The Circle

that?”
    Mae laughed, but Denise and Josiah did not. Josiah continued to stare at his screen,
     while Denise’s eyes probed into Mae.
    “When you go kayaking, what do you see?”
    “I don’t know. All kinds of things.”
    “Seals?”
    “Sure.”
    “Sea lions?
    “Usually.”
    “Waterbirds? Pelicans?”
    “Sure.”
    Denise tapped at her tablet. “Okay, I’m doing a search now of your name for visual
     documentation of any of these trips you’ve taken. I’m not finding anything.”
    “Oh, I’ve never brought a camera.”
    “But how do you identify all these birds?”
    “I have this little guide. It’s just a thing my ex-boyfriend gave me. It’s a little
     foldable guide to local wildlife.”
    “So it’s just a pamphlet or something?”
    “Yeah, I mean, it’s waterproof and—”
    Josiah exhaled loudly.
    “I’m sorry,” Mae said.
    Josiah rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, this is a tangent, but my problem with paper
     is that all communication dies with it. It holds no possibility of continuity. You
     look at your paper brochure, and that’s where it ends. It ends with
you
. Like you’re the only one who matters. But think if you’d been
doc
umenting. If you’d been using a tool that would help confirm the identity of whatever
     birds you saw, then anyonecan benefit—naturalists, students, historians, the Coast Guard. Everyone can know,
     then, what birds were on the bay on that day. It’s just maddening, thinking of how
     much knowledge is lost every day through this kind of shortsightedness. And I don’t
     want to call it selfish but—”
    “No. It was. I know it was,” Mae said.
    Josiah softened. “But documentation aside, I’m just fascinated why you wouldn’t mention
     anything about kayaking anywhere. I mean, it’s a
part
of you. An
integral
part.”
    Mae let out an involuntary scoff. “I don’t think it’s all that integral. Or interesting,
     really.”
    Josiah looked up, his eyes fiery. “But it is!”
    “Lots of people kayak,” Mae said.
    “That’s exactly it!” Josiah said, quickly turning red. “Wouldn’t you like to meet
other
people who kayak?” Josiah tapped at his screen. “There are 2,331 people near you
     who also like to kayak. Including
me
.”
    Mae smiled. “That’s a lot.”
    “More or less than you expected?” Denise asked.
    “More, I guess,” Mae said.
    Josiah and Denise smiled.
    “So should we sign you up to hear more about the people near you who like to kayak?
     There are so many tools …” Josiah seemed to be opening a page where he could sign
     her up.
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Mae said.
    Their faces plummeted.
    Josiah seemed angry again. “Why not? Do you think your passions are unimportant?”
    “That’s not quite it. I just …”
    Josiah leaned forward. “How do you think other Circlers feel, knowing that you’re
     so close to them physically, that you’re ostensibly part of a community here, but
     you don’t want them to know your hobbies and interests. How do you think they feel?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think they’d feel anything.”
    “But they do!” Josiah said. “The point is that you’re not
engaged
with the people around you!”
    “It’s just kayaking!” Mae said, laughing again, trying to bring the discussion back
     to a place of levity.
    Josiah was at work on his tablet. “
Just
kayaking? Do you realize that kayaking is a three-billion-dollar industry? And you
     say it’s ‘just kayaking’! Mae, don’t you see that it’s all connected? You play your
     part. You have to
part
-icipate.”
    Denise was looking at Mae intensely. “Mae, I have to ask a delicate question.”
    “Okay,” Mae said.
    “Do you think … Well, do you think this might be an issue of self-esteem?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Are you reluctant to express yourself because you fear your opinions aren’t valid?”
    Mae had never thought about it quite this way, but it made a certain sense. Was she
     too shy about expressing herself? “I don’t know, actually,” she said.
    Denise narrowed her eyes. “Mae, I’m no psychologist, but if I were, I might have a
     question about your sense of self-worth. We’ve studied some models for this kind of
     behavior. Not to say this kindof attitude is antisocial, but it’s certainly
sub
-social, and certainly far from transparent. And we see that this behavior sometimes
     stems from a low sense of self-worth—a point of view that says, ‘Oh, what I have to
     say isn’t so