Etiquette for the End of the World

by Jeanne Martinet

  ***

  Except for one winter she had traveled to Chicago, Tess had never been anywhere as cold as it was right now, in mid-December on Manhattan’s Riverside Drive. The freezing wind was galing at about forty miles an hour. It was beyond unpleasant; it was sadistic. She was supposed to meet Betty Phoenix here on the corner of Riverside and 95th, but she hoped she did not have to wait long. Thank god she had her mother’s mink hat. She hardly ever wore it—she was always afraid of getting yelled at by a PETA person. Today was the kind of day she couldn’t care less. Let them yell. It was sure as hell too windy for throwing paint.

  Tess had been worried the librarian would hang up on her when she called. But after a brief pause, Ms. Phoenix had asked her tersely what she wanted.

  “I am so sorry to call you at home,” Tess said. “But I have not been able to forget about that missing book of yours. It seemed so important. It’s haunting me, frankly. I know you are not at the library anymore, but I’m hoping you might be willing to meet with me. Can I buy you a cup of coffee somewhere?”

  The librarian paused for a moment, then said sharply, “Let me have your number and I’ll call you back.”

  Tess figured that was that, so she was more than a little surprised when Betty Phoenix actually did return her call. She had told Tess she did not want to explain further on the phone, that she wanted to meet in person.

  In person was fine, but here on the coldest corner of the city? “What ever happened to meeting at Starbucks?” Tess muttered under her breath, turning her back to the wind and holding her hat on with both hands.

  “Ms. Eliot?”

  Tess turned and saw her, swathed head to toe in a dark green velvet coat with a fur-lined hood. Just like Julie Christie in Doctor Zhivago, Tess thought. I can barely see her face. Betty Phoenix beckoned to her and without a word crossed Riverside Drive toward the entrance to the park.

  In the summer, Tess ran, rode her bike, and walked in this park, fighting for every inch of space with the hordes of other recreating New Yorkers. But on a cold winter day like this one, the park was utterly deserted. Tess caught up with the woman and asked where they were going. Ms. Phoenix, clutching the neck of her coat closed, yelled out over the wind, “To see a friend of mine!”

  Tess was thinking that this meeting had not been such a good idea, as they worked their way south on the path. They passed the 91 Street garden, now barren, and headed down the promenade. It was weird to be walking for so long without talking. When they got to the turnoff that led to the river, Tess became even more anxious. “Ms. Phoenix? Betty? Where exactly are we going?” The librarian stopped and turned around, putting both her arms on Tess’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. We’re almost there.” Now Tess could see her face had the kind, serene appearance she remembered, and she breathed a little easier.

  At the bottom of the long hill, they walked under the highway overpass to the lonely path that ran right alongside the river. They had to hold on to each other to keep from slipping on the ice. The wind was whipping even more fiercely. This was so nuts. She should have asked Peter to come with her—though he would have never understood; he would have just laughed at her. Actually the person she should have asked was Richie. But that would have been weird, since she had never seen him outside the Scrub-a-Dub-Pub. Tess wondered if she had some kind of automatic tracking GPS on her phone. She was suddenly sorry she never listened to Matt when he would insist on explaining things like that to her. At least she had Ginny’s work number on speed dial. She patted the front of her purse to reassure herself her phone was there.

  When they arrived at the gate to the 79 Street Boat Basin, Tess finally understood where they were headed. The librarian took a key out of a pocket and unlocked the gate to the marina, then locked it behind her again. (What is it with this woman and keys?) They made their way down the main pier to a narrow walkway—which served as a sidewalk over the water for the two houseboats moored there. One boat looked totally boarded up; the other had lights on inside. It was a rickety, rust-stained two-story structure. The walkway was bobbing up and down wildly with the roiled-up tide. Tess had to hold tightly to the rope handrail. Ms. Phoenix entered the houseboat without knocking, and Tess followed.

  When they got inside, it was surprisingly warm and cozy. Tess glanced around and spotted, among the sparse furnishings, space heaters in every corner. It might not be safe, but at least it felt blessedly warm.

