Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

Andrew didn’t like being told what to do, but he knew enough to get out of Elizabeth’s way when she was breathing fire. In their entire marriage, it had happened only a handful of times: when her younger brother had crashed his car into a tree, stone drunk, and walked away with a scratch; when Andrew had accidentally bought lobster rolls for a friend of Harry’s who was allergic to seafood. (The boy was fine. Covered in welts, but fine.) He walked over to EVOLVEment with his shoulders slumped forward, willing everyone in the neighborhood to leave him alone, and they did — the wrinkled old ladies sitting in front of the library, the people walking their dogs — everyone Andrew normally would have greeted with a wave and a smile, they all got nothing.

There was a yoga class in session when he walked into EVOLVEment, and so he entered the house as quietly as possible, slipping his shoes off just inside the front door. Salome winked at him from her spot by the altar and then pointed upstairs. Andrew climbed over people’s backs — there were new people all the time, the classes were full — and tiptoed up the stairs.

Dave usually used the bedroom at the far end of the second floor, an almost empty room with a few cinder-block shelves holding up his sacred texts — the Bhagavad Gita, some Pema Chödrön, some Sharon Salzberg, The Artist’s Way , several books about medicinal plants, plus Meditation for Dummies , which Andrew thought showed that Dave had a sense of humor, probably rare in a guru. Humble, even. Being in the house made him begin to calm down a little bit, and he thought about how he would describe his fight with Elizabeth to Dave. You know, he’d say, it’s kind of a funny story. And he’d tell him about Lydia and about being young, and Dave would nod along, maybe stroke his beard, understanding everything perfectly. Andrew started to laugh to himself, just thinking about it. It wasn’t that big of a deal, what had happened with him and Lydia. The ice block of the secret had already started to melt. Elizabeth would probably get over it soon — it was ancient news that had no bearing on their future. Andrew rolled his shoulders around as he walked down the hall. He cleared his throat and knocked on Dave’s bedroom door.

“Just a minute,” Dave said. Andrew drummed his thumbs together. The door opened, and two young women came out, their otherwise naked bodies wrapped in sheets. Through the doorway, Andrew could see Dave’s bare butt. He was standing up, facing the window. It overlooked the back of the house, which meant that no one walking by would be able to see him, but there were no curtains, and this was still Brooklyn, so the odds of someone in a neighboring house seeing his junk were extremely high. When Dave turned around to face Andrew, he was still erect, and his penis swung toward Andrew as if it, too, were saying hello.

“Oh, sorry, man,” Andrew said, closing his eyes before turning away. “I can come back.” Then he felt like he was being too prudish, and swiveled his body back toward Dave.

Dave put his hands on his hips and looked down at himself lovingly. “No reason to cover up. It’s pretty as a picture!” He laughed and bent over to scoop up a pair of shorts off the floor.

Andrew was about to open his mouth and begin his rehearsed tale of marital woe, but Dave started talking before he could get out the first word.

“Listen, man, I’m glad you’re here. Got some news this morning. From the city. It’s a no go.” Dave stretched his arms overhead and leaned to his left, his thick body a taut rubber band.

“What’s a no go?” Andrew crossed his arms.

“The city denied the rezoning. No hotel, at least not there. It’s cool — I was starting to get some pretty dark vibes from the neighbors, so I think somebody probably ratted on us, you know? People can be so negative.” Dave stretched the other way.

“Okay, well, that sucks.” Andrew heard his stomach churn and bubble. He put a hand flat against his belly. “What happens now?”

“We look for a new location. The plans will roll over — we’ll have to get new drawings, of course, but the vision remains the same. We just need to find a new slice of property. These things happen.” Dave straightened up and clapped Andrew on the biceps. “It’s all a part of the process. Worst-case scenario, we have to raise a little more money, maybe start looking more on Long Island or up in the Hudson Valley. There’s a lot of land out there, you know? Just waiting.”

“But wasn’t part of the idea to revitalize the Rockaways? To bring in business? I have the papers from my lawyers, too,” Andrew said, and then he suddenly felt a jab in his lower intestine. “I’ll be right back.” He walked quickly to the bathroom in the hall, where there were two young women dawdling outside, not the ones wrapped in sheets — there was an endless supply of twenty-three-year-olds at EVOLVEment, and the fact of their youth shoved Andrew in the gut even harder. “Excuse me,” he said, and locked the door behind himself, just barely making it to the toilet before his insides commenced their immediate evacuation. He heard the women outside giggle and hurry away, and he let his head fall into his hands.

Andrew’s phone buzzed, and he dug it out of his pocket, baggy by his thighs. A text from Elizabeth: GOING TO STAY WITH ZOE AND JANE IN MONTAUK FOR THE NIGHT. YOU MAY GO HOME IF YOU LIKE. FEED HARRY. A bubble appeared with three dots — she was typing more — but then disappeared. He gave it a few more minutes, but clearly she was done. It wasn’t like Elizabeth to drop out like that — that had always been his final move, the melodramatic walkout. Andrew flushed twice and washed his hands. He wanted to deserve his wife. He wanted to deserve his beautiful boy. He wanted to trust that their marriage was strong enough to vanquish old dragons. Didn’t everyone secretly think that, that their tiny rowboat was somehow sturdy enough to sail the entire ocean?

When he opened the door to the bathroom, one of the sheeted young women who had ducked out of Dave’s bed was standing across the hallway, leaning against the wall. She had gotten dressed, barely, and Andrew felt like a lech for even noticing.

“I’m Lena. You’re Andrew?” She stuck out her hand, and Andrew offered an awkward fist bump in return.

“My hands are wet,” he said.

“It’s okay,” Lena said. She had curly hair and a mole on her cheek. “You know Ruby, right?”

“Ruby Kahn-Bennett?” Andrew had a brief panic that this Lena girl went to Whitman with Harry.

“I thought so. She’s been here some, and she was asking some questions. I think she’s worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Ruby?” Andrew ran his hands through his hair. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Dave appeared in the doorway, still half naked. “You two met! I love it. Andrew, Lena does the best reiki in the house. You should try her — magic hands, seriously. You want to head downstairs and grab a kombucha and we’ll talk?”

Lena looked at Andrew with tight eyes, and he thought he saw her shake her head, just the tiniest fraction of a movement, before turning toward Dave and smiling with all her teeth.

“You know, I was just stopping by to say hi,” Andrew said. “I’ll come back later, cool?”

“Cool, cool,” Dave said. He flashed a peace sign. “Lena, can you come work on my neck?” He winked at Andrew and went back into his room. Lena followed quickly without another word.

Harry liked the idea of a grand gesture. It had worked so far. Since the fire, he and Ruby had been together almost every night. All four of their parents were on Mars. Zoe and Jane were locked in their room, or cuddled up on the couch, or laughing in the kitchen, and they didn’t seem to notice or mind that Harry darted up the stairs every night. His dad was acting the same way he’d acted the summer that Harry was nine, when he’d gone upstate to “wander around in the woods,” as his mother put it. He’d come home with a shaved head and a tan and a small tattoo on his calf of the number 8, which he said was for infinity and also because Harry’s birthday was on the eighth of October. Elizabeth was the worst of all — it seemed like she’d mostly stopped going to work and also washing her hair. When Harry tried to talk to her about it, she got this look on her face like she was trying to look cheerful when really she just looked like an ax murderer. Harry wanted to help, but he also just wanted to spend as much time as possible with Ruby, Ruby, Ruby.