Free What in God's Name: A Novel by Simon Rich Page B

he didn’t even say a word.”
    “He was panicking. See? Look at all that sweat.”
    He paused the clip and zoomed in tight on Sam’s glistening neck.
    “I wonder if he has a medical condition,” Craig mused. “Like a gland thing.”
    “Does she even know his name at this point?” Eliza wondered.
    “Probably not.”
    “So how do they fall in love? When does it happen?”
    “Not in 2010. That’s their last meeting for the entire year.”
    He scrolled down to the next link.
    “Hey, this is interesting,” she said. “This next clip’s four hours long.”
    She clicked on the link, and the Bobst Library appeared on the screen. Someone had called in a bomb threat, and students were idling outside, talking, laughing, thankful for the break.
    From a bird’s-eye angle you could see that Sam’s hair had started thinning. Laura’s posture, always bad, had stooped markedly since the year before. They were getting older.
    Even though they were standing right next to each other, it took them three whole minutes to achieve eye contact and another four to speak to each other.
    The Angels watched patiently as the humans began to make small talk.
    “Do you know Max?” Laura tried. “I think he was in your dorm.”
    Sam squinted. “Max Feldman?”
    Laura shook her head. “Max Padrick.”
    “Oh. No, I don’t think I know him.”
    Eliza groaned.
    “This conversation is so boring. ”
    “We could watch it in fast-forward?” Craig suggested.
    Eliza nodded, and he clicked the ×50 icon.
    The humans chattered rapidly while the crowd thinned around them. Eventually, Sam and Laura were the only ones left on the steps. Their eye contact remained glancing, but their expressions grew brighter, their hand gestures more animated.
    Craig hit play at the twenty-minute mark and found that their conversation had shifted from mutual acquaintances to reality television.
    “They’re making progress.”
    Eliza shrugged. “Barely.”
    Craig hit ×1,000, and the humans scurried up Broadway, darting into a nearby diner. The first laugh occurred just after the one-hour mark, followed by two more in quick succession. Sam and Laura stayed in their booth for hours, drinking iced coffee, the only stationary figures in a blur of whirling activity.
    Eventually the humans darted outside, zigzagging aimlessly until they reached a bench by the Hudson River. A hundred cars a minute whizzed by them on the West Side Highway, an electric blur of red and yellow streaks. Gradually, the humans started to inch toward each other on the bench. In real time, the shift was imperceptible—too gradual for Sam and Laura to be aware of it. But watching in fast-forward, the Angels could make out their progress. By the three-hour-and-forty-one-minute mark, their knees were practically touching.
    Suddenly, though, there was a dramatic shift in body language. Sam retreated to the far end of the bench, like a losing prizefighter at the bell—his eyes downcast, his shoulders drooping.
    “What was that?” Eliza asked.
    “Not sure.”
    Craig rewound the clip a bit and then hit play so they could figure out what happened.
EARTH—MARCH 23, 2011
    Sam and Laura sat on the bench, their eyes locked.
    “I don’t get Kerouac either,” Laura said. “I mean, I know he’s supposed to be smart and everything, but I just get bored reading it.”
    “I feel the same way!” Sam said. “You know, I’ve never told that to anyone.”
    “Me neither! I’ve always just pretended to like him because—”
    “You were afraid of what they’d say.”
    “Exactly! Oh my God, if Cliff ever heard me bad-mouthing Kerouac…”
    “Who’s Cliff?”
    “Um…he’s…my…boyfriend.”
     
    “Whoa.”
    “That sucks. ”
    Craig paced around the cubicle, clenching his fists in outrage.
    “She waited four hours to tell him she had a boyfriend? That’s inexcusable. ”
    “What about him? He waited four hours to ask. ”
    Craig shook his head. “The blame’s on her. No question.