  There was a tall boy sitting at a small table next to a window, and a pot of something in front of him, and three cups.

  “Come in. Hi!” On closer inspection he was not a boy, but a young man in his early twenties, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair. It looked unwashed. But perhaps bathing was a hardship on a houseboat. “I’m Betty’s friend, Gregory Frankstein,” he said, remaining seated and holding up one hand in greeting.

  “Frankstein?” She had not meant to sound so incredulous. At least he pronounced it with a long “e.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” He smiled tolerantly.

  Tess and Betty joined him at the little table. Gregory Frankstein poured out some kind of brown tea from the chipped pot. He was very thin, gaunt even, but he had an intelligent, self-possessed air about him, and sharp eyes.

  “Tess, I am sorry to be strange about this whole thing, so enigmatic.” Betty began. “The day after we met, I called in sick at work and never went back. Frankly, I had been uneasy about that document for some time, and somehow when you came in asking about end myths, and then it had disappeared … well, it woke me up.

  “You see, Tess … for me this was a long awaited catalyst for a much needed change. A big change. A life change. I am never going back to the library; it no longer feels like a safe place. I went to my astrologist”—here Gregory Frankstein rolled his eyes, but Betty ignored him—“and she convinced me that I needed to alter my whole direction immediately.”

  Tess nodded, a polite smile plastered on her face, but inside she was beginning to panic. What was she doing in this deserted marina with two complete strangers, at least one of whom seemed to be having some sort of nervous breakdown? What in god’s name had she been thinking? Who did she think she was, Miss Marple?

  “And so you did?” asked Tess, trying not to worry about the violence of the wind outside, which was making her wonder how float-worthy this houseboat was. It was definitely rocking, though it was more of a hammock kind of rocking than a we’re-going-to-capsize rocking.

  “Yes,” Betty breathed a shy smile. “I am going to travel. Wander the world. I don’t have a lot of money but I am looking into ways one can travel on a small budget. I want to see everything I can … just in case.”

  ”In case? … Um … . In case what?”

  “Tess, it’s time to tell you about the contents of the document.” Here we go, thought Tess. Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Missing Library Book. Betty took a sip of the brown tea, put her cup back down, and then clasped her hands together, the way she had in the little library office. “One day I was attending a meeting in our second-floor conference room. I was the first to arrive, and when I was sitting down I saw some papers on the floor, underneath me, halfway under the table. Naturally I picked them up, thinking I would return them if it was something important, or dispose of it if it was not. I was rather shocked to see the stationery. It was an NSA document.”

  “NSA? Like, the actual NSA? The National Security Agency?”

  ”Yes.”

  “And no one knows how it got there?” asked Tess.

  Betty shook her head. “No … but I can’t say that I ever asked anyone about it in a direct fashion. I was too nervous. As I said, this was an official-looking NSA document, with a raised seal and everything. It was about ten pages long. I became more and more frightened as I started to read it … . That is, I was unable to understand all the science … there were detailed, complicated blueprints—drawings of molecules that certainly looked convincing, mathematical formulas and diagrams that I could
not begin to decipher. But there was a summary at the top.”

  “Well?” Tess prodded her, as Betty had paused. Gregory calmly sipped his tea, waiting. Tess wanted to be polite but was squeamish about what the murky brown tea would taste like, so she brought the cup up to her lips and tipped it, without drinking. It smelled like the water left over after steaming broccoli.

  Betty sat up very straight and placed both her hands in her lap. “It was for … a deadly computer virus.”

  “A computer virus?” Tess repeated, feeling at once relieved and oddly let down. “I don’t mean to be cavalier, Betty, but, as far as I know, there are computer viruses created—and nullified—every day.” Smiling, she looked over at the young man for confirmation.

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” said Betty.

  “How could she?” interjected Gregory, running a hand through his greasy hair. His fingernails were dirty also. He turned to Tess. “When she read the material, Betty was so unsettled—”

  “I was afraid to turn the papers in to anyone, afraid that then the Powers That Be would know I had seen them,” Betty said.

