Swipe Wright Too

The kiss of the rising sun lit the gold dome of the California State Capitol, ushering to life another Sacramento morning. Below it, commuters streamed toward government buildings while electric scooters lay scattered across sidewalks like fallen cavalry.

For Gail, a deep, cleansing breath had once meant order.

Now it mostly bought time.

In the rearview mirror, Sausalito was three months and a marriage behind her.

Gail had always believed there were two kinds of women in the world: women who started over and women who talked about starting over.

Three months into her new life in Sacramento, she still wasn't sure which one she was.

The Tesla eased silently through morning traffic toward the Capitol, carrying considerably less baggage than the woman behind the wheel.

Most of what remained of her old life had been left behind in Sausalito.

Some sold.

Some discarded.

Some undoubtedly hauled away by the new owners of the picture-book home on the water that she and Frank had once believed they'd grow old in.

Eighteen years of marriage reduced to a closing statement and a yard sale.

Not everything had gone.

TC had come with her.

There were some things even divorce couldn't divide.

The indifferent Maine Coon had adjusted to Sacramento considerably better than Gail had. Within forty-eight hours, TC had claimed the bedroom windowsill, the back of the sofa, and a patch of afternoon sunlight on the living-room floor as sovereign territory.

Gail had gotten the closet.

She considered the arrangement equitable.

Governor Eve Apple would have approved.

Probably formed a committee to study it.

Gail glanced at the thick blue binder resting on the passenger seat.

3E

EMPATHY • EQUITY • ELECTRIC SCOOTERS

Below the lettering was the gold seal of the State of California and, beneath that: OFFICE OF GOVERNOR EVE APPLE

On top of the binder rested Gail's state identification badge.

She glanced at it.

GAIL WRIGHT

DIRECTOR — 3E INITIATIVES

Wright.

She hadn't really thought about the name until other people began thinking about it for her.

Eighteen years earlier, a girl from Kansas had surrendered her maiden name without much consideration. That's what women in her family did. Her mother had done it. Her grandmother had done it. Nobody gathered around the kitchen table debating whether marriage constituted an unacceptable surrender of female identity.

You got married. You changed your name. You moved on.

Gail had been raised in a God-fearing, flag-waving Kansas farmhouse where prayer came before dinner and a strong man was supposed to hold the roof up when the wind came.

Then she'd gotten a full scholarship to Stanford.

Then she'd met Frank.

Then Stanford became marriage, Sausalito, spotless towels folded into thirds, holiday decorations that changed with the seasons, and a life she had believed would remain recognizable.

Now she was divorced, living in Sacramento, and helping run a political movement whose first two words were Empathy and Equity.

Suddenly keeping her former husband's name seemed to require an explanation.

The strange thing was, Gail wasn't sure she had one.

She had been Gail Wright for eighteen years.

Nearly half her adult life.

At some point, she supposed, a borrowed name became your own.

Or maybe that was simply conditioning.

She wasn't sure anymore.

Sacramento had a way of making perfectly ordinary things sound like unresolved social questions.

Governor Apple had noticed the badge during Gail's first week.

"You're keeping Wright?"

Gail looked down at it.

"I hadn't really thought about it."

"You're divorced."

"I've been Gail Wright for eighteen years."

"Exactly."

Gail waited.

"Exactly what?"

Apple smiled.

"We'll circle back."

Three months later, they still hadn't.

Gail was fine with that. She had enough things in her new life requiring decisions without adding her own name to the list.

Besides, Eve Apple had undergone a name change of sorts herself.

Mayor Apple was now Governor Apple.

Gail was still getting used to that.

Not long ago, Eve Apple had been the ambitious young mayor of San Francisco, a woman capable of detecting an unattended television camera from three blocks away. Now she was governor of the largest state in the country.

And Gail—Wright, at least for the moment—was helping run 3E.

Empathy.

Equity.

Electric Scooters.

Frank had once described it as a feelings department with handlebars.

Gail hated that she still found that funny.

Her phone chimed.

She glanced at the screen.

JAVI

She let it ring.

It stopped.

Ten seconds later: 1 NEW VOICEMAIL

Gail sighed.

Javi had been remarkably persistent for a man who had once disappeared from a Dodgers game with the governor's makeup artist and nearly taken an entire gubernatorial campaign down with him.

The voicemail transcription began crawling across the screen.

Gail, is Javi. You hear something from makeup lady? I call her but she no call me. Maybe you ask Governor Apple? She know me. Tell her Javi. She know.

Gail didn't need to hear the rest.

Of course Apple knew Javi.

She had practically invented him—or at least his political identity.

Somewhere between undocumented Honduran and California firefighter, Javi had become Apple's Real American: no papers required, just empathy, equity, and a camera pointed in the right direction.

The more interesting question was whether Apple still needed him.

Javi's immigration status hadn't magically changed when Eve Apple traded the mayor's office for the governor's mansion. He was still in the country illegally, still speaking an English assembled largely through instinct, repetition, and necessity, and still waiting for someone to tell him what came next.

