“Putting aside for the moment the fact that you’re indulging in some vast and, I would argue, highly dubious generalizations,” Aaron said, “I really don’t think any of what you just said excuses the fact that this woman installed software on a computer for the express purpose of having access to everything her ex-boyfriend did without his knowing it. His emails, his texts, whatever he was writing.”
“And if she was spying on him, who’s to say she wasn’t stealing from him?” Grady said.
“Now, if you want to know my theory about that—” Aaron said.
“As if you wouldn’t tell us even if we said we didn’t,” Rachel said.
“Thank you, darling. Anyway, my theory is that when she planted the spyware, she knew perfectly well that he’d find it and make a fuss.”
“Do you think she knew he’d sue her?” Sandra asked.
“Not necessarily, but she must have known he’d do something. Consciously or otherwise, she must have wanted him to. She must have wanted the publicity.”
“But it’s such bad publicity.”
“For that generation, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
“I’m sorry, but that’s a totally sexist response,” Rachel said. “I mean, what if the roles were reversed? What if it was the boyfriend who’d planted the spyware? She’d still be the one who’d be vilified.”
“Would she?”
“I think if it were a man, he’d be looked at as some sort of creepy predator,” Sandra said.
“It’s also worth noting that when she sold him the computer, there were naked pictures of her on it,” Aaron said.
“Oh, great, so now we’ve got another reason to shame her,” Rachel said.
“I’m not shaming her.”
“Yes, you are. You’re implying that because she had naked pictures of herself on her computer, she’s a slut.”
“Well, do you have naked pictures of yourself on your computer?”
“So what if I do? The point is, if it were the man who had planted the spyware, and if the naked pictures were of him, no one would accuse him of being a slut.”
“No, just a pervert and an exhibitionist and a stalker. Like Anthony Wiener. So much better.”
“What I still can’t get over is that she actually went through with it,” Grady said. “I mean, let’s be honest, we’ve all fantasized about doing things like that, right? But to make the leap from fantasy to action … Take Bruce here. Bruce, if you had the opportunity to read Eva’s emails without her knowing it, would you take it?”
The way Grady said this, Bruce could tell he was making an effort to bring him into the conversation, to which he had so far contributed nothing.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said.
“Oh, come on,” Rachel said. “What if, let’s just say, you stumbled on a piece of paper on which she’d scribbled her password? Could you really resist?”
“Could you resist if you found mine?” Aaron said.
“Even if he couldn’t, I doubt he’d find my emails very interesting,” Eva said.
“And what about you, Eva? If you could, would you read Bruce’s emails?”
“She’d find them even less interesting,” Bruce said.
At this Sandra laughed, a bit more loudly than was merited. The conversation moved on to other subjects. Only Bruce kept thinking about the writer and the boyfriend and the spyware. He hadn’t been lying when he said that even if he got hold of Eva’s password, which in fact he knew, he wouldn’t read her emails. On the other hand, he had furtively logged on to Kathy’s computer. He had copied her bank and loan statements. And then, when he put her computer back to sleep, what had he thought of? The moment in How the Grinch Stole Christmas when Little Cindy-Lou Who stumbles upon the Grinch, in full Santa regalia, shoving the Christmas tree up the chimney and is placated by a glass of water and a lie about a broken bulb. An allegory of innocence and misplaced trust, of giving turned into taking, turned literally upside down. Sitting at that awful table in the Japanese restaurant, drinking sake, his legs cramping, he pondered both the Grinch’s story and that of the writer who had planted the spyware, until in his mind the two became hopelessly blurred, until it was Cindy-Lou Who planting the spyware, and the Grinch publishing the novel, and Bruce himself stuffing the Christmas tree up the chimney in the middle of the night.
On the way home from dinner, Eva was unusually quiet. Bruce took the dogs for their walk, expecting to find her in bed when he got back. Instead she was sitting at the kitchen table, typing.
As soon as he walked in, she shut her computer.
“Did everyone do everything?” she asked.
“Everyone did number one. Only Isabel did number two.”
“You didn’t rush them, did you? You gave them enough time?”
“I gave them the usual time. Do you want me to take them out again?”
“No, no, it’s fine.” She had her eyes and fingertips on the top of the computer, as if itching to reopen it.
“Is everything OK?” Bruce asked. “You look worried.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say worried. It’s just that I just checked my email, and I had a note from Ursula. It seems there’s been another hiccup.”
“Hiccup? What kind of hiccup?”
“So you know that the palazzo’s been in her family for centuries, right? Two centuries at least. And over that time, the various heirs have been sort of, well, carving it up, and selling off bits and pieces of it to each other, so that now no one seems to know who owns what.”
“I doubt that. People always know what they own.”
“Yes, but they don’t always know what they don’t own. At least that’s the case with Ursula, who apparently thought she owned more than she did.”
“You mean the apartment isn’t hers?”
“No, nothing like that. All that isn’t hers—and she only learned this yesterday—is the foyer.”
“Foyer? What do you mean, foyer?”
“What do I mean? I mean the foyer. You know, the one that leads from the stairs and elevator to the front door. Well, as it turns out—and again, she only just found this out—it doesn’t belong to her. It belongs to her cousin Enrico in Milan.”
