“Oh. Oh damn. That could have been a great plot for an episode!”
“Right? Totally!” Sylvia only said totally when she was wasted. She carried the o, which I always thought was adorable. “Let’s bring it back home, okay? Let’s say we put a TC on a satellite and send it to a habitable planet in the Aquarius constellation. So now we have a TC on some planet eighteen light-years away and we want to teleport someone there. Let’s call her Astronaut Billy.”
“Is she hot?”
“Yes, but I’m hotter. Stay with me. So it takes hours to transmit and confirm the teleportation data to Aquarius. Not seconds. Several hours of Billy sitting in the foyer, waiting. And what if during that time she does or thinks about something important that doesn’t make it to the destin?”
I shrugged. “Then she shouldn’t teleport to outer space and assume the risk of losing time. If she doesn’t like it, she can do something else, like hang out with her husband and not talk about work.”
She downed the rest of her cocktail. “You know what? Forget it. I’m trying to explain why I’ve been so wrapped up in this, but if you’d rather be snarky—”
Shit. This is the most in-depth conversation we’ve had in weeks and you’re blowing it.
“Okay, okay,” I said, placing a hand on her leg. “I think it’s really just a semantics thing. She’s still her, right? Let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that while she’s slowly being teleported to the Aquarius constellation, Foyer Billy somehow cheats on her husband with the conductor. If you ask me, Billy’s still guilty of infidelity, even if Vestibule Billy never actually did it. You are who you are. Boom!” I finished off my Gibson in triumph.
Sylvia nodded, but I could tell she was a little upset by what I’d said.
“What?” I joked. “Is IT gonna come after me now?”
She shook away whatever thoughts she was having, half smiling. “Doesn’t matter. In a matter of months, it’ll be off my plate. We will have our lives back, Mr. Byram.” She kissed me again, lingering this time. “Once that happens, I’m going to—Shit.” Sylvia sat back, her demeanor completely changing as she looked off somewhere over my shoulder. She was getting comms.
“You’re going to shit?” I joked, but she waved a hand sideways, clearing whatever message she’d just gotten, and silenced me.
“I have to go,” she said in frustration. “Bill needs me back at work.”
“What? You just left!”
“I know, I know. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
She kissed me one last time and took off.
I looked down at the broken instruments embedded in the bar top. I couldn’t help feeling like they were some kind of metaphor for my marriage—busted, frozen, forever silenced. What the hell? I figured. I’m here already, might as well celebrate.
I motioned to Richard. “Fill ’er up. Looks like I’m drinking for two.”
So yeah, things weren’t great between me and my wife, but we were doing our best. Well, technically, she did her best, and I trailed along behind, living off the scraps of her drive and success like a remora—one of those sucker fish that attached themselves to a shark and ate whatever fell out of their mouths. I, in return, provided the occasional entertainment. Sylvia had always given everything 110 percent, whether it was our relationship, her job, or even planning vacations. She was the one who did the research, built itineraries, then told me when and where to show up. She was also the breadwinner, which I guess made me the bread loser. Some spouses might have been irked by that, but not me. I was content to take it easy.
But to be completely transparent, my lack of drive was one of the main reasons we had been doing so poorly for the last year. Her job at IT took up so much of her time that there was little left over for us. And after a decade of letting her man the wheel of our marriage, I barely even knew how to drive anymore. So I had let things get worse and worse, until our ten-year anniversary celebration was shorter and less enjoyable than a prison visit.
Thankfully, Sylvia was never one to throw in the towel. The morning after our interrupted date at the Mandolin, she broke through my hangover with a comm from the coffee shop across the street from IT.
“Are you on the bathroom floor?” she said, peering at me.
“It’s the one closest to the toilet,” I said blearily. “Are you wearing what you wore last night? Jeez, have you been working this whole time?”
“Clear your calendar for next week,” she informed me. “We are going on a second honeymoon. No comms, no International Transport bullshit, just me and you. You were right. We need to work on us.”
“So you’re ditching work for work,” I said dryly. “What’s the destination, Madame Cruise Director?”
“Costa Rica,” she said. “I just checked. Our honeymoon spot is still there. And according to my research, the cloud forest is one of the most off-the-grid spots in the world. Plenty of time for hiking, R&R, and TLC. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” I said, though the only thing that sounded good right then was a bottle of aspirin and twelve hours of additional sleep. We said our good-byes and mostly stayed out of each other’s way for the next week, successfully avoiding any more speed bumps until the day of our vacation—July 3, 2147.
HERE COMES THE RAIN AGAIN
ON THAT DAY, I was in the midst of travel-packing procrastination when an audio message from Sylvia showed up on my comms.
“Hi, babe. Listen, things at work are quiet, so I’m getting out of here early while the getting’s good. I’m going to depart directly from the TC here at IT. If you can’t get ahold of me, I told Julie to give you—and only you—my GDS location. I am so ready for this. I love you.”
She sounded hopeful. When she said, “I love you,” I knew she meant, We’ll get through this, but I wasn’t so sure. I wasn’t as convinced that this second honeymoon was going to magically solve our marital problems. Maybe that was why it had taken me all morning to start packing.