by Rumaan Alam
10
IT WAS COLDER IN THE MASTER BEDROOM, OR THE CHILL was something they carried with them.
“Why would you tell them they could stay?” She was angry.
Clay thought it was perfectly obvious. “There’s been a blackout. They got scared. They’re old.” He whispered this, felt that it was disrespectful to point out.
“They’re strangers.” She said it like he was an idiot. Had no one ever warned Clay about strangers?
“Well, they introduced themselves.”
“They just knocked on the door in the middle of the night.” Amanda couldn’t believe they were discussing this.
“Well, it’s better than if they’d just burst in the door—” Wasn’t that their right?
“They scared the shit out of me.” Now that fear had passed, Amanda could admit to it. It was an insult. The temerity of these people—to scare her!
“They scared me too.” Clay was downplaying it. It was in the past. “But they’re just a little frightened themselves, I think. They didn’t know what else to do.”
Their onetime therapist had long ago urged Amanda not to be angry when Clay failed to act as she might have. People could not be blamed for being who they were! Still, she faulted him for it. Clay was too easily taken, too reluctant to stand up for himself. “Here’s an idea. Go to a hotel.”
“It is their house.” These beautiful rooms seemed like theirs but weren’t. You had to respect that, Clay thought.
“We rented it.” Amanda was whispering still. “What are the kids going to say?”
Clay couldn’t imagine what the children would say or whether they would say anything. The kids cared only for what directly affected them, and they let very little affect them. The presence of strangers might mean better behavior, but even that couldn’t be counted upon. The children might bicker, swear, burp, sing, no matter who might overhear.
“What if they murder us?” Amanda felt her husband was not paying attention.
“Why would they murder us?”
This was harder to answer. “Why does anyone murder anyone? I don’t know. Satanic ritual? Some weird fetish? Revenge? I don’t know!”
Clay laughed. “They’re not here to murder us.”
“Don’t you read the news?”
“This was in the news? Elderly black murderers are roaming Long Island, preying on unsuspecting vacationers?”
“We didn’t ask for any proof. I didn’t even hear their car, did you?”
“I didn’t. But it’s windy. We were watching television. Maybe we just didn’t hear it?”
“And maybe they snuck up the road. To—I don’t know. To cut our throats.”
“I think we should just calm down—”
“It’s a con.”
“You think they sent a fraudulent news alert to your cell phone? They’re more sophisticated criminals than I’d have guessed.”
“It just feels a little improvised, is all. And suspicious. They want to stay here, with us? I don’t like it. Rose is just down the hall. A strange man. What if he sneaks in there and— I don’t want to think about it.”
“You don’t think he’d molest Archie, though. Amanda, listen to yourself.”
“She’s a girl, okay? I’m a mother, I’m supposed to be protective. And I just don’t like the way the whole thing sounds. I don’t even think this is their house.”
“He had the keys.”
“He did.” She lowered her voice still more. “What if he’s the handyman? What if she’s the maid? What if this is just a scam, and the blackout or whatever is just a coincidence?” She was at least appropriately ashamed by her conjecture. But those people didn’t look like the sort to own such a beautiful house. They might, though, clean it.
“He took that envelope out of that drawer.”
“Sleight of hand. How do you know that drawer was locked? Maybe he just fiddled with his keys.”
“I can’t understand what they get out of giving us a thousand dollars.”
Amanda picked up her phone to google the man. Washington groupfund.com seemed too opaque; probably fraudulent. The phone had nothing to offer her. Her daughter was asleep down the hall! “Also, he looks familiar to me. Like, really.”
“Well, I’ve never seen him before.”
“You’re terrible with faces.” Clay never recognized the children’s teachers and often accidentally passed long-standing neighbors on the street without acknowledging them. She knew he liked to think this implied that he was lost in thought, when really he was merely inattentive. “I don’t believe this bullshit about the emergency broadcast system. We were just watching TV!”
