Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

Elizabeth had always had keys to the Bennetts’. The Kahn-Bennetts’. Would Zoe go back to being just plain Bennett? There were so many things to worry about, enormous and tiny — it was too much to bear. Elizabeth jogged up the steps and unlocked the door. Zoe had told her that they’d all be out — she and Jane doing some restaurant thing and Ruby at Hyacinth. Bingo was asleep on the living-room floor and raised his head and offered a genial sniff.

It was always better to be in someone’s house without them — that’s when you could really look at the cracks in the ceiling, the sticky cabinets, the floors of the closets. No one wanted to spend that much money for someone else’s dirt. If Zoe really went through with it (with the breakup, with the sale — these things were separate and they were together, kissing cousins), Elizabeth would have to bring in a real cleaning crew, at least twice, once for the official photos and once for the first open house. She knew two Salvadoran women who could make any house look like the Vatican — she’d have Zoe call them for sure if the house actually did go on the market.

Mostly, it looked the same as it had a hundred years ago, when she and Andrew had shared the house with Zoe and the other guys from Oberlin. Elizabeth closed her eyes and could see the Indian-print tapestries that had hung on the walls, the full ashtrays on the coffee table. Disco money paid for the house, and there had been traces of it in various spots: records everywhere, some framed on the walls, old hilarious photos of Zoe’s parents with giant Afros and glittering jumpsuits. Those were gone now, replaced with pictures of Ruby as a baby, and the elder Bennetts appeared in their civilian clothes.

Elizabeth snapped the kitchen, which had the best stove in Ditmas Park. People wouldn’t understand how much it cost by looking at it — she’d have to explain in the listing. The living room and its endless piles of magazines, the dining room and its endless supply of chairs. She photographed the staircase from below and the pretty sconces that were original to the house. On the second floor, she flipped on the light switch in the hallway and took pictures in the bathroom. She paused outside Ruby’s room, which Elizabeth had once shared with Andrew. That was the first time she ever really felt like they were a couple, like they were adults who had chosen to be together. He was so good at everything then, so good at building them shelves out of bricks and boards, so good at kissing her shoulders before they went to sleep. He liked showing her his city, the good parts and the bad parts, the museums and the parts of Central Park he had explored alone as a teenager. His hair was still long, and he would tuck it back behind his ears over and over again, a nervous tic, as they sat across from each other in bed, eating take-out Chinese food. He made her laugh. He danced. Elizabeth turned the knob to Ruby’s room and opened the door, flicking the light on.

“Mum, Jesus! Knock much?!” Ruby said. Elizabeth saw a flash of a bare breast. There was some scrambling.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetie, it’s Elizabeth, your mum said that no one would be home,” Elizabeth said, covering her eyes with her hand. “Wait a second,” she said, and slid her hand back down.

“Hi, Mom,” Harry said, and pulled the sheet up to his chin. He and Ruby were sitting side by side, all red cheeks and knotty hair sticking up at odd angles. The room smelled like sweat and dirty clothes and other identifiable things that Elizabeth refused to let herself name.

“Harry,” Elizabeth said. “What are you doing here?” She covered her eyes again. “Can you please get dressed?” There was more scrambling. Elizabeth heard the sound of a belt buckle and couldn’t keep herself from groaning.

“Okay, it’s fine,” Harry said a minute later, sitting on the edge of the bed. Ruby had pulled on a dress and piled her hair on top of her head with a giant clip, the braids from the concert already gone. Harry looked so old, too old — he looked like his father, and Elizabeth felt her nose start to run, which always happened right before she burst into tears. “Shit, Mom, I’m sorry. It’s a messed-up situation, I guess, but it’s really not that bad. We’re using, um, protection and everything, I swear.”

Elizabeth blinked quickly. She felt a bit faint, as if she’d just inhaled a can of paint thinner. “Do you mind if I sit down, Ruby?” She looked around and saw the telltale lump of a beanbag chair underneath a small mountain of clothing. Ruby pointed and nodded. Harry’s cheeks seemed to indicate he would rather his mother leave the room where he had, until very recently, been naked with a girl, but he wasn’t going to say that.

“Okay,” Elizabeth said. “So. Here we are.”

“Want a glass of water?” Ruby said. She crawled to the edge of the bed like a puppy, her cleavage amply visible.

“Sure,” Elizabeth said, turning her face toward the ceiling. Ruby padded out the door and down the stairs.

“Mom,” Harry said, “I’m really sorry.”

“Sorry about which part, love? Sorry about not staying away from Ruby or sorry about growing up?” Something was digging into her back — Elizabeth reached behind her, pulled out a chemistry textbook, and tossed it onto the floor.

Ruby pushed the door back open with her elbow and handed glasses of water to both Elizabeth and Harry. “Let’s just be real about all this, okay?” She looked to Harry, who simultaneously nodded and curled his lip, no doubt as afraid of what Ruby was about to say as Elizabeth was. “Harry and I are not trying to be sneaky assholes, Elizabeth. We just like spending time together. It is totally my fault that we got in trouble, but it’s also totally his fault, and that’s okay.”

“I know,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t care anymore.”

“What?” said Harry.

“I don’t care that you two are an item. I’m sure no one says that anymore. I don’t care that you’re hooking up, or on lock, or on the down low. It’s fine with me. It’s healthy! It’s just also really sad, for reasons I can’t quite put into words.”

She looked at Harry. “You’re my baby. I just want to know that you’re safe, and that nothing bad is going to happen to you.”

“Mom, I’m seventeen.” He was blushing.

“And you’ll be my baby when you’re thirty-five and when you’re fifty.” She was sweating. “I think I’m having a hot flash, is that possible?”

Ruby and Harry both looked uncomfortable.

“Listen,” Elizabeth said. “I’m not going to tell your father, Harry, or your mothers, Ruby. But you two have to promise me something.” She was hot, and tired. She felt like she was a hundred years old, like a wrinkled old crone in a fairy tale.

“Anything,” Harry said.

“Depends,” Ruby said.

“Help me figure out what your father is doing, and how to get him out of there. You’ll be my little Nancy Drew and Hardy boy. Will you?” Harry looked startled at her request, but Elizabeth kept talking. “I just need a little help. Can you two give me a little help?”

They nodded, solemn-faced. Elizabeth gulped down her sweating glass of water. “I’ll put this in the sink on my way out. And clean your room, Ruby. It looks like a deranged hobo is squatting in here, okay?”

“Um,” Ruby said.

“See you at home, Harry,” Elizabeth said. She pushed herself up to stand and walked slowly into the hallway. She pulled the door shut behind her and waited for a minute, to make sure there was no laughter. When she was satisfied, Elizabeth stepped gingerly down the stairs and back out onto the street, her head up high, as if she were walking on a balance beam.