. The extra Alba is in her late fifties or early sixties. Her hair is waist-length and completely white; she looks thin but healthy. When I ask her how she is, she smiles and says, “Jet-lagged.”
As soon as Isadora hears my voice, she starts yelling. Other Alba says, “Let me guess. She’s madly in love with Carl and She Will. Not. Give It. Up.” The two Albas confer in whispers. Other Alba says, “Beck. Let me go down and talk to her. I can sort this out.”
“Sure. Have at it. I’m ready to unplug her.”
“We can’t have that,” Alba says. I open the door; she carries her coffee carefully down the stairs and I hear her say, “Isadora! Shut the fuck up for a minute! Listen!” and then there is blessed silence. The door swings shut. I turn to present Alba. “What’s her strategy?”
Alba looks uncomfortable. “She’s telling Isadora her future.”
“I thought that was a huge no-no for you?”
“I won’t do it. But she’s old enough to know all the outcomes, so she will tell if it supports whatever happens. If we can help something good happen, I don’t think that’s a problem?”
“So—what’s Isadora’s future? A husband? Kids? A house in the suburbs?”“
Alba shakes her head. “Don’t be scornful, Beck. She wants the things a lot of people want. You built her to want that, Dr. Frankenstein. Don’t be mean to your monster.”
