Shelter in Place

by David Leavitt

  “Is that OK? OK,” she said, and began again to read the introduction. But though her voice was now amplified, it was still so thin that Bruce could hardly make out what she was saying.

  Once the white-haired woman had concluded her speech, Lydia Davis took to the podium. She looked a little dazed, as if she were having one of those dreams where you find yourself suddenly and inexplicably on a stage, in costume, and expected to act in a play for which you don’t know the lines. That said, her voice was clear and audible, if a little monotone. Just as Aaron had said, the stories were short, most of them a paragraph or two, a few consisting of just a single sentence. Although she enunciated every word, Bruce had trouble making sense of them. To him they sounded like the random things you overhear people saying into their cell phones.

  When, after about half an hour, Lydia Davis said “Thank you,” there was a rush of applause, after which the red-haired clerk escorted her to a desk at the back of the store and instructed the members of the audience who wished to have their books signed to form a line against one of the walls. Although copies of her most recent books were stacked on the desk, hardly anyone bought them. Most of the people in the line, rather, were holding tote bags full of her older books, which, as they arrived at the desk, they handed to her one by one, and which she signed, one by one, without smiling.

  “It’s like she’s in a fugue state,” Aaron said.

  “I’d like to meet her,” Susanna said.

  “Me, too,” Sandra said. “Should we get in line?”

  “No, no,” Rachel said. “We’ll talk to her after the signing. She might want to go out for a drink with us.”

  “You mean you know her?”

  “Of course I know her.”

  “You’ve met her,” Aaron corrected. “And if you think she’ll want to go out for drinks with a bunch of total strangers, you’re deluding yourself. She’ll have minders, people from her publisher. They’ll have made plans for her.”

  “You don’t know that. It’s not a launch. The book didn’t just come out.”

  “I’d really love to get my copy of Break It Down signed,” Sandra said. “That book means so much to me.”

  “Enough to wait forty-five minutes?” Aaron said. “This thing about having books signed—I don’t get it. I mean, a hundred years ago, yes, a signature had some value. But now signed books are a dime a dozen. Have no doubt, once the store’s emptied out, they’ll have her in the back for twenty minutes signing stock. Which is why my advice is that if you really care about having a signed copy, save time and buy one on eBay.”

  “But it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be my copy, the one I’ve read and reread.”

  “If Sandra wants to wait and have her book signed, I don’t see why she shouldn’t,” Bruce said.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t expect anyone to wait with me. Or for me.”

  “I’ll wait with you,” Susanna said.

  “Me, too,” Katy said.

  “What about Eva?” Rachel said. “Oh, where is Eva?”

  “Outside,” Bruce said. “You know she can’t stand crowds.”

  “Don’t torture yourself, Bruce,” Aaron said, patting him on the shoulder. “You head on home. We’ll see you this weekend.”

  “Can we give you a ride?”

  “No need. We drove.”

  “You have a car? I didn’t know you had a car.”

  “Of course we have a car,” Rachel said.

  “Not as shiny as yours, but it serves in a pinch,” Aaron said.

  “Where do you park it at night?”

  “On the street,” Rachel said. “It’s ridiculous, a nightmare. Because of alternate-side-of-the-street parking, twice a week Aaron has to get up at the crack of dawn to move it. The rest of the people in our building pay the super to do it, but Aaron’s too cheap.”

  “What can I say?” Aaron said. “I enjoy the challenge. For example, do you have any idea how many holidays alternate side-of-the-street parking is suspended for? Holidays most of us have never heard of. The lunar new year, Purim, Eid al-Fitr, Solemnity of the Ascension, Eid al-Adha, Simchas Torah, Diwali.”

  “That’s a lot of holidays,” Bruce said. “Well, I’ll be heading off now.”

  “Oh, but I want to say goodbye to Eva,” Sandra said. “I want to, but if I do, I’ll lose my place in line.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll tell her for you. And I’ll see you this weekend.”

  “Yes, this weekend,” Sandra said, looking toward the front of the line.

