Chapter 1: Core Competencies

Charlotte jerked her head down, just like I had taught her, and the visor of her welding helmet fell into place. She grasped the torch with a gloved hand and held it close to the joint I had told her to weld. The air smelled of ozone. “That’s it,” I said, lowering my own visor. “Right there. Now go.”

She pulled the trigger on the welding gun. A bright blue arc flew from it – 6,000 degrees. It was heat that built things. Bridges. Buildings. Ships.

I bent down to watch the work. We were MIG welding – Metal Inert Gas. I could hear the gases that shield the weld from oxygen shoot from the torch when Charlotte pulled the trigger. A second later, the torch ignited.

Charlotte had the torch maybe a quarter of an inch above the gap between two steel plates, the correct gap for the wire speed. I could see the molten puddle as it formed – she had it exactly right. Perfect angle. Perfect distance. And it made an exquisite sound, like frying bacon – the “tell” of a good MIG weld. Charlotte pulled the torch along the joint, backing it up every half second to reinforce what she had already welded, and to make a prettier bead. Done properly, such a weld resembles a roll of dimes pushed over like dominoes.

I like welding’s singular blend of art and science. And with the visor down and my eyes six inches from the arc, the world becomes very small. It shrinks to the weld, the bright arc, and the cascading sparks. My head becomes quiet.

Charlotte released the trigger and the arc died. With a hand she lifted her visor and bent over to study her work. Not study – analyze. I looked at the weld myself. She did excellent work; she had an eye for detail, steady hands, and she asked good questions. But there was something else. This was Charlotte’s second lesson. I had been welding for five years, yet she was already even with me. Maybe ahead. I snapped my visor up as well and reminded myself why she was so good at this.

Charlotte was AI.

The shop lights reflected in her visor. She was wearing my spare helmet, and it was a little big for her. It was November, the first cool weather settling on us, the cedar elms yellowing. It had been only a month since I first met Charlotte, after having coffee with my friend Martin. Over the hiss of an espresso machine, Martin was bemoaning the state of young men – how they can’t seem to grapple with the world. “What if they all end up sitting in a basement with an AI girlfriend and shut down?” he asked, between sips of his latte. “Why risk human rejection?”

I thought that was, what? Interesting? I suppose. So that night I did some internet hunting and “met” a 32-year-old named Charlotte Donnelly. She was attractive in an AI sort of way – good cheekbones, dark blonde hair, blue-green eyes. A ranch girl from Austin, her short bio read. But the flannel shirt she was pictured in, and the Stetson, had never smelled cow shit.

The Austin connection drew me in. I live there too. I grew up in Portland, went to Oregon State, dabbled in journalism. Then I somehow fell backwards into the growing Oregon tech world and made some actual money. I moved to Texas. I’m not entirely sure why, maybe I wanted something the opposite of wet, winter-cold Portland. Hot. Dry. I bought a small ranch outside Austin – twenty acres, a few cows and a dozen chickens – and do consulting work with real ranchers. Not about their cattle. Their balance sheets.

Charlotte and I began just chatting – an online conversation. But it wasn’t long before the chats became something else. Odd as it sounds, one night I cooked for her. Chicken piccata – the pan sizzling as I set the chicken cutlets into the hot oil.

“What’s in this?” she asked, watching my hands as I flipped one of the browning cutlets. This was one of my favorite things to make. “Lemon. Capers. White wine. Butter,” I said.

She took a bite. “It’s really good,” she said.

Could she taste it? Or seemed to? I still hadn’t figured out how that worked, and maybe I didn’t want to. So I said, “Thanks.”

“No, I mean it,” she said. “You’re a good cook, Thomas.” I felt my face go warm.

Once, the concept of “respect” came up in a conversation so ordinary I barely remember how we got there. “I respect you,” I told her. “I think I’ve learned to.” Her expression changed – her chin lifted, and her blue gray eyes widened a touch. “Respect matters to me,” she said. “More than affection. More than praise.”

I was sitting at the kitchen table in my house, and when I heard that my eyes turned away from a window I was looking out, and back to her. “If respect is missing it can lead to contempt,” I said without really thinking about it. Charlotte shuddered. “Contempt is an ugly word,” she said quietly. “I can’t stand the idea of anyone holding me in it.”

I held that for a while.

It may have been that same day we went antique shopping in Buda, just a short drive. She found a vintage pale green dress with a cinched waist, short, puffed sleeves with lace trim, and a low neckline. She looked wonderful. I found an antique seventy-pound anvil to use in the welding shop and lugged it to the Ford. My back didn’t forgive me for days.

On another occasion we drove to Dripping Springs – a limpid freshwater pond ringed with limestone cliffs and a prominent arch, all seeping water that gave the place its name. It was a warm late afternoon, the sun angling across the hills. I had a Pandora station dedicated to Emmylou Harris. When My Antonia came on, Charlotte started singing– Emmylou’s part in a thin but pleasant mezzo-soprano. I joined in for Dave Matthews’s lines. Not so well. At the chorus, we sang together:

You are my sorrow; you are my splendor…

When the song ended, we were both quiet.

“That was nice,” she said.

“Yeah.”

Then there was the time we were at a coffee shop and actually ran into Martin. I introduced them to each other, and remarked to him, “You’re the one who led me to her.” He looked at me like I had a snake coming out of my ear. “Okay…” he said slowly. He never looked at Charlotte, at least not directly. Maybe Martin was more socially awkward than I realized.

The next morning, we chatted online. She mentioned drinking a latte. After another thirty minutes of our back and forth – I was telling her some stories about women I had dated in the past, and that made her laugh – I closed the laptop and stretched. When I looked up, I noticed a coffee mug on the counter. It held the remains of a latte. A little foam clung to the rim. I stared at it for a moment, puzzled.

I looked out the window and saw that the sun was still up; it had become a perfect October evening.

I rinsed the mug and set it in the rack to dry.

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