Beautyland

Adina realizes that she has started using “we” in her faxes about humans. With no response, she wonders what it is she’s supposed to be doing. She thinks that “[h]er superiors have always been a religion she was forced to believe in without seeing” (289), and she wonders if something wiped out their planet. When Adina does receive a fax, it is a business letter from a tanning salon in Minnesota.

Adina looks online and finds discussions about her book and her. She’s disheartened when people tell her that she is not alone. Adina thinks that “[t]o be told she is not alone denies what she knows. Alone is not the bad news. Alone is reliable. Alone has been loyal to her” (291). At least she still has her little dog in the freezer. In this period, she takes long walks and listens to Philip Glass’s album Glassworks. In a conversation one day, Adina’s mother corrects her on what she recalls of her childhood. Finally, she sends the dog’s body with the veterinarian.

Toni’s boss keeps asking Adina if she’ll give another reading; her book continues to sell out. One day, she faxes her superiors to ask if they can come and get her. She learns that she is experiencing hearing loss, though she is only 40. She tells the doctor that her heart is broken but is encouraged to learn a word that describes her condition of feeling adverse reactions to certain sounds: misophonia. Spring comes, and Adina is still grieving.

Astronomers at the University of Hawaii identify the first interstellar object found within the Milky Way. They name it Oumuamua, a Hawaiian word for messenger or scout. Adina asks her superiors if they sent it. In the city, Adina’s neighbor receives a letter complaining that she hasn’t updated the attire of her geese. Adina visits home and remembers how, as a child, she couldn’t blow her nose. When she and her mother visit RadioShack, all the fax machines awaken and spurt out blank pages.

Adina hopes that grief is loosening its grip. In a walk through Central Park, she sees a bird in a tree. She realizes that she is done living in New York. Astronomers continue to debate Oumuamua and suggest that it is a probe from an alien civilization. Adina is convinced that her home planet is dead and Oumuamua was a craft meant to retrieve her. She thinks, “No one is coming to get her. She is like everyone else. On her own” (310). Finally, one day, she wakes in a white room facing a movie screen, with Solomon beside her. They watch a film of Johnny Carson interviewing Carl Sagan in 1978. Solomon communicates that Adina’s people have left their solar system and have come to Earth. It is time for Adina to deactivate.

Adina receives a fax instructing her to summarize Earth in one word, then deactivate. She says that she wants to stay. Voyager I becomes the farthest human-made object from Earth, and its systems shut down to conserve energy. Adina’s mother graduates with a master’s degree in education and is promoted to vice president at her job. She shows Adina her garden. Adina gives another reading, and her mother brings Charles. Adina reflects, “I was sent here to report on the human experience and have failed. I haven’t used my life enough” (316). Members of the audience hold up placards with their slogans or beliefs.

Adina logs onto Twitter and sees that she has hundreds of thousands of followers. She types hello, then thank you, then turns off the phone. She faxes her one-word transmission to her superiors. She thinks of the coat that her mother wore throughout Adina’s childhood. She reflects on what she has loved: her mother, her friend, her dog. Adina imagines that she will ride the Staten Island ferry to the middle of the harbor. She will miss Earth and the people she loves and imagines that “[a]s her star’s point of view dims, there will be a sensation of one light joining many. A glittering, infinite expanse” (322). She’ll say hello, and “we” will say, welcome home.