Generosity: An Enhancement (18 page)

“This is a shame, because I need to know—”

“Ms. Weld is a college counselor,” Stone blurted. “I just met her recently.”

Weld’s face went hot at the man’s scrupulousness. But the news electrified the younger woman. “Serious?
Une psychologue
? Then I really must ask you some things!”

Counselor and teacher both froze.

“Do you think it’s possible for people to change their own story?”

Candace Weld had planned to down half the tea and bolt. But that question was her drug, her hottest hot button, her hobby and her calling. She could no more refrain from weighing in on it than a gambling addict could keep from testing out a new pair of dice. Before she could stop herself, Candace was holding forth about the untapped ability of any human temperament to recompose itself. Everyone could be redeemed, given the right combination of behavioral adjustment, medical intervention, and talk. And of these three, the foremost was talk.

And as they talked, the counselor’s words turned playful, to match the immigrant’s. Something contagious about the Algerian. Her delight was irresistible: like being seven, and ten hours away from turning eight. Like being eighteen, out on the highway when a tune
with a hook like resurrection came on the radio for the first time. Like being twenty-nine, and having the doctor tell you that company was coming.

Candace Weld could count on her two elbows the number of people in life who always made her feel lighter than she was. She’d met both of those people before she’d turned this woman’s age. And yet here was this knocked-about refugee putting her, within twenty minutes, high up on a thermal, reluctant to do anything but circle and enjoy the view.

They followed a bread-crumb trail of topics: How long therapy takes and when you know it’s done. Whether some cultures were healthier than others. Why America was terrified of every country that the Ottomans had ever ruled. Weld trotted out the twelve words left from her two years of college French; her pronunciation paralyzed Thassa with mirth. A week or two would turn them into big and little sister.

The secret of happiness suddenly seemed absurdly simple: surround yourself with someone who was already happy. Weld caught Stone’s eye and screwed up her face:
You’re right; she’s unnerving
. Fyodor barely acknowledged her, as if his job in this scene—
the three principals meet for tea
—was to sit stock-still and regret the development he’d set in motion.

Thassa, finally, broke things up. “Hey! Some people have homework to do, if they want to succeed in life.”

The three of them rose and stepped outside into a late-October night still warm enough to walk without hunching forward. The wind came in crisp off the lake, and in twos and threes, the leaves of the caged city trees made their apricot escape. Thassa walked backward for a few steps, looking at the couple through a director’s shot box she made with her thumbs and index fingers, pleased by whatever she saw inside the frame. Then she smiled at the future, waved goodbye, turned, and vanished.

Candace Weld felt a twinge she couldn’t quite identify. She turned to face Russell Stone, warming to all the bewilderment that the man had nowhere to put. He looked back, but couldn’t quite hold her eye. He wanted to insist that he’d initiated nothing. She dismissed his apologies with one raised eyebrow.

“That isn’t mania,” she told him, even as doubt spread across his face. It was, in fact, something much weirder. “That’s what we in the
mental health business call peak experience. And you’re saying she’s like that
all the time
?”

She offers him her hand good night. The hand is polished driftwood. He takes it and feels something awful and instant. One of them squeezes, then the other, and they tumble too quickly into mutual knowledge.

He knows this story.
You
know this story: Thassa will be taken away from him. Other interests will lay claim. His charge will become public property. He might have kept quiet and learned from her, captured her in his journal, shared a few words at the end of his allotted four months, then returned to real life, slightly changed. A vaguely midlist literary story. But he’s doomed himself by calling in the expert. It’s his own fault, for thinking that Thassa’s joy must mean something, for imagining that such a plot has to go somewhere, that something has to
happen
.

I know exactly how he feels.

The “Genome” caption reads: Geoffrey Tomkin, Author,
Tomorrow’s Child: The Science and Fiction Behind Germline Engineering
. The image says: dead of coronary heart disease in two years.

 

T
OMKIN
:

If you want to issue a blanket pardon for every social crime we commit against one another, you just have to convince the public that destiny is in our genes.

