Interaction Meeting

The Interaction Meeting is a gathering Josie is expected to host so she can practise getting along with other young people and prepare for college. Its importance lies not simply in the social encounter but in what Klara learns by watching it: belonging can demand performance, an unlifted child can be isolated even in a crowded room, and visible manners do not by themselves reveal what someone feels. The meeting becomes an early test of Klara’s understanding of Josie and of the social world into which she has been brought.

Purpose and Preparation

Josie’s mother presents the gathering as necessary preparation rather than an optional party. Though Josie says her grades are good and that she knows how to get along with others, her mother argues that academic ability is not enough: college will require her to deal with many kinds of people. In her view, children who fail at college are often those who did not attend enough meetings. Josie counters that she does not get along with this particular peer group and says she wants Rick there if she must host them.

Her mother agrees. She regards Rick as a good person and their neighbour, and says the only reason he could not attend would be if he did not want to. Later, alone with Klara in bed, Josie admits that she hopes he will come to what she calls an awful party. The exchange makes the meeting a point of tension between an institutional expectation—practice socializing with peers—and Josie’s wish to have the person she trusts beside her.

Josie also tells Klara that the other young people do not normally bring their Artificial Friends, though the Artificial Friend who lives in the house usually attends, especially when new. The guests will want to inspect Klara. Josie insists she wants Klara present, while warning that the meetings are unpleasant. Klara’s attendance therefore has two sides: she is there as Josie’s companion, but also becomes an object of curiosity for the assembled group.

On the morning of the gathering, Josie’s anxiety appears in her preparations. After breakfast she returns to the bedroom to try different clothes and keeps brushing her hair even as guests arrive and Melania Housekeeper calls upstairs for her. Only when Klara suggests it is time to join them does Josie drop the hairbrush and stand up. Her delay gives way to a rueful acceptance that she must face the occasion.

The Gathering and Rick’s Isolation

Klara comes downstairs to a hall full of adult guests, all women, speaking in humorous voices. The younger guests are in the Open Plan, but sliding doors still separate them from Josie and Klara. Once Klara enters, the room’s familiar furnishings are difficult to read: the space has been partitioned into twenty-four boxes in two tiers, splitting people’s bodies into separate visual sections. The arrangement offers Klara a fragmented view just as the meeting requires her to make sense of a crowded social scene.

Josie is near the middle of the room speaking with three girls, their heads close together. Elsewhere, three boys sit apart on a modular sofa; their heads appear together in one of Klara’s visual boxes, while one boy’s extended leg crosses into neighbouring boxes. The grouping makes the room’s divisions visible, but Klara’s attention soon shifts from its strange geometry to the guests’ conversation.

Although one guest welcomes the new Artificial Friend as cute, most of the voices Klara hears are discussing Rick. Josie has recently stood beside him, but turns away to talk to the girls, leaving him alone and not speaking with anyone. One girl explains that he is Josie’s friend and lives nearby; another says they should be kind because being there with them must feel strange for him. Their sympathy acknowledges his discomfort without drawing him into the group. The meeting places Rick physically among Josie’s peers while making his distance from them unmistakable.

Josie’s behaviour also gives Klara evidence that the child she knows can act differently in company. Klara later recalls Josie’s hands moving through welcome, offering, and tension, and remembers her laughing when asked why she had not chosen a B3, an Artificial Friend with capabilities beyond Klara’s. Josie’s remark may have been a joke intended to ease possible disharmony, Klara reasons, but it nevertheless leaves open the possibility that Josie sometimes thinks about wanting a different Artificial Friend.

What Klara Learns

The meeting changes what Klara watches for. Before it, she had already treated observation as part of learning how to help her future child: she studied passers-by and tried to understand emotions that were difficult to read. When she witnessed two taxi drivers fighting, she tried to imagine their anger and even to picture herself and Rosa trying to hurt one another. She could not find the beginnings of that feeling in herself. The encounter taught her that looking closely did not mean she could reproduce every human emotion from within.

At the meeting, Klara applies that attentive method to Josie and her peers. In conversation with Rick afterward, she recognizes his fear that Josie may become like the other children, but she resists his conclusion that the group is simply unkind. She believes Josie remains kind underneath her unusual behaviour and suggests that the other children may be acting harshly because they fear loneliness. She includes Josie in that possibility. Her interpretation does not erase what Rick sees; it places the conduct he fears within a wider account of how loneliness can shape behaviour.

Klara also begins watching for further signs of Josie’s ability to change in company. She worries that Josie might eventually become angry with her for failing to answer the questions of a long-armed girl, since Klara had chosen what seemed best in the absence of a clear signal from Josie. More broadly, she fears the gathering may cast a shadow over their friendship. Yet Josie remains as cheerful and kind as before, and never raises the meeting again. Klara’s anxieties about its effect on their bond are not confirmed by Josie’s subsequent conduct.

Social Belonging and Its Limits

The meeting connects a private friendship to wider social networks that distribute acceptance and opportunity. Josie’s mother treats peer gatherings as preparation for college, while Josie’s request to have Rick attend makes him part of the occasion through their closeness, not because he naturally belongs to the group. At the gathering, the other children recognize him as her friend and express concern for his discomfort, yet he remains alone. Kindness is present, but it does not automatically dissolve exclusion.

That distinction matters in the context of Rick’s unlifted status. Later, his mother explains that although he was never lifted, Atlas Brookings admits a small number of unlifted students. The places are few and competition is severe; he is clever, but would need expert guidance, which his family cannot readily secure. Members of TWE are forbidden to tutor unlifted children, while other screen tutors demand fees his family cannot afford. The meeting itself does not resolve these barriers, but its social scene anticipates how Rick’s difference can shape his access to relationships and future opportunities.

Klara’s account of the meeting is therefore both observational and provisional. She can register who stands together, who turns away, which voices express concern, and how Josie’s gestures change. She can also form interpretations about fear and loneliness, but she remains aware that her readings may be wrong: she worries about Josie’s unspoken reactions and considers whether a joke about a B3 conceals a real thought. Later, when the possibility arises that Klara might have to continue Josie, the question becomes whether close observation and accurate imitation could reach what makes a person singular. The meeting is an early instance of the distinction that question depends on: seeing a person’s social performance is not the same as knowing the inward life—or the love—that gives it meaning.