Melly turned to look back through the glass panel of the kitchen door, where Dolores was shooing at her with a dish towel.
She jumped into the cab, and they sped off.
“Where are we going?”
“I want to introduce you to someone,” Simon said. “I’m only here for a few hours; the orchestra is setting off for Atlanta. There’s a concert there tomorrow.”
“But you aren’t . . .”
“I’m telling you, I can’t handle all these razor-sharp insights! Someone needs to throw your drugs away. I came because I have news. The truth is, it took me a long time to fall asleep after our texts. I swallowed my pride and my self-respect, and I called my ex.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Well, I had to get something out of it,” Simon admitted. “Waking him up was a pleasure. Now, stop interrupting me. I asked him about his friend who had the motorbike accident. They had a thing, by the way—I’d bet my life on it. But anyway,” he continued. “Whatever. Alvin Johnson lives in Boston, and my ex agreed to hook us up. I called him this morning as soon as I woke up, and I told him about you. He agreed to talk to us. I thought about sending you alone, but then when I heard the concert tonight was canceled, I let the orchestra go on without me and decided to stop off to keep you company.”
“Simon, I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Well, you could just say thanks,” he laughed. “That’s how people generally do it. And I know, I know. I’m an amazing human being. Consider it credit on our friendship balance sheet. If you think that as a pianist, your life was an ocean of loneliness, then let me tell you, it’s not much better for a lead violinist. A few washed-up old souls on tour, and that’s it. Misery is boundless, my dear, and so is my curiosity, so here I am.”
“That’s funny.”
“What is?”
“The way you mentioned the ocean.”
“Funny . . . ? Okay, that’s it,” Simon said. “Give me those pills right this minute.”
“When we were on the beach at Pia’s house, I looked at the ocean and felt like we were the same.”
“You felt like you were the same as the ocean?”
“Can you stop making fun of me?”
“Can you stop making it so easy?”
The cab pulled up outside a café. Watching the customers on the terrace, Melly wondered which one she was about to meet.
“Coming?” Simon said impatiently. “I really don’t have long.”
Alvin Johnson looked like a mash-up of Steve McQueen and Alvin Ailey. The women at the neighboring tables gazed dreamily at him, and had Simon been capable of talking, he would probably have asked if he was free for dinner that night.
Alvin greeted them and invited them to join him. He waved at the waiter, ordered three coffees, and flashed Melly a grin. Simon had finally managed to cool down and was surprised at how his body temperature had plummeted so fast.
“So. What was it like for you?” Alvin asked.
“Excuse me?” Melly was confused.
“The accident. When you woke up. That’s what we’re here for, right?”
“Helicopter. Amnesia,” she said. “You?”
“Motorbike and weird.”
“Weird how?”
“I feel different,” he started. “They say that’s normal. I’m a ‘restored’ person—myself two-point-zero, with recovered consciousness. It sounds awesome, right?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that, but when you put it that way . . . ,” Melly conceded. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“The Longview doctors.”
“Different how?”
“I woke up with this burning desire to read,” Alvin said. “One I’d never had before. I’m not saying I’d never read a book before, but when I woke up, I felt the urge to devour them. All books, everything I could get my hands on. Plus, I used to be a vegetarian. Now I love meat. Weird, right?”
“That is weird,” Melly said softly.
There was a brief silence.
“So what about you? Don’t you remember anything?”
“I’ve had a few flashes,” Melly said. “But nothing too conclusive.”
As covertly as he could, Alvin tapped the word “conclusive” into his phone.
“Irrefutable, incontestable. Conclusive.” He nodded. “I get you. So did you come back in your own body?”
“What do you mean, in my own body?”
“Well, mine was screwed after the accident. I wasn’t wearing a helmet, so . . .”
“Please, spare us the details.” Simon winced.
“Your memory was restored to another body?” Melly asked.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I got a body that belonged to a brain-dead man who hadn’t done a backup. So that was good for me.”
Alvin told them what the doctors had told him. His memory had been stored in the Neurolink servers for three years, until a compatible body became available.
In cases like his, Neurolink formatted the donor’s entire brain via a series of powerful electric shocks before reinjecting the receiver’s saved consciousness.
Melly asked him what a “compatible” body was.
“Same gender, of course. Same age, same physical traits. That’s not compulsory, but it’s ideal,” he added. “It prevents any ‘postrestorative’ complications in terms of your feelings and personality, because of muscle memory. At least, that’s what they told me. If you’re an athlete, they’ll try and hang on and find you another athlete’s body. My donor was a dancer, like me. It’s really strange doing pointe work with his feet. I sometimes feel like an intruder. But I think I get the most important thing, which is the compatibility of some of the cort—what is it? Cortical cells?” He pointed to his head. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s the determining factor for Neurolink to accept the transfer.”
Simon and Melly were staggered by what they were hearing.
“Are you guys hungry? Because I could eat something,” Alvin said. The least they could do was pick up the check in exchange for his time.
Simon nudged the menu toward him, without breaking his gaze.
“There’s just one small thing, though. There always is, when you’ve been given a second chance, am I right? Did either of you see that old movie, where a guy spends years on a desert island before he’s rescued? He goes home, excited to get
