Etiquette for the End of the World

by Jeanne Martinet

  ***

  For the second time in two weeks Tess put on her best party shoes, black satin three-inchers—a sure sign her social life was picking up. First there had been the “Hollywood” party with Peter and now this museum affair. Though tonight she was really looking forward to spending time just looking at the art. The last time she had come to the Metropolitan Museum it had been with Matt, for the Rothko exhibit, and he had distracted her by whispering inane things in her ear the whole time like “It’s a pretty color, but you or I could paint that, couldn’t we?” and “As fuzzy squares go, I guess this one is nice.” When she had shared that story with Richie recently, he had remarked (with his customary subtle wit), “Well, as ‘fuzzy squares’ go, I might take Rothko over your ex.”

  Everything went smoothly getting into the van outside Harriet’s apartment building; the driver pushed Harriet up the ramp and got her buckled in easily. But when they arrived in front of the Met, Tess had to take over. She found the wheelchair difficult to navigate through the Fifth Avenue crowd, especially in her heels. There was also the issue of Harriet’s enormous bag filled with medicines, inhalers, and lumbar pillow. As Tess struggled to steer the chair along the narrow sidewalk by the parking garage, she could feel the muscles in her back protesting. The thing was harder to maneuver than she had remembered; she was terrified that at any second she might dump Harriet into the street.

  By the time they finally got through the special-event check-in and up to the exhibition space on the second floor of the museum, Tess was exhausted. But a cursory glance around the exhibition space improved her mood greatly. The event was the opening for an exhibit of Mexican muralists, including Diego Rivera and David Alvaro Siqueiros, two artists Tess really adored. It made sense that Harriet would want to come to this; Latin American culture was one of her passions, and she owned a small house in Mexico where she had been going on vacation for years. The large works—some paintings, some lithographs, and some large photographs of murals—were vibrant and bizarre, and painfully emotive. Tess found them comforting. She was also delighted to see trays of champagne and complicated-looking hors d’oeuvres floating by, with tuxedoed waiters attached.

  Tess leaned over to ask Harriet if she wanted a drink, and when she stood back up, knocked right into a passing waiter’s arm, nearly upsetting his tray of drinks.

  “Sorry!” Tess apologized, but Harriet immediately sang out, “Tess, we’re a menace to menaces!” which had been their favorite tension-reliever during their publishing days together. Then she patted Tess’s hand, told her she looked sweet in her little black dress, and launched into her well-worn lecture on how Tess should be actively looking for a husband. Tess wanted to tell Harriet about Peter Barrett, just to make her stop, but she didn’t dare; and so Harriet continued to talk about the efficacies of “dating via the internet” which she had heard was “guaranteed to work.” (As if everyone of Tess’s generation hadn’t been already living and breathing Match.com). To Tess’s great relief, Harriet recognized a friend and waved her over.

  The friend—a thin, elegant Japanese woman in a red silk pantsuit—addressed Tess with “Can I borrow Harriet for a while?” and then propelled her over to a bench in the middle of the room.

  Tess felt her soul ready to open up the same way it did when she sank into a cool ocean on a broiling hot day; she was so ready to push away all her worries and let herself be absorbed by the extraordinary artwork around her. Taking a glass of wine (from a waiter she had not menaced), Tess began to meander through the exhibition galleries. All the guests were busily chatting away, their expensive hair bobbing up and down, their braceletted arms waving in emphasis. Hardly anyone was looking at the art.

  Ordinarily she would have tried to mingle; parties where she didn’t know anyone had always been her specialty. She had even managed to hold her own at Peter’s star-studded affair—although having Peter Barrett as an escort was like being dealt a royal straight flush. Not only did he look spectacular in a tuxedo, but she could not believe how many of the celebrities knew him; he even knew the name of Candice Bergen’s dog. (It also helped that Tess had her stunning dress, and that when she had met Peter in the lobby of Alice Tully Hall he had looked at her as though he had just won something.) Tess had not had the nerve to try to talk to Steve Buscemi, but she held her own in a long conversation with Buck Henry and Seth Meyers. In fact, she only made one faux pas the whole night, when she mistook Kelly Macdonald for Julie Benz and couldn’t cover it. But most of the time she just had fun kidding around with Peter.

