whatever the latest euphemism calls them. With little effort, he finds it: Psychological Services Center. On the screen, it looks just like a brokerage. The counselors each have their own page for potential student clients to scan.
He searches their images, feeling no more than a twinge of shame. He has used website photographs to pick a dentist. He has checked out the Facebook mugs of the amateur authors he edits. It doesn’t feel creepy anymore. It feels like self-defense. If his grandchildren ever read the journal entry where he considers the ethics of “face peeping,” they’ll just laugh. If he doesn’t burn his journals first. If he ever has grandchildren. Maybe his grandchildren will post his journals on whatever replaces the Internet, alongside every embarrassing photo of him ever taken. It won’t even be
posting
anymore. Shared will be the default condition.
Face peeping does for Russell what selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors do for his brother. It allows him to cope with a torrent of strangers, without wigging.
The first psychologist looks like a ridiculously benign Realtor. The second looks like somebody’s fervently maiden aunt. The third wouldeat him for breakfast with just a squirt of no-cholesterol spread. The fourth stops him dead.
She’s Grace’s clone.
Only older
, he thinks. Then he remembers: Grace is older now, too. Candace Weld, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, looks so much like Grace Cozma that Russell goes tachycardic. He sees the differences, but none is big enough for his gut to give a damn. It’s Grace, give or take; the spray of fight-or-flight hormones cascading through his limbs proves it.
He folds his shaking hands behind his neck. He feels himself plummeting into paranormal genre fiction.
Know
this story? He
wrote
it. He should close his browser, flush his history, delete all his cookies, and run.
The words on the profile page swim into focus:
Candace Weld works with students who are coping with stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, burnout, and difficult relationships. She also specializes in eating disorders and questions of body image. Candace helps students understand that feeling good about themselves is more important than being “perfect . . .”
He rereads, reeling, wondering how Grace could have come to
this
. He stares at the picture of the counselor; the resemblance weakens, but not the recognition. All his pictures of Grace went long ago to the flame, so he has nothing to compare this woman to. After another few minutes of paralyzed staring, what’s left of Grace Cozma’s face blends into this one.
Someone else dials the center, gives his Mesquakie ID number, and asks for an appointment. He hears that someone say
No, not urgent
and
Nothing really wrong with me
. An appointments secretary who has heard that particular danger signal once too often slips him in for early next week.
I bring him back his old obsession—at least her face. It isn’t my idea. This twist has been lying in wait for him. For years now, Russell Stone has bunkered down against the memory of a woman he doesn’t even like. He’s written his own ghost story, in advance.
I never seek out uncanny plots. I find them way too cheaply gratifying. I stay away from books with inexplicable coincidences, prophetic events, or eerie parallels. But they seem to find me anyway. And when I do read them, however conventional, they rip me open and turn me into someone else.
This is what the Algerian tells me: live first, decide later. Love the genre that you most suspect. Good judgment will spare you nothing, least of all your life. Flow, words: there’s only one story, and it’s filled with doubles. The time for deciding how much you like it is after you’re dead.
Candace Weld’s picture, vita, and life philosophy sit online in the Mesquakie directory for any spammer or sicko to find. Any nut with a keyboard could stalk her. Russell could probably get her credit history
He searches their images, feeling no more than a twinge of shame. He has used website photographs to pick a dentist. He has checked out the Facebook mugs of the amateur authors he edits. It doesn’t feel creepy anymore. It feels like self-defense. If his grandchildren ever read the journal entry where he considers the ethics of “face peeping,” they’ll just laugh. If he doesn’t burn his journals first. If he ever has grandchildren. Maybe his grandchildren will post his journals on whatever replaces the Internet, alongside every embarrassing photo of him ever taken. It won’t even be
posting
anymore. Shared will be the default condition.
Face peeping does for Russell what selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors do for his brother. It allows him to cope with a torrent of strangers, without wigging.
The first psychologist looks like a ridiculously benign Realtor. The second looks like somebody’s fervently maiden aunt. The third wouldeat him for breakfast with just a squirt of no-cholesterol spread. The fourth stops him dead.
She’s Grace’s clone.
Only older
, he thinks. Then he remembers: Grace is older now, too. Candace Weld, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, looks so much like Grace Cozma that Russell goes tachycardic. He sees the differences, but none is big enough for his gut to give a damn. It’s Grace, give or take; the spray of fight-or-flight hormones cascading through his limbs proves it.
He folds his shaking hands behind his neck. He feels himself plummeting into paranormal genre fiction.
Know
this story? He
wrote
it. He should close his browser, flush his history, delete all his cookies, and run.
The words on the profile page swim into focus:
Candace Weld works with students who are coping with stress, anxiety, low self-esteem, burnout, and difficult relationships. She also specializes in eating disorders and questions of body image. Candace helps students understand that feeling good about themselves is more important than being “perfect . . .”
He rereads, reeling, wondering how Grace could have come to
this
. He stares at the picture of the counselor; the resemblance weakens, but not the recognition. All his pictures of Grace went long ago to the flame, so he has nothing to compare this woman to. After another few minutes of paralyzed staring, what’s left of Grace Cozma’s face blends into this one.
Someone else dials the center, gives his Mesquakie ID number, and asks for an appointment. He hears that someone say
No, not urgent
and
Nothing really wrong with me
. An appointments secretary who has heard that particular danger signal once too often slips him in for early next week.
I bring him back his old obsession—at least her face. It isn’t my idea. This twist has been lying in wait for him. For years now, Russell Stone has bunkered down against the memory of a woman he doesn’t even like. He’s written his own ghost story, in advance.
I never seek out uncanny plots. I find them way too cheaply gratifying. I stay away from books with inexplicable coincidences, prophetic events, or eerie parallels. But they seem to find me anyway. And when I do read them, however conventional, they rip me open and turn me into someone else.
This is what the Algerian tells me: live first, decide later. Love the genre that you most suspect. Good judgment will spare you nothing, least of all your life. Flow, words: there’s only one story, and it’s filled with doubles. The time for deciding how much you like it is after you’re dead.
Candace Weld’s picture, vita, and life philosophy sit online in the Mesquakie directory for any spammer or sicko to find. Any nut with a keyboard could stalk her. Russell could probably get her credit history
Similar Books
