Shelter in Place

by David Leavitt

  “Aren’t there?”

  “Not since the beginning of the year. It’s all E-ZPass now. Remember the days when you used to have to throw coins into a wire basket? How sometimes a nickel would fall onto the ground, and you’d have to get out of the car and get down on your knees and crawl around on the pavement feeling for it? And all the time you knew there were cars behind you, waiting, waiting.”

  “That’s how I feel all the time now.”

  Water off a duck’s back.

  “And, look, I was right,” Eva said with a touch of triumph. “There’s hardly any traffic at all. There would have been more on the bridge.”

  It was true. There was hardly any traffic at all. They were racing through the tunnel, the lamplight jaundicing the car’s interior.

  “Eva,” Bruce said.

  But when he turned to look at her, she wouldn’t meet his eye. She remained insistently in profile.

  Once out of the tunnel, he felt safer, because now they were in Manhattan, and, aside from Oshkosh, Manhattan was the only place in the world where he knew he would never get lost.

  “Funny that even after all these years, Brooklyn should still seem like another planet to me.”

  Eva didn’t answer. Nor did she speak for the rest of the drive, not even when Bruce, having parked the Outback in the garage, opened her door for her. Instead she just got out and walked down the ramp to the street, letting herself stumble forward every few steps to keep from losing her balance.

  From his glassed-in cage, Willard Han gazed at Bruce. Bruce gazed back.

  The next morning, despite Eva’s insistence that he do so, he didn’t call Rita. Nor did he call her that afternoon, or the following day.

  For the garden, Eva and Ursula settled on a price of $75,000.

  PART VI

  19

  Beyond the Lindquists’ country house—beyond the flower and vegetable gardens, the pool, and the ornamental fountain—a large meadow spread out, empty except for a small copse of maples near the perimeter. It was here, on the first Saturday in March, that Min Marable, Sandra Bleek, and Rachel Weisenstein gathered after lunch to share a joint.

  “I see you’re wearing your pussy hat,” Sandra said to Rachel.

  “Why not?” Rachel said. “It’s cold out.”

  “Has Eva seen it?”

  “I don’t know. She might have.”

  “If she has, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Min said. “She probably doesn’t know what it is.”

  “I hope not,” Rachel said. “She might think it’s crude.”

  “Rachel, you do realize that those flaps are supposed to be cat ears, don’t you?” Min said. “I mean, it’s not really supposed to look like … It’s supposed to look like a cat. It’s a visual pun.”

  “Well, yes, of course,” Rachel said. “And yet at the same time there is something sort of Georgia O’Keeffe about it. I mean, even you used the word flaps.”

  “Do you know what I read the other day about the pussy hat?” Sandra said. “It seems that since the march, a bunch of women—nonwhite women—have been complaining that it was racist.”

  “Racist!” Rachel said. “How?”

  “Well, isn’t it obvious?” Sandra said. “It’s the pink. I mean, not every woman’s … you know … is pink. Not even every white woman’s.”

  “Oh, God, I never thought of that!” As if afraid of being attacked, Rachel yanked the hat off her head and stuffed it in her purse. “Oh, but now my head will freeze. My ears will get frostbite. And this is the only hat I brought.”

  “Then put it back on.”

  “But Eva might see.”

  “Then leave it off and go inside.”

  “And forgo the weed,” Min added.

  Rachel put the hat back on.

  “Aren’t you afraid of getting bitten by a deer tick?” Sandra asked, taking a toke.

  “In winter?” Rachel said. “I don’t think they’re a problem in winter. Besides, I’ve never seen a deer around here.”

  “You don’t have to have deer to have deer ticks,” Min said.

  “Over the last couple of years, it seems like half the people I know have come down with Lyme disease,” Sandra said. “Usually they catch it in time to get it treated, but sometimes there isn’t the rash. A friend of my daughter’s, for instance, she never had the rash, and she was sick for three years before they diagnosed it.”

  “It’s why Eva doesn’t go outside,” Rachel said, taking the joint from Sandra.