  “So have you reeled in any big donor fish?” Tess asked him, when they were standing alone next to an enormous pot of exotic flowers. “Or are you not working for WOOSH tonight?”

  Peter flashed his white teeth. “A fund-raiser never stops fund-raising. These are fertile waters. But I’m afraid you are making it very difficult.”

  “What do you mean?” Tess felt a little zing of fear shoot through her. Had she made some horrible gaffe she was unaware of?

  “Nothing,” said Peter in his sexy, rumpled sheets voice. “It’s just you look outrageously delectable in that dress. I can’t concentrate on anything else.” His eyes were teasing.

  “Oh!” Tess blushed. Everything he said sounded as if it came out of a movie, but Tess didn’t care. It was so unreal that they were standing in the middle of this party of actors and supermodels and Peter seemed interested only in her. She attempted to regain her composure. “Well … thank you, Mr. Barrett … . So can I be of some help? Who’s your next target?”

  They scanned the room, sipping from their glasses.

  “There’s a producer over in the corner with pretty deep pockets,” Peter said, considering. “But unfortunately, his new wife has complete control over those pockets.”

  “Well, why not approach the wife? Don’t you usually have more luck with women?” It was Tess’s turn to tease.

  “But then I’d have to flirt with her. And for some reason, tonight that just does not appeal to me.” He looked down at her in mock puzzlement, as if he could not think of what the reason could be.

  “Oh, wait, that’s right, I forgot! You’re no good at flirting. You are, after all, the least charming man I have ever met.”

  “Well,” Peter said, putting an arm around her waist. “Miss Tess-Knows-Best. Give me a few pointers.”

  “Sure. Call my people and make an appointment. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Tess found this kind of banter great fun, made even more so by the black-tie setting. She felt like Nick and Nora. It was also fun, and exciting, when at a certain point in the party, Peter started to play the game of pretending to be a “real” couple when they were talking to other people. Peter would say, “Sweetheart, what was that play we went to last year, the one where there is a floating table on stage?” And Tess would have to be quick on her feet, and come up with “Oh, yes, Play Dead. I thought you hated that one, darling.”

  Tess had been to a lot of parties filled with strangers, but she could not remember ever having this good a time, and it was because of Peter. He seemed to feel the same way; when he dropped her off in the cab (giving her a very brief, tantalizing kiss on the side of her mouth) he had said in her ear, “You have to come to more of these things with me.” Later, when Tess regaled Ginny with details about the celebrity party (she did not tell Ginny about the good-night kiss), Ginny said, “Oh, my god. It sounds like a tough room. I think I would have plastered myself against the nearest wall—with a big plate of food, of course—and hung on for dear life until the thing was over.”

  Fancy museum openings like this one were not easy either, in Tess’s experience; they tended to be filled with self-important, elitist types. Luckily, tonight she mainly just wanted to soak up the art. Besides, she took it as a bad omen that she had crashed into a waiter. Mingling was like a sport to her, and like any professional, she knew enough to know when to sit one out.

  Certainly, looking at the work of artists like Siqueiros
was at least as good as any conversation she could ever have. Tess had always particularly admired Siqueiros; his work was dark, chaotic, pretty, and disturbed—just like she was these days, she smiled to herself. The images were deeply soothing to her, even with their often violent, mostly political underlying messages … . All at once she stopped. She gaped at a small painting in front of her.

  It was by an artist she had never heard of, someone called Chilam Balam. The title of the painting was The End #1 (Al Final #1). She saw that it was one of a series of four. The top half of the painting was comprised of stars and planets visible in a purple sky; featured in the foreground were a dozen or so large flat-faced human figures, on fire. Their bright orange skin was melting in symmetrical rivulets. Their mouths were open as if screaming, and smoke was coming out. She read the description: “The world being destroyed by fire.” The next painting, The End #2, was a depiction of the same figures, more or less, or rather the outlines of them, covered in light blue ice. The sky was completely black. (“The world being destroyed by ice.”) The End #3 was of figures all lying dead and bloodied, very gory, with guns and knives all still in their hands. (“The world being destroyed by war.”) The End #4 was the most gruesome. There were bodies all lying piled in a heap, a mound of bodies, some dead, some alive and screaming in terror, with stuff on their skin—sores and bugs, and a few rats—with buzzards circling in the sky. Tess looked at the plaque: “The world being destroyed by pestilence.”

