Page 45 of The Love Hack

‘We’re pretty cool, aren’t we?’ Marco said, breathing on his nails and buffing them on the collar of his shirt.

‘Cool?’ I squeaked. ‘You’ve got the brass neck to think that after reading hundreds of letters about erectile dysfunction and cheating and refusing to talk about your feelings, the conclusion I’ve reached is that men are cool?’

Marco grinned. To his credit, he looked a bit abashed. ‘Well, you’d be a bit stuck without us, wouldn’t you? I mean, the survival of the human race depends?—‘

‘What’s going on here?’ Ross, returning late after his lunchtime Crossfit session, swung into his chair. ‘Are you okay, Lucy?’

I closed my eyes for a second and breathed deeply. In for five, hold for five, out for five, lungs empty for five. Then opened them again and said, ‘It’s just as well I want to keep this job. Otherwise I might be tempted to tell some of the men who write in to Adam what I really, actually think of them.’

Marco and Ross exchanged looks that I hoped meant, Don’t mess with her when she’s in this kind of mood. I gave them a look back that I knew said, Yeah, don’t even go there.

And then I did the breathing thing again and turned back to my screen.

The thing was, over the past months of being Adam, I’d noticed a bit of a shift in my attitude towards his correspondents. At first, I’d viewed them a bit like I imagine scientists must have viewed the Covid virus once they got its genome sequenced, or whatever they did. So this is what the enemy looks like, up close and personal. Now let’s figure out how to beat it.

But, so gradually I’d barely even been conscious of happening, my attitude had changed. It had started with the letter from the widower worried about his relationship with his teenage daughter. It had continued with the insights Chiraag had given me into Mark from Sheffield's possible reasons for spending so much time on his sport, at the expense of his family life. Even the first problem I’d given GenBot 2.0 to answer, from the man who was uncertain whether he woman he was seeing was right for him, had given me pause for thought.

They weren’t specimens from the man blob, I found myself realising. They were people. People with problems, and complex inner lives, and feelings of insecurity and self-doubt just like my own.

And then someone like Billy came along and proved that, actually, some of them were just dicks, plain and simple.

Of course, I didn’t publish the trenchant reply I’d composed to Billy. I read his letter again and considered toning it down it down a bit, but the second reading made me every bit as cross as the first had, so I couldn’t bring myself to come up with any soothing, understanding words for him.

Instead, I posted a precis of his letter into the screen of the AI program (Adam, AI – the irony of the juxtaposition wasn’t lost on me) and let the bot compose a reply. Within about five seconds, it had come up with five paragraphs about the importance of not disrupting the vaginal microbiome, the wisdom of consulting a healthcare professional if either Billy or his partner suspected she might be suffering from some kind of infection, and the non-negotiable nature of holding a calm discussion, ideally outside the bedroom, when either partner wished to introduce any new sexual shenanigans.

Not that it used the word shenanigans, obviously; it hadn’t been trained to. I added that in myself afterwards, together with a gentle prod to Billy away from the course of dickishness. GenBot, I reflected, wasn’t too bad at relationship advice – but it had a lot to learn. If it was going to be any kind of valuable assistant to Adam, it would need to become a bit less moderate in its responses.

Still mildly seething, I saved the document on to the Max! server for the subs to look at, took a sip from my water bottle and checked my phone.

In spite of all the excitement at work, Amelie hadn’t been far from my thoughts. According to my diary and her Instagram, her honeymoon was well and truly over and she and Zack had flown (first class, natch) to New York, where they were installed in a fancy apartment in the Meatpacking District, provided by Zack’s work.

It was all there on my sister’s stories: the champagne on the flight, the yellow taxi, the view over Manhattan, the squashy cream sofa, cousin no doubt to the one in Zack’s London flat. As usual, exclamation marks and emojis were studded throughout her posts.

But still, I felt that something was… not necessarily wrong, but not completely right either. I’d messaged her several times suggesting a chat, and been left on read. She hadn’t responded as she usually did to the numerous comments on her social media posts. And in all the videos of the skyline and the front-row seats at Hamilton and the speakeasy cocktail bar and the rest of it, Amelie’s own face was conspicuously absent.

So when I saw that I had three new messages on WhatsApp, my heart gave a little skip of home – then lurched again when I saw that they were all from Nush.

Hey Lucy! How are you?! Hope work is good!

Nush was one of those people who can’t resist an exclamation mark.

Have you heard from Amelie?! We haven’t! We’re starting to get worried!

Her words brought my own concern back to the forefront of my mind. Although I’d never stopped thinking of my sister, my preoccupation with what had been going on in my own life – my feelings fro Ross, unrequited and mostly unspoken, even to myself; Greg’s bombshell about Adam’s future; the unceasing flow of men’s problems landing in my inbox – had all but drowned out thoughts of my sister.

You know what, I haven’t, I typed. I’m going to FaceTime her! Tonight!

Nush’s exclamation mark habit was contagious, I realised.

So, that evening, I made sure to leave the office on time. And, at home, instead of firing up my laptop to see what Adam’s readers had in store for me or switching on my PS4 for a bit of soothing monster-murdering, I made sure my phone was fully charged and settled Astro on my lap.

On my first attempt, Amelie didn’t pick up. So I tried again five minutes later, and then again straight after that.

And the third time, she answered – only without her video switched on.

‘Lucy?’ Her voice was as clear as if she was right there in the room with me instead of thousands of miles and multiple time zones away, but she didn’t sound like herself. ‘What’s up? Are you okay?’

Now was one hundred per cent not the time to burden my sister with my problems – or rather Adam’s.

---