The Circle

lie to her anyway. After composing herself in the bathroom, Mae had gone back to her
     desk, and immediately, unable to control herself, had messaged Annie, who was flying
     somewhere to or over Europe:
Again with grey-hair
, she wrote. Telling Annie at all would precipitate a series of lies, big and small,
     and Mae found herself, in the minutes between when she sent the message and Annie’s
     inevitable reply, wondering just how much to conceal, and why.
    Finally Annie’s message came.
Must know everything now. I’m in London with some Parliament lackeys. I think one
     just pulled out a monocle. Give me distraction
.
    While she decided just how much to tell Annie, Mae teased out details.
In a bathroom
.
    Annie replied immediately.
    The old man? In a bathroom? Did you use the diaper-changing station?
    No. In a stall. And he was VIGOROUS
.
    A voice behind Mae said her name. Mae turned to find Gina and her enormous nervous
     smile. “You have a second?” Mae attempted to turn away the screen containing the dialogue
     with Annie, but Gina had already seen it.
    “You’re talking to Annie?” she said. “You guys really are tight, huh?”
    Mae nodded, turned her screen, and all light left Gina’s face. “Is this still a good
     time to explain Conversion Rate and Retail Raw?”
    Mae had forgotten, entirely, that Gina was supposed to come to demonstrate a new layer.
    “Sure,” Mae said.
    “Has Annie told you about this stuff already?” Gina said, her face looking very fragile.
    “No,” Mae said, “she hasn’t.”
    “She didn’t tell you about Conversion Rate?”
    “No.”
    “Or Retail Raw?”
    “No.”
    Gina’s face brightened. “Oh. Okay. Good. So we’ll do it now?” Gina’s face searched
     Mae’s, as if looking for the slightest sign of doubt, which Gina would take as reason
     to collapse entirely.
    “Great,” Mae said, and Gina brightened again.
    “Good. Let’s start with the Conversion Rate. This is fairly obvious anyway, but the
     Circle would not exist, and would not grow, and would not be able to get closer to
     completing the Circle, if there were not actual purchases being made, actual commerce
     spurred. We’re here to be a gateway to all the world’s information, but we are supported
     by advertisers who hope to reach customers through us, right?”
    Gina smiled, her large white teeth briefly overtaking her face. Mae was trying to
     concentrate, but she was thinking of Annie, in her Parliament meeting, who was no
     doubt thinking of Mae and Kalden. And when Mae thought of herself and Kalden, she
     thought of his hands on her waist, pulling her gently down onto him, her eyes closed,
     her mind enlarging all—
    Gina was still talking. “But how to provoke, how to stimulate purchases—that’s the
     conversion rate. You can zing, you could comment on and rate and highlight any product,
     but can you translate all this into action? Leveraging your credibility to spur action—this
     is crucial, okay?”
    Now Gina was sitting next to Mae, her fingers on her keyboard. She brought up a complex
     spreadsheet. At that moment, another message from Annie arrived on Mae’s second screen.
     She turned it slightly.
Now I have to be the boss. You got his last name this time?
    Mae saw that Gina was reading the message, too, making no pretense of doing otherwise.
    “Go ahead,” Gina said. “That looks important.”
    Mae reached over Gina, to her keyboard, and typed the lie she knew, moments after
     leaving the bathroom, she would tell Annie.
Yes. I know all
.
    Immediately Annie’s reply arrived:
And his name
is?
    Gina looked at this message. “That must be so crazy, to just get messages from Annie
     Allerton.”
    “I guess so,” Mae said, and typed
Can’t tell
.
    Gina read Mae’s message and seemed less interested in the content of it than the fact
     that this back-and-forth was actually happening in front of her. “You guys just message
     each other like it’s no big deal?” she asked.
    Mae softened the impact. “Not all day.”
    “Not all day?” Gina’s face came alive with a tentative smile.
    Annie burst through.
You’re actually not telling me? Tell me now
.
    “Sorry,” Mae said. “Almost done.” She typed
No. You’ll hassle him
.
    Send me a picture
, Annie wrote.
    No. But I have one
, Mae typed, executing the second lie she knew was necessary. She did have a photo
     of him, and once she realized she did, and that she could tell Annie this, and be
     telling the