The candlewick spit, spluttered. “I don’t see why not. You should take a video there in case we need it.” Olivia, olive branch. Time purchased before retrieved or wasted. “Oh! I’m thinking about having a dinner party,” I blurted, which I hadn’t been thinking of until I said it. As soon as I did, though, I was all in. “We haven’t seen Emma and Samir in ages. We could have them...” They were the couple whose wedding we had been bridesmaid/groomsman paired at. Our origin story. I hiked myself onto the counter. “Plus Natalie. And Caleb, maybe.”
“Olivia, sweetheart,” Wells said.
My eyebrows knitted. “What?”
He spread his hands wide. “Totally agreed on getting everyone together, but maybe let’s do dinner out instead?”
“Why?” My robe slipped open. I tugged it shut.
“I just—” Wells cleared his throat. “Don’t you think... It would be a little tight in here?”
“I don’t, actually.”
“Where would we sit?”
I heaved myself from the counter. “My table has a leaf,” I said. “See that console bench there?”
“Yeah?”
“It just got delivered last week. You flip this slot under, and pull out the table from the wall, and voila!”
“Voila?” he echoed. Amused.
“Yeah, it’s easy,” I said. “Let me show you.” I worked to tug the stored wooden plank from its catch. My cheeks strained with effort. Three tries later, I held it up. “See?”
“I see,” Wells said. “Do you want some help?”
“Not needed.” I pulled the end pieces away from one another and tried to plunk the insert between. They sprang back toward one another like a clamp. The leaf plunged from my hands, crashing onto my foot, bringing a pain so fierce it drew tears. I braced myself against the counter, counting my breaths to steady them. I tapped my phone, aiming for nonchalance. No new messages.
“Another time,” Wells said lightly. He opened the freezer, handed me an ice pack. “Maybe someday we can host together, okay?”
The next drop of Soulmails arrived on the expected monthly anniversary in September, and a week later came Phoebe’s last day of work.
My final Per Diem special correspondent report was on the unprecedented upswing in rural real estate. New coupleshad to navigate families all over the globe, so a solution for a percentage of them was relocation. The movement had been dubbed “rural plural.”
The network gifted Phoebe a diamond tennis bracelet on air. When I wrapped my last Du Jour segment, I retreated to my office, where I’d stashed a package of granola bars. The staff had set up a lunch spread to celebrate Phoebe’s “early retirement,” with regulars like Alanna Sorensonn and Phoebe’s favorite wellness expert and recurring cooking segment guests in attendance, but guilt scratched my stomach. I didn’t know how to face Phoebe, who loudly claimed she been offered a guest role on a competing network. I crunched an antacid, zipped in and out, and left a note on Phoebe’s cleared-off desk.
With my promotion, Samantha explained we’d move Du Jour from daily to seasonal specials like the soul family one from August, since exclusivity would drive higher ad revenue. I chose not to remind her of the literal meaning ofdu jour. The third dissemination of Soulmails gave the world the confidence it was here to stay, so the network decided to shift it—with me—into the everyday fabric of our lives.
On my first morning as co-anchor, Josef raised his Per Diem coffee mug in my direction during our last-minute touch-ups. “You ready to co-broadcast some news?”
My smile was feeble. Leading up to this moment, I hadn’t let my mind fully sink into the reality that I was suddenly a national news co-anchor, and this avoidance was paying me back by yanking my appetite and putting my blood pressure on fast-forward. “Pretty surreal.”
He nodded. “I remember.” Josef shook out his hands and wiggled his jaw. “This role—there is great responsibility in it. The things we report, and how we push the information, influences the consumer.”
“Places, everyone,” Jaime the production assistant called, and we were off, wrapping Soulmail into the daily news.
Word from the Vatican that morning: the Catholic church wasnotwalking back on their initial ban of reading Soulmails, unlike the pervasive new rumors that they were. One radical priest of the church had offered to forgive the sins of anyone who visited the Phoenix branch in person.
College Greek life “rush week” was postponed until October so the heads of sororities and frats could decide if they should organize based on Soulmail status.
Natalie’s influencer cousin, Aili, said she was “pulling an Olivia Adler” by “only telling the truth.” She interviewed a handful of newly-eighteens who’d just received their Soulmails, offering tips, tricks, and resources on whether opening them was the right move for them. (“She is absolutely unmanageable right now,” Natalie had ranted on the phone. “Biggest ego of all time. She had the nerve to try and get everyone in our family to celebrate Christmas early. InOctober. So she has, and I quote, ‘timely seasonal content.’ I will destroy you if you let fame do this to you.”)
Elsewhere, a museum curator lived his life orbiting somewhat near me instead of next to me.
A LOBSTER IN A POT
Thirty
