“I thought you were supposed to stay away from me. Why are you even talking to me?”
“That’s the good news,” exclaimed Peter. “The moratorium had been lifted. Herr Orbus has done an about-face, for whatever reason.”
Tess knew, of course, that since Wayne Orbus thought Tess was now one of his “inner circle,” he no longer cared what Peter might inadvertently let slip in front of her. “What about Marla and your mended suits—that sob story about how she went off her meds and mutilated your wardrobe? Are you going to tell me that’s the truth?”
For an instant, Peter looked ragged and tired, almost lost; but in another instant the confident mask was back in its place. “I’ve been wanting to tell you the truth for so long, Tess,” he said, “I know you are the only one who can understand.” He reached out to try to touch her hair, and Tess moved back a few inches so he only met with open air. Out of the corner of her eye, she could feel Richie watching them, ready to pounce.
“So?”
Peter retracted his hand, curling it around his glass. He sipped his drink. “I told you the truth when I said I had stiff alimony payments and financial difficulties. And I’m not proud of this, but, well—it was just a cash-flow thing, you understand—but occasionally when donors would send me a check, I would be forced to … borrow some of the money, before it went into the WOOSH coffers. I was going to pay it back, naturally.”
It took a second for this to sink in.
“Isn’t that called embezzlement?” said Tess.
“Between Hollywood and WOOSH, I can’t see that it was such a big crime—I mean, would they really miss it? Aren’t they sort of asking for it, Tess? Do you really think Orbus uses all that money for the future well-being of his followers? Have you seen pictures of his mansion in England?” She refrained from telling him she had experienced that mansion in person. “And what happens when the world doesn’t end? Is he going to give all the money back? Orbus is the real crook, not me!”
Tess was silent.
“Anyway, Orbus found out about the money, I’m not sure how,” Peter went on. “Probably that little rat-faced Alfred Hassenbach.” He flashed his gleaming white teeth at Tess, still hoping, even now, they would work their magic on her, that she would be willing to bond with him again in their mutual distaste for Alfred. “Orbus had hard proof, and he could use it anytime he wanted, and so he had me. I was compelled to do whatever he wanted. Please believe me: I never wanted to hurt you.”
“And the suits? That whole story about Marla? You were certainly convincing.” Tess cringed remembering how touched she was that he had been “opening up” so much by telling her the Marla story.
“Alfred attacked my suits—I don’t even know why. The guy is really a sick puppy. He may be jealous, I don’t know. One day I found him coming out of my hotel room and he had cut up all my jackets. I complained to Orbus, and he told me if I ever let anyone know what Alfred had done, that he would turn me in to the police.” Peter seemed bitter. “But Marla really is crazy. That part was the truth.”
“And you never thought you might want to warn me about Alfred?”
“Tess, why do you think I made sure I became your liaison instead of him?” He smiled again, searching her face, “You know how much I care about you.”
Tess looked at the exquisite head and face of Peter Barrett, his big soft brown eyes, his long lashes and dimpled chin. How could she have ever been attracted to this man? He was like a beautiful show dog, chasing his own tail.
“Peter, you should go.” She stood up.
“Come on, Tess.” He got up and put out his arms for a hug. She saw Richie make a move to leave his place behind the bar. She signaled him to stay put.
Firmly, she shook Peter’s hand and then, softening a little, gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “Peter, good luck to you. I have a feeling you may need it.”
And with that, she guided him to the door of the Scrub-a-Dub-Pub, watched him leave, and shut the door behind him.
***
Ginny was waiting for Tess on the corner of Delancey and Essex, holding her hat down against the gusty wind with one hand and her wool coat closed with the other. This was the day that Tess was going to show Ginny Richie’s new studio space.
Richie had finally acquiesced: he had agreed to let Tess lend him the money—out of her WOOSH payment and soon-to-be-obtained inheritance—to rent the space and equipment he really needed to help make his furniture design dreams a reality. He had argued with her for weeks, but she finally played the by now well-worn “the world might come to an end anyway, so what’s the difference” card, and he had caved. It was a beautiful open space on Clinton Street, with high ceilings and good light. Richie had already completed three new pieces. Tess thought they were brilliant.