  Tess noticed that all of the paintings had a boulder somewhere in the foreground with the same symbol on it. The symbol was a large circle with an intricate design inside. It looked like … could it be the same symbol Dakota had worn as a pendant? It was hard to make it out, so she took a step closer.

  Suddenly a loud shriek assaulted her ears, making her jump in terror. It took her a few seconds to realize she had set off the alarm. A guard was at her side in an instant. “Please step back from the painting, madam.” (Exactly when had she gone from “miss” to “madam”? Tess wondered.) Harriet came rolling over, for once under her own steam, laughing and shaking her head at her, as if to say, “I just can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

  Other people were now looking curiously in their direction, probably secretly hoping for some kind of problem—a crime, a scene, an accident … something to talk about at lunch the next day—so Tess decided to just stand calmly where she was, looking at The End #4 as if nothing had happened. Harriet contemplated the painting along with her.

  “Reminds me of family holidays with my first husband,” Harriet said, breaking the silence.

  Tess chuckled and then asked her, “Do you recognize that symbol on the rock there?”

  Harriet poked her head forward and squinted. “Of course,” she said, leaning back in her chair again. That’s the Sun Stone. It represents the ancient Aztec calendar. Some people mistake it for Mayan. Many archeo-astronomers say it predicts the destruction of Earth.”

  Archeo-astronomers? Tess blinked. She felt the time had come and took a breath for courage. “Harriet … do you by any chance remember that letter you got from a group calling themselves WOOSH?”

  Harriet turned her head sharply to eye Tess with suspicion. “And just how, may I ask, Tess, did you know what was in that letter?”

  “Ah … telepathy?” Tess joked weakly, trying to backpedal.

  “Tess?!”

  Oh, god … . Harriet, okay, I have to tell you something you are not going to like.” She explained how she had swiped the discarded letter from the trash basket and had pursued the project on her own. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, Harriet. I hope you can forgive me. You have to understand that at that moment I felt like I’d been pushed out of a plane without a parachute, financially speaking. It was an impulse, I don’t know what happened to me.” (She did not tell Harriet that she had set up the first meeting by impersonating her. Apology was one thing; foolishness was another.)

  Tess was sure Harriet was going to be truly angry. But to her surprise, Harriet merely raised one imperious eyebrow and snorted.

  “Those people are total fuckers,” she said coolly. “I met some of them in when I was in Mexico.”

  “Well, obviously, their whole theory is crazy, but—”

  “Oh, the theory is not that crazy, Tess. Something could certainly happen. It’s quite possible all the man-made damage (and you will notice I purposely say ‘man,’ not ‘woman’)—the polar ice caps melting, global pollution, opportunistic wars—will finally cause a catastrophic quantum leap of some kind next year. Who knows? Who ever expects a disaster? I’m sure the dinosaurs didn’t expect to be blown up either. Humanity is ripe for a serious shake-up.”

  “But,” Tess said, feeling relieved at not being in trouble but at the same time disoriented at the thought that her ultra-rational mentor could be giving even partial credence to the idea of the imminent destruction of the world. “But … you … you threw away the letter in disgust.”

  “Yes, I did. Goddamn WOOSH. You should stay far away from them. They’re dangerous—and they’re also ridiculous, which is a truly terrible combination. Listen, when I throw something in the trash, Tess Eliot,” Harriet continued, “it’s trash. How long have you known me? But of course if you want to ignore my advice … I mean, after all, you’re the one who insisted she had to leave publishing to go work for a conglomerate of corporate criminals, and we all know all about how well that turned out … .” Shit. So Harriet was mad. Tess felt all the air go out of her body and her face get hot.

