Beyond the Lindquists’ country house—beyond the flower and vegetable gardens, the pool, and the ornamental fountain—a large meadow spread out, empty except for a small copse of maples near the perimeter. It was here, on the first Saturday in March, that Min Marable, Sandra Bleek, and Rachel Weisenstein gathered after lunch to share a joint.
“I see you’re wearing your pussy hat,” Sandra said to Rachel.
“Why not?” Rachel said. “It’s cold out.”
“Has Eva seen it?”
“I don’t know. She might have.”
“If she has, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Min said. “She probably doesn’t know what it is.”
“I hope not,” Rachel said. “She might think it’s crude.”
“Rachel, you do realize that those flaps are supposed to be cat ears, don’t you?” Min said. “I mean, it’s not really supposed to look like … It’s supposed to look like a cat. It’s a visual pun.”
“Well, yes, of course,” Rachel said. “And yet at the same time there is something sort of Georgia O’Keeffe about it. I mean, even you used the word flaps.”
“Do you know what I read the other day about the pussy hat?” Sandra said. “It seems that since the march, a bunch of women—nonwhite women—have been complaining that it was racist.”
“Racist!” Rachel said. “How?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Sandra said. “It’s the pink. I mean, not every woman’s … you know … is pink. Not even every white woman’s.”
“Oh, God, I never thought of that!” As if afraid of being attacked, Rachel yanked the hat off her head and stuffed it in her purse. “Oh, but now my head will freeze. My ears will get frostbite. And this is the only hat I brought.”
“Then put it back on.”
“But Eva might see.”
“Then leave it off and go inside.”
“And forgo the weed,” Min added.
Rachel put the hat back on.
“Aren’t you afraid of getting bitten by a deer tick?” Sandra asked, taking a toke.
“In winter?” Rachel said. “I don’t think they’re a problem in winter. Besides, I’ve never seen a deer around here.”
“You don’t have to have deer to have deer ticks,” Min said.
“Over the last couple of years, it seems like half the people I know have come down with Lyme disease,” Sandra said. “Usually they catch it in time to get it treated, but sometimes there isn’t the rash. A friend of my daughter’s, for instance, she never had the rash, and she was sick for three years before they diagnosed it.”
“It’s why Eva doesn’t go outside,” Rachel said, taking the joint from Sandra.
“That’s not true,” Min said. “Eva does go outside. In the summer she lies out by the pool.”
“Really?” Sandra said. “It’s funny, I can’t quite imagine Eva in a swimsuit.”
“Actually, she looks great in a swimsuit.”
“Do you think Eva’s ever gotten stoned?” Rachel asked.
“That’s privileged information.”
“So she has. Come on, give us the details.”
“OK,” Min said, “but you mustn’t ever tell her I told you or she’ll kill me. It was just once, years and years ago. We were at a party—I forget whose—and there were these pot brownies, only no one told Eva they had pot in them, and she ate one.”
“Oh, God. What happened?”
“She said it tasted funny, and the host, whoever it was, said, ‘That’s because it’s a pot brownie,’ and laughed his head off like it was a great practical joke. And she was absolutely furious.”
“Probably the pot made it worse.”
“I think it made her really paranoid, because suddenly she said, ‘What if there’s a police raid? We have to get out of here before the police raid.’ And I said, ‘Eva, the police don’t raid parties like this. It’s not the fifties anymore.’ Come to think of it, it was sort of like what she did that time with Siri, with the iPhone.”
“Yes, wasn’t that weird?” Sandra said. “What do you think that was about?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Rachel said. “She was testing us, seeing how far we were willing to go.”
“Not, as it turns out, very far,” Sandra said.
“Later Aaron admitted he would never have really asked Siri that question,” Rachel said. “When push comes to shove, he’s a wimp. Like most men.”
“What you have to understand about Eva,” Min said, “is that she’s scared in a way we’re not. For her it’s personal.”
“Why?” Sandra said. “She’s not black, or Hispanic, or Muslim, God forbid.”
“She’s Jewish, though,” Rachel said.