When Tess and Ginny got to the building, Richie wasn’t there and they couldn’t get in. Tess texted him, and he replied that he had had to leave unexpectedly to pick up some materials. He said he would be about half an hour, so they went around the corner for coffee.
“I have a present for you, Ginny,” Tess said when they sat down, a smug expression on her face. She handed her a rectangular parcel wrapped in recycled brown paper.
Ginny unwrapped it. It was a hardcover book with a green mushroom cloud on the cover. “Oh, Tess! It’s the WOOSH book! I can’t believe it.”
“Hot off the press—if this kind of old-fashioned press gets hot. Look at the typeface—isn’t it kind of cool? Even if it doesn’t have my name on it.”
“It seems like you started this thing a hundred years ago.” Ginny took a thoughtful sip of her coffee, and she met Tess’s solemn gaze.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said Tess. “Let’s hope no one actually needs this. You know, I met with Dakota a few days ago. I won’t go to the WOOSH offices because of Alfred—she doesn’t realize I’m afraid of him, she just thinks I don’t like him. Anyway we met at an Indian restaurant so she could give me copies of the guide and my final check.”
“Hey, coffee’s on you!”
“Definitely. But Dakota and I found ourselves comparing notes on our earthquake dreams,” said Tess, “which we’ve both been having. I’ve been having them every four or five days.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I guess I’m lucky—the last time I had a dream about an earthquake it was just Bill snoring. But remember, Tess, all you’ve been doing for the past year is reading and writing about disaster scenarios.”
“Dakota always says 12/21 will be the beginning, so I don’t know why she’s having earthquake disaster dreams.” Tess smiled at Ginny’s eye roll. Lately, whenever Tess started feeling too spooked, she would try to talk to Dakota, who firmly believed that something was indeed going to happen but that it would be ultimately good. So what if she had a few cookies missing from her jar? Tess found her energy calming.
Tess’s phone chimed. It was Richie, who was back in the studio. As they left the coffee shop, bundling up against the November cold to walk the block and a half to the Clinton Street building, Ginny shook her head and laughed.
“You and your gay-man-turned-straight,” Ginny teased her. “Don’t you know it’s supposed to be the other way around? You’ve turned the world on its head, Tess Eliot.”
***
Tess counted out twenty black peppercorns, slid them inside the plastic baggie, and began to whack the bag with the rolling pin. She was making peposa, an Italian peasant stew, for dinner. Matt and his new girlfriend were coming over to have dinner. Richie was out buying the wine. Before he left, Tess had half-joked, “It must be the end of the world if we’re having Matt and Claire over for dinner!” But when Matt had come over to get his furniture, they’d had a really nice talk, and Tess realized how much she missed his friendship. He was with a more age-appropriate woman now, and they seemed truly happy.
“What are you beating on, Tessie?” asked Jason, from where he was sitting at the kitchen table.
Tess liked it when he called her Tess
ie. She never would have believed how close she could feel to a six-year-old.
“I’m smashing up pepper so the meat in the stew will be extra spicy. But don’t worry, I’m keeping some plain out for you, Jay.”
He was playing with the hand-crank radio Aunt Charlotte had given Tess for her birthday. Tess had brought it out from the back of the closet, figuring that they might as well keep handy, just in case. Jason loved the red face Charlotte had painted on the back, and he was getting a huge kick out of winding the thing up, and then turning the dial to find stations. He had never seen any radio that was not digital; the whole dial concept was fascinating to him.
Watching him with Charlotte’s radio, Tess suddenly got a chill right up her spine: Charlotte had been talking about Jason. Her aunt had predicted Tess was going to have a son within the year, and Tess had laughed it off. She put down the rolling pin, went over to Jason, and put her arms around his small frame. She already loved him more than she would have thought possible.
Chapter Fourteen
On the morning of December 21, 2012, as people all over the world watched for signs of the long foretold global disaster, Tess and Richie were making eggs Benedict. Jason was already away with his mother and her family for the Christmas holidays. Richie and Tess decided they were going to celebrate all day long, instead of sitting around worrying.
