The Female Persuasion

Over the years, Cory Pinto has begun coming up with an idea for a new kind of video game. He plays a lot of video games now, and this hobby combined with the development and shifts in his feelings of grief allows an idea to take root. Cory, preoccupied with the finality of death and the inability to find or recover a lost loved one, has come to realize that sometimes, against all odds, there is a flash of those one has lost in the world around them—like in the smile or laugh of a stranger. Cory, after all this time, is still unable to accept that Alby is not somewhere out in the world, and Cory can’t help feeling that he could find his brother again “if only [he] knew where to look.” This becomes the premise of his game idea.

Cory has been able to move on from Alby’s death in many ways—he has a stable job in Northampton at a computer store, where he helps customers every day to retrieve their lost data and bring their broken machines back to life. Through the store and his fellow employees, Cory becomes involved in the online gaming community. When he visits his friends’ Northampton apartments, he often finds himself missing Greer, though he admits that now, after so many years apart, he would not know how to get through to her. Their lives have diverged too much—she is a successful New Yorker, and he lives with his mother. 

Cory finds himself calibrating his attempts at a social life against his responsibilities at home. He has not dated anyone in a while—the last woman he was with was one of his and Greer’s old classmates, Kristin Vells. When Kristin and Cory began seeing one another, Cory realized that the constructions that had kept them apart in grade school didn’t matter—he had been in the highest reading group, but the distinction hadn’t mattered and hadn’t protected him from anything. Cory and Kristin slept together almost every night for a month, until one night, while Cory and Kristin were lying naked in Cory’s room, Benedita opened the door and announced that she was constipated and needed medicine. Kristin, disgusted by the intimacy of the moment, left soon after, and she and Cory became “unspoken enemies.”

Now, Cory spends much of his time teaching himself computer repair and game design as a means of staying productive. During the day, he works at the store or cleans houses, and at night, he cooks for his mother, plays video games, and sits in Alby’s bedroom with Slowy. One day, one of Cory’s friends from the store asks him if he has an idea for a game—Cory’s friend has met a potential investor who wants to hear some ideas about “games as art pieces.” Cory’s friend invites him to the meeting, which is in two days, and though Cory protests that he’s not ready, his friend urges him to get something together by then.

At the meeting, Cory’s friend pitches the investor a game set in 1692 Salem. The investor doesn’t like the idea and asks Cory to share his. Cory reluctantly reveals his idea for a quest-based game whose aim is “to find the person you love who’s died.” The game, Cory says, will be very difficult, and only a certain percentage of players will ever be able to achieve their goal. He wants to call the game SoulFinder and sees it as a means for the bereaved to, on a small scale at least, meet their goal of encountering a lost loved one once more. Cory then reveals the personal inspiration behind the game, and the investor, who is familiar with grief and loss himself, loves it.

The investor notes that Cory’s idea has an immersive-theater quality and invites him to come to New York to see a production that might give him even more inspiration. Cory remembers Greer’s invitation and wonders if she would let him stay on her sofa bed. Cory is excited about the investor’s interest but reminds himself that an investor does not necessarily mean success—though he has come to realize that conventional success does not matter to him.

One morning, as Cory is about to head out to clean houses, Benedita meets him in the kitchen, dressed and ready to go. She asks if she can come along—she wants to help. Cory tries not to act too surprised and brings his mother along with him to the house. As they clean, they compare tips and methods, and Cory is grateful to see his mother distracted from her grief, even for a little while.

After that day, Cory’s mother wants to come along with him more often, and he realizes that she is finally beginning to heal. Cory never rushes her or pressures her, but as the weeks go by, they become a team, and cleaning houses together becomes a ritual. One day, his mother’s social worker sits Cory and Benedita down together and reveals that Benedita wants more independence. Benedita tells Cory that she wants to go live with her sister—Sab’s mother. Cory knows that Sab has straightened himself out over the years, too, and Cory thinks it might be a good environment for his mother after all. Benedita suggests they sell their house, and Cory realizes that the ground is shifting around him—things are changing, and he will have to readjust all over again.

Cory goes back to see his mother’s social worker to process what Cory has been going through, and as they talk, he realizes how deeply he misses Greer. He has lost her, too, but in a more “ordinary” way than he has lost Alby. Cory realizes that while he can still find Greer physically, she might be a different person, and she might not love him anymore.