“Definitely. AI is reportedly all over it. And the science is already there when it comes to social capital.” He leaned forward. I missed his tooth gap. “Both the depthandthe number of relationships you have impact how long you live and how happy you are doing so. Plus, it’s never too late to build new relationships. And isn’t that, well, everything?” He took a deep breath. “You make me happy, Livi. I hope you’re cool with the light task of contributing to the number of days I live.”
“Oh, I’m adding on years,” I said. “Give me some credit.”
“Ha.” He straightened. “And this proves someone who isn’t your Soulmail-mate can have just as much good impact on your life as someone else.” He reached across the table and brushed my knuckles with his. Our mutual impact, cataclysmic and ripply and still not enough.
I swallowed the strangled sound in my throat. “Well, sure,” I said slowly. “You know those people I interviewed for the special? The soul family thing?”
He arched a brow. “How could I forget?”
“Imagine if they were right. I’m a skeptic, admittedly, but they’d probably love what you’re saying right now.”
“Diversifying your social portfolio?”
“You sound like a financial analyst instead of a museum archivist,” I said. “Unlike the soul people, who are basically creating a family tree—”
But Caleb’s eyelids dropped, rose. Stricken. “Archive,” he muttered. He rose from the chair, gripped my hand. “Archive! Olivia, you’re a genius.”
“Huh?” I asked, but my reply was swallowed in the loud commotion appearing beside us. Natalie was dressed head-to-toe in the brightest pink I’d seen outside of a highlighter. Her eyes flickered between our gripped hands. I released his, trying to ESP-her with anit’s not what you think, even if it was.
“Come dance with me,” Natalie sang.
“Olivia can,” Caleb said warmly. “I could only come by for a drink. Happy birthday, Natalie.”
“Happy birthday!” Natalie trilled back at him. I winced. She’d have a banger of a headache tomorrow. I slipped my elbow into hers, and she righted herself against me. “Oops!”
“It’s a good thing I love you,” I told her.
“Good social capital,” Caleb said. He gave my bicep a squeeze.
As he left, I led my bright-pink friend onto the crowded dance floor. Someone passed out neon glow-in-the-dark necklaces, and for the first time all summer, I danced until my feet ached. My knee hurt for three days after, but it was worth it.
Twenty-Nine
I sprawled on a yoga mat with my butt against one of the baseboards in my apartment, the backs of my legs and feet braced vertically against the lilac wall. I couldn’t remember if this pose was intended to reduce anxiety or increase my blood oxygen, but it was a win either way.
My phone chirped. Despite my resolve to get through a workout uninterrupted, I picked it up. Chuck Wheeler, agent extraordinaire:
DocuSigncontract in your email if you’re good with the negotiated salary and benefits, he wrote.
I flew through the contract, intending to stay in the Pilates position to initial the DocuSign, when I found what I’d been looking for. Salary.
“Oh. My. God,” I whispered. My toes went numb. I toppled off the wall, my feet twinging with pins and needles. I rested my forehead on the mat.
The figure was so high, my head couldn’t wrap around the fact that it was meant for me. Dizziness clouded my vision. Even though I could partially attribute my wooziness to my Pilates wall stance, something else was off.
My chest tightened. I should’ve been happy. I was. But I couldn’t clear myself of this sensation that I wasn’t living my own life. How incredibly foolish was it that me, Olivia Jane Adler, was a national figure for the biggest event that hadoccurred in the world in recent history? Being cryogenically frozen would be more likely.
I was torn between the desire to blow it all on additional funding for my future documentary, some kind of wild vacation, or living way below my means and saving everything else in a high-yield savings account. (My knowledge of those was indicative of the years I’d spent reading finance books in the NYPL.) Here I was, sweaty, dizzy, and financially secure on my own for the first time in my life. I lifted my head at the thought.On my own. I didn’tneedWells. I could choose to be with him, that soulmate of mine, with no financial stronghold between us.
This new salary provided me more money annually than I’d made in my entire life cumulatively so far. My father’s most favorite refrain was “money can’t buy happiness,” but here on this yoga mat, as feeling slowly trickled back into my feet, I was reminded exactly how wrong he was.
It was a fact. Moneycanbuy happiness, up until a certain threshold, somewhere around low six figures a year. Food in belly, heat in air, roof overhead. Money bought contentment. The people who go to bed worried about how to eat the next day had a hell of a lot more strife than I’d ever had, so surely contentment was some form of happiness.
I blinked. A speck of dust floated into my eye. I pushed against my eyelid and scrawled my initials into the DocuSign.
And just like that, I was the next co-anchor of Per Diem news.
I texted Wells first, because Soulmail was real, as real as orbits and death and climate change, and I figured my soulmate should be front row. I group chatted my parents, reported to Natalie, finished with Caleb. Everyone who mattered to me.
