Crossed Wires

Emma orders Tanqueray Ten. Two olives. Bruised. The bartender's thumb leaves prints on the glass.

Across: Brian's thumb against his tumbler. Tap. Tap. Tap.

His Omega Seamaster. Eight thousand dollars measuring intervals between wanting and having. The crystal's microscopic scratch refracts light wrong. She notices. Files it under 'evidence of carelessness.'

Inventory complete: Invisalign history visible in his incisor alignment. Deltoids sculpted at Equinox, Market Street location, premium tier. The particular smile they teach at Stanford GSB, module four: "Authentic Presence." Emma processes the algorithm: renovated Eichler in Los Altos Hills. Rescue greyhound named something literary. Farmers markets where honey costs thirty-two dollars and the beekeeper has a PhD.

Her peripheral vision pulls left. Involuntary. Like checking blind spots before impact.

Natalie. Fingers around Sancerre. Grip: increasing by fractions. The tendons in her hand map like suspension cables. Michael tilts his iPhone. Screen angled fifteen degrees toward her cortisol levels. Whatever he's showing her—earnings call, memorial video, ransom note—doesn't matter. What matters: the way his lungs regulate near her electromagnetic field. Shallow. Precise. Like breathing costs extra in her atmosphere.

The screen reflects in Natalie's pupils. Two rectangles of light. Or two rectangles of nothing. Same thing.

This is how it starts.

Or it starts with choreography:

Brian laughs. Diaphragmatic. The sound bounces off exposed brick, returns diminished. Michael nods. The nod that means 'I acknowledge your sound production.' Nothing more. Possibly less.

The women's corneas align. Duration: 1.3 seconds. Emma counts against her radial pulse.

Natalie's lipstick: Chanel Rouge Allure, shade 99. Pirate. Discontinued last spring. Emma's: Dior Addict, 976. Dior Fever. Both names lies. Pirates don't wear Chanel. Fever doesn't come in tubes.

"The new RS e-tron GT," Brian says. "Zero to sixty in 2.9."

"Lucid Air Sapphire," Michael counters. "Zero to sixty in 1.89."

Neither mentions the Lyfts waiting outside. Both drivers named Mohammed. Both rating 4.9 stars. Both pretending not to listen.

The server approaches. Septum ring. Serotonin tattoo on her wrist. Chemical formula. Incorrect. One hydrogen atom facing wrong. She doesn't know. Nobody tells her. Her smile holds at regulation 60%.

"Ready?"

Four mouths open. Cancel each other's frequencies. Silence. The server waits. She's architected for waiting. MFA from Iowa Writers' Workshop. Fifty thousand in debt. Smiles at 60%.

Or more specifically with geography:

Michael's patella contacts Emma's.

Accident. Newtonian. Except.

Contact sustained: four seconds. Five. Six. Seven. Her Louboutin static. The red sole like crime scene evidence she hasn't left yet. Pulse in her external jugular: ninety-three BPM. Approaching diagnostic threshold.

She monitors Brian. His performance of intimacy. The practiced lean. The gesture that suggests skin without confirming it. He's explaining something to Natalie. Proof-of-stake versus proof-of-work. Bulletproof coffee. The golden ratio in martini construction. Natalie's C4 vertebra rotates three degrees counterclockwise. First spinal decompression since arrival.

Subterranean navigation:

Emma's metacarpals find Michael's. Calculate angle of concealment. Thirty-seven degrees from perpendicular. Tablecloth. Italian. Thread count sufficient for secrets.

Her wedding ring contacts his wedding ring. Clink. Molecular. Devastating.

Wait.

She's not married. He's not married. The rings manifest anyway. Platinum. Tungsten. Temporary. Permanent. The metal warm like living tissue.

"I'm not wearing a ring," Emma says.

"Yes you are," Natalie says.

Emma looks. No ring. Ring. No ring. The observation changes the outcome.

Or with more precision in the evacuation:

Second service. Tanqueray. Sancerre. Macallan 18. Brian: something Belgian. Trappist. The monks' suffering improves the flavor. He believes this.

"Powder room." Natalie's voice like a flight attendant explaining oxygen masks.

