Read Online Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel - Free Book Online

start. Well, jiggered the program and then pushed start.”
    “You logged into my grandmother’s e-mail account and e-mailed me as a joke.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “No. Does that e-mail sound like me?”
    “You do a good impersonation.”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “No. It was computer science.”
    Meredith had nothing to say to that. Just looked at Sam and waited, annoyed, for an explanation.
    “I wrote a little program that studies the sorts of things Livvie wrote in e-mails to you and then models them, re-creates them. I invited it to respond. It did. Well, she did. She was eager to. I didn’t make it. Her.”
    “It wasn’t her.”
    “It sort of was, actually.”
    She got out of bed. Pulled on clothes from the pile on the floor. Said nothing. Wouldn’t even look at him. Grabbed keys and just left. Sam sank back under the covers and didn’t move for three hours. Then he called Jamie.
    “I showed her the e-mail.”
    “Of course you did.”
    “She did not take it well.”
    “If only you could have seen that coming.”
    “Now what do I do?”
    “How should I know, Sam? I’m not a woman—I’m a computer programmer. Worse, I’m a manager of computer programmers.”
    “Not a very good one. Why do you let me go rogue, Jamie? Your job is to stop me from doing things like this.”
    “Would that I could, Sam. I’d still have you working for me.”
    “I was asked to develop that algorithm,” said Sam.
    “But not to bring down the company,” said Jamie. “Point is, it was a good algorithm. It wasn’t wrong about you and Meredith which means it’s mathematically impossible for you to destroy this relationship which means there’s a way to fix this.”
    “What?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “That’s not helpful.”
    “Tell her the truth. The truth is always the answer, Sam.”
    “Where’d you hear that?”
    “Oprah. But it sounds like good advice.”
    “The truth is I’m so in love with her, I’d try anything to make her love me half that much back. The truth is I’m such an arrogant prick that my response to, ‘I’m sad my grandma died,’ is, ‘Let me invent a computer program so she can write you letters.’ The truth is I’m so awkward and clueless that I think giving someone an e-mail from her dead grandmother in bed is romantic.”
    “It’s a start,” said Jamie, “but I’d work on the delivery.”
    Sam hung up and went back to bed. Finally, toward dinnertime, the covers pulled back, and she was standing over him bearing Indian carryout and a very nice bottle of Scotch she held out to him like apology, forgiveness, light.
    “Figured we needed the good stuff,” she said.
    “I’m so sorry—” Sam began.
    “Do it again,” said Meredith.

OKAY, IT WAS A LITTLE CATHARTIC
    S am wanted to talk about it. Meredith did not. Sam wanted to consider some ramifications here. In light of her reaction, Sam thought a discussion was in order before proceeding.
    “Don’t ruin the magic,” said Meredith.
    After dinner, after not a little bit of Scotch, after much typing and deleting and debating over what to say, she wrote back to her grandmother:
Cold, yes, but at least it’s stopped raining for the moment. Glad it’s nicer there and that you’re getting in bridge with the girls. Tell them hi for me. The beach does sound better than work, but we can’t all be retired.
Sam and I made a soup last week you would love. Lentil kale stew. I’m going to tweak it some and send you the recipe. Sam’s a good sous chef, and also, yes, a computer geek, and an Orioles fan (though of course he’s adopted the M’s now that he’s here).
Love you,
M.
    Then nine hours passed during which Meredith did nothing but sit with her laptop and hit refresh. Sam begged her to come to bed, so she brought the computer with her, sitting up against the headboard all night.
    “It’ll pop up when it comes in. It’ll make a little noise to wake you up if you set it to,” he groaned.
    “Can’t you make it come