The next evening—after the sun had set, and Frederick had welcomed me back to the apartment in person with a small smile playing on his lips—we found ourselves huddled together at the kitchen table in front of my laptop.
Frederick was scowling, arms folded tightly across his chest as he glared at my screen.
“What am I looking at, Cassie?”
“Instagram.”
“Instagram?”
“Yes.”
Frederick pointed at the filtered picture of a breakfast Sam had, according to the caption, eaten a few months ago on his honeymoon in Hawaii. “Instagram is . . . pictures of food?”
“Sometimes, yeah.”
Frederick scoffed, clearly unimpressed.
“Reginald really didn’t show you anything on the internet before now?” I asked, a little incredulous. But it was a rhetorical question. It couldn’t have been clearer that before I got Frederick’s internet up and running that afternoon, he’d never been exposed to anything online.
Frederick shook his head. “He didn’t.”
“How did you know to ask about TikTok, then?”
A pause. “I thought it was a new kind of music,” he admitted, a bit sheepishly.
I couldn’t help but smile at that. He really was adorably clueless. “Really?”
“It’s called TikTok,” he said. “That’s the sound a clock makes, is it not? I think it was a reasonable guess.”
He had a point there. If I’d just woken up from a century-long nap, I might have reached the same conclusion. As it was, I was born just a few decades ago and I barely knew what TikTok was, either.
“Well, either way, being connected to the internet is essential in the twenty-first century,” I said. “It’s the only way people get their information now.”
“That’s probably why Reginald didn’t connect me,” Frederick said, darkly. “He fed me for a century and made sure my bills got paid so I wouldn’t waste away or be homeless when I woke up. But if, upon waking, I had reliable access to information at my fingertips it would have impeded his ability to play practical jokes on me.”
I snorted. “I think I’m going to be a nicer life assistant than he was.”
“There’s no question in my mind about that.”
He turned his attention back to my laptop. Earlier, I’d explained to him that while I wasn’t familiar with all corners of the internet or all social media platforms—for example, I’d only joined TikTok for funny cat videos and barely understood it—I was regularly on Instagram and could show him around.
He’d agreed readily enough, though in hindsight I realized that that was because he hadn’t known what Instagram was. Ever since I’d pulled up Sam’s page Frederick had made it abundantly clear he regretted that decision—and possibly regretted asking we engage in internet lessons together at all.
“What is the point of technology dedicated solely to sharing pictures of breakfast foods?” He sounded so baffled—almost offended, really—that I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. He was the broad-chested, gorgeous, not-quite-living embodiment of the OK boomer meme. The fact that he looked like a man in his mid-thirties only made it funnier.
And more adorable.
“Instagram isn’t just pictures of food,” I countered, trying to keep a straight face.
He pointed an accusing finger at the screen. “Your friend’s account seems to be entirely pictures of food.”
“Sam likes taking pictures food,” I admitted. “But Instagram lets you share pictures of anything you want with people all over the world. Not just pictures of food.”
He seemed to consider that. “Oh?”
“Yes,” I confirmed. “You can share pictures of important news events, or of beautiful places. And, yes, okay—sometimes people share pictures of meals they’ve enjoyed. Especially if they were somewhere special or exciting when they ate it.”
“Why would people all over the world care what your friend Sam ate while on holiday?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but then realized I didn’t have a good answer for that.
“I . . . don’t really know,” I admitted. “But we could take a picture of that bowl of oranges you keep on the counter for me and post that if you want. They’re pretty.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the oranges in question, then shook his head disapprovingly. “I simply do not understand this modern urge to share every errant thought one has with the entire world the instant it happens.”