Etiquette for the End of the World

chapter Thirteen





CHAPTER 9

Hospitality in Inhospitable Times



Heavenly Hosting:

It can be difficult to decide to open your home to guests when it seems safer to lock the door and keep the rest of the world out. It’s also sometimes hard to find the motivation to entertain when you may feel you have so little to offer. On the other hand, if you are one of the lucky few who has a wealth of supplies, you may feel uneasy about showing off your belongings to those who literally don’t have two sticks to rub together. Sharing is the key to happiness for people who have a lot. Be generous, but do not brag about your possessions. Always try to make the guest feel they are doing you a favor, not the other way around.

You must be certain to make the guests feel safe in your home, since any guest always feels a conscious or subconscious trepidation when crossing a threshold that is not his own. However, do not try to detain the guests longer than they wish to stay. You may be having a wonderful time with them, but be sensitive to their desires. They may need to get back to their own abode. These days, if you leave a shelter empty for more than a little while, you may find someone else living there when you get back.

Conversely, the guest should always be attuned to the mood of the host; humor the host. Your host is vulnerable—he has let you into his house and is sharing an intimate part of his life with you. Be complimentary about the host’s décor and lifestyle. Be polite and make him feel proud of his choice of furnishings and any personal domestic touches, like his new security system, which makes such ingenious use of rabid squirrels. The best guest makes the host feel better about his surroundings, by letting him see them through the guest’s eyes.



Cohabitation:

You may feel one of the best things about living with someone is that you can just let it all hang out. (Let something hang out these days, and it might just get chopped off.) But even people sharing living quarters need to adhere to a certain code of manners.

Whether you are together with your housemates by choice or whether you have been absorbed into a passing tribe—



Tess looked up from her writing just in time to see Jason up on the front hood of the cyclemobile and getting ready to clamber up on the roof, where Carmichael had leapt up to get away from him.

“Jason!” Tess called out. “Sweetie, you shouldn’t climb up there, it’s too flimsy, and you might fall off.” She got up and moved over to him quickly to grab him. She gave him an affectionate squeeze and a kiss on the top of his curly blond head. Actually the cat should not be up there either—he’s going to scratch the canvas, Tess thought. “Carm, down! Now!” she scolded. She hadn’t worked out yet how she was going to keep Carmichael off the thing.

Tess had been stunned when, at the end of August, the most enormous box she had ever seen arrived from Suffolk. At first she had been afraid to open it; she actually had to open it in the lobby since it was too big to fit in the elevator. Inside, along with the cyclemobile, there had been a card from Orbus himself, which read: For one of my best U.S. ambassadors. Thanks for writing a wonderful book. At first Tess had been conflicted, thinking it was a payoff for keeping quiet about his plan; but as Richie pointed out, she hadn’t kept quiet about his plan, and the gift was also pretty good proof that Orbus hadn’t discovered they’d taken one of his vials. And hadn’t she earned a bonus? The cyclemobile fit nicely against the wall in the living room, now that Tess had sold many of her collectibles.

She wasn’t sure whether or not the so-called world shift was going to take place, but whether it did or didn’t, she had decided life would be simpler without so many belongings. So she had combed through her apartment and weeded out about half of her stuff—including her collection of deco cigarette dispensers (she got $200 on eBay for the one in the shape of a piano), her original vinyl Beatles dolls, and her 1950s swizzle sticks. She had gotten rid of the two little side tables where the knickknacks used to sit, as well as Matt’s coffee table and bookcase, which she had finally given back to him.

“Do you want to put your shoes on, Jason? Here you go.” She sat down on the couch, patting the pillow beside her for him to come sit so she could get his sneakers on. “When your father is out of the shower, we’re going to take a ride in Cyclops and go see a friend of mine! Won’t that be fun?”

The car was only about five feet long and three feet wide, and instead of two headlights (which would have used up too much pedal power, Tess assumed) it only had one. The first time he had laid eyes on it, Jason pointed and yelled, “Cyclops!”

“Tess, are you finished with your homework now?” the boy asked, bouncing up and down while she was trying to fix the Velcro straps on his sneakers.

“Almost,” she said to him with a smile. Actually she had handed in the final pages of the WOOSH guide weeks ago, but Dakota had asked her to write one more chapter.

Richie emerged in a towel, his hair all wet and wild, looking just like Tarzan after a swim (well, okay, Tarzan with just a little more meat on him). He had just installed a new showerhead for her and he had wanted to try it out.

