Three days later, a speech at an agricultural exhibition. Terence was making a speech about water distribution. Nicole was there managing volunteers. I was setting up WiFi mesh routers.
The sun was too bright. I had my sunglasses on, but the light still felt like pressure on my skin. Heat was bouncing off the asphalt, ricocheting into my forearms and neck. The concrete plaza in front of the event hall was ringed with food trucks, their metal siding gleaming and hot. I could smell frying oil, sweet chili sauce, something with cheese, and something sugary, maybe churros. People were clustered in uneven groups, waiting for orders, jostling slightly in the heat. I like San Francisco most of the year, but not days like that.
Nicole walked beside me, her campaign lanyard swinging against her chest. She was sipping a lemonade that was mostly ice, and had her phone in her other hand, but wasn’t looking at it. The asphalt felt sticky under my sneakers. I wanted to glance back and see whether Nicole's heels were punching little holes in it.
“I swear, it’s like… he makes me feel like I’m special,” she said. “And then the next day he forgets I exist. Like I imagined the whole conversation.”
I nodded. I was listening. The way I’d been taught to listen, not waiting for my turn to talk, not looking at my phone, paying attention. Even if my brain was flickering in other directions. Something about some man. That’s what she was talking about. Nicole was often talking to me about men. I was thinking about how Wi-Fi signals propagated, or didn't.
A high-voltage transformer box was mounted on a pole near the edge of the parking lot. I wondered if the unshielded electromagnetic field could interfere with the temporary Wi-Fi mesh we’d set up for the event livestream. The directional antennas we were using had solid gain at 2.4 GHz, but we were boosting the signal on 5 GHz too, and that was more prone to line-of-sight degradation. Especially in an environment with dense metal objects and random heat signatures.
“He does that thing where he leans in when he talks to you,” Nicole said, her voice rising slightly over the ambient sound of a food truck generator. “You know? Like really leans in, like you’re the only person who matters. He did it again this morning during the press packet review.”
“That sounds uncomfortable,” I said. My voice was calm. I was trying to be supportive. I think I got the tone right. Invasion of personal space equals uncomfortable. I'd learn that in high school: “God, Susan… personal space! “ I heard that a lot before I was diagnosed.
Mostly I was thinking about what could interfere with 5 GHz electromagnetic waves.
Nicole snorted. “It wasn’t. That’s the problem.”
We were getting closer to the truck she’d picked, something *fusion-y” with a painted dragon on the side, which she had to explain meant “two cuisines from different cultures.” Nicole had assured me they probably had chicken and fried rice if I didn't want something I couldn't pronounce. The line was long. A child ran past us holding a soda can the wrong way up, shaking it. The generators on the trucks rumbled in a low bass I felt in my feet. Even with the sunglasses the light was giving me a headache.
“He’s like… I don’t know. He knows exactly how to make you feel seen. Just for a minute. And then he walks away. Like it’s some kind of game.”
Javier, she was talking about Javier. I’d noticed Javier doing that with other women, too. Ling, who handled press, and Tasha from field logistics. Sometimes even Annabelle, though her reactions were harder to read. And Monica: Monica laughed like I'd seen Nicole do when Javier stood too close to her, in her personal space. For some reason men were allowed to do that. Some men. Some of the time. To some women.
It was confusing. And I didn't feel like figuring it out. I wanted cold water, shade, food that wasn't going to burn my tongue with capsaicin.
Nicole took a sip of her lemonade and let out a frustrated breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m rambling.”
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re describing a pattern. It’s helpful to notice patterns.”
That made her laugh, a short sound, warm around the edges. “God, you’re such a robot sometimes.”
I smiled. “Yes.” College. First year roommates. That’s the first time she’d called me that. I had smiled then, too.
We stood in line. The sunlight bounced off the truck’s metal panel and made a band of white shimmer across Nicole’s face. She didn’t seem to notice. I thought about how far we were from the nearest shade. I thought again about how I should have brought my water bottle, cool aluminum against my palm - cognition degrades rapidly with dehydration.
“It’s just hard,” she said finally, quieter now. “Feeling like someone sees you… and not knowing if it’s real. Or if they do that to everyone. Or if they’re just bored and you were there.”
I didn’t say anything. My mind was back on propagating electromagnetic waves.
---
The night of the primary.
The rice bowl steamed faintly in the dark. I sat cross-legged on the low couch, barefoot, my black SynthesisBio sweatshirt over my knees.
The only light came from the city outside; San Francisco’s sodium glow bouncing off the fog and washing in through the wall of windows. Finally, it was cooler. It stained the white walls gold, then grey, then back again.