“So’s Trump’s lawyer,” Min said. “So are half the people who work for him.”
“The people who go to his rallies aren’t Jews,” Sandra said. “They hate Jews.”
“Let’s not forget she’s a woman,” Rachel said.
“But not one who’ll ever need to have an abortion,” Sandra said. “Or a mother of daughters.”
At the mention of daughters, Rachel’s eyes misted a little. “I wish she’d come to the Women’s March,” she said. “I think it would have made such a difference to her to have been there. Aaron, too.”
“Aaron?” Min said. “Sorry, but would that have been wise?”
“Why not?” Rachel said. “There were plenty of men there.”
“No, I know,” Min said. “I just mean after what happened. His being fired.”
“What’s that got to do with the march?”
“Well, someone might have recognized him and … not taken kindly to his presence.”
“What are you getting at, Min? Is it these accusations Katya’s been making? If so, I can assure you, there’s nothing to them. They had a heated exchange, it’s true, but Aaron never grabbed her arm. He never touched her. Bruises like that—it would have been in the police report.”
“There was a police report?” Sandra said.
“And even if it took a few days for the bruises to show up, why didn’t she go to a doctor? The fact of the matter is, she’s been gunning for Aaron ever since the day she got named editor in chief, and now that she’s gotten rid of him, she wants to make sure he’ll never work anywhere else. It’s so vindictive, especially when you consider the real horrors to which so many women, every day, are subjected.”
“Do you know what Eva told me the other day?” Min said. “That since the election, she’s felt like she’s on a plane, and that unless she keeps saying to herself, over and over, ‘The plane won’t crash,’ it’ll crash.”
“May I interject a question?” Rachel said. “What is it about Eva? Why are we always talking about her? I mean, God knows, I love her to death, but really, what’s so interesting about her? Why do we always come back to her? Just look at us, standing out here freezing our butts off so she won’t catch us smoking, and what are we talking about? Her.”
“She’s like Mary Catherine Gray,” Sandra said.
“Who?”
“Mary Catherine Gray. She was this girl I went to school with, and there was absolutely nothing to say about her, nothing at all, and still we couldn’t stop talking about her. It was like we were convinced that she couldn’t possibly be as nondescript as she seemed, that under her nondescriptness there had to be some enigma, some secret, if only we could get at it.”
“And was there?”
“Not that I ever found out. She looked like that girl from the B-52s, the one with the bug eyes.”
“Cindy Wilson.”
“Unfortunately for her, she had small breasts. If you’ve got that sort of body, you need big breasts to carry it off.”
“Eva has beautiful breasts,” Min said. “Of course, if you complimented her on them, she’d pretend to be mortified.”
“Do you think she and Bruce have sex?” Sandra said.
“What do you mean?” Rachel said. “Of course they have sex. They’re a married couple.”
“Excuse me, but what planet are you living on?” Sandra said. “Plenty of married couples don’t have sex.”
“Especially the gay ones,” Min said. “Or if they do, it’s with other people. Speaking of which, have any of you noticed how long it’s been since we’ve seen Matt Pierce around here?”
“Was he the one who had to make the scones twice?” Rachel asked.
Min nodded. “What happened was, back in January, Eva had Jake over to dinner, and Matt did the cooking. So afterwards Jake and Bruce were out with the dogs, right, and Eva and I were in the living room, when Matt comes in and starts going on about this new boyfriend of his and how he’s pressuring him to have three-ways, and what does Eva think of it, and should he do it. He touched the third rail.”
“What’s the third rail?”
“Well, that’s just it. With Eva you never know what the third rail is until you’ve touched it, and then it’s too late. In this case it was sex. As she put it afterwards, ‘Why do people always feel they have to go into the gory details?’ End result—there’s one more gay boy who’ll never bake another scone in this kitchen.”
“Poor Matt,” Rachel said. “He seemed so nice. And he really must have trusted Eva, otherwise he’d never have asked her advice on such a, well, intimate subject.”
“I suppose the lesson here is that we should all watch our step with Eva,” Sandra said.
“Yes, you should,” Min said.