 

S
CHIFF
:

You’re saying that it would be bad for social justice if Thomas Kurton is right?

 

T
OMKIN
:

I’m saying, the minute you claim, “My genes made me do it,” accountability disappears. And the minute you tell prospective parents, “We’ll give your child the traits you want and get rid of the ones you don’t,” you turn humanity into a fast-food franchise.

 

S
CHIFF
:

It would be bad if he’s right, but the evidence doesn’t necessarily prove he’s wrong?

 

T
OMKIN
:

Genomics says there are no genetic contributions without countless environmental ones.

 

S
CHIFF
:

Is it too late for me to get taller and prettier?

 

T
OMKIN
[
glaring
]:

These transhumanists are really big on making people taller. But taller than what? When Kurton’s company starts selling parents the genes for a seven-foot son, someone else is going to bring out an eight-foot model.

 

S
CHIFF
:

Is it too late for me to become an eight-foot model?

 

Weld calls Stone three days later, to postmortem the meeting. He’s in his other life, at
Becoming You
. She’s the first person from the college to use this listed contact number. It’s Halloween, and he’s dressed up as himself.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Thassadit,” the counselor says.

Russell suppresses a grunt. The lamb has crossed the lion’s mind. But there’s something in her voice, some professional reticence that worries him. “You think there’s reason for concern?”

“No. I wouldn’t say concern. But I’d like to talk to you about some possibilities.”

He says, “What kind of possibilities?”

She’s silent one beat too long. “I think someone should work her up. Take a good look. She seems immune to anxiety. Her positive energy is amazing. She maintains a continuous state of flow. Maybe she’s benefited from some kind of post-traumatic growth.”

A sick feeling comes over him. “It sounds like you’ve already worked her up.”

“Well, she did stick her head in the counseling center over lunch. Just to say hello.”

“And stayed for a chat?”

“We talked a little.”

“And now you’re her new best friend.”

“Russell, I think she should be explored.”

He catches himself gouging the margins of the manuscript in front of him with red pen. “You’ve seen her. You said she’s okay.”

“I mean really looked at, under controlled conditions. There’s a research group over at Northwestern . . .”

She trails off when he says nothing.

“Russell?”

He no longer thinks anyone needs to test anything but Thassa’s journal entries. “You said this isn’t hypomania.”

“It isn’t. I would bet my career.”

“Do you think it’s hyperthymia?” The better without the bitter.

Her silence oozes dislike for the term. “I think a professional researcher should look at her.”

“She likes you,” he says.

“I like
her
. Anyone would.”

This woman is not Grace. Grace always thought he was attacking when he was making nice. Constance Weld thinks he’s making nice when he’s attacking.

“Why are you asking my permission?”

“Well, I’m not, really. But I am asking your feeling.”

Testing is an excuse. The psychologist just wants to spend more time around the Berber woman, like everyone else.

“You asked her already? About Northwestern?”

“I mentioned the possibility.”

“And she said that sounded like more fun than a roadside explosive.”

“You don’t have to be like this,” the counselor says.

He watches himself regress. “No? What
do
I have to be like?”

“All right. Let’s not talk about this right now.”

He’s pathetic. Worse than a prepubescent. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m out of line.”

“No,” the psychologist replies. “I understand entirely.”

Cold, wet leeches attach to his brain, the way they did when his
first writing successes turned into nightmare. “Look,” he tries. “I don’t mean to . . . Maybe you and I could talk about this sometime. Coffee or lunch, or something.”

He means fake lunch. Purely symbolic hostage swap. Nothing she might take him up on.

Luckily, her acceptance is as hypothetical as his offer. “Sure,” she says, her voice weird. “I think I’m . . . Are you free Saturday?”

For want of anything more appropriate, he says, “Saturday’s good.”

“Good,” she says, meaning nothing. They make plans, plans the Kabyle might just as well have written for them. Candace Weld names a place dangerously close to Water Tower, a nice Moroccan restaurant. “That’s next to Algeria, right?”

“Streeterville, I think.”

She waits just a beat, her silence wicked. “Am I supposed to laugh at that?”