Super Sad True Love Story

One day, sitting in a coffeeshop with their äppäräti on standby, Noah and Lenny discuss the summer light that makes “you want to both cry for something lost and run out there and welcome the decline of the day” (202). Noah also tells Lenny that he expects to die within the year. The fading light outside is, Lenny thinks, “us, and we are, for a moment so brief it can’t even register on our äppärät screens, beautiful” (203).

Amid many “exciting, sometimes upsetting” (203) days with Eunice, one moment stands out to Lenny: the day he catches her admiringly touching one of his books. Otherwise, they fight often. When Eunice’s Elderbird friends come over to drink, Lenny is “both jealous of their youth and scared for their future,” and he feels “paternal and aroused” (204).

They argue over visiting Lenny’s friends, especially Grace, who Eunice complains “probably wants to be [her] big sister” (204). Although Grace could help Eunice find a job in retail, Eunice claims that Lenny doesn’t understand her. She complains that she is poor and has no clothes. Lenny only subtle refers to the burden of caring for her, paying a high air conditioning bill and contributing “60 percent of the cost of her outfits” (205) when they go to shop at the United Nations Retail Corridor.

The steel retail corridor is “supposed to mimic North African bazaars of yore” (206). Eunice knows its hallways well. She wants new dresses to wear to the gatherings with Lenny’s friend and with Joshie, his boss. Lenny notes that even though she spends “less than a full second on each dress, each second [seems] more meaningful than the hours she spent on AssLuxury viewing the same merchandise; each was an encounter with the real” (206). As they wander the revealing clothing around them, Lenny is “oddly happy with the conservative girl by [his] side” (207).

While Eunice “verbal[s]” with a retailer named McKay in a language Lenny cannot understand, he scans McKay’s äppärät to learn about her. Lenny is amazed to notice Eunice touching McKay’s arm as they speak, a rare vision of Eunice “reaching out to the world around her” (208). After they purchase two dresses, Lenny suggests that Eunice reach out to McKay as a friend or to see if she could get a job at the retail corridor; Eunice explains that women need perfect grades and perfect bodies to work there.

They also shop for clothing for Lenny, with a priority for “breathable fabrics” (209). Instead of being angry when a sales associate assumes that Eunice is his daughter, he is “in awe of the fact that every day” (209) she ignores their differences. Although Lenny worries that his credit drops 10 points, he recognizes with pride that he passes “for a man now” (210).

Breathable fabrics seem to make Lenny younger. Howard Shu, who continues to seem more important in the company, asks him to lunch. Shu tells Lenny, in confidence, that he thinks “there’s going to be a disturbance” (210) larger than the last riots. Lenny wants to know more, but Shu is sucked into his äppärät, so Lenny uses his own to spy on Eunice, his “little housewife” (211), from afar.

Shu tells Lenny that the company wants to keep him safe. If he sees National Guard troops, he needs to point his äppärät at them; if a red dot appears, the troops work from Wapachung and are “the good guys” (211). Joshie’s orders are to always be with Eunice in any emergency.

Lenny, hardly concerned, returns home. On the way, he FACs girls and women to see how his “Personality” and “Male Hotness” scores have risen since buying new clothing; it feels “like being born again” (212).

Eunice still resists meeting Joshie, however. The day of the meeting, Lenny comforts her with “various pop-psych gems” (213) and encouragements. Even though he tells her to “just be yourself,” Eunice insists that that self is “dumb” and “boring” (213). When they arrive at Joshie’s apartment, Lenny does not even recognize him. They are “looking at Joshie Goldmann himself, his body reverse-engineered into a thick young mass of tendons and forward motion” (214). Joshie almost loses interest in Lenny because he is so distracted by Eunice. As they enter the apartment, Lenny recognizes the familiar science-fiction themed are all over the walls: “Joshie’s beginnings” (215).

Nervous about Joshie and Eunice’s apparent mutual attraction, Lenny kisses Eunice on the ear and puts his hands on her shoulders. But “among the three” in the room, Lenny is “the one who [is] proactively dying” (216). Joshie and Eunice share abbreviations that Lenny cannot recognize. Joshie and Eunice discuss Joshie’s art. Joshie seems to be attracted to Eunice’s lack of self-assuredness, her assistance that she “sucked” (217) in a college art class. Still, Joshie engages her, and Eunice is “as attentive as [Lenny has] ever seen her” (219). She laughs at Joshie in “the way [Lenny has] only seen her laugh with her best Elderbird friends, with honesty as well as mirth” (219).

All three drink too much wine. Lenny mostly remains silent, wondering at Joshie’s lack of interest in renovating his apartment and worrying about his newfound youth. After significant struggle, Joshie convinces Eunice to draw. She draws a rhesus monkey. Joshie tells Lenny: “She’s got you down, Len” (221). It is, he recognizes, a picture of him.

On the car ride home, Eunice is overtaken with love. She tells Lenny: “I love you with all I’ve got. Let’s get married” (222). After Lenny’s worry, Eunice tells him: “You’re the only one” (222). They plan to go to City Hall the next week.

The same day that Lenny writes about their visit to Joshie’s apartment, Joshie messages Eunice on GlobalTeens. He reminds Eunice that the two decided to take an art class together; he calls this a “date” (223). Eunice avoids committing to a date because she “should be applying for Retail jobs and stuff” (223). Joshie insists on helping Eunice get a job with a client. He also insists that they take a drawing class together. She is “super-gifted” (224), he says, and reminds Joshie of himself at a younger age.

Eunice writes to Grillbitch to tell her about Lenny’s “SOOOO adorable” (224) boss. She doubts Joshie’s story about the “micro-robots inside him that repair his dead cells,” suggesting that “he’s just had a lot of plastic surgery” (224) and takes care of himself. She admits that Joshie is “smart and easygoing and just plain old FUN” (225), which is a turn-on. It also makes her self-conscious.

She feels guilty that she was thinking about Joshie while telling Lenny she wants to get married. She wonders if Joshie’s art class proposal is “like a come-on” (225) and wonders what she should do. Joshie is “like 40 years older than Lenny he’s still a bit like a child” (225), even though he can also pay her bills.

Eunice also explains that she met up with her father in Tompkins Park, where he went to help people in need. It “kind of [heals her] heart a little” (225). She is amazed at her father’s kindness around poor people. He and David talk “about scripture for like ten hours” (226). The two of them work together to protect the camp from the rain. Eunice recognizes that her father “has more in common with David than with Lenny” (227). She is very emotional when her father interacts with her.

Two days later, Grillbitch responds, but she “really can’t talk” (228) because her father is missing. He went to his factory, she explains, but no one can trace his äppärät or visit the factory. When she asks Sally about the Kangs’ trouble, Sally suggests that Lenny’s company, the Wapachung Contingency, is responsible.

David messages Eunice two days later. He was impressed by her father and says that they’re “both hardcore” (229). The interaction made David miss his own father, who was also difficult to be around; he observes that although Eunice may “bitch and whine a lot,” she’s “still a very strong woman” (230) because of where she came from. She should, David suggests, “use that strength for good” (230). He also points out that Eunice is lucky. He asks for certain resources and encourages her to not “give in to High Net Worth thinking” (230). He also wants her to relax, because he’s “got [her] back” (230).