“Do you want to blow-dry your hair?” asked Tess. It was sticking out in all directions.

He looked at her with a fake scowl. “Real men don’t blow-dry their hair,” he growled, and he leaned over and shook his head, sending droplets of water over them both. Tess giggled, and Jason went into paroxysms of laughter. This was part of a joke between Richie and Tess that would probably never grow old. He was always teasing her about the fact she’d thought he was gay. Tess thought he was pretty evolved to be able to joke about it; she herself still cringed at how clueless she had been, and for how long.

Tess could not believe how happy she was to have Richie in her life. She had never fit so well with anyone before him. It wasn’t only that she had never had such a considerate and creative lover, or a playful and stimulating companion, whom she never grew tired of being with. The thing that was so new, so thrilling to her, was the feeling of having someone in her life who truly loved who she was, deep down. All parts of her. Richie still did not stay over on weekends when he had Jason with him, but on weekdays when she woke up in the morning with his arms around her, she could not imagine that anything, any drug—heroin, cocaine, morphine, or Ecstasy—could feel as blissful. This high feeling stuck with her all day long, a warm vibration deep inside her soul.

Thank god she had never married Matt. She felt like sending Sarah Feng Shui a thank-you present for enticing him to cheat.

“Ready to go?” Tess asked Richie and Jason. In order to get the Cyclops down to the street, they had to use the freight elevator, which needed to be operated by a doorman. Tess could tell the doorman didn’t really mind, so fascinated was he with the unique machine (and of course, liberal tipping didn’t hurt). Tess didn’t really like riding in it when there was a lot of traffic, but Harriet was expecting them at five thirty and they knew Jason would love going there in the Cyclops. The real trick would be on the way back, getting across 96 Street in the dark with the city buses. As Orbus had said, the cyclemobile was not really meant for coexisting with gas vehicles. But it wasn’t far—they just had to go up Broadway a few blocks, and then across 96 Street, and through the park.

Richie was steering as they both pedaled. Although Jason was frustrated because the pedals were too far away for him in the backseat, he still loved the novelty of the Cyclops. Thank god Orbus had had seat belts put in; they were made from hemp rope and not all that comfortable, but at least they were there.

The car would not fit in Harriet’s elevator, so they parked it on the street in front of the building’s awning, chained to a lamppost. Harriet’s doorman promised to watch it.

To Tess’s great delight and surprise, Harriet, wearing black slacks and an orange silk top, answered the door herself, without her wheelchair. It was true she was leaning heavily on a cane, but she looked better than Tess had seen her in years.

“Wow! Congratulations, Harriet.” Since Tess returned from England three months ago (she had not dared to tell her mentor she was going, but when she got back she had given her a full report), Harriet had redoubled her physical therapy efforts. She wanted to get out of the wheelchair in order to “walk once more in Central Park before the end of the world.” Tess was relieved. She had been afraid the news about Orbus’s scheme would have the opposite effect. But she should have known: Harriet’s fighting spirit was a constant in the Universe.

“Well, well,” Harriet said, peering at Jason, who was staring at her with solemn eyes and his hands stuck into the back pockets of his jeans. “Who is this handsome young man?”

“Go on, tell Ms. Schulberg your name,” said Richie, laying a hand gently on his son’s back.

“Jason,” the boy said in a shy whisper.

Harriet gave Jason a look Tess had never seen before; it was as if her whole face was pursed but also enormously delighted. “Well, Jason,” she said, “you can call me Harriet, if you like.” Then she looked up at Richie. “And who is your handsome father?”

Tess introduced Richie, and then Richie and Tess got Jason some juice and set him up in the den to watch a DVD they had brought with them. (After some goofing around in the video store, they had decided on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Tess thought that Jason would enjoy it, particularly because of his love for the cyclemobile.)

“Well now, Richie,” Harriet said, when the three of them had settled into the office with their drinks, “I have heard a great deal about you, and I could not be more pleased. You seem to have done a lot for Tess, and that puts you on my good side. And believe me”—she flashed her eyes at him, the subtle warning peeking through her good spirits—“you don’t ever want to be on my other side.”

Harriet turned to Tess. “So, have we heard from your brother? Are we headed for the fallout shelters? Unless I get the all clear, I’m going to Mexico well before December 21. It will be safer there when the computers go down. You two should come too.”

