WHAT WERE THEY SUPPOSED TO DO?
Amanda stood, frozen, a prey’s instinct. Gather your thoughts. “Get a bat.” That old solution: violence.
“A bat?” Clay pictured the flying mammal. “A bat?” He understood, then, but where would he get a bat? When had he last held a bat? Did they even have a baseball bat at home, and if they did, had they brought it on vacation? No, but when had they decided to forsake that American diversion? In their foyer on Baltic Street they had a clutch of umbrellas of varying degrees of broken, an extra windshield scraper, Archie’s lacrosse stick, some of those circulars, never asked for, a sheaf of coupons in rainproof plastic that would never biodegrade. Well, lacrosse was from the Indians, maybe that was more all-American. On a console table, beneath a framed photograph of Coney Island, there was a brass object, an artful little torque, the kind of made-in-China geegaw meant to add character to hotel rooms or model apartments. He picked it up but found it weighed nothing. Besides, what would he do, wrap his fingers around it, strike some stranger in the head? He was a professor.
“I don’t know.” Her whisper was built for the stage. Surely whoever was on the other side of the door could hear her. “Who could it be?”
This was ridiculous. “I don’t know.” Clay put the little objet d’art back in its place. Art could not protect them.
There was another knock at the door. This time, a man’s voice. “I’m sorry. Hello?”
Clay could not imagine a killer could be so polite. “It’s nothing. I’ll get it.”
“No!” Amanda had this terrible flash of feeling, a premonition if the worst came to pass and passing paranoia if it did not. She did not like this.
“Let’s just calm down.” Maybe he was unconsciously channeling behaviors seen in films. He looked at his wife until she seemed to calm, like what tamers did with their lions, dominance and eye contact. He didn’t entirely believe in the act. “Get the phone. Just in case.” That was decisive and smart; he was proud of himself for having thought of it.
Amanda went into the kitchen. There was a desk, a cordless telephone, a 516 number. In her lifetime the cordless telephone had been both innovation and obsolete. They still had one at home, but no one ever used it. She picked it up. Should she press the button, dial the nine and then the one and wait?
Clay unbolted the lock and pulled open the door. What was he expecting?
The interrogatory light of the porch revealed a man, black, handsome, well proportioned though maybe a little short, in his sixties, with a warm smile. It was funny, how quickly the eye could register: benign, or harmless, or instantly reassuring. He wore a rumpled blazer, a loosened knit tie, a striped shirt, those brown pants every man over thirty-five wears. He held up his hands in a gesture that was either conciliatory or said Don’t shoot. By his age, black men were adept at this gesture.
“I’m so sorry to bother you.” He sounded as people rarely did when saying those words: sincere. He knew how to put on an act.
“Hello?” Clay said it as if he was answering a telephone. Opening a door to an unexpected visitor was without precedent. Urban life contained only the guy who came to deliver an Amazon box, and he had to buzz first. “Hi?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you.” The man’s voice was gravelly with the gravitas of a news anchor. This quality, he knew, made him sound more sincere.
Beside but just behind the man was a woman, also black, also of an indeterminate age, in boxy linen skirt and jacket. “We’re sorry,” she corrected, an italicized we; it was so practiced that she had to be his wife. “We didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Clay laughed as though the idea were ridiculous. Frightened, he was not frightened. She looked like the kind of woman you’d see in a television ad for an osteoporosis medication.
Amanda lingered between the foyer and the kitchen, behind a column, as if this provided some tactical advantage. She was not persuaded. An emergency call might be in order. People in ties could be criminals. She had not gone to lock the children’s bedroom doors; what kind of mother was she?
“Can I help you?” Was that what one said in such a circumstance? Clay was unclear.
The man cleared his throat. “We’re sorry to bother you.” A third time, an incantation. He went on. “I know it’s late. A knock at the door, way out here.” He had imagined how this would transpire. He had rehearsed his part.
Now the woman picked it up: “We couldn’t decide if we should knock at the front door or the side door.” She laughed to show how absurd this was. Her voice carried, implied long-ago elocution lessons. A trace of Hepburn that sounded like aristocracy. “I thought this might be less frightening—”
Clay protested too much. “Not frightening, just surprising.”
“Of course, of course.” The man had expected as much. “I said we should try the side door. It’s glass, so you could have seen us and known that we’re just—” He trailed off, a shrug to say We mean you no harm.
“I thought that might be stranger, though. Or frightening.” The woman tried to catch Clay’s eye.
Their near-unison seemed charming to the point of comedy, like Powell and Loy. Clay’s adrenaline fermented into annoyance. “Can we . . . help you?” He hadn’t even heard their car, if they had come by car, but how else would they have come?
Clay had said we, and so, telephone tight in her hand like a child’s favored plush toy, Amanda stepped into the foyer. They were probably lost motorists, or had a flat tire. Occam’s razor and all that. “Hi!” She forced in some cheer, as though she’d been waiting for them.
“Good evening.” The man wanted to underscore that he was a gentleman. That was part of the plan.
“You startled us. We weren’t expecting anyone.” Amanda didn’t mind admitting it. She calculated that it might establish her upper hand. She thought it might say This is our house, now what do you want?
There was wind, and it sounded like a chorus of voices. The trees swayed, their heads tossed with abandon. A storm was coming or out there somewhere.
The woman shivered. Her linen clothes could not keep her warm. She seemed pitiable, elderly, ill prepared. She was smart, and she’d been counting on this.
Clay could not help feeling bad, or rude. The woman was old enough to be his mother, though his own mother was long dead. Good manners were a tool that helped you deal with moments this strange. “You caught us by surprise. But what can we do for you?”
The black man looked at Amanda, and his smile warmed further. “Well, you must be Amanda. Right? Amanda. I’m sorry, but—” The breeze eddied around them, through their summer clothes. He said her name a third time because he knew it would be effective. “Amanda, do you think we could come inside?”