The Circle

even more, she answered 820 the next day,
     and 991 the day after that. It was not difficult, and the validation felt good. Pete
     told her how much the clients were appreciating her input, her candor and her insights.
     Her aptitude for the program was making it easier to expand it to others in her pod,
     and by the end of the second week, a dozen others in the room were answering survey
     questions, too. It took a day or so to get used to, seeing so many people nodding
     so frequently—and with varying styles, some with sudden birdlike jerks, others more
     fluidly—but soon it was as normal as the rest of their routines, involving typing
     and sitting and seeing their work appear on an array of screens. At certain moments,
     there wasthe happy visual of a herd of heads nodding in what appeared to be unison, as if there
     were some common music playing in all of their minds.
    The extra layer of the CircleSurveys helped distract Mae from thinking about Kalden,
     who had yet to contact her, and who had not once answered his phone. She’d stopped
     calling after two days, and had chosen not to mention him at all to Annie or anyone
     else. Her thoughts about him followed a similar path as they had after their first
     encounter, at the circus. First, she found his unavailability intriguing, even novel.
     But after three days, it seemed willful and adolescent. By the fourth day, she was
     tired of the game. Anyone who disappeared like that was not a serious person. He wasn’t
     serious about her or how she felt. He had seemed supremely sensitive each time they’d
     met, but then, when apart, his absence, because it was total—and because total non-communication
     in a place like the Circle was so difficult, it felt like violence. Even though Kalden
     was the only man for whom she’d ever had real lust, she was finished. She would rather
     have someone lesser if that person were available, familiar, locatable.
    In the meantime, Mae was improving her CircleSurvey performance. Because their peers’
     survey numbers were made available, competition was healthy and kept them all on their
     toes. Mae’s average was 1,345 questions each day, second-highest only to a newbie
     named Sebastian, who sat in the corner and never left his desk for lunch. Given she
     was still getting the newbies’ question-overrun on her fourth screen, Mae felt fine
     about being second in this onecategory. Especially given her PartiRank had been in the 1,900s all month, and Sebastian
     had yet to crack 4,000.
    She was trying to push into the 1,800s one Tuesday afternoon, commenting on hundreds
     of InnerCircle photos and posts, when she saw a figure in the distance, resting against
     the doorjamb at the far end of the room. It was a man, and he was wearing the same
     striped shirt Kalden was wearing when she’d last seen him. His arms were crossed,
     his head tilted, as if he was seeing something he couldn’t quite understand or believe.
     Mae was sure it was Kalden, and forgot to breathe. Before she could conceive of a
     less eager reaction, she waved, and he waved back, raising his hand just above his
     waist.
    “Mae,” the voice said through her headset.
    And at that moment, the figure in the doorway spun away and was gone.
    “Mae,” the voice said again.
    She took off the headphones and jogged to the door where she’d seen him, but he was
     gone. She instinctively went to the bathroom where she’d first met him, but he wasn’t
     there, either.
    When she got back to her desk, there was someone in her chair. It was Francis.
    “I’m still sorry,” he said.
    She looked at him. His heavy eyebrows, his boat-keel nose, his tentative smile. Mae
     sighed and took him in. That smile, she realized, was the smile of someone who was
     never sure he’d gotten the joke. Still, Mae had, in recent days, thought of Francis,
     the profound contrast he offered to Kalden. Kalden was a ghost, wanting Mae to chase
     him, and Francis was so available, so utterly without mystery. In a weak moment or
     two, Mae had wondered what she might do the nexttime she saw him. Would she succumb to Francis’s ready presence, to the simple fact
     that he wanted to be near her? The question had been in her head for days, but only
     now did she know the answer. No. He still disgusted her. His meekness. His neediness.
     His pleading voice. His thievery.
    “Have you deleted the video?” she asked.
    “No,” he said. “You know I can’t.” Then he smiled,