  Outside the bookstore, Eva was standing on the sidewalk in the posture of someone smoking, though she wasn’t smoking.

  “Eva, is that you?” a male voice asked.

  She turned. It was Matt Pierce.

  “I thought so,” Matt said. “I just couldn’t believe my eyes. Eva Lindquist in Brooklyn!”

  He hugged her, a hug she returned sideways, as was her habit, so that her chest didn’t touch his.

  “I’m not allergic to Brooklyn,” she said.

  “Well, no, I didn’t mean to suggest you were,” Matt said. “It’s just that I think of you so much as a creature of Manhattan, I have trouble imagining you anywhere else. Anyway, how’ve you been? I tried to call you a bunch of times, but you never called back.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Things have just been so awfully hectic lately, what with the arrangements for Venice, and these problems we’ve been having with the dogs.”

  “Oh, no. Are they OK?”

  “They’re fine, just peeing on the furniture. It’s the stress, I think. I’m certainly feeling it. I live these days in a condition of constant dread.”

  “Don’t we all,” Matt said. “Even so, this silent treatment, Eva … I have to be honest, you hurt my feelings. I mean, the way it seemed from my end, one day we were friends, the next you didn’t want to have anything to do me. What happened? Was it the sorrel soup?”

  “It wasn’t that. It wasn’t anything in particular. It was me, not you.”

  “You know, I’m actually glad we ran into each other, because I don’t know if I could have brought myself to tell you this over the phone. Dean broke up with me—in retrospect I suppose it was inevitable—and now I’m, well, a little bit homeless. And before you say it, yes, I know that sounds like being a little bit pregnant, only it’s not. The fact is there are levels of homelessness. There’s the staying-on-friends’-couches level, which is the one I’m on now, and there’s the living-in-a-shelter level, and there’s the sleeping-on-the-street level. The bottom line is, I need help. I’m not above asking for help.”

  It was then that Bruce stepped out of the bookstore. “Oh, hello,” he said to Matt, whose name he still couldn’t remember.

  They shook hands. “Well, it’s been lovely seeing you, Matt,” Eva said. “I’m afraid we’re in a bit of a rush, though. The dogs.”

  “Yes, of course. It’s been good seeing you too. I’ve missed you. Probably that should have been the first thing I said.”

  “Goodnight.”

  “Yes, goodnight,” Bruce said.

  “And don’t forget, the next time you’re having a dinner party, I’m here. Also, if you have any friends who might be having dinner parties—”

  “Thank you, Matt. Goodnight.”

  “What was that about?” Bruce asked as they turned onto South Portland Avenue.

  “Nothing. He’s broke.”

  “Did he ask you for money?”

  “No, he asked me to start having him in again to cook.”

  “But you had him in two nights ago.”

  “Are you really that oblivious? That wasn’t Matt. Matt hasn’t set foot in our kitchen for a month. At least a month. The last time was when we had Jake over.”

  “Then who was it cooking two nights ago?”

  “Ian. Don’t you remember? Or did you think they were the same person?”

  “How am I supposed to know which one is which when they hardly ever come out of the kitchen?”

&nb
sp; “Ian hardly ever comes out of the kitchen. Matt came out of the kitchen all the time. Too much. That was part of the problem. I trust you haven’t forgotten the episode with the scones.”

  “I’ll never forget the episode with the scones. Oh, I meant to tell you, Sandra asked me to say goodnight to you for her. She’s waiting to get her book signed. After that, Aaron and Rachel will give her a lift to wherever she’s staying. Did you know they had a car?”

  “Of course.”

  “Something else everyone seems to know that I don’t. Like who this Lydia Davis is. Or that you had a falling-out with … what’s his name again?”

  “Matt. And it wasn’t a falling-out.”

  “He looked awfully down in the mouth. Couldn’t you do something for him, have him do your next dinner instead of … who’s the other one?”

  “Ian. And he’s a much better cook than Matt.”

  “Really? I haven’t noticed much of a difference.”

