Viral Read online

  She typed back: You read my mind. I was just about to invite you to come and visit me.

  They settled that Cynthia would come to Norway, since she had a short vacation coming up. Kris would come down to Oslo and meet her at the airport. They could spend a couple of days there and then go up to the farm if they wanted to. Kris bought the ticket that night and sent the itinerary to Cynthia. When she opened the message, she felt her heart leap, her pulse quicken. That night she had her first dream about Kris. It was not overtly sexual. They were sitting together on a mountainside, green and bare of trees. Kris reached out and laid both hands on her knee, and this was what she remembered when she woke: how beautiful those hands were, how distinct, with long fingers, strong and elegant, but not unscathed. She woke up with them still before her eyes, imagining what it would be like to be touched by them.

  One evening of the following week, Cynthia was having dinner in a Chinese restaurant across the street from the hospital with a couple of the other residents after their shift. When it came time to pay, she opened her wallet to take out her debit card and left it lying unfolded on the table beside her while she looked over the check. The woman sitting beside her, whose name was Sonya, glanced over and said:

  “Why do you have a picture of Amund Eilertsen in your wallet?”

  “What?” Cynthia said, confused.

  “Amund Eilertsen, the actor. That’s a picture of him.” And she pointed to the photograph behind the plastic window.

  Cynthia felt her stomach plummet through the floor. She felt like she could hardly breathe. “Oh,” she managed to say. “It’s a joke. My sister gave it to me. I used to like him when I was younger and she’d tease me about it and so, you know . . .” She trailed off and smiled in a way she hoped covered the turmoil inside her.

  Sonya said: “He was always on TV when we would go to Sweden to visit my grandparents, but hardly anyone in this country has even seen anything he’s been in, since he hasn’t done many films. What did you see him in?”

  “I can’t even remember. It was so long ago . . .” The waiter was handing out the receipts and she took hers and absorbed herself in signing it, figuring the tip. She didn’t look at Sonya because she thought that if she did, she might start to cry. When the checks were brought back to the table, she said that she was feeling completely exhausted and excused herself to go. She was halfway down the block to her car when she heard someone call her name behind her. She turned around and saw Sonya coming after her holding Cynthia’s purse in her hand: she’d departed in such a hurry she had left it on the back of her chair.

  When she arrived home it was nearly midnight, the hour when she usually spoke with Kris—or whoever that was, she thought. She understood suddenly, sickeningly, that the words on the screen could have come from anyone; she had no way to know whether the person with whom she had become so quickly and intensely involved even lived in Norway, had been a musician or a farmer or a parent. The shared interests had seemed genuine; Kris had known more than she about music and cultivating plants. The descriptions of journeys by bicycle they’d shared had been so detailed and the pleasure taken in them so similar that they couldn’t possibly be entirely made up . . . could they? Also the things they did not share: Kris’s manner of talking about being a parent was one of humor and affection, and the frustrations and triumphs of running a small business had seemed true. Last week on a whim she had looked up the brand of organic produce that was supposed to come from Kris’s farm and it was real enough, but of course anyone could have looked up that website, used its details. The fact that the farm was real proved nothing.

  A pang of sadness and disappointment burst inside her chest. Their affinity had seemed so genuine. But the face of the person she had thought she was falling in love with belonged to someone else entirely, some actor whom she’d never seen.

  Why would someone do that, create a whole persona that was not their own? What possible motivation could they have for doing such a thing?

  She considered simply vanishing, never again logging into the chat room where they used to meet, blocking any messages that arrived from Kris. But she decided that she couldn’t simply leave things unresolved. She poured herself an extra-large glass of bourbon, sat down at the computer, logged into the chat room and waited. When the name Kris appeared on screen she left the initial greeting sitting on the screen unanswered, until the words Hello? Are you there? appeared beside it.

  I know that photograph isn’t you, she typed. Then she sat back away from the keyboard and waited. For a minute nothing happened. Then the words flashed up:

  I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Everything else I told you has been perfectly true.

  How do I know that? Cynthia typed. How can I believe anything you say?

  Again there was a pause and then:

  I understand you must be very angry. I am truly, truly sorry. I thought that if I sent that picture you would continue to talk to me. I did not realize that it would matter until it was too late. I thought that when you came to visit, you would find out then. I thought, somehow, that would be easier.

  Easier for who?

  I don’t know. Easier to make you understand that the other things I’ve told you are sincere. I’m sorry.

  But why did you send me a fake picture at all? Why not just send a real one?

  Would you like me to send you one now?

  Yes, Cynthia typed, then hesitated and deleted it. No, she wrote instead. How would I know the one you’re sending now is real?

  I see your point, Kris typed after a moment. Look, I understand I have no right to ask you this, but will you consider please coming to Oslo anyway? I will arrange for a hotel; you do not have to stay with me. I would just like to meet you, once. Then you can go back to the United States and never contact me again if you like. I would understand. Please consider it.

  Cynthia hesitated. Then she typed: I’ll have to think about it.

