This in-real-life meeting is at Rafi’s request. Rafi happens to be in the city for the weekend, visiting for his cousin’s bat mitzvah. The bat mitzvah has been canceled because of the hurricane, but Rafi and his family remain because the commuter rails are no longer running. Rafi and Chloe have met up in the park and made out on some benches and then in the 9th Street F station, but now Rafi wants privacy. He also wants Ginny to be there. Chloe types that other girls would be made to feel insecure by this request, but not her. She knows how much Rafi loves her, and only her.
The thing is, they need someplace to hang out. Rafi isn’t allowed at any of Chloe’s houses, not even her mother’s boyfriend’s condo in Dumbo, where Chloe and Ginny are currently hanging out, typing on their laptops. Chloe’s parents don’t think she should be dating yet, she admits verbally, and Ginny is briefly astonished. Chloe not being allowed to date makes her seem young. No restrictions like that have ever been placed on Ginny. Chloe snorts and says, “Well, it’s never really been an issue, has it?”
Ginny hides her hurt but both says and types that her house is off-limits as well. Chloe looks put out, whines, “Why?” Ginny explains that her father doesn’t leave the house anymore. Chloe says, “Well, tell him we’re going to be working on a project for school. A report. Can’t you tell him that?” Ginny says no, he would want to know the details of the project, then he’d want to help. He would make them snacks and photograph the snacks and them eating the snacks and using the toilet after the snacks. Ginny and Chloe laugh at the image of Nathan in the bathroom with them with his camera.
Ginny has an idea: what about the school?
“Isn’t it locked on the weekends?” Chloe asks.
“Nope,” Ginny says. “My mom went there on the weekends all the time. Sometimes they let people rent the chapel. I think the volleyball team practices on Saturdays. I can say I need something from my mom’s office and then let you both in through the side door.”
“Awesome,” Chloe says, and she types the plan to Rafi, and he types back, Yeah, no, totally, meet you there in an hour.
Ginny almost texts her father. When she asked to stay over at Chloe’s the night before, he said fine, but she had to be home by noon because of the hurricane. He said it could be dangerous out there; it wasn’t an irrational rule, it was for her own good. So Ginny should text her father that she’ll be home later than planned, but she’d like him to be unsure of where she is.
Hurricane Supplies
Sveyta’s at work in the city for the afternoon, and Marion’s ready. She bought a small roller suitcase, and it’s the correct size for her new clothes, her Grace Kelly skirt, and $34,000. She’s leaving behind the knapsack that belonged to her daughter, as the suitcase is both more efficient and less noticeable. Soon it will also contain the Russian teenager’s laptop, but first she needs to do one last task and clean out the account. She reminds herself that the money is hers. She clicks Yes, she approves this transaction. Yes, she is sure.
And it’s the same rush, but more luxurious somehow. She should have made this transition to larger sums years ago, but she didn’t know she was capable of both the labor and skill of embezzlement and detachment in its most elegant and pure form. She is perfect in this moment, and she mourns a little because she could have been perfect all along. She wasted time being imperfect, because she thought she had to be in order to stay human, unnoticeable and unremarkable.
She closes the laptop and has settled it on top of the skirt in the suitcase when the front door opens, and it is Sveyta with three plastic grocery bags.
“There’s more in the car—would you help me?” Sveyta calls out from the hallway. “Supplies.”
“Supplies for what?” Marion stands in the door frame of her bedroom, blocking Sveyta’s view of her packed suitcase with her hip.
“The hurricane. Haven’t you looked out the window?”
Marion’s window looks at a brick wall, and the weather is indiscernible. Hoping that Sveyta is preoccupied by the weather and therefore won’t notice the suitcase, she walks to the kitchen window and sees gray clouds forming over the beach. The wind is strange, and she knows this because the trees are pushed sideways and then go still. The sky is clearly about to break open.
“Oh,” Marion says. She could leave the apartment under the pretense of getting the rest of the groceries from Sveyta’s car and then make her planned escape. The problem: then she must leave her things behind. Sveyta will question the rolling suitcase. If she returns for it, Sveyta will not let her leave the apartment again. Sveyta will lock the doors. No one may go outside during a storm, Sveyta will say.
Marion Palm could leave the suitcase behind and begin again. If she is perfect, this is a possibility. It has to be.
Sveyta hands Marion the keys to her car. “It’s parked down the street.”
Marion takes the keys and leaves the apartment and her suitcase. As she descends, she feels lighter than ever before, and this convinces her that she doesn’t need her suitcase. Besides, $10,000 is waiting for her in an offshore bank account. But how will she get access to the bank account without identification? She’s on the street when it begins to rain. Marion could steal Sveyta’s car. The keys are in her hand. But the skirt, the money…
“What are you doing?” Sveyta must roar from the building entrance to get Marion’s attention. “Get inside.”
Marion runs for the car, opens the trunk, and lifts out the remaining bags. She closes the trunk and locks it.
“You are going to catch a cold,” Sveyta yells, and Marion runs back to her, doing what she is told, fetching.
Sveyta and Marion climb back to the apartment, and Sveyta takes the bags from Marion and instructs her to wait on the doormat. Sveyta returns with a soft pink towel that smells like lavender and drapes it over Marion’s head. She helps Marion out of her wet shoes and socks and into a pair of slippers reserved for visitors. Marion rests her hand on Sveyta’s shoulder for balance. Sveyta tells Marion to change out of her clothes while she makes tea, and they will tape all the windows, change the batteries in the flashlights, put out candles, and make an inventory of the dry and canned goods. Maybe even have a glass of wine. It’s been a stressful day.
Marion is under the spell of Sveyta’s care for her. In her bedroom, she opens the suitcase and pulls out fresh dry clothes from under the money and the skirt.
The women act fast and quietly. They make X’s on all the windows with duct tape. They unwrap large candles and place them strategically around the apartment. They peer into the fridge and decide what will need to be tossed if the power goes. Once they’ve made sure everything is in place for the storm, Sveyta opens a bottle of wine. In the kitchen, Marion sits before one of the large glasses that Sveyta has poured. Sveyta stands but picks up her own and clinks it to Marion’s glass. “To our safety,” she says, and takes a sip. Marion does as well, and tries to hide her wince at the sweetness of the wine.
The two women sit there in silence as the rain falls and enjoy the electricity while it lasts. They drink slowly. And just when Marion is about to tell Sveyta how much she cares for her, Sveyta interrupts her thoughts.
“Marion. I need to know Nathan’s last name. I need to make the phone call.”
“Palm,” Marion says without hesitating. “His name is Nathan Palm.”
Proof