They went for a long walk in Central Park in the snow. When they came back, Victor was on the door. They sat with him in the lobby and talked about snow—how cold it was, how deep it could get. They went upstairs and unplugged their computers and the wireless router, even though they felt slightly stupid doing it. (What would unplugging matter, if the whole grid went down?) Then Tess and Richie spent the rest of the afternoon and night drinking champagne and making love, occasionally turning the TV to CNN, especially between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m. (according to the Twelve Twenty-one-ers, the end-time on the east coast of the United States was supposed to be 6:11 p.m.)
They woke up the next day around eleven. Tess rolled over and, taking a deep breath, reached out to turn on the radio. No big news—everything seemed normal. They turned on the TV. No emergency broadcasts. Just the normal programming, which was mostly sports.
Richie started pulling on his pants, looking around for his shirt. “I’m going out to get The Times,” he told her.
Tess decided to plug her computer back in. Of course it was possible the stuff just didn’t work as fast, and the little bugs were still coming down the pike, but what the hell. The second she connected to the internet she saw she had an email from her brother asking her to Skype him when she got up. She emailed him back to see if he was available.
“Hi, Stuart,” she waved at his head, once she could see him. Tess did not really like Skyping: because of the camera angle you could never look the other person in the eye, which she found disconcerting. But she had seen Stuart so little over the past year that she appreciated seeing his face in any form. Especially today, the day after the world, apparently, did not end!
“I’ve got news. Nancy wanted to be on the call too.” Oh, wow, Tess figured, the baby must have been born early! But Stuart said, “Can you believe it, they finally telephoned me this morning. Talk about a day late and a dollar short! Nothing like the U.S. government for efficiency.”
“Forget the politics, Stuart, and tell me what they said.”
“Tess, get this: the stuff was a dud. Orbus is either completely out of his mind, or his scientists were, or both.”
“But what if … maybe we just killed the sample, exposing it to heat, and whatever else, after it left Orbus’s lab. Maybe it’s only our vial that was a dud.”
“No, listen,” Stuart was chuckling, and Tess could see Nancy behind him in the room. She was huge, looked ready to drop. She was smiling and waving. “My gal who knows the guy at the NSA lab said they basically just made really tiny dung beetles.”
“What?” said Tess.
“The stuff’s is active all right. But apparently these nano-beetles just want to eat dirt, not computer circuits. They are thinking Orbus may have a fortune in a new cleaning product, if he could get it past the FSA—that’s the British version of the FDA.”
“That’s insane. I wonder if Orbus knows by now that something is wrong.”
“Who knows,” replied Stuart. “That guy is going to be under surveillance for the rest of his life, if he’s not already locked up. Okay, we gotta run—we’re meeting Nancy’s folks. I just wanted to see your face when I told you.”
“Thanks for everything, Stuart.”
“Bye, sis. Merry Christmas.”
Tess greeted Richie at the door with Stuart’s news, and they hugged, and laughed, and then started teasing each other for believing such a crazy thing could ever have been possible. Still, they searched the internet for reports of earthquakes, volcanoes erupting, comets falling to earth, terrorist attacks. There were no major disasters, it seems, anywhere in the world.
Tess called Harriet in Mexico.
“Tess, are you there? Are you okay? Well, stay inside anyway. Carlos and Ana and I have enough supplies to last for five years—I may never come home. Maybe it was all a plot to get people to buy bottled water. Tess, guess what? I can do the stairs, up and down. Carlos has to watch me, but still …”
For once, Harriet cut the call short. After ten minutes, she said, “I’m still nervous about being on the phone, Tess, and besides I have to go, Margie and Will are coming by on their way out of the country … . Apparently Will broke one of those crystal skulls and he’s heading for the hills!”
Tess and Richie could not stop looking at the news on TV. “You can feel the letdown in the media,” Richie said with a wry smile. “The reporters are filling the air with ‘what might have happened.’”
“Funny thing is,” Tess said, “I feel kind of let down too. Isn’t that weird? It wasn’t like I wanted the world to come to an end, but it did make—”
“It made us focus on the important things,” finished Richie.
