Alternative Pasts, LLC
Linda McMullen
Weeks of consultations, amateur Google sleuthing, and intuitive creation have culminated in this simulation: without exaggeration or boasting, I can declare it my magnum opus—
Jordana lifts a skeptical eyebrow.
“Behold,” I whisper, and I press Start.
A profusion of orchids—rare, glorious, faintly erotic—a dazzling pan through luscious petals and verdant foliage, tropically reminiscent of the opening of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast.” An unhurried sweep through ivied green arches. Glimpses of a silver skyline behind. And the fountain, flowing, burbling, magical, crowned with classic orchids in rich mauve-violet.
Jordana presses pause. “It’s fine,” she snaps. “I’m not certain that the payment justifies the time you put into it.”
My tongue aches from the combined pressure of two rows of teeth. “We can use a lot of the backdrops again, for a tropical paradise—”
“Sure.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Staff meeting in five.”
In our Dickensian back room, Jordana sits at the head of the table, smiling with the complacent superiority of the Sphinx. “The usual today—five Deathbeds, a repeat PA”—that is Jordana’s corporate shorthand for Pernicious Abuser—“and Toni’s pet.”
The tendons in my neck spasm; that is not my name. And this project—how can Jordana, with her MBA and managerial title and establishment-approved status as a married woman with her own M-R-S, comprehend the magnificence of my Singapore-scape, and what it means? I took this job to put a fragmentary dent in my MFA debt, but since … I’ve hoped for an opportunity to create. To make something beautiful. Something that would, for once in my Alternative Pasts-shill life, transcend the corporate taint.
The customer—a lady—stood in our Consultation Space that day, luminous, unconfiding, right hand demurely poised over her left. An enigma. A modern-day Ilsa Lund … She delivered a shining-eyed request for a one-person meeting at the Singapore Botanical Gardens, handed me an intake form with Rebecca Carey in flowing handwriting:
“A gentleman?” I may have failed to keep my face neutral.
She left it to my imagination, she said, but she was willing to pay whatever my time was worth.
The money mattered less, much less, than the opportunity to fulfill her unique-in-all-my-experience request …
“The team has been doing a—” Jordana paused for effect “—better job of transforming ‘browsers’ into ‘samplers’. But we can all do a better job turning ‘samplers’ into paying customers.”
Do they train people to become human air quotes in business school?
Howard’s coping better than I am; he’s already launching his third doodle, this one an anatomically correct amalgam of Jessica Rabbit and Lara Croft. Every quarter he suggests to the suits that we “expand the experience,” to include virtual encounters (presumably, frolicking with the nearly-shirtless nymphets of his imagination). Every quarter he receives the same form email back from corporate declaring that those kinds of services fit neither its legal nor business models. His low-key objectification of women irritates me and exasperates Jordana (I suspect, strictly from a liability point of view); nevertheless, it hasn’t tipped into explicit harassment of living, breathing women.
That said, I was absolutely right to give him a free hand with the foliage.
“And we should not be offering so-called ‘freebies’ to ‘samplers,’” Jordana continues.
The back of my neck erupts in pin-prickles. I’d like to think it’s just shingles. My mechanical pencil snaps against the snowy page of my agenda. I don’t remind Jordana that the entire American 15–49 demographic has already seen our standard demos, via Alternative Pasts’s twice-hourly-since-the-Superbowl ads. Or, if not there, through its Facebook ad binge. And I definitely don’t add that the only payola I’ve generated this week—other than Rebecca’s fantastic splurge—was thanks to a backdoor deal with Howard about adding in a bit of scalloped lace in a Deathbed and a pair of fuschia bulldog jowls to the antagonist in a Supervisor Confrontation sample. (In exchange, I stalled Jordana long enough for Howard to replay a College Seduction. I’d deny it if asked, but … I have a quota to meet, too.)
“Let’s remember to greet everyone as they come in and upsell!”
She’s uptalking like an extra from “Clueless.”
I scurry out to the front of the store, tripping over my own feet as I hasten to open the gate.
