Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

“Are you in charge here? We’ve had reports of some illegal activity. Some illicit substance being sold without the proper licenses. We’re here to seize”—here the officer paused to look at a note on his sheet of paper—“some kambacha. Some illegal kambacha. May we see your kitchen, please?”

Dave rose slowly, his bare feet sticking to the wood floor with a little thuck-thuck sound. “Everyone, please continue your own practice as needed. Salome?” She was lurking in the hall, and shook her head vigorously. “Annaliese?” A girl Andrew hadn’t seen before quickly popped up from a mat in the third row and made her way to Dave’s mat, where she began to move through some sun salutations. Several people rolled up their mats and hung around for a few minutes before leaving, but other, more dedicated yogis stayed and moved from upward-facing dog to plank and back again.

Andrew watched Dave lead the officers into the kitchen, and then up and down the stairs, on a full tour of the house. There was weed everywhere — Andrew had never noticed it before, not really, but now the house stank of it, and of the vats of kombucha in the basement, and the unpasteurized juices, and the herbal supplements that Salome put together herself for teas. Of course there were no licenses. Where were all the signs like they had at Hyacinth, EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS, or the one with the cartoonish description of the Heimlich maneuver? EVOLVEment had no signs. He’d been so eager to find something to devote himself to that he hadn’t noticed he was spending all of his time in a glorified flophouse.

Several of the bearded young EVOLVErs were pacing the front room or talking in small, hushed huddles. Andrew tried to listen in, but they’d just shuffle a little farther away, until they were standing in the far corner of the room, leaving Andrew alone at the center.

After about ten minutes, the cops came back through. One of them, the young man that Andrew recognized, was gripping Dave tightly on his elbow.

“Wait a minute,” Andrew said. “This is my partner — where are you taking him? What is going on?”

The officer stopped. Dave exhaled loudly, emitting a low om. “Will you stop doing that?” the cop said. “It’s freaking me out. What do you mean, ‘partner’? Do you know this guy?” the cop asked Dave, who was staring straight ahead, at some unseen drishti.

Dave’s eyelids fluttered. He stared at Andrew, and then slowly shook his head. “This man is one of our yoga students, but I’ve never spoken to him before. Peace for your good thoughts, friend.”

The officer shrugged. “Whatever, man. Excuse us,” he said to Andrew, and led Dave by the elbow out to their waiting squad car. Trailing behind, the other cop carried two barrels full of liquid that smelled like beer, one under each arm.

“I see,” Andrew said to no one. “I see.” He walked outside the house and watched the cops maneuver Dave into the back of the police car. Dave stared straight ahead. A woman walking her fluffy white dog down the street stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, waited for the cop car to drive off, and then shook her head.

“It’s always the good-looking ones,” she said. “Criminals.”

• • •

If it hadn’t been for the money, Andrew would have taken this as a sign: he was free. The correct choice had been butchery, or maybe rooftop beekeeping. He hadn’t built anything in two months. He wasn’t becoming a hotelier, at least not with Dave. He was just a patsy standing in front of a yoga studio. In his pocket, his phone started to ring. When he slid it out, Elizabeth’s face filled up the whole screen, and he was so happy to see her that he nearly burst into tears.

“Honey,” he said, talking before she had the chance. “I am so, so sorry.”

And on the other end, on the train platform in Montauk, Elizabeth pulled her straw hat over her face and listened to her husband talk. In some ways, it was both better and worse than she imagined. Andrew hadn’t slept with any of the mostly nude young women at the juice emporium. He hadn’t slept with the guy with the beard, which had crossed her mind briefly, and which had bothered her somewhat less, as an idea, than the nude young women. Andrew told her about the money, which stung, though she certainly didn’t think of it as her money, or even their money, and so she was willing to chalk even that up to Andrew’s stupidity and/or open-mindedness, one of which she felt pretty good about, in general.

In a funny way, everything that Andrew was saying made Elizabeth think that a long marriage truly was possible, in part because it only ever seemed like they’d told you all their secrets. There were always more.

“Who did I marry?” Elizabeth asked, out loud, amazed. The train was scheduled to arrive in five minutes. Zoe and Jane had dropped her off at the station together. They’d gone swimming that morning, and the tips of Elizabeth’s hair were still damp on her shoulders, slightly crunchy with salt and sand. Her headache hadn’t gone away, but it was getting better. They were all getting better, at least some of the time.

“Listen,” Elizabeth said. “The train is about to come. I’ll be home in a few hours. Be there, okay? I want to really talk to you.”

“Of course,” Andrew said.

“When we were kids, I almost kissed Zoe once. And we just talked about it for the first time.” She wanted him to know that he wasn’t the only one who hadn’t opened all his doors.

“When?” Andrew asked.

“At school. When we were young. When we were children. Just like you. I mean, almost. I didn’t actually do anything. But I know, Andrew, I know that we were children then. We were Harry’s age, more or less. Can you imagine?” What Elizabeth couldn’t imagine, not really, was that all the years in between had actually happened to her, and to Andrew, and to all their friends. That they had passed through those years unscathed, escaping with their lives and one another. It seemed mathematically unreasonable, to think that they were all still standing. Except for Lydia. Lydia was doing something else entirely — not standing, maybe, but simulated, reproduced. In certain ways, Lydia would outlive them all.

There was a little fluttering in her stomach, exactly the feeling that she’d had when she and Andrew decided to get married. Nerves, or excitement. The unknown. The train was pulling in to the station, and a new crop of drunken louts poured out. Elizabeth tucked herself as much out of the way as she could without getting swept along. Life swept you along enough — she planted her feet and sharpened her elbows.

“I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I miss you. I hate you and I miss you.” Elizabeth was talking to the angry boy who’d ordered her the scrambled eggs from the diner near his parents’ house. He still didn’t know better. She could help, or not. It was all up to her. Elizabeth took off her hat and fanned it in front of her face. “I will be calm calm calm,” she sang, at full volume. The kids looked at her like she was crazy, and she said louder, “I will be calm calm calm!” When it was time to board the train, Elizabeth took a window seat and held her notebook in her lap and didn’t stop writing until she was home.

Jane came back from Gosman’s Dock with their evening’s lobsters, either Minnie and Mickey, or Fred and Ginger, Jane couldn’t decide. She found Zoe on the porch, hunched over a notebook.

“Are you working on your diary for Dr. Amelia?”

“Sort of. Come here.” Zoe patted the chair next to her, and after Jane put the lobsters in the fridge to chill them before the ritual murder, she sat down and looked at what Zoe had been working on.