“Stuart says he still can’t get an answer from anyone,” Tess told her.

“A*sholes! It’s the end of September already. How long has it been now since he actually put it in someone’s hands?”

“About seven weeks now.”

Betty Phoenix had arrived at Tess’s apartment one day in late July, without any warning. In fact, Tess had been just about to go out to meet Richie for lunch. The doorman had buzzed her and announced, “Someone’s coming up to see you, Tess,” which was about as much screening of visitors as she got from the guys who worked weekdays. Sometimes they even buzzed her after her visitor was already at her front door.

When she looked through the peephole and saw it was Betty Phoenix, Tess let out a yelp and ushered her in as fast as she could get the door unlocked. Betty was in her uniform; she had come straight from the airport.

Tess started to hug her and Betty stopped her: “Hold on, I did not even stop at the ladies’ room to transfer this after I got off the plane, I was too nervous. And I’m dying of the heat.” And she removed her jacket, carefully. At her request, Tess brought her a small scissors and Betty carefully unstitched the inside pocket, into which she had sewn the vial.

Tess took it gingerly from her and put it in a hatbox she kept on the top shelf in her closet. Then she and Betty went to meet Richie for lunch.

The following week, when Richie had two days off, he and Tess took the Bolt Bus to Baltimore to see Stuart, with the vial carefully stashed in Tess’s purse. Stuart and Nancy thought Tess had come for the sole purpose of introducing her new guy to them. (Tess and Richie had been too afraid to talk about the computer bug to anyone on the phone, especially with the vial was sitting in Tess’s hatbox.) Stuart’s eyes almost popped out of his head when they recounted what had happened in England and showed him the vial.

He was hesitant at first, but with Nancy’s help, they convinced Stuart that he had no choice but to try to get the substance to the right government agency for analysis. As Tess wrote down Wayne Orbus’s name, address, and the name of the organization on a piece of paper for her brother, so that he could tell the appropriate authorities about the origin of the vial, it was as if he suddenly got it, all at once. He rubbed his face hard with one hand as though he were trying to wake himself up and said, “Oh, god … this is real? This thing could be released in cities? The effects of that would be a disaster of monumental proportion.”

“Yes, Stuart, we know!” Tess said, and had to keep herself from rolling her eyes. Incredibly, in spite of the vague sense of impending doom over everyone’s head, they still managed to enjoy their dinner of hard-shell crabs out on Stuart’s deck. (Indeed, Tess thought it made them appreciate it more.) Stuart was so interested in Richie’s design ideas that after dinner the two of them disappeared down to Stuart’s workshop in the basement, to look at god-knows-what.

“I think you found yourself a good one, Tess,” Nancy had said. The next morning, Tess and Richie traveled back to New York feeling like a weight was finally off their shoulders.

But now, all these weeks later, they were still waiting for word from someone in D.C., and it was driving them nuts.

Harriet was indignant. “What the f*ck are they doing? I bet they’re so embarrassed a weapon like that got left on the floor of the public library for anyone to pick up, they’ve just buried the whole thing. I mean, can you imagine if John Q. Public knew that someone within the NSA had even invented something like this, how reckless that is? I should go to Tim at the science section of The Times and give him the story! Halliburton is probably behind the whole thing … .”

“No!” said Tess, for once adamant with her. “Harriet, look, Richie doesn’t know you as well as I do, and you’re making him nervous.” Tess looked over at him and, maddeningly, he actually looked quite calm.

“All right,” said Harriet. “I know it’s bureaucracy and they move slowly. But have you thought about why they haven’t contacted you to ask you what you know?”

“You’re probably right; they want to keep the whole thing as quiet as possible, until they know if there’s a real threat. Even then they might just be dealing with it discreetly by themselves. It’s the NSA, for god’s sake! They don’t need me to tell them what Wayne Orbus is up to—they can just find out! They probably already have a whole file on him, and on WOOSH.”

Eventually Tess managed to change the subject to Richie’s furniture, and after a while Harriet stood up to go get some more cheese and crackers. “Look, I’m walking!” she cried with pride. At that very moment Jason came out of the den. He looked at Harriet and, thinking it was a game, put his hands up in the air, yelling, “Look, I’m walking!” The triumphant expressions on the face of the six-year-old and the eighty-four-year-old were identical.