“Wait a minute,” Rachel said, “if Matt’s not here, who made lunch today? Was it the shy one? What’s his name again?”
“Ian. And no, it wasn’t him. At the last minute he couldn’t make it, so Eva called Calvin Jessup, who used to cook for her way back in the early aughts. And you can’t have mixed Calvin up with Ian or Matt, because they’re white and he’s black. Anyway, he’s only filling in.”
“You make it sound like it’s an official position,” Sandra said.
“It is, sort of,” Min said. “Something like what used to be called a paid companion—you know, the poor but respectable spinster the rich wife hires to keep her company, lose at cards, and agree with everything she says. Only in Eva’s case it has to be a man, a gay man, under forty and preferably good-looking. Oh, and he has to be able to cook, because that’s what he gets paid for.”
“I wonder where she finds them,” Sandra said. “Is there an agency she goes to? Does she put an ad up on Craigslist?”
“Eva? Craigslist? Are you kidding? Oh shit, it’s Bruce and Jake. Put it out.”
“Where? I can’t see them.”
“Over there,” Min said, pointing to the line of trees that marked where the Lindquists’ property ended and Grady’s began. “See? Oh, and they’ve got the dogs with them. Get rid of it.”
“Get rid of what?”
“The joint,” Min said, pulling it from Rachel’s mouth and stubbing it out with her heel. “They can’t know we’ve been smoking. They might tell Eva. Have any of you got anything to cover up the smell? Fanta? Coke?”
“I think I might have a bottle of water,” Sandra said, looking in her purse.
“Water won’t … Oh, hi, Bruce.”
“Ladies,” Bruce said, his boots crunching the frozen grass as the dogs, off leash, leaped toward the women and sniffed their legs.
“He must smell Mumbles,” Rachel said, bending down to stroke Isabel’s head and in the same gesture taking off her hat again. “Do you smell Mumbles, boy?”
“Isabel’s the bitch,” Min said.
“And what brings you out on a day like this?” Bruce asked. “Plotting a palace coup?”
“Just having some girl talk,” Min said.
“When it’s thirty degrees?” Jake said.
“Well, isn’t that the whole point of going to the country in winter?” Min said. “To breathe the clean and frosty air?”
“Speaking for myself, I’d say the point of going to the country in winter is to sit by a toasty fire and drink whiskey,” Bruce said.
“In that case, the sooner you finish your walk, the happier you’ll be.”
“What, you don’t want our company for just a few minutes?”
“No. I told you, we’re having girl talk, and you’re not girls.”
“What about Jake?”
“Bruce!” Rachel said.
“He doesn’t mind. You don’t mind, do you, Jake?”
“At this moment in history, I’d say there are more important things to mind,” Jake said.
“OK, if you must know, we’ve been talking about what’s-his-name,” Sandra said. “The one who got banished.”
“She means Matt,” Min said.
“Ah, Matt,” Bruce said. “A pity, that. Still, you know the law. Whatever Lola wants—”
“Wait, what happened to Matt?” Jake said.
“He touched the third rail,” Rachel said.
“He went into the gory details,” Sandra said.
“Don’t worry, Jake, you’re safe,” Min said. “Eva said as much. She said—and I quote—‘The thing I appreciate about Jake is that he never insists on going into the gory details.’ ”
“Jake is indeed a paragon of discretion,” Bruce said.
“Or maybe Jake simply doesn’t have any gory details to go into,” Jake said.
“Oh, come on,” Min said. “Everyone does.”
“There could be a statute of limitations on gory details. A certain number of years after which your record is wiped clean and you’re a virgin again.”
“How many years?” Rachel asked.
“That’s a point of debate.”
“See what I mean?” Min said. “For Jake, evasiveness is an aspect of discretion, which is in turn an aspect of taste. The most crucial aspect, I remember Pablo telling me once. When you’re selling taste, he said, you have to demonstrate taste, in your life as much as your work.”
“I wonder if that’s the case with Eva,” Rachel said. “If when people go into the gory details, as she calls them, she regards it as an offense against taste.”