  “That’s not true,” Min said. “Eva does go outside. In the summer she lies out by the pool.”

  “Really?” Sandra said. “It’s funny, I can’t quite imagine Eva in a swimsuit.”

  “Actually, she looks great in a swimsuit.”

  “Do you think Eva’s ever gotten stoned?” Rachel asked.

  “That’s privileged information.”

  “So she has. Come on, give us the details.”

  “OK,” Min said, “but you mustn’t ever tell her I told you or she’ll kill me. It was just once, years and years ago. We were at a party—I forget whose—and there were these pot brownies, only no one told Eva they had pot in them, and she ate one.”

  “Oh, God. What happened?”

  “She said it tasted funny, and the host, whoever it was, said, ‘That’s because it’s a pot brownie,’ and laughed his head off like it was a great practical joke. And she was absolutely furious.”

  “Probably the pot made it worse.”

  “I think it made her really paranoid, because suddenly she said, ‘What if there’s a police raid? We have to get out of here before the police raid.’ And I said, ‘Eva, the police don’t raid parties like this. It’s not the fifties anymore.’ Come to think of it, it was sort of like what she did that time with Siri, with the iPhone.”

  “Yes, wasn’t that weird?” Sandra said. “What do you think that was about?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Rachel said. “She was testing us, seeing how far we were willing to go.”

  “Not, as it turns out, very far,” Sandra said.

  “Later Aaron admitted he would never have really asked Siri that question,” Rachel said. “When push comes to shove, he’s a wimp. Like most men.”

  “What you have to understand about Eva,” Min said, “is that she’s scared in a way we’re not. For her it’s personal.”

  “Why?” Sandra said. “She’s not black, or Hispanic, or Muslim, God forbid.”

  “She’s Jewish, though,” Rachel said.

  “So’s Trump’s lawyer,” Min said. “So are half the people who work for him.”

  “The people who go to his rallies aren’t Jews,” Sandra said. “They hate Jews.”

  “Let’s not forget she’s a woman,” Rachel said.

  “But not one who’ll ever need to have an abortion,” Sandra said. “Or a mother of daughters.”

  At the mention of daughters, Rachel’s eyes misted a little. “I wish she’d come to the Women’s March,” she said. “I think it would have made such a difference to her to have been there. Aaron, too.”

  “Aaron?” Min said. “Sorry, but would that have been wise?”

  “Why not?” Rachel said. “There were plenty of men there.”

  “No, I know,” Min said. “I just mean after what happened. His being fired.”

  “What’s that got to do with the march?”

  “Well, someone might have recognized him and … not taken kindly to his presence.”

  “What are you getting at, Min? Is it these accusations Katya’s been making? If so, I can assure you, there’s nothing to them. They had a heated exchange, it’s true, but Aaron never grabbed her arm. He never touched her. Bruises like that—it would have been in the police report.”

  “There was a police report?” Sandra said.

  “And even if it took a few days for the bruises to show up, why didn’t she go to a doctor? The fact of the matter is, she’s been gunning for Aaron ever since the day she got named editor
in chief, and now that she’s gotten rid of him, she wants to make sure he’ll never work anywhere else. It’s so vindictive, especially when you consider the real horrors to which so many women, every day, are subjected.”

  “Do you know what Eva told me the other day?” Min said. “That since the election, she’s felt like she’s on a plane, and that unless she keeps saying to herself, over and over, ‘The plane won’t crash,’ it’ll crash.”

  “May I interject a question?” Rachel said. “What is it about Eva? Why are we always talking about her? I mean, God knows, I love her to death, but really, what’s so interesting about her? Why do we always come back to her? Just look at us, standing out here freezing our butts off so she won’t catch us smoking, and what are we talking about? Her.”

  “She’s like Mary Catherine Gray,” Sandra said.

  “Who?”

  “Mary Catherine Gray. She was this girl I went to school with, and there was absolutely nothing to say about her, nothing at all, and still we couldn’t stop talking about her. It was like we were convinced that she couldn’t possibly be as nondescript as she seemed, that under her nondescriptness there had to be some enigma, some secret, if only we could get at it.”