  “But, Harriet … Harriet, I’m sorry. I guess taking the letter was a crazy thing to do … . But tell me, what do you know about them? Why are they dangerous? Why should I stay away from them?” Tess squatted down so she could be on the same level as Harriet. She leaned her arm on the arm of the chair and looked into Harriet’s face. To her shock, there were tears in her eyes. Harriet never cried. Tess had only seen her cry once before, the day that George Bush won the election in 2000.

  “They got Margie,” Harriet said in a low voice.

  “Margie?” Tess was lost for a second. “You mean Marge Adams? Marge Adams, who wrote How to Hold Your Head High with you? What do you mean ‘They got her’?” Tess suddenly felt cold. What was happening? What was this: CSI: The Met?

  Harriet’s face looked more haggard than Tess had ever seen it. “Margie and I were down in Mexico together … do you remember?” It was as though she were recalling the words of a long forgotten horror story. “It was during the time you and I were working at Putnam … . And I let you sit in my office while I was gone, and I kept calling you from down there and getting cut off, because they had such crappy phone lines, and Bobby was mad I was in Mexico because he had to fire that bitch editor by himself, the one we hired by mistake—”

  “But, Harriet.” Tess hardly ever dared to interrupt her, but now she couldn’t help it. “What happened to Marge?”

  “Margie Adams was always a sucker for a cute man with a cause,” said Harriet in disgust. “Any kind of cause. She met this tall, rather wispy sculptor at a dinner party, and she really liked him. He was kind of a stylish hippie and a devoted member of WOOSH. Margie fell hat over shoes for that guy. The next thing you know, she is nowhere to be found. I came back to New York without her, and I haven’t seen or heard from her since. Not in the last ten years, Tess! None of her friends knows where she is, or if they do they’re not saying.”

  Tess swallowed. “What was the name of the sculptor?” She had a horrible, fleeting fear that it might be Peter, even though the description was all wrong.

  “The asshole’s name was Chilam Balam.”

  Tess’s eyes widened. She looked back at the painting, leaning forward to check the plaque again. “I think he may have switched media. Someone named Chilam Balam painted these three years ago, in Mexico.”

  Harriet made a sort of gurgling sound and fumbled in her bag for her inhaler. She took two deep puffs then fell silent. She was silent for a long time. Tess was
not used to Harriet not talking. It was scary. Tess started wondering how fast EMTs could make it into the museum and up to the second floor.

  “Harriet? What should I do? Do you want to go home?”

  But Harriet merely asked Tess to go get her a small plate of salmon sushi and little crab cakes, if there were any of them left.

  On her way to the food table, Tess was waylaid by a woman in a gorgeous dark-brown draped dress and six-inch-long feather earrings. She placed a heavily beringed hand on Tess’s arm. “I couldn’t help noticing your fascination with those Armageddon paintings,” she said in a lilting, breathy voice. “I’ve sometimes had dreams like those pictures. I find them very eerie, don’t you? Especially since next year is 2012?”

  As Tess carefully crossed back through the crowded room with the plate of food for Harriet, she remembered the time she had herniated her disc a few years before. As soon as it happened, it was as though all of a sudden everyone she knew or met had a story about how they, or someone close to them, had hurt their back. And now here she was, having never given a thought to the end of the world in her whole life until August, and suddenly all these endtimes people seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. It was obviously the same phenomenon at work.

  So why did she feel like running home and pulling the covers over her head?

  Chapter Five

  When Peter had asked her to meet him at the Waldorf, where he said he was staying, Tess had done a sort of telephonic double take. “You mean the Waldorf Waldorf?” she asked stupidly.

  “No, the Howard Johnson Waldorf,” said Peter. “Of course the Waldorf Waldorf. I’m hoping you’ll join me for dinner.”

  As she slogged through the pouring rain from Grand Central Station to 49th and Park, Tess prayed that the bottoms of her nice green silk pants were not going to be totally ruined by the time she got there. No doubt they would be clinging unattractively to her legs. Fortunately it was not very cold, even though it was November. If she was more familiar with the Waldorf, she might have been able to locate a ladies’ room that had a hair dryer before meeting Peter. But she had only been inside the place once, in 2006, when Samson-Gold’s Private Wealth Management division had had its holiday party there.