Before the Fall(49)

To Sarah she said, “Scott’s a painter.”

“Failed,” he clarified.

“No. Now that’s—didn’t you just tell me you have gallery meetings next week?”

“Which are bound to go badly.”

“What do you paint?” Sarah asked.

“Catastrophe,” he said.

Sarah must have looked puzzled, because Maggie said, “Scott paints disaster scenes from the news—train wrecks, building collapses, and things like monsoons—they really are genius.”

“Well,” said Scott, “they’re morbid.”

“I’d like to see them sometime,” said Sarah politely, though morbid is exactly how it sounded to her.

“See?” said Maggie.

“She’s being polite,” said Scott perceptively. “But I appreciate it. I live pretty simply out here.”

It’s clear he would say more if asked, but Sarah changed subjects. “What time are you guys going back?” she asked.

“I’ll text you,” said Maggie, “but I think around eight. We fly to Teterboro and then into the city from there. We’re usually home and in bed by ten thirty.”

“Wow,” said Sarah, “that would be amazing. Just the thought of Sunday-afternoon gridlock—eek—I mean it’s worth it, but that would be—Ben is going to be thrilled.”

“Good,” said Maggie. “I’m glad. That’s what it’s there for, right? If you’ve got a plane—”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Scott.

“Don’t be snarky,” said Maggie, turning to him. “You’re coming too.”

She was grinning, teasing him, and Sarah decided that this was just how Maggie was, a good sport, a people person. Scott certainly wasn’t giving off a vibe that the two of them were anything other than farmers market friends.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thanks.”

He gave them both a smile and walked off. For a moment it felt that all three of them would go their separate ways, but Maggie lingered a bit and Sarah felt the obligation to keep talking if she wanted to, so the two of them leaned away and then back.

“How do you know him?” Sarah asked.

“Scott? Just—from around. Or—he’s always at Gabe’s, you know, having coffee, and I used to bring the kids down all the time, just a place to go to get out of the house. Rachel liked their muffins. And we just got chatty.”

“Is he married?”

“No,” said Maggie. “I think he was engaged once. Anyway, the kids and I went out to his place once, saw his work. It really is terrific. I keep trying to get David to buy something, but he said he’s in the disaster business, so he doesn’t really want to come home and look at that. And to be fair, they are pretty graphic.”

“I bet.”

“Yeah.”

They stood there for a moment, out of words, like two rocks in a stream, the movement of the crowd a constant around them.

“Things are good?” said Sarah.

“Good, yes. You?”

Sarah thought about the way Ben kissed her this morning. She smiled.

“They are.”

“Great. Well, let’s catch up on the plane, huh?”

“Amazing. Thanks again.”

“Okay. See you tonight.”

Maggie gave her a quick air kiss and then she was gone. Sarah watched her go, then went to find some more strawberries.

*



At the same time, Ben sat on the deck—reclaimed wood, ivied trellis—and watched the waves. Laid out on the kitchen counter were a dozen bagels with lox, heirloom tomatoes, capers, and a local artisanal cream cheese. Ben sat on a wicker chair with the Sunday Times and a cappuccino, a light wind in his face off the ocean. He had traded texts with Culpepper all weekend, using an app called Redact that blacked out messages as you read them, then erased them for good.

Out on the ocean, sailboats inch across the wave caps. Culpepper wrote cryptically that he had been digging into the government’s case through back channels. He used emoticons instead of key words, assuming it would make the texts harder to use as evidence, were the government to somehow crack the app.

Looks like they have a key :-( feeding them dirt.

Ben wiped tomato runoff from his chin, finished his first bagel half. A whistleblower? Is that what Culpepper was saying? Ben remembered the man with the turtleneck outside Bali, his nose broken in a Russian prison. Did that really happen?

Sarah came out onto the porch with half a grapefruit. Where he’d just gotten up, she’d already been to a Spin class in town.

“Ferry leaves at three thirty,” Ben told her. “So we should be there at two forty-five.”

Sarah handed him a napkin, sat.

“I ran into Maggie at the farmers market.”

“Bateman?”

“Yes. She was with some painter. I mean, not with, but they were talking.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, preparing to tune out the rest of the conversation.

“She said there’s room on their plane tonight.”

This got his attention.

“She offered?”

“Unless you want to take the ferry. But, you know, the traffic Sunday night.”