Tyrone takes off his coat, as if he hasn’t been standing in front of the store for the last thirty minutes. I estimate that he’s got approximately 15 years, 15 inches, and possibly a 150 pounds on me. While he looks like he could rip a refrigerator in half, he’s got the temperament of Santa’s apprentice mixed with a healthy dose of Mr. Rogers. I designed his sim—it was one of my first and remains creaky in a few places where it could sing. But when I once offered to touch it up—free of charge—his face did a deflated-tire swerve. “You wouldn’t remix Bonnie Tyler’s rasp, would you?” he inquired, hurt.
“And defile ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart?’ May I die a thousand deaths,” I had replied.
WMWF dominates the mall’s airwaves; every summer, Tyrone and I hold a running contest to see who could first identify the 80s nostalgia tune playing when he arrived. I think he deliberately waited out “Walk Like an Egyptian” one time because it was too easy.
Also, he’s the one returning for another round with his PA.
His stepdad, a hulk with a face like a side of beef. One of the hardest intake interviews—for both of us, I’m sure. We have the sim on file, and Tyrone steps into the booth, like clockwork, on the 5th, 12th, 19th, and 26th of every month. I asked him once if he wanted to report, not knowing whether any statute of limitations might apply. I turned in a guy 6 weeks ago, I said, and he wasn’t the first. But Tyrone just shook his head.
I remain glad that Marjorie, our sales lead, had displayed both sense and confidence in me, when she asked me to help Tyrone that day. Not Grayson. Grayson looks like a news anchor out of central casting and has elevated ‘basic’ to an art form. Jordana describes him as luxe. His perfect coif never moves, and his smile never falters. The Salem Heights ladies love him.
That’s not Tyrone.
Today, I take payment—Tyrone’s got a membership, so it’s nominal—press Start on his repeat sim and close the door to his beloved Booth 8 in the far corner.
I return to the counter, and reread yesterday’s email from Rebecca.
“No one has ever told me ‘your world awaits’ before. I am so lucky to be working with you! How can I wait until tomorrow?”
3 p.m., today, the curtain goes up …
A lady wanders in, feigning interest in our specials, and avoiding my eye. Be the shark, says Jordana’s company-trained voice in my head. I wait for the middle-aged dory to swim to me. Inwardly, I note that promoted-ahead-of-everyone Marjorie has apparently failed once again in her ongoing joust with her alarm clock.
“Do you have any, ah, literature?” asks the dory.
We don’t. Alternative Pasts, LLC’s early beta-testing data indicated that potential customers who took paper away never returned. In contrast, potential customers forced to make small talk with a badged employee spent, on average, $75.37.
I shake my head, slightly, and offer an Alternative Pasts, LLC-approved corporate conspiratorial grin—“I’m afraid not. Proprietary reasons.” No one ever seems to want a lively discussion on intellectual property on a Wednesday morning. “I’m sure you’ve seen our standard samples on TV—but let me show you what I’m really working on.”
Before she can object/bolt/“remember” a nonexistent meetup with a friend (those damn air quotes are contagious), I bring up the Singapore montage on my screen.
$74.06 for an initial consult. (Sales tax is lower in the upper Midwest.)
I call Grayson up to man the counter and escort the dory into our Consultation Space, where I buzz through the standard patter as rapidly as possible. “My name is Antonia, and I’m delighted to work with you—”
“Yvonne.”
“Yvonne. A pleasure to meet you. I’m your—” I resent Alternative Pasts’ vaguely Orwellian term, ‘Conceptualizer’, and routinely refuse the business cards Jordana’s been pushing on me. I usually employ whichever noun seems likeliest to register on an individual customer’s internal Richter. “—designer.”
8.5. Lovely.
An image—persuasive competence—and a practical rationale: that’s what they beat into our heads during the training. I remember to widen my eyes, turn up the corners of my mouth as I speak. “We can offer you an opportunity to travel back in time—to relive a cherished moment, or to recreate it the way it should have been.” Her pupils dilate. “Our team of artists, psychologists, and computer programmers work together seamlessly to produce true-to-life, interactive simulations.”