“Hold on. How big is this entryway?”
“I don’t know. Twelve by twelve?”
“And someone else owns it? I mean, as an independent piece of property?”
She nodded. “From what I gather, this sort of thing happens all the time in these old palazzi. Apartments get reconfigured, split in two or combined into one, and in the process, bits and pieces get forgotten.”
“But how could she not know? She must have known.”
“I’m only telling you what she told me. Listen.” Eva opened the computer. “ ‘Until this afternoon, I assumed that the foyer was mine. Enrico said nothing about it, and since he almost never comes to Venice, the issue didn’t arise until—’ ”
“So hold on. What she’s saying is that this foyer, this hallway we’ll have to walk along every time we go in and go out of the apartment—belongs to someone else? That every time we go in and out of our own apartment, we’ll be trespassing?”
“I hardly think it counts as trespassing.”
“Legally it does. We could be arrested.”
“What, do you honestly think the Venice police don’t have better things to do than stake out Americans when they come home from shopping?”
“They might if someone gave them a tip. Or a bribe.”
Again Eva shut her computer. “I knew you were going to react like this. I could have predicted it.”
“Of course you could have, because it’s the obvious way to react.”
“Bruce, will you please not interrupt? You haven’t even let me finish reading you Ursula’s email. She’s very upset about this. Luckily, though, there’s a simple way to resolve the situation, which is that we just go ahead and buy the foyer. As a separate transaction. Ursula’s already spoken to her cousin and he’s happ
y to sell it to us.”
“I’m sure he is. And I’m sure she is, too, since she’s bound to get a cut.”
“Bruce!”
“And has he named his price, this cousin?”
“I don’t know. How should I know? I only just found out. She only just found out.”
“Or so she claims … Well, one thing’s for sure, whatever the price is, it’s bound to be extortionate. I mean, by itself, what’s a hallway worth? Who buys a hallway? We’re the only ones who have any good reason to buy it. He has to know that, this cousin. He has to know he’s got us over a barrel—”
“Why is your first impulse to assume that people are venal?”
“Because they usually are.”
“I can’t believe this. You’ve never even met Ursula, and yet you’re making all sorts of assumptions about her, that she’s out to cheat us or gouge us. Why?”
“It’s just this habit she has of springing things on us. That business with the kitchen, for instance.”
“That wasn’t her fault. It was the contractor’s fault.”
“Eva, I have to be honest. This apartment, this whole thing—the further we go, the less I trust it.”
“But why? You know as well as I do, whenever you buy real estate, there are glitches. It was the same with the house in Connecticut, the same with this apartment.”
“And yet none of the other people we’ve bought from kept saying, every time a glitch came up, that they’d only just found out about it, that until that minute they’d had no idea.”
“You really have it out for Ursula, don’t you? Or is she just the excuse? Who is it you really have it out for? Is it me? Are you angry at me because for once in my life I did something on my own, without asking your permission? Or do you just not take my needs seriously?”
“Eva, I know how much this apartment means to you. It’s just … Weren’t you taken aback when you got Ursula’s email? You must have been.”
“Of course I was. But then I thought about it, and I saw there was an easy solution to the problem.”
“Too easy.”
“So what are you suggesting, that we pull out altogether? Is that what you want?”
Although it was, Bruce couldn’t find it in himself to say so. “I just think we need maybe to be less … conciliatory. To play hardball a little. Maybe tell her that she’s the one who ought to buy the hallway from her cousin.”
“And what if we do that, and she turns around and sells the apartment to someone else?”
“What, has she told you there are other people interested? A couple from Kansas City, perhaps?”
“No! She hasn’t said anything like that. I’m just being realistic. I mean, an apartment like this, such a rarity—it goes without saying other people will be interested, highly interested, and I can guarantee you, none of them are going to be so cheap as to have a fit every time there’s a hiccup.”
“I’d say this counts as more than a hiccup.”
“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. It’s like I don’t know you anymore.”
“I could say the same thing.”
“No, you couldn’t, because I’ve been completely forthright. I’ve made no bones whatsoever about why I want this apartment. And it’s not just the hiccups or glitches or whatever you want to call them. You’ve been resistant from the start. Don’t deny it.”
“I’m not denying it.”
“Yet you won’t say why. Or did you think I didn’t notice? Ever since I got back from Venice, you’ve been irritable, glum, constantly losing your temper.”
This surprised Bruce. Until that moment, he hadn’t realized he had a temper to lose.
After that Eva went to bed. As soon as she’d left the kitchen, Bruce poured himself a glass of whiskey. She was right, of course. There was much to explain his present mood that she didn’t know—not the least of it that he had given Kathy, that very afternoon, a substantial check, and left her weeping in a hotel room. Several weeks had passed since the evening he made his raid on her office, and got Sandra’s text, and hurried home in a state of near elation. He remembered that evening now, just as he remembered the morning that followed, the phone call from Eva telling him about Ursula’s apartment and the impulse that had seized her to buy it.