  “And was there?”

  “Not that I ever found out. She looked like that girl from the B-52s, the one with the bug eyes.”

  “Cindy Wilson.”

  “Unfortunately for her, she had small breasts. If you’ve got that sort of body, you need big breasts to carry it off.”

  “Eva has beautiful breasts,” Min said. “Of course, if you complimented her on them, she’d pretend to be mortified.”

  “Do you think she and Bruce have sex?” Sandra said.

  “What do you mean?” Rachel said. “Of course they have sex. They’re a married couple.”

  “Excuse me, but what planet are you living on?” Sandra said. “Plenty of married couples don’t have sex.”

  “Especially the gay ones,” Min said. “Or if they do, it’s with other people. Speaking of which, have any of you noticed how long it’s been since we’ve seen Matt Pierce around here?”

  “Was he the one who had to make the scones twice?” Rachel asked.

  Min nodded. “What happened was, back in January, Eva had Jake over to dinner, and Matt did the cooking. So afterwards Jake and Bruce were out with the dogs, right, and Eva and I were in the living room, when Matt comes in and starts going on about this new boyfriend of his and how he’s pressuring him to have three-ways, and what does Eva think of it, and should he do it. He touched the third rail.”

  “What’s the third rail?”

  “Well, that’s just it. With Eva you never know what the third rail is until you’ve touched it, and then it’s too late. In this case it was sex. As she put it afterwards, ‘Why do people always feel they have to go into the gory details?’ End result—there’s one more gay boy who’ll never bake another scone in this kitchen.”

  “Poor Matt,” Rachel said. “He seemed so nice. And he really must have trusted Eva, otherwise he’d never have asked her advice on such a, well, intimate subject.”

  “I suppose the lesson here is that we should all watch our step with Eva,” Sandra said.

  “Yes, you should,” Min said.

  “Wait a minute,” Rachel said, “if Matt’s not here, who made lunch today? Was it the shy one? What’s his name again?”

  “Ian. And no, it wasn’t him. At the last minute he couldn’t make it, so Eva called Calvin Jessup, who used to cook for her way back in the early aughts. And you can’t have mixed Calvin up with Ian or Matt, because they’re white and he’s black. Anyway, he’s only filling in.”

  “You make it sound like it’s an official position,” Sandra said.

  “It is, sort of,” Min said. “Something like what used to be called a paid companion—you know, the poor but respectable spinster the rich wife hires to keep her company, lose at cards, and agree with everything she says. Only in Eva’s case it has to be a man, a gay man, under forty and preferably good-looking. Oh, and he has to be able to cook, because that’s what he gets paid for.”

  “I wonder where she finds them,” Sandra said. “Is there an agency she goes to? Does she put an ad up on Craigslist?”

  “Eva? Craigslist? Are you kidding? Oh shit, it’s Bruce and Jake. Put it out.”

  “Where? I can’t see them.”

  “Over there,” Min said, pointing to the line of trees that marked where the Lindquists’ property ended and Grady’s began. “See? Oh, and they’ve got the dogs with them. Get rid of it.”

  “Get rid of what?”

  “The joint,” Min said, pulling it from Rachel’s mouth and stubbing it out with her heel. “They can’t know we’ve been smoking. They might tell Eva. Have any of you got anything to cover up the smell? Fanta? Coke?”

  “I think I might have a bottle of water,” Sandra said, looking in her purse.

  “Water won’t … Oh, hi, Bruce.”

  “Ladies,” Bruce said, his boots crunching the frozen grass as the dogs, off leash, leaped toward the women and sniffed their legs.

  “He must smell Mumbles,” Rachel said, bending down to stroke Isabel’s head and in the same gesture taking off her hat again. “Do you smell Mumbles, boy?”

  “Isabel’s the bitch,” Min said.

  “And what brings you out on a day like this?” Bruce asked. “Plotting a palace coup?”

  “Just having some girl talk,” Min said.

  “When it’s thirty degrees?” Jake said.