“It’s not that complex,” Bruce said. “Put plainly, my wife is a prude. Always has been.”
“Eva? A prude?” Min said. “I protest.”
“Protest as you will, have you ever once said ‘fuck’ in her presence? I’ll bet you a hundred bucks you’ll find you can’t do it.”
“That’s a matter of etiquette.”
“I rest my fucking case.”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
“If Eva were here, you’d say ‘For goodness’ sake.’ ”
“Aaron wouldn’t,” Rachel said.
“He has a special dispensation.”
The Bedlingtons, having concluded their examination of the women’s legs, were now exploring the meadow. Isabel was shitting. Caspar was sniffing a twig. Ralph was moving in the direction of the woods.
“Come on, Jake, we’d better get out of here,” Bruce said. “Otherwise the dogs might get eaten by panthers.”
“Panthers?” Sandra said. “Are you serious?”
All the others looked at her. “You mean you haven’t heard of the legendary Connecticut panther?” Bruce said.
“No, but then again I haven’t spent that much time in Connecticut.”
“An endangered species. Since 2015 only seven have been spotted, all within five miles of this house.”
“Hold on, you’re joking, right?”
The others burst out laughing. Sandra flushed. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said. “You know I don’t have a sense of humor and you took advantage of it.”
“What makes you so sure we’re joking?”
Sandra took her phone out of her purse and started typing. “It’s a football team,” she said after a few seconds. “The Connecticut Panthers is a football team. Jesus, you nearly scared me to death.”
To make Sandra feel better, Jake said, “For a second there he had me fooled, too.”
“Shit, he’s heading for the woods,” Bruce said, hurrying to catch up to Ralph, who was about to cross Grady’s property line.
“Do you think we got away with that?” Min asked after the men had left. “I mean, do you think they realized we were smoking?”
“So what if they did?” Rachel said, taking a fresh joint from her pocket and lighting it. “They were probably hoping we’d offer them a hit.”
“If Eva found out—”
“Relax, even if they noticed, they’re not going to tell her.”
“I can’t remember what we were talking about,” Sandra said.
“Three-ways, and whether Bruce and Eva have them,” Rachel said.
“That’s not what we were taking about,” Min said.
“Call me naive,” Rachel said, “but Bruce and Eva having sex with other people—I just can’t see it.”
“I can’t see them having sex with each other,” Sandra said.
“Just because you can’t see a thing doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Min said.
“OK, then I’ll offer some testimony,” Sandra said. “But only if you promise not to make fun of me.”
“We promise,” Rachel said.
“I don’t promise,” Min said.
“Then I’ll tell you just to prove I’m not as naive as you think I am. Well, it was a few weeks ago, and I’d gone into the city for my meeting with Aaron. As I’m sure I’ve told you, for the time being, the judge has given my apartment to Rico, which in my view is totally unfair—”
“Yes, you’ve told us.”
“And so whenever I go into the city overnight, I have to find a place to sleep, only I don’t want to put too much of a burden on any one of my friends, so I try to—how shall I put it?—spread myself around.”
“I’d say that’s putting it perfectly.”
“Don’t worry, your turn will come, Min. Anyway, on this particular occasion I’d made a plan to stay with my friend Susan, only her son—he’s a sophomore at Vassar—he’s prone to panic attacks, and to make a long story short, he had a doozy of one right in the middle of a biochemistry exam—shortness of breath, the whole nine yards—so he left the exam room, walked straight to the station—he didn’t even stop at his dorm—and caught the first train to New York. He didn’t call Susan. When she got home from work, she found him hyperventilating in his bed, which was where I was supposed to sleep.”
“Oh, dear,” Min said. “Don’t tell me you had to stay in a hotel.”
“No, I called up Eva and asked if I could use her guest room.”
“Hold on a sec. You actually called Eva up? You actually called her up and invited yourself to spend the night?”
“Sure, why not?”
“The third rail,” Rachel said.
“I wonder why she didn’t tell me,” Min said. “Anyway, go on.”
