Outside, dusk is settling as they maneuver into the car. Inside, the sitter’s sitting with the kids. After a long week, once again it’s Saturday night. They wait all week for the weekend. They live for the weekends! But once it comes it never lives up to the hype. The husband plugs in the address. Then the ignition turns over, first with a sputter then with a cough.
Would you like to begin navigation?
Like any good story, the end’s in sight before the start. “I figure we’ll leave at ten o’clock,” says the husband.
The big football game is being recorded. If he gets home early, the night won’t be a total bust. He pulls out of the driveway slowly, emerging cocoonlike from a canopy of trees.
Check your connection. Your connection may be temporarily lost.
The wife glances at her watch. She owns a drawerful of watches. There’s one to count her steps. One to wear to the office. The one with fake diamonds she wears to fancy parties in not-so-fancy neighborhoods. She’s wearing the Omega now, nice enough to impress but sporty enough for the Richtners. Omigod! She closes her eyes and sucks in her stomach. Another fucking night with the Richtners!
At the second right, turn left.
“We need to stay for dessert,” says the wife.” Last time we left before dessert, remember? The next thing I know, Carmen’s forging my name on the PTA sign-up sheet. It was like penance. Like she was evening the cosmic score. For months I was stuck selling wrapping paper. Christmas paper. Going door to door with Mikey’s red wagon like some overgrown Girl Scout.”
Calculating. Calculating.
The husband scowls at the dashboard. “Remember that trifle? Who puts Jell-O in a trifle?” The map, a tangle of veins and capillaries, is impossible to read. “But the bottom line is business. My account’s in the crapper without people like Bob.”
The calculations are almost through.
Meanwhile his mind races through a hundred permutations, a sort of balance sheet for the soul. The husband considers himself successful. Good-looking! His hair is mostly thick, and his waist is fairly trim. He’s fiscally healthy and physically sound. Overall a solid performance!
“But maybe,” he says. “We can fake an emergency. There’s a call from the sitter. Mikey fell and lost a tooth.”
Enter the next roundabout.
Then suddenly droplets ping. The sky has darkened and the windshield’s cloudy. What was clear is now covered with haze. “Meanwhile we’re all smiles,” says the husband. Squinting, he circles his palm on the glass. “We’re all smiles and pass the sweetener and you coaching T-ball, Bob?”
A point of interest lies directly up ahead.
“I hear Natasha’s gonna be there,” says the wife. “Her new gig is Louis Vuitton. She gets the purses wholesale right from China. Sells them out of her trunk practically at cost.”
Proceed to the next intersection.
They’ve driven this route a million times. But what was once familiar now looks foreboding. There’s no moon. No stars. No streetlights. Not a single landmark cries out. And for a brief moment, something like panic flashes through them. The husband pulls over near a strip of shuttered stores. There are bars across the windows and locked gates across the doors. A lone shadow skulks behind a curtain. A blur of fur slinks across the road. And all at once an ugly thought blooms like a black puddle. They have no idea where they are.
“Maybe we should like find a gas station,” says the wife. “You know. Ask for directions.”
Gripping the steering wheel with one hand, the husband’s fingers again reach for the dashboard. He can’t believe another Saturday night is shot! He’s beyond incredulous. He’s downright giddy with despair. Once, he thinks, life was simple. They had no obligations. No children. No mortgage. No, Whatdya mean you don’t play golf?
Calculating. Calculating.
Now their whole life is programmed. Every waking minute’s booked. And not a move is made without a machine. Cellular. Molecular. Secular. Every plan is pixilated, chopped into a thousand parts, and tossed into a blender. Every decision is stirred, whirred, and blurred. The husband glares at the dashboard with something like hatred. Where in the goddamned world were they?
Then surfacing from the silence is a still small voice.
In 200 feet, make a U-turn. Then follow the highlighted route.
Once again, they’re moving.
“I could fake a call from the alarm company,” says the husband. “There’s a possible intruder. A window could be broken. A neighbor called the cops.”
The wheels are turning slowly now. They feel a speed bump. They see a trash can, a yield sign, and a cat.
Proceed straight for the next quarter mile.
Then from out of nowhere…light. In the distance, what was foggy comes into focus. They know this neighborhood. This neighborhood with its spindly trees and over-reaching aspirations.
“We’ll tell them it’s your mother,” says the husband. “We’re picking apart our chicken when the assisted living calls. We’ve got bad news, we tell them.”
Your destination is straight ahead.
Meanwhile the wife’s using the camera on her phone to check her makeup. A blue green pallor tints her face. “It’s probably nothing, it’s almost definitely nothing,” says the wife. “It’s a little stroke. A minor setback. We’re not the worrying kind.”
Congratulations! You have arrived.
“But then again, we’re not callous,” says the husband. “A parent’s a parent. We’re good people. Devoted people. When duty calls, you know we’re there.”
Like soldiers, they march up the sidewalk to the Richtner home. Before he forgets, the husband clicks the car doors closed. Then he hands off the keys to his wife who slides them into her purse. She likes her purse. Her purse with its clever shoulder strap is both handy and handsome. But sometime after the wine and cheese but before the crème brulée she’ll be cornered by Natasha. A trunk will be opened, her old purse replaced.
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