Turn of the Century by Kurt Andersen

“Great! That was awesome, Sir.”
    “Sarah’s video. About civil rights,” Lizzie says, and then gives a long, loud, sinus-clearing snort. “God.” She chuckles through her final sob. “How was your meeting with Mose?”
    “I think we sold the
Reality
show.”
    “I think I queered my Microsoft deal.”
    “Mose didn’t like
My People, Your People
.”
    “Good. I’m sorry. But I didn’t want our life to be a sitcom.”
    George smiles. “It’s not a sitcom, it’s a”—George makes quick little midair quotation marks with his hands—“ ‘dramedy.’ Emily wants to take it to ABC. What happened with Microsoft?”
    “I say
fuck
too much.” George smiles. “According to some anti-Semitic sexist asshole in Seattle. But I do swear too much. I’ll tell you about it later.” She stands up. “I need a big drink. The kids have eaten. You want to order sushi in? Hiroshima Boy?”
    They had martinis on their first date, almost twelve years ago. She was twenty-four and he was just thirty-two and drinking martinis was still, for people their age, a self-conscious, tongue-in-cheek act, playing grownup. They’d met at a Dukakis fund-raiser at Bennett Gould’s triplex on East Thirteenth Street, and they left together for a drink at a noir-in-outer-space-themed bar in the East Village called Blue Velveteen. The olives were plastic. Sometime after their second martinis,Lizzie did a Kitty Dukakis impersonation that made George laugh so suddenly he sprayed gin out his nose all over baby Sarah, sleeping next to him on the tatty velvet banquette.
    Twelve years later, the martinis in Manhattan are sipped without olives or irony. Martinis for two remains a residual romantic ritual. George has punched on the television, and it plays its turn-on music, the five-note Intel-inside jingle. That started when they installed the cable modem. He sits next to Lizzie on the couch in the living room, looking down on Rafaela playing with Louisa outside in the dark.
    “…  the actress denied the allegations, and spokespeople for both Senator Kennedy and the White House declined to comment.”
One, one thousand.
“Are humans about to become bionic?”
    “Oh, lose the smirk, asshole,” George says. “I still can’t figure where they all learn to smirk.” He turns to Lizzie. “Does any actual person switch between a frown and a smirk all the time like that?”
    “…  at the University of Washington, where a controversial scientist reported today that he has succeeded in establishing a direct communications link between two living mammals’ brains by means of computer chips.”
    “As opposed to dead mammals’ brains,” George says.
    “Although computer industry observers agreed the feat was exciting, they—”
    “ ‘Industry observers agreed,’ ” George says. “God, TV news sucks.”
    “Shhh,” Lizzie says, waving the remote toward him like a giant black index finger.
    “—that the practical applications of the so-called mental modem are years away. In Mexico, a spokesman for the American embassy denied allegations that an American military attaché had participated in the torture of civilians in the Chiapas village of Taniperla. Calling the charges—”
    She mutes the TV.
    “Bruce knows that guy.”
    George is interested. “Bruce knows the CIA torturer?”
    “No.”
    “Brian Williams? So does Featherstone.”
    “No,
no
, the person at U-Dub who did those animal-chip experiments.”
    “U-Dub?”
    “U of W, University of Washington,” Lizzie says. “Bruce worked with the guy in Oregon writing bioinformatics code.”
    “Ah,” George says, feigning comprehension. “So who at Microsoft did you say
fuck
to that you shouldn’t have?”
    “Some lawyer. A bean counter. They’re suddenly offering two-point-nine million. They’re not taking me seriously. They’re trying to gyp us.”
    “Jesus, three million for a fifth of the company is an insult?
Gyp
is an ethnic slur, you know.”
    “Two-point-nine