“Well, I called up, and Bruce answered, and when I explained my predicament, he couldn’t have been sweeter. He said that of course I could stay over, I should come by whenever I wanted, come for dinner even, only I couldn’t manage dinner because I’d already made plans to have dinner with my daughter. Now, I don’t know if any of you have seen it, but their quote-unquote guest room is actually the maid’s room. It’s off the kitchen and about the size of a closet, with a teeny tiny bathroom, and so as soon as I got into bed I had this terrible claustrophobia attack. I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t have any Zolpidem, so I decided to go into the kitchen to do some writing—that afternoon Aaron had lit the flame in me—only I hadn’t brought a pen, and I couldn’t find one in any of the drawers. I checked the living room too, and then that bedroom they use as a study. I went on tiptoe so as not to wake them, and as I was passing their bedroom, I could hear them … not exactly talking. It was more this weird sort of baby talk. I won’t try to imitate it.”
“Oh, go on,” Rachel said.
“Well, I suppose it was like—now, bear in mind, this is just a rough approximation—‘Googly-oogly, who’s a Munchkin?’ And ‘What’s Lord Ralph up to? What’s my little Lady Isabel up to? Lady Isabel is a good girl, isn’t she?’ ”
“Wait a sec. Lady Isabel?”
“That was Bruce. He’s the one who said Lady Isabel.”
“This is TMI,” Rachel said.
“And then the door opened a crack more and one of the dogs came out.”
“Oh, God, don’t tell me—”
“Exactly. They were talking to the dogs. The dogs were in bed with them.”
“Two’s company, three’s a pack,” Min said.
A fit of pot-induced hilarity seized Rachel. She was laughing so hard she was gasping for breath. “Are you OK?” Min said. “Rachel, are you having an asthma attack? Are you dying?”
“It’s just … it all fits so perfectly,” Rachel said. “Sorry.” She stood up straight, trying to will herself into dignity. “Actually, when you think about it, it’s kind of heartbreaking. Those dogs are their children.”
“If you must know, they do,” Min said, extinguishing what remained of the joint.
“Do what?” Sandra said.
“Have sex. Fairly often, in fact, and that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”
“Then why don’t they have kids?”
“It must be by choice,” Rachel said. “I’ve always assumed so.”
“I didn’t say that,” Min said.
“Infertility then?” Sandra said.
“I didn’t say that either.”
“You did, actually. You said it by saying you didn’t say it was by choice.”
“What? Can you repeat that?”
“I said you didn’t say—OK, let me start again. You said it by saying you didn’t say it was by choice.”
Min was rubbing her arms, as if she had only now realized how cold it was. “All right, I’ll tell you, but only if you promise not to tell anyone else. I mean, this must never get back to Eva. Agreed?
“OK. It’s not that either of them is infertile and it’s not by choice—not exactly. It’s that she has, well, a small vagina—and Bruce has a larger-than-usual penis—and so intercourse doesn’t work for them.”
“Hold on—what do you mean, a small vagina?”
“According to her, starting in the earliest days of their marriage, she’s found intercourse painful. It worried her so much she went to a bunch of doctors—male doctors—and they all told her the problem was psychological, that she just had to learn to quote-unquote relax, but she couldn’t relax, because she was always worried that it would hurt. Naturally, Bruce didn’t push it—”
Rachel burst into giggles.
“Sorry, poor choice of words. Naturally, Bruce didn’t press the issue.”
“That isn’t all he didn’t press.”
“Be quiet. So that was that, until about ten years ago, when I was at Self, we did this piece where I interviewed a gynecologist—a woman—who’d done a study of vagina size, and what she found was that there’s a normal range—we’re talking the size of the labia as well as the width and depth of the vault—”
“Vault?”
“That’s what they call it on SVU,” Sandra said.
“So weird,” Rachel said. “Like a bank vault.”
“Are you done? The point is, there’s a normal range that most women fall into. Not all do, though—some really do have extra-small vaginas, and some have extra-big ones. So of course I told Eva this, and she made an appointment to see this doctor I’d interviewed, who measured her, and the upshot—don’t even think about it, Rachel—was that she’d been right all along. Her vagina was one of the smallest the doctor had seen, and that’s why she finds intercourse painful.”