  Fine, Kris typed, that is fine. Just let me know. When you are ready to do so.

  I’m going to go now, Cynthia typed. Goodbye.

  Goodbye, Kris said, and vanished from the screen.

  For the next week Cynthia did not contact Kris at all, nor did Kris try to contact her. She felt a growing curiosity about this person whose words she’d found so captivating. She was not so much interested in what Kris had hidden. Obviously, whoever she would meet in Oslo would be different from what she’d imagined—maybe a different gender or a different race, perhaps disabled in some way, perhaps much older or much younger than herself. What interested her more was whether she would feel in his or her presence any of the excitement and intimacy she’d felt so strongly in their writing. Had she experienced some real connection to another person? Or had she just been talking to herself? She wanted to find out.

  And yet it seemed completely foolish to travel all that way to meet a stranger who had after all misled her. Should she go or not? Days passed and she still could not make up her mind.

  Then a few days before her scheduled trip, her mother called. Since she’d helped Lucinda move into her new apartment, they had seen each other only a few times. Cynthia did not have much time to travel and Lucinda found it difficult at her age to come up to Wisconsin, especially during the long, cold winter months. But Lucinda called her regularly once a week and sometimes, recently, they would talk for a long time as they had not done since Cynthia was a child.

  This week, when Lucinda asked how her week had been, Cynthia hesitated. She had planned to say that everything was fine. Instead, she found herself on the verge of tears and then talking all about the person she had met online, the invitation and the photograph. She expected Lucinda, who had been so practical about the end of her own marriage, to say that she must forget about Kris and move on as soon as possible. But after Cynthia has finished speaking, she heard Lucinda take a breath and when she spoke her voice was full of strong emotion.

  “I think,” she said, “you should go.”


  “You do?” Cynthia was astonished.

  “Yes,” Lucinda said. “Kris has not been completely open with you, but keeping a secret can sometimes be a sign of love. I’m not saying that it’s right to do, but perhaps it is not the worst thing either. Why not go and find out who this person is?” Lucinda said.

  The next day Cynthia wrote to Kris and said she’d come to Oslo after all. She thought: whatever happens, at least I’ll know. She thought that if she didn’t like what she discovered, she could take the train to Stockholm or Copenhagen and spend the weekend exploring there.

  As she packed her suitcase for the trip, she felt excitement and nervousness, even though she told herself that there was no reason for her to be anticipating anything. She slept a little on the flight and then woke up as they were taxiing to the terminal at Gardermoen. She walked slowly with her bag along the corridor to passport control. Kris had promised to meet her on the other side of customs and had described the clothes she should look for at the airport: a blue jacket, black trousers and a gray wool scarf. She cleared immigration and rolled her bag through customs. On the far side, there were people lined up waiting for arriving passengers. She scanned the faces of the crowd, searching for someone at once familiar and totally unknown.

  She saw the woman standing over to one side of the concourse. She was leaning on the wall and had one leg crossed over the other. She was peering into the stream of arriving passengers, but she had not yet seen Cynthia, so Cynthia had a moment to observe her unobserved herself. The woman had high cheekbones and a kindly mouth and fair skin a little burned from working outdoors. Her sandy hair was tied in a long braid down her back and she looked nervous. Cynthia stopped and stared at her and then the woman caught sight of her and stood up straight, her face lit up with hope. Cynthia found herself walking toward her, leaving her suitcase where it stood and holding out both hands to her. The woman reached out her hands, too, and Cynthia saw that they were fine, long-fingered hands, a violinist’s hands, strong, freckled and marked by other kinds of work. She recognized them. They were the same hands from her dream. She reached out and took them in her own.

  She stood in the fluorescent lighting of the airport concourse holding hands with this stranger while people passed them on either side.

  “It’s you,” she said, and then again: “It’s you.”

  A Boy My Sister Dated in High School

  A boy my sister dated in high school slapped her across the face during an argument. They were sitting in the front seat of his car, parked by the basketball court behind our house, and she made a sarcastic reply to something he had said and before she knew what was happening, he’d raised his hand and swung it, open palmed, against her cheek.

  She didn’t tell me about this until years later after we had both left home. When she told me, I felt at once angry and strangely guilty because the boy in question was extraordinarily good looking and I remembered having been impressed in a shallow way that I never spoke about that my sister was dating someone so handsome. I was jealous of a lot of things about my sister in those days: her beauty and her ease with people, how spontaneously funny she could be, how well she was liked. She fit in at our school and in our town, in her own body, in a way that I could not seem to manage, quiet and bookish and peculiar as I was then and remain. Still, there was never a time when I didn’t love her very much and when I wouldn’t have done whatever I could to support and defend her.

  Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I asked, when she finally told me.

  When the boy she was dating hit my sister, it made a sharp cracking sound, just like it does in the movies. She raised her hand and touched the side of her own face. The expanse of skin where he’d struck her buzzed and tingled, felt weirdly alive. It didn’t hurt and even the actual slap itself hadn’t really hurt. Instead, she was shocked, surprised because she had not expected this, and then confused about what she should do next.

