Page 23 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
“No kidding,” Dad says, as Vera reaches to squeeze my wrist.
“What will you tell them?” she says.
Her expression is neutral and pleasant. When she lifts the wineglass, her hand shakes.
“Depends what they ask,” I tell her. “But XLR8 has a whole press kit—key messaging and a bunch of stuff.” The messaging leaves no gray area:MASH accurately predicts users’ futures. I asked if we needed to be so firm, if we could leave a little room for unpredictability, but Evelyn was adamant. MASH needed to be a sure thing, or it wouldn’t work at all. And I’m not willing to face a reality where it doesn’t work at all—not when we’ve already come so far. “I should memorize it, probably.”
Vera hums her agreement. “I saw the changes they made to the app, that new tagline.”
The future’s written inside your mind, MASH says now.
“And?” I prompt.
“Feels very Zoltar, don’t you think?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not fortune-telling, Vera, it’s science. You know that better than anyone.”
She holds up her hands, and I watch them tremble. “Just an observation.”
“Eat,” Dad says, sliding plates in front of us. Vera smiles up at him, hand dropping to his forearm.
“Looks wonderful, Pete.”
I lift my fork but I’m still watching her, that face I know as well as my own. She’s different now—softer-spoken, slower to laugh, weary in a bone-deep way. But she’s still Vera. Who taught me to swim, who made me stovetop mac ’n’ cheese for lunch every growing-up summer, whose scared eyes raked over mine when Ibiked so far from our street I got lost and she found me, crying, outside the 7-Eleven.
“I saw Miller drop you off after school.” She says it lightly, like a feather skimming the lake. But she knows me, and when I tense her chin lifts, eyes unwavering on mine.
“How was that?” she asks.
I reach for my fork and knife. “It was fine.”
When she and Dad both just stare at me, I repeat it. “It wasfine.”
“You two haven’t spent much time together since high school started,” Dad says. He takes a bite of chicken, watching my face while he chews. “I’m sure you had a lot to catch up on.”
I stare at my plate, slicing my food with surgical precision. “There will be no catching up,” I say. “What we’re doing is a business transaction.”
Over my head, I know they’re looking at each other. I don’t indulge them by acknowledging it.
“In a way,” Dad says, slowly. “But he’s also your friend.”
“Miller is not my friend.” I look up at Dad, his surprised eyes. When Miller stopped coming around he believed the simplicity of it: Miller was just busy, I was just better friends with Maren. “Not even close.”
“No,” Vera says. She’s always known it wasn’t so simple. “He’s your lover.”
“Oh my god,” I say, nearly gagging. “Please do not ever use the wordlover.”
Dad’s gone red, but Vera only shrugs. “That’s what XLR8 is saying, isn’t it?”
“I can guarantee they aren’t calling him my lover.”
“Your beau, then.”
I cut my eyes at her, and she sighs. “Whatever word they use, it’s not how you feel. Is it?”
I draw a slow breath. I could tell her that sitting in Miller’s car this morning felt like dipping into the frozen lake, like going numb and being on fire at the same time. I could show her the half-moon cuts in my palms from my own fingernails, my hands fisted together on our silent drive home just to give me something, anything, to hold on to. I could.
But in the end, I just say, “Miller’s my match.”