So far, Governor Apple hadn't.

During the campaign, Javi had been invaluable.

A face.

A story.

A symbol.

Living proof of the California Eve Apple promised to build.

Replacing Frank at Station 11 had given Apple's political machinery everything it needed: symbolism, speeches, photographs, and applause.

Until Javi disappeared.

Then the machinery did what political machinery always did when a part stopped working.

It found another part.

Frank.

For one surreal stretch of the campaign, Apple's people had actually put Gail's estranged husband back into the role of the man who had replaced him.

Frank pretending to be Javi.

Javi pretending to be a firefighter.

Gail pretending any of it made sense.

And Eve Apple calling it progress.

But campaigns ended.

Political currency had an expiration date.

Gail was beginning to wonder whether Javi knew his had already been spent.

Some days she wondered whether hers had, too.

Her phone chimed again.

This time it was Bonnie.

BONNIE PARKER: Drinks tonight.

Gail smiled.

Of course.

Bonnie Parker had become considerably more important after the divorce became final and Gail's new digs in Sacramento came equipped with something the real-estate listing had neglected to mention: a shotgun neighbor.

Bonnie lived next door.

The first time Gail met her, Bonnie had been standing in her driveway holding a twelve-gauge shotgun, wearing pink gardening gloves and a faded T-shirt with a kitten dangling from a bar beneath the words HANG IN THERE, BABY!

Gail had stopped.

Her eyes moved from the kitten to the shotgun.

Then back to Bonnie.

Bonnie glanced down at the twelve-gauge.

"Gophers."

That had been the entire introduction.

Three months later they were drinking wine together twice a week.

Gail pressed the microphone button.

"I'm barely three months into my job and you want me swapping résumés over expensive Chardonnay?"

Bonnie's response came immediately.

Yes.

Gail waited.

Three dots appeared.

Pixel got you on the app. I'm just trying to get you off it and into a restaurant.

Gail laughed.

That was true.

Pixel had started this.

During Gail's first days in Sacramento, while Governor Apple was busy introducing her to cameras as the "heartbeat of 3E," Pixel had produced her phone and announced that a new title, a new city and a new algorithm required a new dating life.

Gail had resisted.

She'd even declared herself on the No Man diet.

High in boundaries.

Low in drama.

Then Pixel showed her LibLaughLove.com.

"Where shared beliefs lead to better relationships."

If better meant doing mushrooms and crying at Burning Man.

Gail had stared at profiles of Sacramento men holding compost bins, discussing attachment styles and describing themselves as vegan-light.

She had called it a landfill.

Pixel called it a museum of soft boys with strong opinions.

Then Frank walked through Gail's office door carrying a manila envelope.

Divorce papers.

There had been no screaming.

No accusations.

No final plea.

Just two people who had spent nearly twenty years together signing their names like diplomats concluding a war neither side had actually won.

Frank hugged her.

She wished him well in Orange County.

He wished her well in Sacramento.

Then he left.

Pixel had looked at her.

"You okay?"

And Gail had surprised herself.

"Yeah. I think I actually am."

Then she'd picked up her phone and downloaded the app.

Pixel called it Gail 2.0.

Gail had corrected her.

"Not 2.0. Just me. Finally."

Three months later, she wasn't entirely convinced.

Gail hadn't been on a first date in nearly twenty years.

Just thinking about that made her feel old.

Nearly twenty years.

The last time she'd been single, people still met each other without first examining six photographs, a political affiliation, an attachment style, three hobbies and whether somebody considered cilantro a personality trait.

Dating had once been relatively straightforward.

A man asked a woman to dinner. She either accepted or declined. If dinner went well, there might be another dinner. Eventually somebody left a toothbrush somewhere.

Back then, whether the cap was on or off wasn't part of the screening process.

Apparently civilization had found this process inadequate.

Now there were algorithms.

Compatibility percentages.

Profile prompts.

Attachment styles.

Love languages.

Verification badges.

Political filters.

Lifestyle preferences.

And photographs of grown men standing beside dead fish.

Gail had encountered the fish only recently.

There were more of them than she expected.

Pixel had introduced her to online dating.

Bonnie intended to make her participate in it.

"Just look," Bonnie had told her one evening over Chardonnay.

Gail looked.

She had never seen so many men climbing mountains.

According to their profiles, Northern California contained virtually no single men who watched television, ate carbohydrates, or spent Sunday afternoon on a couch.

They were all hiking.

Kayaking.

Cycling.

Skiing.

Running marathons.

Standing on cliffs.

One man appeared to be rappelling into a volcano.

Another had six photographs spanning what appeared to be three presidential administrations.

Gail studied them.

"Which one am I dating?"

Bonnie leaned over.

"Always assume the oldest one. And that he's bald!"

Gail kept scrolling.

"Where are the normal ones?"

"Married."

"That's cynical."

"Mars."

"Bonnie."

"Fine. Obviously fishing."

Gail looked at the screen.

Another fish.

Bonnie raised her glass.

"Told you."