  She looked over at the boy she was dating, who had just hit her. He was leaning way back away from her against the car door as if he was afraid, either of her or of what he had just done. In his eyes was an expression of shock and remorse much more intense than anything she herself seemed to be feeling. He too had been surprised, and he looked like he might be about to cry. At that moment it came into her mind that maybe, in punishment for what he had done, the gods had magically frozen him in his current physical position: curled up like a frightened fetus with his eyes bugged out and his mouth hanging slightly open. Perhaps he would be stuck like that forever. In her mind she envisioned having to explain to the boy’s mother how her son came to be paralyzed in this posture: He hit me, she would say, and then, well, now he doesn’t seem able to move or speak. I’m sorry. She thought of him in various scenes over the course of his life to come—in school, at home, in church—still fixed in that attitude, and the absurdity of these images together with the amazement she still felt at what had just occurred made her suddenly snort with laughter.

  Her laughter seemed to free the boy from his paralysis.

  “Oh, god,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t mean . . .” He reached out toward her as though he wanted to take back what he’d done, but then he withdrew his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He hung his head.

  “I guess you should take me home,” my sister said. Suddenly she felt like crying. He nodded and started the car. When they pulled up in front of my parents’ house, he turned off the engine. He looked over at her mournfully. She suddenly thought he was making a huge, self-centered melodrama out of something that wasn’t really so important. He wanted to be a terrible, unforgivable villain. She did not want to give him that satisfaction.

  “Look,” she said. “I’m okay. It doesn’t hurt. I’m not, like, scarred for life or anything.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “Really,” she said. She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He clasped her hands gratefully. They smiled at each other because that was what they were used to doing. When they smiled, it felt as if a moment before they had been drowning in some cold, unpleasant sea, but now they were back on solid ground, back in the world they knew. A wave of relief swept over them.

  “You were being kind of a bitch,” he said.

  “I was,” she conceded. “And you were being a class-one a-hole.” She opened the door and got out.

  “Can I call you tomorrow?” he called after her.

  “Yes,” she said and went inside. She could hardly even feel where he had hit her at all anymore.

  Because they had made up and because she wasn’t hurt, she didn’t feel like she needed to mention to anyone what had happened. If she said anything to our mother, she thought, Mom would only overreact. She would call the school, maybe the boy’s parents. She would say things about violence against women and the patriarchy, the kind of embarrassing things that my sister had to do her best to ignore so that she would not be a total outcast in the conservative suburb where we lived. If she told our mother and she started making a fuss, it would definitely mean that she and the boy would break up and stop dating. They were both part of a big group of friends, and she didn’t want to cause problems in that group over something that was really, truly no big deal but that might become a big deal if the parents were involved. It wasn’t like she was some battered and abused woman, like you saw on television talk shows or heard about on local news. Probably, in a few months, she wouldn’t even remember that it had happened.

  So she said nothing and the boy never did it again and after a while they broke up for unrelated reasons and started dating other people without much drama or distress to either of them. They finished high school, went on to different colleges. They didn’t keep in touch.

  But during that time, unlike what she had expected, the memory of being hit by the boy didn’t just fade away and vanish. It wasn’t that she thought about it all the time or it ruined her life or she could never trust a man again or anything like that. From time to t
ime it would come into her mind, that day, the moment of surprised confusion afterward. And she came to feel, especially as she got a little older, that she had let herself down by the way she had reacted. This was the feeling that grew incrementally inside her. She should not have tried to make him feel better by telling him it was no big deal. She should not have kept it from their friends just so they could all continue to get along. From the beginning she had failed to stand up for herself, and now she knew, or felt like she knew, about herself that she would let someone do that to her and do nothing about it. She would be obliging. She would comply.

  This guilt about how she hadn’t stood up for herself was like a small stone that she had to carry around. That was how she pictured it. Small and round, but heavy. And she came to believe—she said, when she finally told me about it all those years later—that maybe if she told people about it, as she was doing now, it would get smaller and lighter; that sharing would diminish it, make it smaller, maybe even make it vanish.

  And I thought, but did not say: maybe, or maybe it will make it multiply.

  My Daughter and Her Spider

  After her father moved away, my daughter Lisa had a difficult few months. She slept badly. She had terrible nightmares from which she’d wake up shouting words I couldn’t understand or crying tears of fright. She threw tantrums that would come over her like fits and then she’d cry until she was exhausted, hoarse and dizzy. I worried constantly about her. I wasn’t in particularly great shape myself after the ending of my marriage. I was working longer hours so that I could pay our bills. I was tired all the time, struggling to keep from slipping down into my own sadness and drowning there.

  I wanted to be strong and do the right thing for my daughter. But I really didn’t know how to help her cope.

  Dr. Clemens, the psychologist I took her to, suggested that we get her a Companion. She gave me the name and address of a facility where we could go to pick one out. She said they’d have a full range of choices, each one carefully engineered to meet the needs of children who had recently been through a traumatic loss.