Strictly speaking, we don’t have psychologists in the store (although they did design the basic simulation personality profiles, after offering a small fortune to the Myers-Briggs people). Also, our artist and programmer are the same person. But the rest feels more literally true: the avatars ‘learn’ from the way that our customers interact them, so the end result is fairly realistic.
“We offer an unparalleled, personal experience that happens to cost less than a theme park ticket.”
She’s on the hook.
“We offer standard simulations in which you can choose the gender, age, general appearance, and demeanor of your interlocutor.” Jordana has told me to ix-nay the $10 words. Whatever. “We also offer packages where we tailor the standard simulation to your particular needs. The exact cost depends on the degree of change. Many of our customers choose to use standard backgrounds but ask us to make the interlocutor look like someone specific.”
The United States v. Alternative Pasts, LLC, in a 5–4 decision, upheld the company’s right to ‘render’ private likenesses, so long as the file was for an individual customer’s private use only, and was not repurposed in any promotional material.
“And finally, we can do something very special: we can design a personalized simulation. Whatever you can imagine … or ask us to imagine.” Then: a confidential smile (also ©Alternative Pasts, LLC). “The sim I showed you earlier was one-of-a-kind.”
She wants it, I can tell she’s mentally calculating whether she can manage it and major home expenses: the furnace replacement, say. But experience says that price will result in the eight half-moons of her nails damaging the desk’s cherry finish.
“Do you have something … ah … a little less …”
We settle on a modified package: nursing home, an evil overlord Caucasian grandmother of eighty-two, with a navy plaid dressing gown and a failing voice. I throw in late-afternoon lighting with a fall scene outside and mark her down for a $20 upgrade. Jordana would have called it $30.
I feed this information to Howard, who makes the changes with a few of his patented keystrokes. “I’m still sorry about—”
“Not you,” he grunts.
Grayson, irate at my ability to coax miracles out of Howard in mere moments (while Howard frequently told him, in language not fit for prime-time TV, to cool his heels) worked out that Howard had developed ‘modification hacks’. These hacks included copy-paste lines of code that allowed him to transform or adjust our standard scenes in mere seconds. Grayson, the brown-nosing mole, oiled his way to Jordana, who nominated Howard for an Innovation Award. The company replicated the codes for every store and franchisee and saved millions. Jordana got a raise, and Howard got a $1,000 taxable bonus. I’m not aware that he’s spoken to Grayson since.
He shows me the opening still shot for Yvonne.
“You’re a genius,” I say, as always.
“I don’t get paid enough for this garbage,” is his standard reply.
Inside two minutes Yvonne is reliving her final visit with her grandmother. Marjorie sidles toward me, mounting a vivid mobile production to persuade me she is not seventeen minutes late by the clock. I mind the pretense a lot more than the tardiness.
“Booth 1?” she asks, as if casually.
“Modified Deathbed.”
“So, what’s the drop? Gay?”
Experience suggests that the Deathbeds are dropping bombshells; Marjorie, seriously or otherwise, perpetually submits that our Deathbeds are coming out to their fading relations. I’m not certain if the fact that she’s bisexual makes this more or less grating. She might have gotten it right this time. I shrug. “Not my business.”
She grins. “Never mind. Today’s the day. Right?”
I nod.
“Let’s see it again.”
I feel a grin tugging at the corners of my mouth. “Just once more.”
We sail through the greenery, arrive at the fountain—and he’s there.
The prince, we call him.
The hazy description I elicited from an equally vague Rebecca about her interlocutor would never have sufficed for a creation—so I pored over her sparse intake form and did some internet sleuthing. I searched … I tried her workplace, a mediocre state university—a nonexistent social media presence—her listed church—her volunteer activities—nothing—no mention of her …
I delved deeper… What unrequited ache dwelt within her?
Two jobs previously—a position at a reputable international think tank …
Cross-referenced with her casual reference to Singapore …
A Google search for an international conference in her field, with an American guest speaker:
Dr. Jeremy McKinnon represented my very best guess.
And—the sweet merciful imps that pilot the internet had linked to a YouTube video of his presentation. Marjorie, Howard, and I inhaled, pressed Play.
“He’s a forty-year-old talking head on MSNBC,” said Marjorie.