Emma follows. Learned behavior. Evolutionary. Women traveling in pairs to water sources. To avoid predators. To become them.

The bathroom: Calacatta Gold marble. Aesop Resurrection hand wash. Lighting designed by someone German. Natalie's phalanges white on white on white. Her bones attempting escape through skin.

"You see it." Not asking.

Emma's throat: drought conditions.

"Brian looks at you," Emma says, "like you're an exit strategy."

"Michael looks at you," Natalie says, "like you're a system error."

Both true. Both inversions of truth.

In the mirror: two women. Or four. Or the same woman twice. The beveled edge splits them into probabilities.

"I ran models," Natalie says. Works at Palantir. Patterns. Predictions. Preemptive strikes. "Eighty-seven percent of attraction is just proximity plus opportunity divided by inhibition."

"What's the other thirteen percent?"

"Violence."

Natalie's laugh: aluminum. "We could switch."

The words hover. Suspended in Aesop-scented air. Emma tastes them. They taste like car crashes. Like custody battles. Like things that haven't happened yet but already have.

Or with molecular specificity:

Return. Reapplication. Ruby Woo: fourteen-hour wear, transfer-proof. Pillow Talk: bulletproof. Both lies. Everything transfers. Nothing's bulletproof.

Brian's hand finds Natalie's L5 vertebra. Two inches south of appropriate. Three inches north of honest. Michael refills Emma's glass. Unprompted. The wine resembles evidence under these specific wavelengths.

"Dessert?" The server. Still 60%. Still smiling. Still incorrect about serotonin.

"Chocolate soufflé," Brian orders. "For the table."

Twenty-three minute wait. He's installing a delay. They all understand. Nobody acknowledges.

Michael's phone. Vibration pattern: two short, one long, one short. Emma knows that pattern. It's her pattern. But her phone is silent. In her purse. Which is in her apartment. Which she hasn't lived in for three years.

Natalie watches the phone vibrate. Counts. "Morse code. S.O.S."

"From who?" Brian asks.

"From whom," Michael corrects.

The distinction matters. The distinction is everything. The distinction is nothing.

Or with pharmaceutical precision:

"Your wine," Natalie slides the glass. Smooth. Practiced. Professional. "I added something special."

Emma's hand freezes. Hovers. Calculates.

"Joking." Natalie's smile could perform autopsies. "But you wondered. For 2.7 seconds. You calculated lethal doses."

Brian and Michael: comparing carbon offsets. Oblivious. The way men are oblivious when women are renegotiating reality's infrastructure.

"Hypothetically," Emma says, "what would you add?"

"Rohypnol's traceable. Fentanyl's unreliable." Natalie's voice clinical. "But insulin. Insulin's invisible."

"You're not diabetic."

"Michael is."

Emma looks. Michael's insulin pen. In his jacket. Which is on Brian's chair. Brian who keeps touching his pocket. Checking.

The wine tastes like futures contracts nobody will honor.

Or with forensic specificity:

Soufflé arrives. Collapses immediately. Designed to. Four spoons attack from cardinal directions. The metaphor obvious. Ignored.

"We should discuss the situation," Brian says.

The situation. Singular. Like there's only one.

"Nothing to discuss," Michael says. His spoon scrapes ceramic. The frequency makes Emma's molars ache.

"I have screenshots," Natalie says.

Screenshots of what? Everyone's phone simultaneously dims. Battery saving mode. Or something else.

The server circles. Vulture pattern. "Everything perfect?"

"Yes," they say. Synchronized. Like it's scripted. Like they've been here before. Will be here again. Are here now.

Or with terminal precision:

Check arrives. Leather folder. The kind that makes debt feel sophisticated.

Brian reaches. Michael reaches. Their fingers don't touch. Almost touch. The space between them vibrates at frequencies only certain animals can hear. Emma hears it. Natalie hears it.

"I've got it," they both say.

The possessive pronoun hangs. 'It.' The check. The situation. Each other.

"Split it," Emma says.

The men look at her. Through her. Past her. Their pupils dilated. Pharmacological. Or just the lighting. Same thing.

Two credit cards emerge. Both black. Both metal. Both with numbers that add up to the same thing: enough. More than. Never enough.