“But wait, didn’t you just say they have sex?”
“Intercourse isn’t the only way to have sex.”
“What do they do then?”
“Let’s just say that as in all things, in sex Bruce is the perfect gentleman.”
“What, you mean he takes off her coat for her and she comes?” Rachel said. “He pulls out her chair for her and she comes?”
“Use your imagination.”
“As Godfrey held the door open for Lucinda, a ripple of pleasure ran through her loins.”
“And she reciprocates?” Sandra said.
“As Lucinda prepared to light Godfrey’s cigar, a ripple of pleasure ran through his loins.”
“That’s all I’m going to say,” Min said. “From here on my lips are sealed.”
“As, apparently, are hers,” Rachel said. “No, but in all seriousness, why does Bruce put up with it? Does he put up with it? I mean, most men—”
“You shouldn’t generalize.”
“OK, then I’ll stick to what I know. With Aaron, if we couldn’t fuck, it would be a deal-breaker.”
“Even though he loves you?” Sandra said.
“That’s not the point. I mean, it’s a moot point, because it’s never been a problem for us, thank God.”
Suddenly she had tears in her eyes.
“Are you OK?” Min said.
“I don’t know. It’s probably the pot. I wish you hadn’t asked me that question, Sandra.”
“Believe me, I wasn’t thinking of you when I asked it. I was thinking of Rico.”
“Oh, God, but what if I’m wrong? What if, if for some reason I couldn’t—we couldn’t—would he leave me?”
“Of course not. He loves you.”
“But what does that even mean, to say you love someone? Even with people who love each other, things can happen—things that make it impossible for them to stay married.”
“Oh, but Rachel, honey, they won’t happen to you. Really. Just because they happened to me.” Sandra tried to put her arm around Rachel’s shoulder, but Rachel flinched away. “And like you just said, in your case it’s not an issue, so why fret?”
Rachel was weeping loudly now.
“Don’t worry, she always does this when she gets high,” Min said. “She’ll be over it in a second.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“Are you sleeping with Aaron?”
“What?”
“Are you sleeping with my husband? That is, when you have your so-called meetings to go over your so-called work?”
“What? No, of course not. Jesus. It never even crossed—I mean, my relationship with Aaron is totally professional. I pay him four hundred dollars an hour, for Christ’s sake.”
“How much?”
“Plus we have our meetings in your apartment. Sometimes your kids are there.”
“But I’m not. I’m slaving away in my fucking office, and he’s at home, and you’re paying him four hundred dollars an hour, which he never told me, and which is a hell of a lot more than I make.”
“I can’t believe he charges you four hundred dollars an hour,” Min said.
“It’s the going rate,” Sandra said.
“Maybe I should get in on this racket.”
“Will you please lay off? It’s not a racket, and I’m not sleeping with him.”
Now it was Min who was laughing.
“Oh, I see, so all this is just another joke?” Sandra said. “Why does everyone tease me? It’s been true my whole life.”
“It’s sort of hard to resist.”
“But isn’t that a reason to resist it? As a measure of respect or affection? Or don’t you like me? Why not? Do I threaten you? Are you afraid I’m going to horn in on your territory, try to take your place with Eva?”
“No one could ever take my place with Eva.”
“Who says? What makes you think you’re so special? You act as if you’re the only one who understands her, the only one she could ever possibly confide in. Yet I notice she never told you she invited me to stay over that time.”
“You said it was Bruce who invited you.”
“Is there a difference? According to you, Bruce never does anything without her permission.”
“Oh, just fuck off, will you?”
“OK, what do you and Aaron do during your quote-unquote meetings?” said Rachel, whose attention had not progressed beyond this point in the conversation.
“Well, each week he gives me a prompt, I write something, then I read it aloud to him. Only if I come to a sentence he doesn’t like, he makes me stop.”
“But that’s not even original,” Min said. “That’s how what’s-his-name taught. You know, Captain Fiction or whatever.”