“He’s wearing a fedora,” observed Howard.
“Bingo,” I replied, smugly.
It had to be him.
I was … 95% sure.
There’s something new in the sim. “Rebecca, I’ve been waiting for you,” murmurs the prince, gesturing grandly.
Marjorie and I sprint to the back room and practically leap on Howard. “You captured his voice!” I cry.
“Not so loud!” hisses Howard, glancing sideways. Grayson has registered the commotion but not, I think, my words. Then Howard grins. “I did a little more than that. I was able to feed a lot of the video into the sim, so his avatar will be as representative of the real prince as any we’ve created …”
“I can’t believe it!”
“I guess it works,” he returns, with a smirk.
“The company might give you $1000 and a plaque for that one,” I say, and Howard winces. “Sorry. Too soon?”
Howard growls something. I spend the next sixty seconds in violent-reassurance mode, affirming that a) he is a genius; b) he does not, indeed, get paid enough for this garbage; and c) I promise on the grave of my dead grandmother not to tell Jordana. Then I am sober-faced and ready to greet Yvonne when she emerges from her booth. Her face is a broken kaleidoscope. I hand her a nondescript white folder with preprinted brochures: local counseling services, reputable psychologists, emergency hotlines.
Yvonne nods brokenly. “We didn’t have a lot of choice in those days, you know…” She sobbed. “My grandmother … said it would be best for the … the baby, if she … had a real family … but I never wanted—”
I handed her a Kleenex but didn’t register her meaning, thinking ‘she’ referred to the grandmother … then I caught up. “I’m so sorry. It must have been hard for you … but I can see—” She’s ready to bolt, I can tell. “… how much you care…”
She’s gone.
For your daughter, I think, then Jordana minces, “Toni, Ms. Ehlers wishes to speak to you.”
Ms. Ehlers wants Howard’s animatronic, world-building genius at a standard-package price. I devoutly wish Jordana would use her full complement of corporate doggedness to assert that our prices are what they are. I swim toward Ms. Ehlers for our fourteenth iteration of this conversation.
At the edge of my vision, I glimpse Mystery Shopper. He flicks something toward me—
Mystery Shopper—an uncanny mixture of Billy Bob Thornton and Sydney Greenstreet’s character in “The Maltese Falcon”—came to Alternative Pasts twice about six months ago, fulfilling Grayson’s monthly quota in one go. He returned and asked for me by name a week later. He refused to fill out the intake form or to give his name or address and merely smiled when I asked if he was a corporate mole. He asked that I simply call him Mr. Anderson.
I refrained from rolling my eyes, but really.
His platinum credit card answered all of Jordana’s other questions, however, so she hustled us into the Consultation Space.
Mystery Shopper sought a creation—one which, before the current Singapore Sling, was my masterpiece. A prom recreation! Classic cars, vintage dresses, period hairstyles—I researched, Howard sketched; he swore and I sweated; we assembled a soundtrack … I interviewed Mystery Shopper for an hour about the ambiance, the perfumes, the mood, the weather … the theme selected by that long-ago student council … the words he had used to ask out his date… what kind of flowers did she have in her corsage?
He paid, went into Booth 10, and emerged, an hour later, with an unfathomable expression.
“I really didn’t expect that.”
I bit my lip.
“You …” He looked as though he were restraining himself—from berating me, or beating me senseless, possibly. Finally, he took a deep breath, and muttered, “I expected quality workmanship.”
A beat.
“I didn’t expect to be moved.”
I couldn’t help it: I grinned.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Antonia, I’d like to …” He dropped his voice. “I’d like to talk to you about a job.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“My real name is Bill Montgomery. I’m the operations manager for a VR startup called Having Your Moment.”