The machine accepts both. Doubles the charge. Nobody notices. Or everyone notices and nobody cares. Or caring is what got them here.

Someone's fingers on the table. Tap. Tap. Tap.

Emma looks. They're her fingers. Or Natalie's. Or they're the same fingers. Or fingers don't belong to anyone anymore.

This is how it ends:

Valet. Two Model S's. Both white. Like they're going to a wedding. Like they're leaving one.

"Again soon?" Brian's hand on Natalie's thoracic spine. Descending.

"Thursday," Michael says. Not asking.

Emma and Natalie. Seven seconds of data transfer through corneal contact. Enough bandwidth for social security numbers. For murder plans. For something worse than both.

"Thursday," they confirm. Lying. Not lying. Both.

The cars separate. But.

Three blocks away: both vehicles idle at the same coordinates. Windows lower. Forty-three seconds of conversation the surveillance cameras don't capture. But the lip readers. The insurance investigators. The divorce attorneys. They'll have content.

Or this is actually how it ends:

Emma's phone. Unknown number. Marina district. Address. Apartment 4B. She knows who sent it. All three of them sent it. None of them sent it.

Her Lyft driver: five stars. Explains his app. Something about optimizing human connection through isolation. She tips 40%. Guilt tax. Anticipation tax. Same thing.

The apartment door: ajar. Two inches. Calculated. Like everything.

Inside: Brian. Michael. Natalie. Waiting. The configuration unclear. The intent crystalline.

"We decided," Natalie says, "to stop pretending."

"Pretending what?" Emma asks.

"That this is the first time."

The room smells like Diptyque candles. Baies. Six hundred dollars of burning money. The smoke detector disabled. Battery in Natalie's purse. She plans ahead.

Emma counts: exits (two), weapons (everything), heartbeats (too many, multiplying).

"Choose," Brian says.

But the choice happened already. Before dinner. Before birth. Before the algorithm learned their preferences. Before preferences existed.

"I choose," Emma says.

She doesn't finish. Doesn't need to. They already know. Have always known. Will know.

Sound of fabric. Falling. Whose? Everyone's. No one's. The sound continues after the clothes are gone.

Or maybe more accurately:

Emma wakes. Her bed. Alone. Fully dressed. Different clothes. Same clothes. The receipt on her nightstand. Her signature. But.

The total: wrong. Four hundred becomes four thousand becomes forty thousand. Her name spelled in Cyrillic. The date: next Thursday. Last Thursday. Every Thursday.

Her phone: forty-three missed calls. All from her contact labeled "Me."

Natalie's Instagram story: three minutes ago. Four minutes from now. The four of them. Dining. Smiling. Different restaurant. Same table. Same bodies. Different bodies. The caption: "Perfect double date! See you next week!"

Emma doesn't remember the photo. Is taking it right now. Will refuse to take it.

Text from contact labeled "Him."

"You were perfect last night."

Last night is tonight. Tonight happened last year. Next year is happening now.

Emma orders Lyft. Destination: the restaurant. The driver's name: Emma. Looks exactly like. Nothing like. Is.

"Funny story," the driver says. "I was just at this dinner. These two couples. Completely crossed wires. Everyone wanting the wrong person. Or the right person. Hard to tell."

Emma watches her own face in the rearview mirror. Aging. Reversing. Static.

"How did it end?" Emma asks Emma.

"It doesn't."

The meter runs. $4.00. $40.00. $400.00. The numbers mean nothing. Everything costs the same: everything you have.

They arrive. Emma pays Emma. Tips herself 100%. The receipt prints infinitely. Paper spooling onto the floor. Each one signed with a different name. All of them hers.

Inside the restaurant: Brian. Michael. Natalie. Waiting. Always waiting. Have been waiting. Will wait.

"You're late," they say.

"I'm early," Emma says.

Both true.

She sits. Orders Tanqueray Ten. Two olives. Bruised. The bartender's thumb leaves prints. The same prints. Different prints.

Brian's fingers on his empty glass.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

This is how it starts.

This short story is part of my compilation of short stories, Dream City and Other Stories.

Want more? Dive into Dream City and Other Stories—a collection that lives in the shadows, that keeps you guessing, keeps you wanting just one more page.

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