***



A month later, at around four thirty in the afternoon, Tess was packing up more stuff she had sold on eBay (she was really enjoying lightening her load; it had taken the end of the world to get her to unclutter!) when the phone rang. It was Richie calling from the Scrub-a-Dub-Pub.

“Hey, Rich,” she said. “Did you forget something?” He usually did not call her at the beginning of his shift.

“Tess, there’s someone here who is looking for you.”

“Oh really?” she said, trying to cradle the phone between her ear and shoulder while she taped up a box. “Who?”

“Peter Barrett.” She dropped the phone and the tape as well.

“Tess?” Richie was saying as she picked the receiver up again.

“Yes … okay … um … I’ll be down there in fifteen minutes.” She knew Richie would not like it if Peter came to her apartment, and she also wanted to see him on neutral territory, in public. For one thing he still worked for Wayne Orbus—at least, she assumed he did.

Peter was standing at the bar, with one leg propped up on the rung of a stool. Aside from being a little tanner, he looked the same. His suit was a crisp as ever, and his smile as she came in was like the blinding tropical sun emerging from the clouds. God, he really was the handsomest man she had ever known. Richie was standing behind the bar, just to Peter’s left. He was rearranging glasses in the overhead rack in a much more industrious manner than was strictly needed at this time of day.

“Tess!” Peter called, walking over to meet her at the door. “How I missed you, my beautiful contessa,” he said in her ear as he hugged her. He came out of the hug and aimed for a kiss, but Tess dodged it.

“Yes, it has certainly been a long time,” she said coldly. She could see Peter assessing the situation, recalculating the terrain.

“I know—I am so sorry, Tess. Let me tell you what happened. Shall we have a seat, at our old table?” He smiled brightly again, still trying to win her over. Tess allowed herself to be led to the table where they had first sat together, just a little over a year ago.

“What shall we drink?” Peter said, twisting his head to look back toward the bar. Richie was pacing back and forth like a caged lion, vaguely pretending to move things around.

“I don’t think there is table service this early,” lied Tess. “Anyway, I don’t feel like a drink. What I feel like is an explanation.”

“Don’t be that way, Tess.” He turned his best bedroom eyes on her and reached for her hand. She removed it from the tabletop and put both her hands in her lap.

“Look, Peter,” she said, taking a deep breath. “You stood me up on New Year’s Eve and then I never heard from you again. I know you consider yourself a charming man, but there’s no amount of charm on the planet that can make up for that.” Tess really was more interested in his level of involvement with Orbus, but she thought the best way to begin was with the classic scorned-female stance. Besides, it still hurt a little, even now.

Peter’s mouth stopped smiling. “Okay, fine. You’re right. What I did to you was horrible. But it wasn’t me. It was Orbus.” His lip curled slightly. “He told me I couldn’t have any contact with you—he threatened me.”

“Really? Threatened you how?”

Peter rubbed his forehead with the fingertips of his flawless hand. “I need a drink,” he said, getting up. “You sure you don’t want anything?” She shook her head no. He walked over to Richie at the bar, and she saw him pour bourbon into a glass, and then fill another tall glass with water.

Peter came back, setting the water down in front of her. “For some reason, Orbus didn’t like that story we concocted about the computer insects,” he said, shaking his head. “Remember that crazy thing you came up with, the computer bugs that were actual bugs? I don’t know—I guess Orbus is touchy about the whole Mayan thing. He thinks it’s sacrosanct, and you can’t have any new end-of-the-world theories. Or perhaps he found out we were lovers and that’s not in the WOOSH bylaws. All I know is that two days before Christmas he called me and ordered me ...” Peter took a sip of bourbon. “He told me I was not supposed to talk to you, even by text or email. Then he sent me to Australia; I barely even had time to pack.” All at once he laughed. “What are you going to do? Cult leaders—can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em.” It was a ghost of Peter’s normal wit, and a pretty pathetic ghost, at that.

Tess looked down at the aluminum table. “I see. So your boss orders you to stand me up, with no explanation and, like, never to talk to me again, and you just do it. Is that what you are saying?” She met his eyes again.

“I’m telling you, Tess,” he protested, “I risked my neck even sending you the message I did, the one about my being on a business trip.”

“Thanks a lot.”

Peter fixed his eyes on hers and spoke in his softest, most seductive tone. “Tess, listen, I’ll make it up to you. Let’s get out of this Laundromat and I’ll take you to the Four Seasons, or Yasuda or Jean Georges—anywhere you like.”

“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 Tessie. 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.