The episode ends. Jackie wants to watch another, but Donnell decides they’ve had enough TV because it’s gorgeous outside and they could both use a walk. Besides, he needs to stop by Verizon and talk to Steve about picking up extra shifts.
Jackie goes into her bedroom and returns a half hour later in platform Pumas, zebra-patterned leggings, and a crop top. Donnell knows he should send her back to her room to put on something less tawdry, but he can’t bring himself to be that dad, the sitcom dad who demands that his daughter epitomize purity. He says she looks nice. Jackie grunts to let him know she wasn’t asking.
They walk south down Lenox, some distance apart, Jackie leading, impressively avoiding signposts and other humans without looking up from her phone. Donnell thinks over his essay in progress, a comic but partly in earnest argument for a causal chain connecting the attacks on the Twin Towers to the sorry current state of the Knicks. In his mind, SATC seasons one through four embodied a sexually liberated, pre-9/11 New York. Samantha slept with a doorman, Charlotte learned to stop worrying and love cunnilingus, and Carrie, sweet Carrie, introduced the term sexual walkabout to the American lexicon. Women wanted her wardrobe, men wanted to fuck her friends, Dalton girls took the 6 train downtown to smoke Marlboro Lights outside the Strand, and New York was a playground for professional athletes.
That changed after Muslim fundamentalists hijacked two commercial flights and flew the planes into the Twin Towers. Suddenly white men were beating brown men with knuckles and broom handles, were watching hijab porn, were wearing pearl snap shirts, were trying not to cry while listening to Taylor Swift. Miranda supported Skidmark Steve through testicular cancer, Samantha boringly attempted monogamy, and Carrie quit smoking because the smell bothered Aidan. The city banned smoking in bars.
This New York was for serious adults, so college grads moved to Austin and Portland, and white guys talked defense and fundamentals, sang “Manu Ginóbili” from rooftops, rented Rocky II on Netflix, scoured the Internet for Eva Longoria nip-slips, cheered David Caruso as Detective Horatio Caine, and hate crimes in the five boroughs went up 14 percent during year one of Obama’s post-racial presidency, so LeBron James took his talents to South Beach. And when his daughter was born, Donnell bought a two-bedroom apartment in Harlem because a small down payment with a floating-rate mortgage seemed like a good idea at the time. Now those days are ancient history, a feeling reinforced by the fact that Jackie’s doing a unit on the attacks in her middle school history class, and she keeps getting 9/11 mixed up with Vietnam.
They reach the store. Steve’s at the counter clutching a brand new iPhone, while another, his own, sits tucked beneath his chin. Despite his wheat-blond hair and the Midwestern honesty his blue eyes affect, Steve’s a Brooklyn-born hustler who speaks in a hip-hop dialect, the authenticity of which Donnell can’t begin to parse. Right now, Steve’s on one of his patented fake calls to Verizon HQ, pretending to beg a superior to allow him to give the customer a one-time special discount, explaining that this customer is a personal favorite, and if the superior could find it in his warm heart, etc. Guys like Steve have saved the sales industry from full automation; bots aren’t as good at ripping people off.
“Well,” says Steve to the customer, a young man with a shaved head and large plastic-frame glasses, “I’ve spoken to my superior and he’s agreed to let me give you a discount.”
The customer nods. He knows he’s being had, but there’s nothing he can do. Steve offers a price. It’s hardly a discount, 10 percent, and that’s only with the mail-in rebate. Analytics confirm: no one mails in the rebate. The customer hesitates, says, “That’s a lot of money.”
“You won’t find a better price,” Steve says, a fair point.
The customer looks to Donnell for an encouraging nod that says: such is life, we all get fleeced, but what’s the alternative, buying an Android? Donnell shrugs. The customer pays and photographs his new phone with his old one. Steve pushes the abacus on another commission. Donnell steps in before the next person can approach. People give him looks because the line trails halfway to the door, and he’s skipped all that and gone straight to the front. They don’t know he works here.
“My brother,” says Steve, and offers a soul shake, which Donnell accepts. This is their unspoken arrangement; Donnell honors Steve’s b-boy persona, and in return he’s allowed to write during slow shifts instead of vacuuming the carpet.
“You remember Jackie?” says Donnell, and taps his daughter’s shoulder.
“I like those Pumas,” Steve says to Jackie, who gives no indication of having heard.
Someone behind them says, “Ahem.”
Steve indicates the line, and asks Donnell if they can talk later, maybe in a couple hours after his shift. Donnell says, “I just need a minute.”
“Excuse me, I’ve been waiting,” the same woman interrupts.
Donnell feels a tug at his arm again. He tells Jackie, “Not now.”
“Excuse me,” the customer repeats, steps around Donnell, and pushes her cellphone at Steve. “I’ve been waiting here for twenty minutes and . . .”
“Miss, I’ll be right with you,” says Steve, turning back to Donnell, but the woman won’t hear it; she positions her body between them.
“Dad,” says Jackie. “Buy me this Bluetooth speaker.”
There is no question mark at the end of her statement. It’s a command. Jackie already has a Bluetooth speaker. She got one for Christmas last year.
“This one has mega-bass,” says Jackie.
“Not now,” says Donnell, trying to shake her off his arm.
“It’s only eighty bucks,” Jackie says, breaking her no-touching rule to pat him down in search of his wallet, which she finds and removes. Donnell tries to snatch it back, but she’s danced out of reach.
“You get a discount,” Jackie says, and positions herself at the end of the line.
The customer says to Steve,