Another source-code fly-by-nighter, I think. The legal and tech communities had transformed into avid partisans during the 10-year saga of Thomas Crewe v. Roger Hathaway, the battle between the two giants of Alternative Pasts. I never understood the ins and outs—not wanting to spend my Wednesday mornings on intellectual property law, either—but the upshot was a court-based battle royale between the two founders over the rights to the programming that underpinned their business. Decisions tilted one way or the other over a decade; finally, battling stage 4 lymphoma, Thomas Crewe uploaded Alternative Pasts’ central nervous system to Codeshare, Codepad, Etherpad, Liveweave, and their bretheren. His final tweet was, “Now it’s freeware. :-)”
Since, every geek with a little working capital and a dream has tried to reproduce Alternative Pasts’ success. However—thanks again to our first-mover position and blanket ads and quasi-monopoly status (forthcoming: Delaware v. Alternative Pasts)—none of them gained traction.
Mystery Shopper (“Bill” seemed excessively anti-climactic) offered a brochure, the production-art love-child of “Star Trek” and Disney. “Can I have the name of your printer?” I asked.
A pro forma smile. “I can start you at your current salary, plus fifteen percent, plus benefits.”
“Is that kind of overcompensation representative of your company’s financial management strategy?”
“Do you think you’re appropriately paid now?” he returned.
Hm. One point to Mystery Shopper. “I’ve seen forty-seven competitors go bust in the last two years.”
“So have we,” he said, just a hair shy of sharp. My respect for him ticked upward a notch. “We’ve got a two-million-dollar capital investment, we’ve got top-tier engineering talent, and we’ve identified a niche in prospective versus retrospective VR. Your particular gestalt magic would be an asset.”
“I’m blushing,” I said.
“You can’t be that attached to this place,” he said.
“Again: forty-seven. If you’re still open in six months, maybe I’d be interested.”
“I’ll leave you with my card.”
I refused it then, but now, there’s something whizzing toward my head, and I catch it before it leaves a ruby-choker papercut in my neck.
William Montgomery
Having Your Moment
And a phone number.
Then he turns and walks out.
“Antonia!” hurls Jordana. I turn to her with the guileless servility of a 1950s sitcom kid caught with a baseball bat near a broken window. “That is not the kind of behavior I expect in the showroom!”
“Sorry.”
She appears unconvinced by this fulsome apology.
“Nice catch,” smirks Grayson.
Ms. Ehlers is still there. “Toni,” she begins, with disappointed-governess viciousness. “Jordana’s just been telling me that there may be some pricing flexibility on …”
I respond with unimpeachable professionalism, then excuse myself to welcome a scheduled Deathbed: “I’m so sorry, Ms. Ehlers, but he does have an appointment.”
Marjorie cackles when she learns that this Deathbed spent his ten minutes coming out to his dying father.
The morning and early afternoon erode like a riverbank in a deluge. Bored retirees and mothers with yogurt-crusted toddlers request samples, ask dozens of questions, then flee before payment questions arise. I play Tyrone’s sim for him again when Jordana isn’t looking. Tyrone had a brother and a sister, too … I haven’t dared ask. Lunch: a soggy PB&J and fridge-frosted carrots in the break room. The remaining Deathbeds trickle in. A shrinking-violet banker stuns us all by shaking the Booth 6 walls during a Supervisor Confrontation, but that is the only high point in the day.
And then, as the faltering minute hand drags itself to the clock’s acme for the third time, post meridian …
Rebecca’s here.
I instinctively try to smooth my hair, dress, voice. She is still wearing her brushed pea coat and old-fashioned gloves, beautifully rosy from the cold.
“Hi, Rebecca.” I intended verbal velvet; I produced an exasperated parrot. Clear your throat, try again. “Sorry about that. I meant, wonderful to see you, Rebecca.”
Jordana sidles in—“I can tell you truthfully that we’ve never produced a work like this before.”
Rebecca twitters, “I’m very grateful to Antonia and the team—I just know it will be something very special.”
“I hope you enjoy it, Ms. Carey,” says Jordana, and escorts Rebecca to Booth 1 herself.
“Thanks,” I say, sardonically, when she returns. Jordana couldn’t even have left me that.
“Don’t mention it,” she replies airily, and it appears my shingles have re-erupted. Jordana considers herself a consummate devotée of the fine arts—ballet, art, classical music, and theatre—but she has somehow omitted sarcasm from her repertoire.
“She doesn’t pay you enough,” observes Marjorie, sotto voce.
