Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Part 3 opens with a comical poem from Audrey Griffin's Christmas letter describing how, as a consequence of the mudslide, the Griffin family is now living in a Westin hotel. In the poem she depicts the experience as an extended spa vacation, but a subsequent exchange of emails with Soo-Lin reveals Audrey as bitter and focused on vengeance against Bernadette and her family. Soo-Lin says she would have been happy to have the Griffins stay at her house. Audrey tells Soo-Lin the Westin is nothing like she depicts it in the poem and complains about the street kids she saw stumbling out of the elevator at two in the morning. She notes that Kyle’s eyes are constantly bloodshot from the stress of living in these conditions. 

Soo-Lin’s email describes how, at Elgin’s suggestion, the two of them take a lunchtime ride of bicycles from the Samantha 2 project’s private fleet. As they eat a picnic lunch in a secluded churchyard, Elgin tears up as he confesses how worried he is about Bernadette. Soo-Lin takes his hand and tells him about her own divorce and her involvement with a self-help group, VAV (Victims Against Victimhood). Elgin brings the subject back to Bernadette and reveals that he has opted out of all Galer Street School email lists and is unaware of recent events, including the Prospective Parent Brunch, the billboard, and the mudslide. Audrey refuses to believe this: “Do you think I woke up this morning and drank a big cup of stupid?” (159). She seeks confirmation from Gwen Goodyear that Elgin does not receive any Galer Street emails. 

Bee then recounts how she and Bernadette took Bee’s best friend Kennedy to the revolving restaurant in the Space Needle to celebrate Kennedy’s 15th birthday. Bernadette puts a birthday card for Kennedy on the windowsill for other diners to sign as their tables revolve past it. Bee and Kennedy talk about the church youth group they attend together, an activity that Bernadette, an atheist, finds alarming. Elgin appears in the restaurant, still wearing his Microsoft badge, and confronts Bernadette about the mudslide. As the scene devolves into a bitter family argument, Bee mentions that Elgin has no time because he is always at work. Kennedy’s birthday card returns to the table full of religious exhortations and quotations from the Bible. Elgin leaves as Bernadette threatens to “hunt down those Jesus freaks” (165) who hijacked Kennedy’s card. That night, both Bernadette and Bee chose to stay in Bernadette’s trailer instead of in the house with Elgin.

Gwen Goodyear answers Audrey’s email, noting that neither Bernadette nor Elgin are on any Galer Street email lists. She also tells Audrey that it’s “imperative” they meet as soon as possible to discuss Kyle. A subsequent note from Gwen Goodyear, hand-delivered to the Westin, informs Audrey that Kyle is alleged to be selling drugs, including OxyContin, to his fellow students. Audrey responds angrily to this request and to an email from Soo-Lin describing her growing friendship with Elgin. 

Soo-Lin replies to Audrey by describing the aura of “rockstar” glamour that surrounds Elgin and his project, Samantha 2, in the eyes of fellow Microsoft employees. She notes that his TED Talk on Samantha 2 is “number four on the list of all-time most-watched TEDTalks” (170). Bee interrupts the narrative to say what a big deal her father’s TED Talk is and to insert a blogger’s transcript of the talk. 

Elgin began his TED Talk by discussing experiments in which monkeys with electrodes implanted in their brains learned to control an animated ball on a computer screen using only their thoughts. He then demonstrates a robot personal assistant, named Samantha after the character on Bewitched, which he developed at Microsoft but which proved impractical. Elgin explains that the idea behind Samantha 2 is to do away with the robot by enabling customers to operate the devices in their home directly just by thinking about them, thanks to a Band-aid-like appliance they can stick to their head. He ends by explaining that he is already working with Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to help disabled veterans become self-sufficient using Samantha 2.

The narrative returns to the present with a letter to Elgin from Dr. Janelle Kurtz, outlining the ethical and legal obstacles to committing Bernadette to a mental facility against her will. She urges Elgin to consider psychotherapy for Bernadette with a Seattle psychiatrist. Meanwhile, Soo-Lin bombards Elgin with Instant Messages during a meeting, using the terminology of VAV to boost his self-esteem and demonstrate her support for him. Separately, Bernadette seeks to avoid the trip to Antarctica by asking Manjula to schedule an appointment for the “emergency” removal of her wisdom teeth.

Part 3 ends with a letter to Elgin from an FBI agent, Marcus Strang, who identifies himself as regional director of the Internet Crime Complaint Center. Strang informs Elgin that Delhi Virtual Assistants International is in fact “a shell company for a crime syndicate working out of Russia” (183), and that “Manjula,” who has all the family's credit card and passport information, has requested power of attorney while the family travels to Antarctica. Agent Strang tells Elgin that he will be arriving in Seattle to meet with Elgin in the next few hours.