“That’s easy enough.” Clay walked down the short hall. He pointed the remote control at the screen mounted on the wall. He’d half hoped (more than half) to broadcast some pornography there. It added a certain twist to things, but the technology was hard for him to parse—you had to get the television and the computer to cooperate. The television lit up. The screen was that blank digital blue. “That’s weird.”
“Is it on the right channel?”
“I was watching this morning. I think it’s out.”
“But it’s not the emergency broadcast system. The satellite is probably out. It’s probably the wind.” Amanda was not going to be persuaded, because she could sense those people trying to persuade them. There was dishonesty in it.
“Fine, it’s a glitch. But they said they heard that on the radio. The one doesn’t mean the other isn’t true.”
“Why are you working so hard to believe everyone but your own wife?”
“I’m only trying to calm you down. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but . . .” He hesitated. He didn’t believe her.
“There’s something happening.” Wasn’t this the plot of Six Degrees of Separation? They let those people in because they were black. It was a way of acknowledging that they didn’t believe all black people were criminals. A canny black criminal could take advantage of that!
“Or they’re scared old people who need a place to stay tonight. We’ll send them away in the morning.”
“I’ll never be able to sleep with strangers in the house!”
“Come on.” Clay did wonder. Maybe the thousand dollars was a ruse, or there was something worth more than that in the house. He couldn’t think straight.
“I think I’ve seen him before, I’m telling you.” Amanda felt that frustration of being unable to recall a specific word. What if this was a revenge killing? He was some man she’d slighted years ago.
Clay knew that he was not good with faces. And he knew that maybe, on some level, he was especially not good with black faces. He wasn’t going to say “They all look the same to me,” but there was some evidence, actual biological, scientific evidence, that people were more adept at recognizing people of the same race. Like, it wasn’t racist, was it, to admit that one billion Chinese probably looked more like one another to him than they did to one another. “I don’t think we know him, and I don’t think he’s going to murder us.” There was now some sliver, needle-sharp, of doubt. “I think we need to let them stay. It’s the right thing to do.”
“I want to see the proof.” There was no way that she could make such a demand. “I mean, we have keys too! Maybe they rented it before us.”
“This is their vacation house. It won’t be on their license. I’ll talk to them. If I get a bad feeling, we’ll say, no, sorry, we’re not comfortable with this arrangement. But if I don’t, I think we let them stay. They’re old.”
“I wish I had your faith in other people.” Amanda did not in fact envy Clay this trait.
“It’s the right thing to do.” Clay knew this would work; his wife felt it important, not to do the moral thing, necessarily, but to be the kind of person who would. Morality was vanity, in the end.
Amanda crossed her arms against her chest. She was right, in that she didn’t know the whole story, nor did Clay, nor did the people in the kitchen, nor did the junior ed
itor who, seeing the news cross the wire, issued the alert to the millions of people who had the New York Times app installed on their phones. The wind was so fierce, but even if it hadn’t been, they likely would have been just too far from the flight path to hear the first planes dispatched to the coast, per protocol in that situation.
“We’re going to be Good Samaritans.” Clay turned the television off and stood, choosing in that moment not to mention the thousand dollars.
11
THAT DAY’S MORNING SEEMED DISTANT, LIKE A STORY ABOUT someone else Clay had once been told. He could almost see the beach towels, drying on the railing outside, and they were like the pinch you’re supposed to administer when you think you’re dreaming. Amanda followed just behind him, and they came into the kitchen and found these strangers there, moving around like they owned the place, which, perhaps, they did.
“I made drinks. Felt like it was in order.” G. H. gestured at the glass in his hand. “Our private reserve. I’m happy to get you one.”
The man had left a cabinet ajar, and Clay could see inside of it bottles of Oban, wine, that expensive tequila in the porcelain vessel. He had done an inventory of the kitchen. Had he missed this, or had it been locked? “You know, I might have a drink.”
