Page 68 of A Better World

“I love them. I mean, what the hell?” Russell said, which was funny but also true. He loved bonsai plants; she found them horrifically controlled.

An hour in, with the help of his assistant, Heinrich climbed up onto the desk outside his office and made a speech about what a great job they were all doing defending the company. Their sister town was making great progress on another new synthetic that was set to launch the next year. Science was leading the way, and there was no stopping it. “In Plymouth Valley we trust!” he cried. Then everyone toasted with their absinthe-dipped pisco sours.

Linda pointed out the altar to Russell, upon which someone had broken raw eggs, so they were exposed and rotting. The ventilation was so efficient that they were hard to smell. “What and why?” she asked.

He kissed the back of her hair. “Let’s enjoy the mystery.”

She went over to the altar, inspected the three eggs. In each, the clear albumin had congealed. Green mold ran in veiny lines all through. Words were scratched into the wood over which the eggs rested:

Beware the Sacrifice

Russell joined her, his arm around her waist. “If we ask someone, they’ll tell us it’s nothing,” she said. “Just for fun.”

With hesitation, he stated like a question: “Maybe it is nothing? Or at least, not our problem?”

The party, though cocktails and not dinner, lasted four hours. The twentysomething assistant got happy-drunk, a middle-aged lady fell asleep at her own desk, and someone’s wife puked, which Linda discovered because she entered the bathroom when it happened.

Linda was washing her hands, thinking that the stalls there were the same size as the ones at Sluggs, where she’d taken Russell so many years before. They’d been so young back then. In old pictures, their faces looked as unformed as dough.

She heard gagging. She bent down, saw kitten heels pointed at the toilet. “Are you sick?”

More gagging.

“Can I get you some water?”

“I’m totally okay!” a cheerful voice answered.

Linda came out. The woman did, too. Then Linda laughed. “It’s you!”

It was Tania Janssen, the woman from the bakery, who’d come to the PV Hospital with her baby after the fire, worried the child had cancer.

Linda went to the sink, poured water into one of the glasses against the backsplash, and handed it to her. Tania swished and spit. Water ricocheted. Linda pretended not to notice that it had landed on her hand and blue silk party dress that she’d only just gotten from the Fabric Collective.

“Is everything okay?”

Tania shrugged. “I’ve got a PhD in this stuff, but I gave it up when I got pregnant. I never liked the work. Numbers. Who cares! I get so bored at places like this. These nights never end. You’d think we could play cards or go for a walk or something. Maleek usually keeps me home. I’m an indoor cat.”

Linda nodded with understanding. “It’s too much booze and it’s bad getting drunk but it’s worse building the tolerance and getting used to it.”

Tania smirked. “The baby’s fine, by the way. My mom’s watching her. And I’m not worried she’ll be sick. At least not this year.”

“This year?”

“The Parkers already got sick this year,” she said. “After the fire, I thought they might die, so then it would have been some other kids forced to hold black ribbons at the Winter Festival. But they didn’t die.”

“What?”

Tania took the glass, flung it inside the stall, where it shattered against the seat. Glass projectiled back, slamming Linda’s legs without breaking skin.

It felt surreal. Impossible. “What the hell are you saying? Why did you do that?”

“Oh, that’s right, you’re new,” Tania answered. “Don’t worry. Someone always cleans it up.” Then she popped a breath mint and walked with drunken precision back into the bustling party.

Linda stayed a minute in the solitary bathroom. She didn’t dry her legs. Drips ran down. The wash sinks were three side by side. A mirror along the wall traversed their expanse. She saw herself. A pretty woman in blue silk and done hair whose grays she’d recently dyed back to brown. A rich woman, who’d lost weight but nonetheless grown soft. Linda could see this in her own expression, which had lost all certainty.

She headed back out to the party, opening the door to laughter and music. She didn’t hear it. She was outside it all, watching open mouths and red lips and glinting teeth. People with glasses of imported wine toasted rotting eggs on an altar for a god she did not know. She saw her husband among his friends, looking happy and accepted, his eyes following every movement, every word issued, in what appeared to her like submission.

At first light Thanksgiving morning, Linda drove Josie to the police department.

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