Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

People on the porch were laughing. A few months ago, Ruby would have sauntered up the steps, pulling a cigarette out of someone’s mouth and sticking it in her own, the queen of the goddamn place. Now what was she? She was a hostess. She recommended the crostini and the house-made aioli for the french fries. Her boyfriend was a recent de-virgin who took practice SATs for fun. Ruby imagined crossing the street and getting run over by a truck. Ruby imagined crossing the street and having a giant gate come down right in front of Nico’s front steps. She imagined her friends — her former friends — ignoring her while she walked through the house like she was invisible. Ruby imagined seeing Dust fucking Sarah Dinnerstein on Nico’s invisible parents’ bed. “This is so stupid,” she said. Her knees hurt from pressing against somebody’s bumper. She got up slowly, like an old lady, and stooped over to walk back down the block. The breeze was even smokier than before — it no longer smelled just like weed, or patchouli, or Marlboros — now it truly smelled like fire. “What the shit,” Ruby said. When she got to the corner, there were a few people standing in front of Hyacinth, staring in the windows, all of them on their cell phones. She started to run.

Posted at 11:37 p.m.

Anyone else smell smoke? We’ve been out on the street for half an hour, trying to trace the origins of the fire. Seems to be coming from the south. Reply in comments with any info.

Jane’s phone rang, then Zoe’s. Their phones were both sitting in the car’s cup holders, in between the front seats, but Jane and Zoe were in the backseat. Zoe’s underwear was slung around one ankle, and Jane’s right hand had vanished up her dress. They had bellies full of dumplings and mouths full of each other. The cloth seats in the Subaru had seen worse.

“Who the hell keeps calling?” Jane said, into Zoe’s neck. It was probably Elizabeth, calling Zoe to ask her which side she should fall asleep on, which hand she should use to hold her toothbrush. She didn’t care, let the phone ring.

Food was always the way back in. Why hadn’t she thought of it? Jane liked fine dining as much as the next girl, but really she always wanted something salty and fried that could be eaten with chopsticks. Zoe’s skin was as delicious as a bowlful of MSG, and Jane was trying to lick her from top to bottom, every inch she could reach without pulling a muscle. It had been a solid decade — if not more — since they’d fooled around in the backseat of a car. There was one long late-night cab ride from Union Square to Ditmas Park that Jane could remember, with at least three orgasms apiece, but man, it had been a long time. Her body pulsed, and so did Zoe’s. They were breathing in unison, the air thick and shared.

“I just hope it’s not the police again,” said Zoe. She laughed a little but then paused. She scooted out of Jane’s reach. Jane rolled back against the seat while Zoe squeezed through the front seats to grab her phone. “It was Ruby,” she said. “And Leon. Oh, my God.” Zoe reached down and stuck her other leg into her underwear and climbed into the front seat, giving Jane a glorious view, a single moment of pure pleasure, like looking at a Renoir in person. “It’s Hyacinth.”

• • •

They double-parked in front, right behind the fire engine. The firehouse was only two blocks away, so they’d arrived fast — Ruby hadn’t even called, she’d just run over and banged on the door until someone opened up. Ruby, Leon, and Jorge were still out front, the three of them sitting on a little silver bench one storefront away, taking turns popping up and smoking on the corner. Ruby had a cigarette in her mouth when her mothers got there, and Jane plucked it out and threw it on the ground.

“What happened?”

Ruby started to blubber, and Leon put his arm around her.

Jane shook her head. “Goddamn it, will someone tell me what is going on?” She craned her neck to see past all the firemen into the restaurant.

One of the firefighters came over, slow in his enormous suit. “Ma’am, are you the owner?”

“Yes, we are,” Jane said, pulling Zoe close. “What happened?” There was smoke in the air.

“It seems there was a fire in the backyard behind the restaurant, and it spread into your building. Luckily, your daughter was here before the fire had reached all the way through — there is heavy damage, but the building is salvageable. Come and see.”

Jane and Zoe stepped gingerly through the open doorway — the glass had been shattered and covered the entrance, shards reaching nearly to the hostess stand. Inside, the smoke still felt thick, and the air smelled like a wet campfire. The floor, where it wasn’t covered with broken glass, was slick with water from the sprinklers and the firefighters. Jane pulled the neck of her T-shirt up over her nose and mouth and held it there. There was a large black shadow printed all the way along the wall of the dining room. The ceiling was in pieces, flaking off like a sunburn, and the glass doors out to the garden were broken, too. Jane clenched her fist, ready to hand someone, anyone else, the bill. But when she looked outside, she knew the answer: in any game of rock-paper-scissors, fire beat everything.

The wooden tables in the garden were all ruined and would have to be replaced. The chairs were gone, too. The back wall, a wooden fence, looked like it had been eaten by an angry shark.

“Shit,” Jane said.

“Shit,” Zoe said, coming up behind her. She rested a hand flat against Jane’s back.

The firefighter shrugged. “At least it didn’t get all the way inside. You’re really lucky that your daughter was here — another few minutes and the whole place would have been up, gone.”

“Thank you,” Jane said, and shook the firefighter’s hand. After he walked away, she turned to Zoe. “Seems like we’re really making the rounds lately, huh? What’s next, the coast guard?”

“Don’t even joke,” Zoe said. “How long before we can open again, you think?”

“A month? Two? God, I don’t know. Oh, man.” The power was off — everything in the walk-in would be ruined. There was gorgeous fish, beautiful marbled steaks. All those stupid tomatoes. Enough fresh mozzarella for three days of caprese salads. Everything would go to waste. She should take home what they could eat now, while anything was still good, if anything was still good. “Shit.” She hadn’t even checked the damage in the kitchen yet. That’s where the sprinklers would have gone off first, no matter what, but Jane made a mental list of all her beautiful equipment, all her jars, all her fucking salt — everything.

“It’s okay,” Zoe said. “It’s just money.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket and started taking photos. “Go check on Ruby.”

Jane made her way back to the street, glass crunching under her sneakers. Ruby had lit up another cigarette and was pacing back and forth in front of the health-food store on the corner. She was wearing someone else’s sweatshirt, with the hood pulled tight around her face, her purple hair hanging out the sides like a psychedelic waterfall. Jane approached her slowly.

“Mom,” Ruby said. Her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry. It was my fault, I should have caught it sooner. I thought I saw something when I was locking the gate.” Ruby’s eyes were red. She took a long drag of her cigarette and bounced nervously on her toes. “I’m sorry that I’m smoking, too, but I can’t help it. Otherwise I’m going to start pulling all my hair out.”