Page 61 of The Love Hack

Then he moved away and so did I, we said goodnight and I went inside and started packing.

And now I was here. Looking out of the window of the plane, I could see Manhattan spreading out below me – that must be Central Park, a vast square with a sparkling lake at one end, surrounded by a grid of streets and building upon building – like a square of graph paper that had been partly coloured in with a green marker pen.

Then the aircraft circled away, and wispy clouds obscured my view. But I could feel the descent, slow and steady, one wing then the other dipping. I was three thousand miles away from Ross – but, weirdly, it didn’t feel that way. I was arriving in a city he loved – a city that was far more his, I sensed, than it was Amelie’s, even though she was there and he wasn’t.

And then, with a gentle bump and a sudden deceleration that made my seatbelt cut into my tummy, I was there, too. I waited patiently for permission to undo my the belt, stand up and retrieve by bag from the locker overhead, and then I followed the slow-moving line of people to the front of the aircraft, through the door and into a long tunnel.

Half an hour later, I’d retrieved my bag, bought a bottle of rum at duty free for no particular reason except that I was travelling now and that was what travellers do, and was making my way to the train station. (‘Don’t get a yellow cab,’ Ross had advised. ‘They’re cool, but the drivers are grumpy gits, the traffic is terrible and they’ll charge you a fortune.’)

His instructions had given me the knowledge and confidence I needed to get where I needed to be without gazing fixedly at Google Maps and looking like a tourist, which I felt proud of in a silly and random way. And the email my host had sent me gave clear instructions on how to locate the apartment.

The building was a red-brick apartment block on a tree-lined street, just a few minutes’ walk from the subway station. Across the road was a deli, and round the corner a corner shop – a bodega, as Ross had said they were called. It was mid afternoon and the streets were quiet – or what I imagined quiet would be for the city that never sleeps. A couple of women with babies in buggies were power-walking along the pavement (sidewalk?); a guy was arranging cloths and glasses on tables in a restaurant; a man with a dog was strolling along, patiently waiting while it sniffed and peed against a lamppost.

But I didn’t want to linger – I wanted to investigate the place that was going to be my home for the next few days. Furtively, I entered the passcode into the keypad outside the main door, and it swung obligingly open. I hefted my backpack higher on my shoulder and climbed to the second floor (third in American, as Ross had explained), and slotted the key into the door of apartment 3B.

It turned obligingly and I stepped in. The flat was tiny – its ceilings were almost as high as the floor area was wide. But it was spotlessly clean, and sunlight streamed through all steel-framed windows on one wall and reflected dazzlingly off the parquet floor. There was a cream Ikea sofabed next to the window and a tiny kitchen next to the door, just beyond a smaller, sliding door that I imagined led to the bathroom.

There was a wardrobe and a glass coffee table with a money plant in a brass pot on it, a few framed theatre posters on the walls, a wall-mounted TV – and that was it. It was tiny and perfect and, straight away, I imagined myself living here, waking up in the morning with someone next to me in the unfolded sofa bed, making coffee in the drip machine I saw on the kitchen counter, going out for pastries and exploring the city.

Except, of course, there’d be no room for Astro here, that was for sure. So it would never work.

Swiftly, I unpacked my clothes and arranged the contents of my washbag in the bathroom, which was small and windowless with a shower over the stainless-steel bathtub. I investigated the kitchen cupboards and found plates, glasses, coffee mugs and cutlery – two of everything. There was everything I needed and nothing I didn’t – except maybe someone to share my adventure with.

But Ross was sharing it – albeit remotely. So I sent him a picture of the apartment and a brief message saying I’d arrived safely and everything was great. I was itching to head out, explore the neighbourhood, find some food and plan my next move.

First, though, I had work to do. I might be in a foreign city, but I was still working and Adam was still on duty. So I perched my laptop on my knees and turned to my overflowing inbox.

There was an email from a guy who, at five foot five, was demoralised by the number of women on the apps who only wanted to date tall men, and was considering lying about his height on the basis that, once they met him, they’d be so blinded by his personal magnetism they wouldn’t notice his small stature.

You think a lie is a good basis for starting a relationship? I thought. Don’t be a dick.

There was an email from a sixteen-year-old who knew he was gay but hadn’t come out yet and had fallen in love with his best friend. My heart twisted in sympathy for him – he might be a dick or he might not, but he needed considered advice. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to deliver that right now, so I saved the text of his message into my folder of problems I was definitely going to address in the next few weeks.

There was an email from a father who’d recently started dating a woman and wanted to know when and how to introduce their kids to each other, which would definitely need input from the child psychologist I contacted when I had a problem I felt neither I nor Adam nor GenBot 2.0 was qualified to respond to.

But I kept coming back to the message I was sure Zack had written. I was going to answer it – I felt compelled to. But I didn’t know what to say.

I pasted the message in its entirety into GenBot, and waited for it to respond. After a few seconds, it produced its usual lengthy, mild-toned reply.

Your situation sounds complicated… It’s normal to experience temptation in a relationship… Talk to your wife and find out what’s troubling her… Don’t embark on an affair without ending your marriage…

‘For God’s sake,’ I snapped. ‘Come on, AI Adam. Get with the programme.’

But can’t you see what a dick this man is being? I typed.

He comes across as somewhat materialistic, the algorithm returned.

And he’s thinking of cheating on his wife!

Betrayal in a relationship is never an advisable course of action.

So why are you being so sympathetic to him?

I am a generative language learning model. If you have relationship concerns, I recommend seeking counselling.

‘Oh, fuck off.’ I snapped my laptop closed, picked up my bag and the keys and headed out. But before I descended the stairs, I made sure I had Ross’s app open on my phone, and was surprised to see I had a message from him as well.

Hope you got there safe. Thinking of you.

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