Was it because of that phone call, he asked himself as he drank down the whiskey, that he had put off carrying through on his plan to help Kathy? What if Eva had called him a day earlier, or not called him at all? Would he have acted differently? Would he have given Kathy the money sooner? Later? Had second thoughts and given her less money? Or none at all?
Maybe he was confusing effect with cause. Maybe the truth was that he had carried through on his plan not in spite of Eva’s decision to buy the apartment, but because of it.
There were no answers to any of these questions. There never are to questions that concern how things might have turned out if something hadn’t changed. And something had changed. That much Eva had figured out. She just didn’t know what it was.
Did he?
PART V
17
When Min stumbled over her lies, as she did often, her instinct told her to try to repair the damage quickly, before it spread. This was why, after she left the Indian restaurant, the first thing she did was call Jake. Her hope was to smooth over the lie he’d caught her telling before he said anything about it to anyone else, Eva especially. Just how she’d manage this, she wasn’t sure. Instinct, as usual, would be her guide. But then Jake hadn’t picked up or responded to her texts, and she’d grown anxious. Was he giving her the silent treatment? Maybe. Or maybe he hadn’t been paying attention to her at dinner, hadn’t even been listening when the conversation turned (when Min turned it) from Venice to Eva and her apartment. In that case, to try to cover up her lie would only be to dig herself in deeper.
The better course of action, she decided, was to say nothing at all to Jake and instead tell Eva about her idea for the article right away rather than wait, as she had originally planned, until Jake made up his mind. Accordingly, a few days after the dinner, she called Eva and asked if she might come by her apartment after work.
“Does it have to be today?” Eva said.
“It’s important,” Min said.
“OK, but it’ll have to be early. How about four thirty?”
“Couldn’t it be a bit later than that? Say five thirty?”
“I’m afraid not. We’re going out at five thirty.”
Min made an Edvard Munch scream face, something she would never have done in front of Eva. Her friend’s obliviousness to the fact that she had a job was a long-standing source of irritation to her—an irritation that, as usual, she suppressed.
“OK, then, four thirty,” she said.
“See you then,” Eva said.
Later that afternoon, as Min was putting on her coat to leave, Indira strolled by her desk.
“Going already?” she asked, glancing at her Apple Watch.
“Oh, yes, didn’t I tell you?” Min said. “I have an appointment with this fabulous young architect. A real rising star.”
“Terrific. I hope something comes of it.”
“Me, too.”
“I mean for the magazine.”
As if the conversation was over, Indira drifted away, only to stop in her tracks, turn, walk back, and look Min in the eye.
“I don’t like having to remind you of this,” she said, “but you’re really supposed to be at your desk until five. At least.”
“I know. I’m sorry. This is an exception.”
“I wouldn’t be bringing it up if it didn’t happen so often—your leaving early, or taking Fridays off, or time off to travel.”
“Well, that trip to Venice should certainly pay dividends.”
“Technically, I should take that out of your vacation time. I’m not going to. I’m just making a point. Your colleagues, the younger ones especially, they’re here every night until eight or nine. Sometimes later. You can imagine
how this looks to them. And it’s not just you it affects, it’s me, since it leaves them with the impression that I’m giving you preferential treatment. Well, see you in the morning.”
“Yes, see you tomorrow.”
In the taxi uptown, Min did the deep-breathing exercises she had learned, years before, in a yoga class. She was angry, that much she knew. The question was with whom. Was it Eva, for assuming that all she had to do was say jump and Min would jump? Or was it Indira, for behaving like a friend one minute and a boss the next? Or was it herself?
She decided it was herself. It was the least risky course.
Just before four thirty, she rang Eva’s bell. “Come in,” Eva said, opening the door just enough to let her through. “I’m afraid we’re a bit at sixes and sevens at the moment.” She mimed wiping sweat from her brow. To Min’s surprise, Eva had her hair tied back with a scrunchie and was wearing what passed, in her world, for work clothes: white tennis shoes, pressed jeans, a taupe cotton cardigan over a light blue T-shirt.
“Prepare yourself,” she said, and walked Min into the living room, where Amalia was on her knees, wrapping the loveseat in aluminum foil.
“What is this, some sort of conceptual art installation?” Min said.
Though she meant this as a joke, Eva didn’t laugh. “Actually, it’s an attempt to solve a problem. You see, while we were in Venice—Bruce only told me this after I got back, so as not to worry me, he says—Caspar, completely out of the blue, started jumping up on the loveseat and lifting his leg. My first thought was that it was separation anxiety—males mark when they’re anxious, you know—but now I’ve been home a full two weeks and not only is he still doing it, but the others have gotten in on the act. We’ve been living in a state of constant vigilance, with Amalia and me always at the ready to stop whatever we’re doing and come running with the pee-pee cleaner. Isn’t that right, Amalia?”
“Yes, Mrs. Lindquist,” Amalia said, cutting the foil into sheets.
“We’ve tried all sorts of things. First we tried bitter apple spray, but it didn’t make any difference. Then we tried those dog diapers, and, well, I don’t have to tell you what a disaster that was. Just trying to get the diapers on—I mean, you know what my dogs are like, you know what it’s like trying to hold down a Bedlington. Well, you might as well be trying to hold down a tornado.
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