We all gather at the counter—even Howard, whose vampiric preference for the 40-watt back room has become a standing joke. Rebecca has not signed the release allowing us to watch (hardly anyone does)—so we stand together at what looks like a wake without a body. The second hand of the clock slouches forward. Jordana orders me to the back to pull Rebecca’s paperwork. I skulk away, impatient at being interrupted mid-vigil—and I return just in time …
Rebecca emerges: she is Scarlett calling to Rhett; she is Juliet sighing wherefore; she is Elizabeth Bennet hearing that Darcy’s wishes are unchanged—
“Her face looks like a birthday cake with all the candles lit,” Marjorie stage-whispers.
Rebecca floats toward me, and simply says:
“Brava.”
We—Jordana, Howard, Marjorie, Grayson, and I—united for a single instant—erupt.
“I … can’t even …” She is beaming, almost beyond words. “Your precision … How you realized that he …” She glows with the interior light seen in Renaissance paintings, or the recently born again. There is a single tear sliding down her cheek, and her smile illuminates the room, and despite the rapidly piling clichés, something bubbles inside me like champagne. “He said … he said … the words. I’ve got to go and tell him—”
She turns, poised to soar, when Jordana says, “Wait, Ms. Carey—would you care to consider an award nomination for the team?” Too endorphin-inebriated to refuse, Rebecca withdraws a pen from her purse. She writes. I didn’t realize she was left-handed.
I also, until this point, had not seen her wedding ring.
Grayson registers my horror, and, indeed, realization flits across his face a moment later. I excuse myself, run to the back, fling myself into a chair with the intake form I’ve snatched from Jordana’s hand. The marital status box is unchecked, anywhere.
I thought it was an oversight.
Jordana comes into the workroom, beaming. “A triumph, Toni. A real triumph. I’ve never seen such a happy customer. Perhaps you’d care to read what she wrote for you?”
The horrible shingle-prickles are creeping down my spine. I accept the paper. And there it is, the missing piece: in her extramarital elation, she’s signed herself:
Rebecca Kerry. With a K.
A quick records search online (Alternative Pasts invested sensibly in select fee-based applications) indicates a marriage to a Michael Kerry, four and a half years ago. And then, the regular internet sweep: there’s the Facebook page with the usual college friends/college graduation/trip to Europe/bridesmaid/bride progression. There’s her lightly-left-leaning Twitter feed. There’s her (real) name on a report on the think tank website, immediately below Dr. Jeremy McKinnon’s.
A febrile post-bender lump forms in my stomach. This is not what I meant, at all …
Grayson leans over me, grins. “Way to break up a marriage, genius.”
Jordana stands nearby, replaying the sim and flipping back and forth to her management apps; she glances between the award nomination and the screen. She doesn’t wear glasses, but I somehow always imagine her peering at me over the frames. Maybe it’s not shingles. Maybe I just have hackles, like a cat.
“Toni, obviously the customer was pleased, but the time investment in this sim was … excessive.” Howard rubs his fingers together like a dark prophet. “And I’m afraid I’m going to have to reduce the award nomination amount and—”
One of the screens she’s pulled up is a Form 101, Proposal for a New Standard Sim, and I can see she’s already entered Tropical Garden in the subject line—
She’s going to take my masterpiece and ignore its destructive power … she’ll transform it into a bit of hotel-art window dressing for dead-eyed customers, faux-modestly laud her own managerial genius in her end-of-year-review … destroy any last shred of any grace in my—
Jordana’s still talking, but I can’t hear her over the rush of blood in my ears—
“You know what, Jordana?” I say. “Take your tropical garden and shove it. I quit. You really don’t pay me enough.”
I tuck Mystery Shopper’s card securely in my back pocket, shake hands with Howard, and stride out of the store without a backward glance.
Linda McMullen is a wife, mother, diplomat, and homesick Wisconsinite. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in over forty literary magazines, including, most recently, Arachne Press, Luna Station Quarterly, Ripples in Space, Write Ahead/The Future Looms Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Storgy, and X-R-A-Y. She tweets occasionally: @LindaCMcMullen.