  “Well, isn’t that the whole point of going to the country in winter?” Min said. “To breathe the clean and frosty air?”

  “Speaking for myself, I’d say the point of going to the country in winter is to sit by a toasty fire and drink whiskey,” Bruce said.

  “In that case, the sooner you finish your walk, the happier you’ll be.”

  “What, you don’t want our company for just a few minutes?”

  “No. I told you, we’re having girl talk, and you’re not girls.”

  “What about Jake?”

  “Bruce!” Rachel said.

  “He doesn’t mind. You don’t mind, do you, Jake?”

  “At this moment in history, I’d say there are more important things to mind,” Jake said.

  “OK, if you must know, we’ve been talking about what’s-his-name,” Sandra said. “The one who got banished.”

  “She means Matt,” Min said.

  “Ah, Matt,” Bruce said. “A pity, that. Still, you know the law. Whatever Lola wants—”

  “Wait, what happened to Matt?” Jake said.

  “He touched the third rail,” Rachel said.

  “He went into the gory details,” Sandra said.

  “Don’t worry, Jake, you’re safe,” Min said. “Eva said as much. She said—and I quote—‘The thing I appreciate about Jake is that he never insists on going into the gory details.’ ”

  “Jake is indeed a paragon of discretion,” Bruce said.

  “Or maybe Jake simply doesn’t have any gory details to go into,” Jake said.

  “Oh, come on,” Min said. “Everyone does.”

  “There could be a statute of limitations on gory details. A certain number of years after which your record is wiped clean and you’re a virgin again.”

  “How many years?” Rachel asked.

  “That’s a point of debate.”

  “See what I mean?” Min said. “For Jake, evasiveness is an aspect of discretion, which is in turn an aspect of taste. The most crucial aspect, I remember Pablo telling me once. When you’re selling taste, he said, you have to demonstrate taste, in your life as much as your work.”

  “I wonder if that’s the case with Eva,” Rachel said. “If when people go into the gory details, as she calls them, she regards it as an offense against taste.”

  “It’s not that complex,” Bruce said. “Put plainly, my wife is a prude. Always has been.”

  “Eva? A prude?” Min said. �
��I protest.”

  “Protest as you will, have you ever once said ‘fuck’ in her presence? I’ll bet you a hundred bucks you’ll find you can’t do it.”

  “That’s a matter of etiquette.”

  “I rest my fucking case.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “If Eva were here, you’d say ‘For goodness’ sake.’ ”

  “Aaron wouldn’t,” Rachel said.

  “He has a special dispensation.”

  The Bedlingtons, having concluded their examination of the women’s legs, were now exploring the meadow. Isabel was shitting. Caspar was sniffing a twig. Ralph was moving in the direction of the woods.

  “Come on, Jake, we’d better get out of here,” Bruce said. “Otherwise the dogs might get eaten by panthers.”

  “Panthers?” Sandra said. “Are you serious?”

  All the others looked at her. “You mean you haven’t heard of the legendary Connecticut panther?” Bruce said.

  “No, but then again I haven’t spent that much time in Connecticut.”

  “An endangered species. Since 2015 only seven have been spotted, all within five miles of this house.”

  “Hold on, you’re joking, right?”

  The others burst out laughing. Sandra flushed. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “You know I don’t have a sense of humor and you took advantage of it.”

  “What makes you so sure we’re joking?”

  Sandra took her phone out of her purse and started typing. “It’s a football team,” she said after a few seconds. “The Connecticut Panthers is a football team. Jesus, you nearly scared me to death.”

  To make Sandra feel better, Jake said, “For a second there he had me fooled, too.”

  “Shit, he’s heading for the woods,” Bruce said, hurrying to catch up to Ralph, who was about to cross Grady’s property line.

  “Do you think we got away with that?” Min asked after the men had left. “I mean, do you think they realized we were smoking?”

  “So what if they did?” Rachel said, taking a fresh joint from her pocket and lighting it. “They were probably hoping we’d offer them a hit.”

  “If Eva found out—”

  “Relax, even if they noticed, they’re not going to tell her.”