“Aaron’s a hard sell. It was four weeks before he let me read past the first sentence. I burst into tears, I was so happy.”
“Four meetings a month, at four hundred a pop, that makes sixteen hundred dollars.”
“What was the sentence?” Min asked.
“I’m not ashamed to tell you. I worked so hard on it, I’ve got it memorized.” Sandra cleared her throat. “ ‘For most of her life, she had devoted her life to making sure she would never be left, and then one morning she woke to find she was living a life she could never leave.’ ”
“That’s actually quite good,” Rachel said.
“Thank you,” Sandra said.
“There’s just one thing I don’t get,” Min said. “You did leave Rico.”
“You’re assuming the character’s me. It’s not.”
“Then who is it?”
“Who do you think?”
The women were silent for a moment. Then Min said, “It isn’t Eva, is it?”
“Why should it be?” Rachel said. “She isn’t the only woman in the world, last time I checked.”
“Well, I suppose it’s the idea of devoting your life to making sure you’ll never be left,” Min said. “Only that implies she’s come to feel trapped, which I don’t think she has.”
“So why is she buying an apartment in Venice?”
“Hold on, are you suggesting she’s buying the apartment to get away from Bruce? If so, you’re completely off base. It has nothing to do with Bruce.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. For God’s sake, we’ve just been talking about it.”
“And yet it’s not as if Bruce can just up and go to Venice whenever he feels like it,” Rachel said. “There’s his job, there are the dogs. No matter which way you frame it, if she buys this apartment she’ll be spending a lot of time away from him.”
“So what? Plenty of couples have long-distance marriages and are perfectly happy.”
“Eva and Bruce? A long-distance marriage? When they’ve spent practically every night together since they met?”
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Sandra said, “but why are you both so sure the protagonist is Eva?”
“Who else could it be?”
“Well, it could be a man. I could have changed the gender to disguise his identity. It could be Bruce. Of course, I’m the last person to ask. I’m only the author.”
Off in the distance, the dogs were yelping. Min looked at the joint, now only a stub, then passed it to Rachel, who dropped it to the ground. “I can’t see how it could be Bruce,” she said. “I mean, he’s the one who earns the money. Of course, he loves her desperately.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to either of you that she may not be the one who feels trapped? That it might be him?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Min said. “You speak like you know them, yet you hardly know them. I’m the one who knows them.”
“You may know them too well. So well you can’t see them clearly anymore.”
Suddenly Rachel started laughing again. “God, will you just listen to us?” she said. “I mean, we’ve been out here—how long, an hour?—and what are we talking about? Eva. Still. And when you think of all the other things there are to talk about!”
“I’m not the one who keeps bringing her up,” Min said.
“Hold still, there’s something on your face,” Sandra said.
“What? Oh, God …”
“Stay still, I’ll get it,” Sandra said, reaching her fingers toward Min’s cheek and pinching it so hard that Min cried out. “No, it’s OK. It’s just a bit of ash.”
“Are you sure?”
“It probably blew over from Grady’s. His gardener’s always burning leaves.”
“It’s getting colder,” Rachel said. “How long have we been out here? It feels like hours.”
“I think about half an hour,” Min said. “Time always seems to move more slowly when you’re stoned.”
“Or maybe this is the way time really moves,” Sandra said, “and when you’re not stoned, it feels speeded up.”
“Wait, what are you saying?” Min said. “That time itself changes, or just our perception of time?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Of course there’s a difference. It’s like—you know, when there’s a countdown to something and you’re watching the clock, three minutes is an eternity. But then when you’re not paying attention, three minutes goes by like three seconds. And yet no matter how those three minutes feel, they’re always three minutes.”
“Are they?”
“Of course. Because if they weren’t—if time was always compressing and expanding—the earth’s orbit would always be changing. One day the sun would set at four and the next at ten.”
“Stop it, Sandra.”
“Stop what? I’m just asking questions.”
“No, you’re not. You’re trying to confuse us.”
“Whatever time it is, we probably ought to be getting back inside,” Rachel said.
“You’re right,” Min said. “Otherwise they might think we’ve been eaten by panthers.”