“Do you think that’s why people jump out of planes?” Tess wondered.
“I guess. But if you jump out of a plane, it’s sort of like purposely setting your house on fire and then putting it out, if you know what I mean.”
“I do,” said Tess, snuggling happily up under his beard.
They took their coffee and the papers and got back in bed. Tess, who had slept only about five hours, started to doze off. Maybe she and Dakota would finally stop having earthquake dreams now.
“Hey, Tess, look at this.” Richie said suddenly. He folded the newspaper twice, creased it, and handed it to Tess, so she could read it without sitting up:
MEXICO CITY, Mexico — The world’s anthropological community was shocked when a relatively minor earthquake (4.2 on the Richter scale) that occurred early on the morning of December 21 caused the famous Aztec Calendar Stone—otherwise known as the Sun Stone, or the “Sun of the Five Eras”—to fall from its pedestal, where it has rested against the wall at the Museo Nacional del Antropologia since the museum’s opening in 1964. The 24-ton disk-shaped artifact crashed onto the floor of the museum, where it cracked into several pieces. Luckily, the museum had not yet opened for the day; there were no injuries reported. The stone was 12 feet in diameter and 3 feet thick. There was no other damage reported in the area. Experts are looking into possible causes of the strange accident.
***
Two weeks later Ginny and Bill were lolling on the couch, and Tess and Richie were curled up in the chair-lounge he had made her for one of her Christmas presents. It was the most amazing thing Tess had ever sat on—or rather sat in. It was shaped a little like an old-fashioned bathtub; it allowed two people to cuddle perfectly, while they could also sit apart in it just as comfortably. Jason was looking at a book while lying in the backseat of the Cyclops—his favorite spot in the apartment—with Carmichael sleeping on his stomach.
Ginny and Bill had come over for a celebratory “the world did not e
nd” brunch, and they had all eaten so many blueberry and banana pancakes (a specialty of Richie’s—wonders never cease!) that they were lying around in a pleasantly satiated stupor. When the phone rang, Tess almost didn’t get up to answer—she was so cozily ensconced in the chair with Richie—but as Nancy was due any minute, she forced herself to propel her body out of the most comfortable chair in the world to see who it was.
“That’s weird,” Tess said, looking at the caller ID display on the phone, “it looks like it’s someone from Brown Hill. Do you think it’s for you? On a Saturday?” She started toward Ginny with the phone but Ginny gave her a mischievous smile and shook her head no.
“Is this Tess Eliot?” It was a woman. The voice had a confident ring to it.
“Yes?”
“The Tess Eliot who wrote Etiquette for the End of the World?”
“Um … yes?”
“This is Deborah Keller. I work with Ginny Bach? She gave me a copy of the book and Tess, we all just love it. We’ve had a preliminary talk with Dakota Flores over at WOOSH, and I think she’s amenable to our expanding into commercial markets, with you listed as the author. We think it could really sell. We especially like your last chapter, “Twelve Rules to Live and Die By.”
Tess tried to catch up to what was happening. “Wait. You mean, you want to publish it, even though the world didn’t end?”
“Tess, the world is always ending, don’t you know that? Can you come in sometime soon for a meeting? We need to talk.”
“Any time you like,” Tess said with a smile.
Etiquette For the End of the World
By Tess Eliot
CHAPTER 10
Twelve Rules to Live and Die By
Rule #1: Don’t panic—it will only attract the sharks.
There are a lot of scary things out there now, things that will trigger your fight-or-flight instinct. Try to stave off the panic; instead, pause and think. Panic is a frenzied, illogical state that is for the most part nonconstructive. At best it saves you only temporarily; at worst it signals to nearby predators that you are vulnerable, like pouring blood into shark-infested waters. And, yes, it’s always possible that the situation may require you to fight or flee—for instance, if someone is about to throw something at you or has just invited himself to stay in your house indefinitely, with his entire extended family. But if you can, take three deep breaths, and then take three more. Act bravely in the face of fear.
Etiquette for the End of the World Page 25