The Circle

just—”
    “You just made me aware that there’s some kook out there who hates me and wants to
     hurt my business.”
    “There were other comments, too, and most of them were nice. There was actually one
     really funny one.” She began scrolling through her phone.
    “Mae. Please. I’m asking you not to read it.”
    “Here it is: ‘All those poor deer antlers died for this shit?’ ”
    “Mae, I asked you not to read me that.”
    “
What?
It was funny!”
    “How can I ask you not to do that in a way where you’ll respect my wishes?”
    This was the Mercer Mae remembered and couldn’t stand—prickly, moody, high-handed.
    “What are you talking about?”
    Mercer took a deep breath, and Mae knew he was about to give a speech. If there was
     a podium before him, he’d be stepping up to it, removing his papers from his sportcoat
     pocket. Two years of community college and he thought he was some kind of professor.
     He’d given her speeches about organically sourced beef, about the early work of King
     Crimson, and each time it started with this deep breath, a breath that said
Settle in, this will take a while and will blow your mind
.
    “Mae, I have to ask you to—”
    “I know, you want me to stop reading you customer comments. Fine.”
    “No, that’s not what I was—”
    “You
want
me to read them to you?”
    “Mae, how about if you just let me finish my sentence? Then you’ll know what I’m saying.
     You guessing the end of every one of my sentences is never helpful, because you’re
     never right.”
    “But you talk so
slow
.”
    “I talk normally. You’ve just gotten impatient.”
    “Okay. Go.”
    “But now you’re hyperventilating.”
    “I guess I’m just so easily bored by this.”
    “By talking.”
    “By talking in slow motion.”
    “Can I start now? It’ll take three minutes. Can you give me three minutes, Mae?”
    “Fine.”
    “Three minutes where you won’t know what I’m about to say, okay? It will be a surprise.”
    “Okay.”
    “All right. Mae, we have to change how we interact. Every time I see or hear from
     you, it’s through this filter. You send me links, you quote someone talking about
     me, you say you saw a picture of me on someone’s wall.… It’s always this third-party
     assault. Even when I’m talking to you face-to-face you’re telling me what some stranger
     thinks of me. It becomes like we’re never alone. Every time I see you, there’s a hundred
     other people in the room. You’re always looking at me through a hundred other people’s
     eyes.”
    “Don’t get dramatic about it.”
    “I just want to talk with you directly. Without you bringing in every other stranger
     in the world who might have an opinion about me.”
    “I don’t do that.”
    “You do, Mae. A few months ago, you read something about me, and remember this? When
     I saw you, you were so standoffish.”
    “That’s because they said you were using endangered species for your work!”
    “But I’ve never done that.”
    “Well, how am
I
supposed to know that?”
    “You can
ask
me! Actually ask
me
. You know how weird that is, that you, my friend and ex-girlfriend, gets her information
     about me from some random person who’s never met me? And then I have to sit across
     from you and it’s like we’re looking at each other through this strange fog.”
    “Fine. Sorry.”
    “Will you promise me to stop doing this?”
    “Stop reading online?”
    “I don’t care what you read. But when you and I communicate, I want to do it directly.
     You write to me, I write to you. You ask me questions, and I answer them. You stop
     getting news about me from third parties.”
    “But Mercer, you run a business. You need to participate online. These are your customers,
     and this is how they express themselves, and how you know if you’re succeeding.” Mae’s
     mind churned through a half-dozen Circle tools she knew would help his business, but
     Mercer was an underachiever. An underachiever who somehow managed to be smug about
     it.
    “See, that’s not true, Mae. It’s not true. I know I’m successful if I sell chandeliers.
     If people order them, then I make them, and they pay me money for them. If they have
     something to say afterward, they can call me or write me. I mean, all this stuff you’re
     involved in, it’s all gossip. It’s people talking about each other behind their backs.
     That’s the vast majority of this social media, all these reviews, all