Landscape with Invisible Hand

The Costello dining room, which can seat six, is outdated, and the family never uses it. Adam focuses on capturing the vacancy of the room, which contains a large table with six chairs and several pictures of the Costello family, including digital picture frames, one of which is broken. In his painting, he chooses to depict a photo of himself and his father on the working digital frame.

Mrs. Costello has rented part of the house to the Marsh family, and she decides to serve dinner in the dining room against Adam’s warnings. Adam is insecure about Chloe’s moving in because she’s pretty. Nattie asks Adam about the Marsh family and agrees that they shouldn’t eat in the dining room: “This room has a dark, broken soul. It would be like eating in an Egyptian tomb” (24). She also tells Adam not to hang his painting of the dining room in the dining room, or it will create a “vortex” they’ll never escape.

Against Nattie and Adam’s wishes, Mrs. Costello serves dinner—rice and beans—in the dining room. Dinner is uncomfortable, and Mr. Marsh talks about the home they left in New York and how he was too stubborn to move earlier because the area was forecast to see a financial boom due to the nearby vuvv “gathering hole.” Instead, he waited too long, and property values in the area declined, so he had to sell the house for a dollar. Mrs. Costello asks whether she should be worried because of the close rendering plant, but Mr. Marsh says that is much different than a gathering hole. Chloe’s brother, Hunter, complains about the poor internet access, and Mrs. Costello admits that she’s unemployed. They eat quietly for a few moments before Chloe starts asking Nattie questions. Adam thinks that Chloe’s attentiveness toward Nattie reveals a thoughtful nature. Chloe and Adam clean up after dinner, and Mr. Marsh yells at Hunter, who stormed downstairs without thanking Mrs. Costello. Adam apologizes for the dining room and offers to show Chloe around town.

Adam sketches Chloe several times and then uses his sketches to paint a portrait of her, knowing that painting someone’s portrait is a “love magnet” because of the intimacy the process requires. He copies the Renaissance style for her portrait, painting her on a throne in a garden where angels offer her processed junk foods. The background depicts the town they live in as it currently is. He shows the portrait to Chloe, who thinks it’s hilarious. Chloe and Adam start dating a few weeks later. They sneak around at first (which Adam feels is “sexy”), they go on scavenging trips together, and they think they’re in love.

When he was younger, Adam created 3D landscapes using a computer program called GameFury Cyberplats, and he dreamed of working as a virtual reality artist. Mr. Reilly convinced him to use paints and canvas—an idea Adam originally rejected because he wasn’t interested in the painting of “Old Masters.” However, after Mr. Costello left, Adam started using paint. Chloe questions why Adam uses paint, and he answers, “I guess I want to make something that’s actually in the world” (33). She critiques the picture he’s painting; she feels that it doesn’t place enough emphasis on the man who has been shot with arrows, which appears to be the central feature. Adam explains that he’s focusing on the house on a cliff in the background, a place he’d want to live. He tells Chloe that she could have her own garden at their hypothetical house.

Adam and Chloe sign up to participate in a love-based reality show for the vuvv, who are asexual and reproduce through budding. They wear devices that record and transmit their physical reactions, such as increased heart rates and dilated pupils, as well as vuvv translators. Adam questions whether the show is porn, and Chloe says it’s about 1950s-style love. He responds, “You’re saying we’d be hooked up to some tech, then I’d take you out for a chocolate malt at the drugstore and say, ‘Gee, Chloe’” (36).

Adam designs a website for their show, which depicts him and Chloe running through a field of grass while holding hands. Adam suggests that the grass is wheat, a nostalgic American crop. Wheat is now grown in vuvv facilities nearer to the sun. The episodes of their show are individual “dates,” in which they do things like baking cookies, going to parties, or swimming. Each episode has a title and a description that explains the human concept to the vuvv viewers, such as their “Ocean Memories” episode, which explains, “Humans find the oscillating presences of hundreds of billions of gallons of a chemical that could smother them relaxing” (38).

They take special care in getting ready, and Adam sees all the products Chloe uses before she shuts the bathroom door. They attach their sensors and translator boxes. The vuvv speak to each other by grinding a “gritty fin” along their bodies, which sounds like sandpaper or Velcro. One night, Adam and Chloe watch a horror movie at a friend’s house, and another, they take Nattie with them to get ice cream and count “padiddles,” or cars that have one burned-out headlight, which remind Nattie of one-eyed tomcats.

Adam and Chloe, aware of their audience, work hard to put on a good show, and they get more subscribers. At first, Adam is enraptured by Chloe, but their evenings sharing a home together put strain on their relationship. Adam has Merrick’s Disease because of contaminated tap water, which affects his digestive system and causes painful gas and frequent diarrhea. However, he perseveres through his symptoms, and he and Chloe bring in hundreds of dollars each month.

They strive to make their show more endearing by researching 1950s slang, and Adam creates a virtual reality castle for Chloe. He tries to add on to the castle but struggles because Chloe lacks any particular interests. She grows bored of the castle, and it shows in their dates. Adam quietly confronts her about looking more interested, and he worries that she’s gravitating toward a different group of friends. The night after their talk, they don’t talk or kiss before bed, and Adam can hear Chloe talking to someone else.