  “So she brought the thing to me to have a look.” Gregory went on. “I happen to have a background in a very experimental field of nanotechnology. Though it may not look like it, from my living conditions … ” With the hand that was holding the teacup, he made a quick sweeping motion indicating the interior of the boathouse. Tess was amazed that none of the liquid spilled out. Living on the water must have given him a special sense of balance. “I have a PhD from Dartmouth. I was in fact briefly employed by the Pentagon. But that’s neither here nor there.” Tess noticed his lip curled slightly when he mentioned the Pentagon.

  Betty set down her cup and looked intently at Tess. “It’s a real bug, an actual insect. You know, with legs.”

  “Pardon?” Tess felt the gears in her brain trying to catch hold.

  “Gregory?” Betty turned back to him.

  He got up from his chair, his head almost touching the low ceiling, to turn the stove on for more hot water. His oversize olive-green sweater had holes at the elbows. “What it is, in essence, is a microscopic, super-reproducing living organism that consumes all computer circuits, telephone lines—anything that carries an electromagnetic pulse—at super-speed. And it would, hypothetically, multiply even faster than it eats.”

  “But … but,” stammered Tess. “So everyone’s computer would crash?”

  Gregory smiled sardonically. “This kind of techno-bug? Theoretically, that is, if it worked the way it is designed to—and were deployed effectively—all electricity, all travel, all communications all over the world, could be gone in a matter of a few days. Let me put it this way,” he continued, sitting down again. “Say several governments unleashed smallpox, Ebola, plague, and tularemia all at once. Then the U.S., Korea and China and the Russians and the Iranians all send up nukes.” He leaned forward and peered intensely at Tess, as though he were trying to shoot his conviction to her through his eyes. “This bug would be faster.”

  A sudden gust of wind caused the boat to lurch and creak. Tess was experiencing a weird buzzing in her head. She wished with all her heart that she had not come. She did not want to believe what she was hearing, and yet Gregory Frankstein spoke with such authority; he really sounded as if he knew what he was talking about. Somehow he seemed credible. But of course the idea was totally insane. Why was she even listening to this? Perhaps they had put something hallucinogenic in her tea. Then she remembered she had not drunk any of the tea.

  “Until you walked into the library that day,” Betty said, “it never really occurred to me that anyone would actually manufacture and use such a thing. I thought of it like other types of biological warfare and plans for weaponry that the government has stashed away in their top-secret closets. You know, they don’t really mean to use it; it’s just to threaten with, to frighten the enemy. In fact, I picked the silly beetle book to hide the papers in to try to make myself feel the whole thing was not real, that it was like a game.”

  They all sat in silence for a minute while the wind wailed against the plastic windows of the houseboat.

  “But now you’re saying someone—and who knows who it is—has obtained these plans.” Tess said slowly. She felt as if she were in a nightmare and could not wake herself up.

  Tess looked at Betty. Betty looked at Gregory. Gregory looked at Tess. Then they all took a sip of tea at the same time (Tess having momentarily forgotten her resolve not to have any). It tasted bitter and a little rusty.

  Then it hit her. All the predictions, all the rational and irrational fears people were having about the end of the world, the things she had been researching for weeks—nothing she had come across had ever seemed to be a viable, imminent possibility. As in something that could happen fast. It was all just interesting supposition, or scary fairy tales. But this: This might be real. This was something that could be engineered.

  Not a prophecy fulfilled, but a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Chapter Seven

  “How do you feel about kissing a man in an apron?”

  Somehow, even with the frilly red apron tied around his waist, Peter looked incredibly sexy, in his crisp white oxford shirt and burgundy tie, and his flawless wavy dark hair. Like a celebrity chef, ready for his close-up. He was in the kitchenette, which was separated from the living room area by a sleek marble counter. There was Henry Mancini–type jazz playing from an unseen source. Tess thought the whole scene very Mad Men.

