Good Rich People(25)

“She isn’t home,” I say, glancing at the street. She could come home at any moment, find us here discussing ways to scare her.

“Of course,” Graham says, forcing the gate shut and holding it that way, puffing slightly as he speaks, “she won’t admit it.” He releases the gate and it snaps back so fast, he leaps out of the way. He wipes his forehead, kicks the wood so it crackles. “It’s like a fucking booby trap.” He shakes his head and walks away. If something doesn’t offer immediate gratification, he moves on quickly. “Did the security system go off? Did anyone try to come inside the house?”

“No. Not that I know of.” I follow him in, carrying the hammer and his discarded jacket.

“Why would someone break the gate, then not come in?” He takes off his tie, loosens his collar. “It must have been her.” His eyes brighten.

“I don’t think she could do this.” I try to imagine Demi, the pale teenage-sized woman I met on the stairs, attacking the gate, forcing it so hard that the whole system snapped. “She’s thinner than I am.” I always think of people’s weight in relation to my own.

“She was struggling with the lock the other night,” he says. “Maybe she just lost it.” The dinner our housekeeper made is on the table. He pops off the plate cover and shovels it in without sitting down, starved by his exertions with the gate. “Maybe she’s nuts. Maybe we’ve got a crazy woman living down there.”

“Do you think Margo is setting me up?”

He bristles like I have crossed a line. “Of course not. I would know about it. Margo tells me everything.” He’s right, but it annoys me, thinking about their special relationship.

I hang his coat on a hook by the door, drop the hammer there, too. The housekeeper will put it all away. “There’s a strange van outside,” I say.

“I saw that. Disgusting. If you’re going to drive a serial killer van, at least invest in some bleach.” He chokes a little, coughs into his fist, then pours himself a glass of Mo?t.

“And Bean is barking all the time. Have you noticed that? I wonder if there’s somebody in there.”

“What, living in a van? Don’t be absurd.” One of Graham’s deepest blind spots is poverty. Not just poverty—he doesn’t believe in the middle class either. What’s the difference? Point is, they don’t have any money.

“People do live in vans,” I argue. “In Venice.”

“Where do they shit?” he asks like that ends the argument. “This neighborhood is going downhill.” He takes his seat at the head of the table. “Where’s the dressing? We need to move higher.”

I bring the dressing he likes in from the kitchen, then take my seat kitty-corner to him. I recite, “She moves in and the gate gets broken. The dog won’t stop barking. This strange van appears. It’s all a little weird, don’t you think?”

“She couldn’t have broken the gate.” He scoops salad into his mouth and keeps talking. “She’s tiny.” Like I didn’t make the same point two minutes ago.

“How do you know she’s tiny? Have you seen her?” My voice is suddenly threadbare, thinned.

“I caught her coming in.” His voice stays even, but he has a lofty look, a halo that circles his crown. He gets this way with the tenants: dreamier, more beautiful. It’s almost animal, the way it comes on, sharpens over time. He looks the way a peacock does right before it kills—I mean, fucks—like something crafted by the hand of God.

My chair squeaks. “What was she like?”

“Small.” He shrugs. “But she has a sort of toughness to her. You can tell she’s poor.”

“I thought she was quite pretty. Like an ingenue.”

He grunts. “Don’t fall in love with this one, too.” Like he doesn’t do the same thing: obsess, search for himself inside of a stranger, search for a version of himself he can live with and then find—surprise! He is still the same monster after all.

“How can I fall in love? I’ve hardly even seen her.” I gaze at my untouched plate. “I think she’s avoiding me.” The more I think about it, the more it does seem like a setup. It’s hard to believe that Margo would share the rules of the game with an outsider but maybe she did. Maybe she is trying to throw me off-balance. Maybe she is trying to scare me.

He moves his salad across the plate, concentrating. “What’s your plan?”

“I’m still getting to know her—”

“They’re all the same.” He coughs into his fist. “They want what we have, and they can’t get it.”

“I want to impress you,” I say. “Do something really spectacular.”

“Well. You’re taking forever.”

It’s been only a couple of weeks. I don’t want to rush it. They don’t. Once Margo took six months to cuck a separated banker. Even Graham takes his time, setting up elaborate scenarios with lost bunnies and wild horses. He draws them in, then pushes them away, bringing their longing to an artful crescendo. Of course, when it’s my turn, it’s suddenly not fast enough.

But it’s not just that. I can see it in Graham’s face, even with no stars out. His temples are tight. His jaw has a light pulse. What happened last time plays on his features, threatening to deepen his shallow.