  “Look, I have my reasons, all right? It’s partially the cooking, partially some other things that if you don’t mind, I’d rather not go into.”

  “Still, you can’t help feeling sorry for the guy, if he’s broke.”

  “He says he’s broke.”

  “What, you don’t believe him?”

  “I have no idea what his financial situation is. I just don’t see why just because he split up with his boyfriend I should be expected to bail him out. I mean, it’s not as if he isn’t able-bodied. He’s got a college degree and most of a PhD. He could get a job if he wanted to.”

  “Yet you’re perfectly willing to bail out Signora Foot-and-Mouth.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call her that. Her name is Ursula. And it’s an entirely different situation.”

  They had arrived at the Outback. When Bruce aimed his key at it, it squealed. Its lights blinked. Its doors unlocked themselves. Even so, he walked around to open the passenger door for Eva before getting in himself. Like tucking a child into bed, he thought.

  At first they drove in silence, Eva’s gaze focused on the headlights reflected in the window glass, Bruce thinking, as they turned onto the BQE, of Kathy, of the many times she had sat in the seat that now held Eva, pulling it up closer to the glove compartment, since she had shorter legs. To keep Eva from catching on that Kathy had been in the car with him, each time he’d returned from the outpatient center he’d made sure to put the seat back in its original position. And now those days, the days of the outpatient center, were over—unless, when Kathy went in for her next PET scan, something showed up.

  “You drink this horrible stuff so that everywhere there’s cancer, you sparkle,” she’d told him. “The day I was diagnosed, I lit up like a Christmas tree.”

  “Cindy-Lou Who,” he murmured to himself.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. What did you think of the reading?”

  “It was too crowded.”

  “Did you like the stories?”

  “I suppose they were good. It was hard for me to concentrate.”

  “You mean because of the crowd?”

  She didn’t answer. He let a minute pass, then said, “Look, Eva, about this garden—”

  “I don’t want to hear anything from you right now.”

  The severity of her tone surprised him. “But I only wanted to explain—”

  “There’s nothing to explain. The way you behaved today, saying those things in front of Min and Sandra—it was inexcusable.”

  “I’m not making an excuse.”

  “And then just disappearing, without a word, leaving me to clean up the mess—”

  “All I did was take the dogs for a walk. I needed to clear my head.”

  “—not that my clean-up efforts made any difference. Min and Sandra have eyes. They have ears. They understood perfectly well what was going on.”

  “Look, I felt blindsided, OK? Before tonight you hadn’t said anything about a garden.”

  “And that’s because every time anything’s come up with this apartment, even the most run-of-the-mill thing, you’ve jumped down my throat.”

  “Since when is paying cash under the table a run-of-the-mill thing? Since when is paying a bribe—”

  “A fine.”

  “—or buying a hallway? These so-called run-of-the-mill things, Eva—do you realize how much they’ve cost us so far? Nearly 40K. That’s more than we pay Amalia in a year.”

  “You know perfectly well that what we pay Amalia is way above the going rate, especially when you figure in her Social Security.”

  “Yes, but Eva, that’s all she gets. What we’re spending on nothing—literally nothing—it’s all she has to support her family on for a year. And now, on top of everything else, there’s this garden.”

  “The garden’s not nothing. It’ll add to the apartment’s value.”

  “And to its price.”

  “You know what? Stop. Just stop.” Eva drew in her breath. “OK, look, I’m only going to say this once. I’m going to say it once, but first I want you to swear—swear—you’ll never raise the subject again. Do you swear?”

  “How can I when I don’t know what I’m swearing to?”

  “Tomorrow morning, first thing, I want you to call Rita and tell her it’s off. The whole thing. That we won’t be buying the apartment.”

  Bruce kept his mouth shut. It was surprisingly easy. He was used to doing as he was told.

  “Of course, we’ll lose the money—forty thousand dollars wasted on nothing, as you so kindly pointed out—though for me that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it will be telling Ursula. I dread that. Still, I’ll do it. I won’t lie. I’ll tell her the truth.”