G. H. poured one. “Ice? No ice?”
Clay shook his head and took the glass being offered. He sat at the island. “That’s lovely, thank you.”
“It’s the least we can do!” The man gave a mirthless laugh.
There was a temporary silence, as though they’d planned it to memorialize someone now gone.
“I might need to excuse myself,” Ruth said.
“Of course.” Clay didn’t know what was required of him. She wasn’t asking his permission, and it wasn’t his to grant.
Amanda watched the woman leave the room. She poured herself a glass of the wine she’d opened earlier because she wasn’t sure what else to do. Her wine, the wine she’d paid for. She sat beside her husband. “It is a beautiful house.” What a thing, to make small talk now.
G. H. nodded. “We love it. I’m happy to hear you do too.”
“Have you been here long?” Amanda was trying to interrogate, hoping to catch him.
“Bought it five years ago now. We spent quite a while on the renovations, almost two years. But at this point it’s home. Or home away from home.”
“Whereabouts do you live in the city?” Clay knew how to make small talk too.
“We’re on Park, between Eighty-First and Eighty-Second. What about you?”
Clay was cowed. The Upper East Side was uncool, but still holy. Or maybe so uncool that it was in fact cool. They’d held on to their place so long he could no longer comprehend real estate, the local sport. Still, he’d been in apartments on Park, upper Fifth, Madison. It always felt unreal, like a Woody Allen film. “We live in Brooklyn. Carroll Gardens.”
“It’s really Cobble Hill,” Amanda said. She thought that more respectable. A better riposte to his uptown address.
“That’s where everyone wants to live now, I guess. Younger people. I imagine you have more space than we do.”
“Well, you have all this space here, in the country,” Amanda said, reminding him of what she thought was his cover story.
“A big part of the reason we bought out here. Weekends, holidays. Get out of the city and into the fresh air. It’s so different out here, the air.”
“I like what you all did.” Amanda stroked the countertop like it was a pet.
“We had a great contractor. So many of the little things were his idea.”
Returning from the bathroom, Ruth paused in the living room to switch on the television. The screen was that vintage shade of blue from some simpler technological era, white letters important: emergency broadcast system. There was a beep, then a quiet hiss, the sound of something that was not much of a sound, then another beep. They kept coming, the beeps. There was nothing but the beeps, steady but not reassuring. The three others walked into the living room to see it for themselves.
“So, no news there,” Ruth said, mostly to herself.
“It’s probably just a test of the emergency broadcast system.” Amanda was skeptical.
“It would say so if it was,” Ruth said. It was common sense. “You see this.”
They all saw it.
“Change the channel.” Clay had faith. “We were just watching a show!”
Ruth scrolled through every available channel: 101, 102, 103, 104. Then more quickly: 114, 116, 122, 145, 201. All blues, those meaningless words. “This is some emergency broadcast system we’ve got.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing.” Clay looked at the built-in shelves with remaindered art books and old board games. “It would tell us more if there were more to tell.” Ipso facto.
“The satellite television is so unreliable. But it’s impossible to get them to run the cable out this far, so it’s the only option.” Ruth had wanted the house to be far from everything. She’d been the one who wrote that Airbnb listing, and she meant it. That the house was a place apart from the rest of the world was the best thing about it.
“The wind is enough to knock it out.” G. H. sat in one of the armchairs. “Rain. It’s not very reassuring, that rain can affect a satellite. But it’s true.”
Clay shrugged his shoulders. “So there’s an emergency. The emergency is that New York City is without power. But we still have it, even if we don’t have TV or the internet. So that’s got to make you feel better, I’d imagine? You were right to get out of the city—it must be a mess.”
Amanda didn’t believe this, but she also wondered. Should they fill the bathtub with water? Should they find batteries, candles, supplies?
“I think you should stay here tonight.” Clay had seen enough evidence. “Tomorrow we’ll sort out what’s happening.”
Amanda had nothing to say about the emergency broadcast system.
