The Cloud (30 page)

8

B
ack at my house, the next morning, I sign up for Facebook. I glance at Meredith’s thumbnail picture. She’s smiling with her eyes, not her mouth, and it makes me ache with nostalgia. I consider “friending” her. Too backdoor. Too snoopy.

Using my landline, I call information in Santa Cruz. There’s a listing for Meredith Canter. I know it’s her because the street address where she lives is in the neighborhood she always dreamed about. I don’t think about it too much. I dial.

After two rings, the phone is picked up. “Hello.” I lose my breath at the sound of her beautiful voice. Before I can answer, she says: “Hold on a second, please.”

Then I hear scuffling in the background. I hear her say: “Hold on, Zekey, my love. Mamma’s got to take a call.”

I feel my heart break. If Zeke is my offspring, Meredith has a reason for keeping the secret. Maybe she suspects I’d be a rotten father, like my dad and the whole stinking bloodline. Or maybe it’s not mine and she doesn’t want to hurt me.

I hang up.

I notice the video camera perched on the computer. It came with the damn thing, supposed to be for Skype. I stare into its black eye.

I think about all the searches I’ve done, looking for a job, passing late nights, buzzed on cheap gin, grazing on the Internet, indulging whatever whim, following links. Believing my behavior to be between me and my browser. Under the gaze of this electronic eye, unblinking.

Big Brother isn’t looking over my shoulder, as the cliché goes. He’s staring me right in the face.

I look at Meredith’s thumbnail image on Facebook. I want to call her back, just to tell her: toss the gadgets, raise Zeke on paper and pencil.

I close the browser.

Some secrets were meant to remain buried.

Acknowledgments

T
here is no “i” in Cloud. This was another team effort. Thanks to:

The Creative Fellows League: Josh Friedman, David Liss and Bob Tedeschi.

Carl Lennertz, great editor and friend. And the rest of the Harper team: Liate Stehlik, a publisher who gets people; publicity juggernauts Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, Andy Dodds, Jesse Edwards, Shawn Nicholls, and Jay Corson. Tessa Woodward, patient sherpa on the publishing journey.

Agent and sister-of-another-mother Laurie Liss.

To bookstores. Big and, especially, small.

Meredith, for patience, spark, encouragement and perspective. I love you. And for your fecundity. Books are nice. Milo and Mirabel are transcendent.

About the Author

MATT RICHTEL
is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
New York Times
technology journalist and novelist. He is the author of two previous critically acclaimed novels,
Hooked
and
Devil’s Plaything
, and his fiction, like his journalism, focuses on the impact of technology on how people live, behave, and love in the 21st century. He won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for his series on distracted driving. He lives in San Francisco with his family. Please visit him at
www.mattrichtel.com
.

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www.AuthorTracker.com
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By Matt Richtel

T
HE
C
LOUD

D
EVIL’S
P
LAYTHING

H
OOKED

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

Floodgate
copyright © 2012 by Matt Richtel.

THE CLOUD. Copyright © 2013 by Matt Richtel. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062198051

Print Edition ISBN: 9780061999703

First Edition

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