  “That’s generally the best policy.”

  “And then Min. You know why she came over this afternoon? To tell me that her editor wants to put the apartment on the cover of Enfilade. Well, we can scratch that now. Jake will be disappointed.”

  “But he hasn’t even agreed—”

  “As for Min … I shudder to think. She’s put her neck out for this. She might lose her job.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. Min always lands on her feet.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Magazines are a dying industry.”

  “She’ll cope.”

  “God, must you be so heartless?”

  “What’s heartless? You told me to do something and then to swear I’d never bring it up again. I’m just following orders.”

  “As if it has nothing to do with you. As if from the start, from the very start, you haven’t made it eminently clear that as far as you’re concerned, this apartment’s just a stupid self-indulgence, a whim. Well, you can breathe a sigh of relief now, can’t you, because as of this minute, it’s over. All you have to do is make the call to Rita and you’ll never have to think about it again, you can put your blindfold back on and go back to your safe little routine—your days at the office, and pasta on Mondays, and walks with Alec Warriner.”

  “Whoa, hold on—what’s that got to do with any of this?”

  “If you really don’t know, why did you keep it a secret?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did. I only found out from Frank.”

  “No, what I mean is, I didn’t tell you, but not because I wanted to keep it from you. I just—frankly, it never occurred to me that it was worth telling. It seemed so trivial.”

  “Trivial! Since when is consorting with the enemy trivial? Since when is upsetting the dogs so much they start peeing on the furniture trivial?”

  “What, you think that’s because of walking with Alec and Sparky? You’re joking, right?”

  “I must be if you say so.”

  “But that’s absurd. I mean, all told I’ve taken maybe three walks with Alec. Four at most. Besides which, even if walking with Alec actually does have something to do with the peeing—I’m not saying it does, but if it does—I still don’t see the connection with the apartment.”

  “That much is obvious.
Oh, there’s the sign for the LIE. You’d better get in the turn lane.”

  “I thought I’d take the bridge.”

  “Better to take the tunnel. There’ll be less traffic in the tunnel.”

  To get into the turn lane, Bruce had to speed up and pass a truck on the right. In response, its driver honked his air horn. Eva covered her ears with her hands.

  “Careful! Are you trying to get us killed?”

  Again he kept his mouth shut. He understood exactly what his wife was doing—trying to shame him into submission, find his weak spot, then go in for the kill. If he chose, he could have done the same thing to her—God knew she’d given him plenty of ammunition over the years—only he never had. Instead he’d resisted the urge—and not only resisted it, but taken pride in his resistance, which he saw as yet further evidence of his chivalrous spirit. Or was this a lie he was telling himself? Maybe the truth was that he wasn’t chivalrous at all, just afraid of fights, so much so that, rather than risk them, he’d always opted to give Eva what she wanted. In which case the hyena, the one that kept tearing his face off and that he kept taking back in, wasn’t his wife, but his own cowardice—the peculiar cowardice of the man who dreads the backlash more than he savors the lash.

  By now they were merging onto the LIE. The traffic slowed. In his impatience, Bruce nudged his way left, one lane at a time, provoking a taxi driver to roll down his window, stick his head out, and shout, “Go fuck yourself, asshole.”

  “I think you do,” Eva said. “I think you really do want to get us killed.”

  He laughed. Why hadn’t he seen it before? It was so obvious! When you had the bigger engine, you didn’t need the louder voice. This was why, when the taxi driver told him to go fuck himself, he hardly felt it. It was just—what was the expression?—water off a duck’s back. And if he could do that with the taxi driver—well, why couldn’t he do it with Eva? Just stop caring. Keep driving. In which case, so what if she guilt-tripped him, locked him out of the bedroom, stopped speaking to him? All he had to do was decide it made no difference and it would make no difference. It would be water off a duck’s back.

  “You’d better slow down. We’re nearly at the toll plaza.”

  “Funny that we still call it that, given that there aren’t any tollbooths anymore.”