Barren Cove Read Free

can you believe it? I just hope he doesn’t break down again; I’m not sure there are any more parts for him. Oh.” He held up his hand in front of his pursed lips. “I’m so sorry.”
    â€œDon’t be,” I said. I almost said that I had parts for me on the way; I had wanted to let them know at the main house in case they were delivered there instead of to me on the beach, but I couldn’t help but feel that Kent was not the person to tell this to. He might open the package when it came just to take a peek before passing it along. “Mary invited me last night?” I said.
    â€œI know,” he said, standing, masking any thoughts he might have had about that. “I have to show you my latest toy,” he said. He went to the mantel, where there was an assortment of odds and ends, most of them period, possibly original to the house: an ornate antique clock with mechanical soldiers waiting to strike the hour, porcelain vases, a crystal figurine of an angel resting on a crescent moon. Kent, however, reached for a ten-inch painted maquette of a cartoonish, almost insulting, figure of a robot. The blue-gray paint was meant to appear metallic; the robot was female, her head and torso boxes, her legs ending in wheels. “She’s called Rosie, early twenty-first century, although by then she was already a high-priced retro collectible of a character from a twentieth-century cartoon. Isn’t her outfit too much?”
    The robot wore a black-and-white apron in the classic style of a French maid. “I find it insulting,” I said.
    â€œYes, well,” Kent said, replacing Rosie with care. He pulled at the folds of skin at his chin. “Where’s your robot pride, man?” he said. He looked down at his own form, ran his hands over his torso, and said, “Where’s mine?”
    â€œOh, you’ve met Kent,” a voice said from the door. A woman came in, and I was compelled to stand. If she was Mary, she didn’t resemble an Asimov 3000 unit by any means. She was dazzling, perfectly human, perhaps based on an old movie star that we knew nothing of, like Kent’s Rosie. It was a new development, robots passing down their names to their offspring, so that the name hardly meant anything anymore. Asimov 3000 was no longer a model but a family name. But for all of Mary’s beauty, she seemed quite unaware of it. She was wringing her hands at her waist.
    â€œNow, Mary, be nice. I have,” Kent said. And with that he walked straight toward her and out of the room, ducking past her at the last possible moment.
    â€œWas he?” Mary said, looking at her hands.
    â€œI’m sorry?”
    â€œNice,” she said. And then she looked up. “I’m sorry; I’m Mary,” she said, stepping forward, her hand outstretched, and then she noticed I didn’t have a hand to reciprocate with and she looked down again, gripping her hands together. “I’m sorry,” she said again.
    â€œI wondered why nobody came to the door,” I said. “The gardener said—”
    â€œKapec?”
    â€œYes, he said no one would. Answer, I mean.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said again. She hadn’t looked at me since offering me her hand. I wondered if I should sit to put her at ease. I wondered if I should invite her to sit. She rushed forward to the mechanical dog on the ground. For a moment I thought she was going to kick it, but then she bent down and shut off a switch and the dog remained silent. I sat down. “You needn’t feel obligated to visit us here,” Mary said, seating herself on the cushioned window seat. The lace curtains brushed her back.
    â€œNo obligation; it was only polite—”
    â€œI know we’re not the most welcoming types,” she said, interrupting me. “And we’ve never had a tenant before.” She paused. “You’re our first.”
    â€œIt’s