There was a lot of white in the condo. White walls, white dishes, a white countertop with faint marbling. The rug was off-white, cream maybe. You couldn’t buy them in pure white. The couch was technically “stone,” but I think it’s off-white. Almost everything else that had color - prints, textiles, small sculptures - had belonged to Marcus. He took them when he left. He took the cat too.
I had objected, said I had paid for the cat, but he placed the cat down in the middle of the carpet. We had both stood there. The cat looked back and forth between us then went and curled around his leg. He picked it up and put it in the box of his books under his left arm. Then he walked out.
Three years and two days. That was how long we dated. I remember the number not out of sentiment, but because the metadata in the folder of shared documents marked the date we met: "SF-VC_Conf_Panel3-Notes.docx.”
I chewed a mouthful of brown rice and overcooked chicken thigh. It was slightly sweet. The sauce was soy-based and prepackaged. The rice was a bit crunchy. The food was fine. Nutritionally complete.
I looked at the far wall. Nothing there but reflection. The window glass showed my reflection overlaid with blinking taillights. I looked tired but not sad. My hair was loose. I had not spoken to anyone outside of work in two weeks, not even to buy groceries: I used the self-checkout or I got them delivered.
I thought of the cat. An orange and white tabby cat, short neat fur, prone to stretching and rolling in its sleep.
It used to curl on my stomach while I worked, kneading the tops of my thighs before lying down while I rewrote the backpropagation algorithm for the neural networks SynthesisBio used in its ML drug discovery pipeline. The cat wasn’t affectionate, not really; it tolerated me petting with that feline dignity that made it feel like a gift. But it only came to me if Marcus wasn’t home. I knew the facts: warmer body temperature, less motion. Still, it felt like choosing.
I didn’t contest him taking the cat, not hard - it had made its choice clear. He also took the stacked rectangles of abstract art he bought for me, which I never really liked but had grown used to. Back when I’d still remembered there were things you shouldn’t say. They were red. Or ochre. Something warmer than this white.
My thumb pressed against the corner of the rice bowl. I set it on the table. I looked down at my hand and opened and closed it. The warm thumb touching the cool of my palm.
The thought came to me, gently and absurdly:
I should buy a taxidermied cat.
I imagined it: perfect stillness, soft fur, glass eyes. No food, no litter box. I could lay it on my lap, run my hands down its back. It would never choose someone else. The shape of comfort without the contingency. That might feel good.
I didn’t smile. I didn’t laugh. I just let the thought drift away, unchallenged.
Outside, the fog horns began again. A low, mournful sound; directionless, but regular. A system that knows how to announce itself, even when no one answers. That was the only sound I heard in the apartment when I wasn't watching a video. That and the laundry machine, the dishwasher. The humming reverb of the microwave
Nicole brought me into the campaign. We hadn't spoken since university ended. I went to grad school, then to SynthesisBio. Late nights and weekends in the lab, always on my computer. Marcus somewhere in the back complaining I wasn't giving him attention. I don't think I even noticed when we stopped having sex. Or when he stopped sleeping in the bed ar all.
Then the Stage III trial of orfinomab was a success, and Pfizer bought the company, and my stock options were bought out, and I would never have to work again if I didn't want to. Marcus was gone. With the cat. So I spent a winter reading astronomy books and watching YouTube videos about hypersonic flight. I bought a new laptop. I paid off the mortgage on the condo. I answered the phone if my parents called.
Nicole had taken me to lunch, asked what I was doing. I said I was between jobs. Didn't mention SynthesisBio. I rarely spoke to anyone anymore, and I had long since stopped trying to explain what I had been doing.
The campaign Nicole was on was for the Democratic primary in the district, for the House of Representatives. Some details about an incumbent stepping down and a risk of a Republican challenger more aligned with the tech ecosystem. I don't remember, I don't really care about politics. But they needed someone to manage IT systems; the campaign had momentum, it had donors, it needed to be professional. I said yes.
My phone, sitting on the couch beside me, buzzed. Nicole again.
> NICOLE: Are you coming to the party?
There was a party. MacArthur had won the primary - he was going to be the Democratic nominee. It meant a few more months of work at least, even if it felt more like just being someplace rather than work.
I thought about the campaign office downtown. The walls of the rented space were sky blue. They had paintings on the walls like you find in hotel rooms, either placid landscapes or big abstract blobs of color. Sometimes MacArthur brought his golden lab, Buddy, to the office and let us all pet him. Nicole said dog sitting wasn’t part of our job description. Buddy rubbed his snout against my left palm. I ate with my right, non-dominant hand the rest of the day rather than clean it off.
> SUSAN: I’m invited?
> NICOLE: Of course you are silly 🙂
The emoji clinched it. I dumped the rice bowl in the garbage bin. It was a party - I remembered what those were like. I might just sit on the side and see people walking around, talking to each other. That might be okay.
> SUSAN: Be there soon