“A blackout could be something. It could be a symptom of something bigger.” Ruth had ninety minutes to work it out and wanted to say it. “It could be fallout. It could be terrorism. It could be a bomb.”
“Let’s not let our imaginations run away.” Clay’s mouth was sugary from the drink.
“A bomb?” Amanda was incredulous.
G. H. didn’t like to ask, but he had to. “You know, I’m sorry to trouble you, but we didn’t have dinner. Some cheese and crackers before the concert.”
The party—was it a party now?—retreated to the kitchen. Clay took the leftover pasta, still in its pot, out of the refrigerator. He was suddenly aware how messy the room was, how thoroughly they’d made themselves sloppily at home. “Let’s eat something.” He said it like it was his idea. Professors learned that, taking the occasional insightful classroom comment and transforming it into fact.
Ruth noticed that the sink was full of dirty dishes. She pretended not to be disgusted. “A dirty bomb in Times Square? Or some coordinated effort at the power plants?” She had never thought of herself as imaginative, but now she was discovering a flair for it. It only sounded like paranoia if you were wrong. Think of what had been done and forgotten in their lifetimes—in the past decade alone.
“We shouldn’t speculate.” G. H. was reasonable.
Someone had left the tongs inside the pot. The metal was cold to the touch. Clay filled four bowls, microwaved them in turn. “Where are the power plants in New York City?” There was so much you never knew in life, even someone smart like he was. Clay found this marvelous or meaningful. “They must be in Queens, I guess. Or by the river?”
“Some guy blows up a suitcase in Times Square. His pals do the same thing at the power plants. Synchronized chaos. The ambulances couldn’t even get through the streets, if all the lights were out. Do the hospitals even have generators?” Ruth accepted a bowl of pasta. She didn’t know what else to do, so she ate. Also, she was hungry. The pasta was too warm, but good, and she was unsure why this was something she begrudged. “This is very kind of you
.”
Amanda slurped accidentally. She was suddenly ravenous. Sensual pleasures reminded you that you were alive. Also, drinking too much made her hungry. “It’s nothing.”
G. H. could feel the food working on his chemistry. “It is delicious, thank you.”
“It’s the salted butter.” Amanda felt the need to explain because it was unclear whether she was guest or host. She liked clarity about the role she was meant to discharge. “That European kind, shaped like a cylinder. It’s a very simple recipe.” She thought chat might salve the discomfort. She was embarrassed to have served this to strangers. The meal was just an improvisation that had ended up part of her repertoire. She liked to imagine some future summer, at some other rental house, the children back from Harvard and Yale, requesting this special dish that reminded them of their sun-filled childhood. “On vacation, I like to keep it simple. Burgers. Pancakes. That kind of thing.”
“I’ll do the washing.” Ruth thought restoring her kitchen to order might soothe. Also it was only polite.
“We’re here now. We’re grateful to you both. I feel so much better, having eaten. I think I might have another drink.” G. H. refilled. It was a whisky old enough to vote. It was for special occasions, but surely this counted.
“I’ll join you.” Clay slid his glass toward the man. “You see, there’s nothing to worry about here.” Tumbler was somehow fitting; the glass was heavy and expensive and it kept him from tumbling to the floor.
These strangers didn’t know him, so they didn’t know that G. H. was not given to hyperbole. In the hour and a half drive his fear had doubled like resting dough. “Well, it was disturbing.” He had what he wanted, but now he wanted this man and this woman to understand him. He could sense their suspicion.
Ruth was calmed by the suds, the yellow sponge, the lemon scent, the squeak of a clean, hot plate. The preceding ninety minutes she’d been both suspended and speeding—modern life had an uncanny tempo, one man was never meant for. Cars and planes made time travelers of all of us. She’d looked out at the black night and shivered. She’d put a hand on G. H.’s knee. She’d thought about this place, this house, solidly made and tastefully furnished, beautifully situated and absolutely safe but for the complication of these people in her kitchen. “That’s an understatement.”