  “I’ll let you know the next time I’m wearing one,” Tess quipped back at him, putting down her purse and taking off her coat, letting them drop onto a black leather sofa. Tess had let herself into the apartment with the key she found under the mat, as Peter had instructed when he’d called to tell her he was staying in one of the apartments that lined Gramercy Park. It was a large modern apartment, sparsely but tastefully decorated. The walls were almost entirely bare. The furniture was mostly dark leather. It looked either as if the owners had not lived there very long or that this was not their primary residence.

  Whatever Peter was stirring in the pot smelled heavenly. “You know,” said Tess, “if you are trying to seduce me by making me dinner, let me save you some time. We’re already sleeping together.”

  “I’m making mushroom risotto, so technically it’s the rice I’m seducing tonight.” He raised an eyebrow and gave her one of his “you and I share a wonderful secret” smiles. She was starting to think of this as his Svengali smile; he used it on almost everyone, and she had watched its melting effect on others with mixed feelings. And who cooks in a white dress shirt and a tie? She found herself sometimes missing Matt’s down-to-earth ways. Often on Saturday night she and Matt would just lie all schlumpy on the couch with their socked feet touching each other, reading back issues of The New Yorker and eating chips and salsa.

  Peter stared into the pot as he tended the rice. He looked serious standing there cooking, with unusually intense concentration. Except when he was sleeping, she rarely saw his face in repose. Maybe it was the overhead kitchen light making shadows, but he looked older and a little tired.

  He took the spoon out and put the lid on the pot, turning off the flame. “Tough day at the office, sweetheart?” he said gaily, in his customary playacting manner, and he was his debonair self again. He handed her a glass of red wine.

  “Mmmm,” Tess murmured appreciatively, talking a sip. “So whose apartment is this, Peter?” It crossed her mind that she had never seen Peter in the same place twice.

  “An acquaintance lent it to me. So I could cook for you.” Tess doubted very much that he had gotten this apartment for the sole purpose of cooking dinner for her, but it was a nice sentiment.

  “Really? An acquaintance from where?”

  Peter struck a pose, frowning with his mouth and eyebrows. “Ah … I’ve got a lawyer acquaintance downtown,” he intoned, in a spot-on Marlon Brando impersonation. Tess couldn’t help laughing, it was so goo
d. Peter pulled off the apron and hung it on a closet doorknob, then came out from behind the counter. He put his arms around her and kissed her on the side of the neck, humming against her skin in a way that always weakened her knees. Peter certainly knew where all the buttons were. His usual clean soap smell was mixed with garlic. “The time has come for me to ask a service of you … something that will go a long way, toward setting things right with the family,” he said, still doing his Brando.

  “What’s that?” Tess said, smiling up at him.

  “Set the table?” In a flash Brando was gone. White teeth back, eyes twinkling.

  She went to the round glass table to move his jacket from where it was draped over the back of a chair. His suits were so exquisite, always the nicest fabric. Running her hand over the shoulder, she stopped. Just below the lapel, the coat was mended with tiny stitches, just as she remembered from the one at the Waldorf … . But this was a different jacket from the one she had seen before. The other had been a tuxedo. How odd.

  Peter’s mushroom risotto was perfectly cooked, and sank creamily into her taste buds. Tess was pleasantly surprised. She knew how much time it took to make perfect risotto; Peter did not seem the type to spend hours in the kitchen. Since she had been seeing him, she had learned that he had other clients besides WOOSH for whom he was fund-raising, which was why he was always busy, attending a seemingly continuous stream of social events. Tess loved hearing secondhand about the ones she did not go to—the people he met, the gossip he overheard. But recently she had begun to be bothered by his avoidance of any real conversation about his life beyond the superficial. They would go to a play and have an intricate discussion afterward about the relationship between the characters, but anytime they veered toward his own past, he would make a joke and change the subject. Since Tess did not really feel like talking about her own life these days, this staying on the surface suited her most of the time. But there was a tiny warning bell going off in the back of her head, a warning she could hear when she chose to pay attention. Her whole life was such a flail these days. Was Peter a part of this flail?