She must have accidentally brushed the egg away, into the sink. “Shit!” Quickly, Susan pulled the stopper of the sink closed, so the tiny sac couldn’t slip down the drain. She craned her neck over the basin, squinting for the white dot against the off-white ceramic. Nothing.
“Damn it!” Susan said. “Damn it.”
“Baby? You all right?”
“What?”
Alex had cracked open the bathroom door and leaned in to the room, groggy and unshaven. Susan looked over, holding the toothbrush limply in her hand.
“I just asked if you were all right?”
“Yeah. I …” She turned back to the sink, playing out the conversation in her mind:
“There was an egg sac on my toothbrush.”
“Oh, wow. Let me see it.”
“It’s gone. I lost it.”
“Well, if you see another one, let me know.”
“It’s nothing,” Susan said, and Alex shrugged.
“Okey-doke.”
“You need to pee?”
On the way out of the bathroom, Susan flung her toothbrush into the trash.
By the time Alex emerged from the bathroom, Susan had dressed and returned downstairs; when he came down to make his coffee, she asked if he could hang out with Emma that morning till Marni arrived. A cloud of annoyance passed over Alex’s face, and Susan could see him weighing the value of his lost work hours against the cost of pissing her off. Finally, he smiled, shot her a thumbs-up, and said, “Of course, baby.”
“Great.”
Susan pulled on her coat, suddenly desperate to get out of the house and taste the air.
“You doing all right?” Alex paused on the stairs, examining her as he took his first slow sip of coffee. “How was sleeping on the sofa?”
“Fine.”
“Oh, good. So I’ll survive if and when you kick me out of bed.”
Susan gave him a tight smile in lieu of a laugh and slipped out of the apartment, buttoning her coat as she walked down the exterior stairs to Cranberry Street. Immediately, she realized that the weather was too cold for her shortish skirt, loose cotton top, and light jacket; the wind bit at her legs, chased up her skirt and her sleeves.
This was autumn weather, and Susan felt a melancholy shiver, like the seasons had changed without asking her permission. She glanced back at 56 Cranberry Street but kept on walking.
She stopped into a characterless deli on Henry Street, ordered an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese, and ate it as she walked the streets. For an hour, then two hours, she walked around Brooklyn in wide circles, watching the sun come up and the commuters emerge from their apartments and move in their intersecting tides toward the various subways. She meandered as far south as 2nd Place, west to the Atlantic Center, east as far as the shipyards. At 9:30 she was on Van Brunt Street, on the outskirts of Red Hook, and she stopped into a consignment shop that was just opening for the day; there was a poster taped in the window of a cartoon bedbug, upside down with its legs in the air. “Every item treated for infestation!” it said. Susan had a sudden, insane fear that this guarantee was backed up by infrared cameras, scanning each patron for bugs, and that some sort of alarm bell would sound as bedbug-sniffing dogs chased her from the store.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she muttered and forced herself to remain in the store for fifteen minutes, rifling through the racks of vintage dresses and antique costume jewelry.
Then Susan just kept walking, trudging in no particular direction, yawning, shivering, her bone-deep exhaustion making her feel like she was walking on the bottom of the ocean. Pressure throbbed behind her eyes. She weaved down Smith Street in a haze, trying to puzzle out what was happening to the house … to her. The dreams, the bites, the egg on her toothbrush that morning that had disappeared before she could snatch it, before Alex could see it … she felt like the bugs were teasing her—tormenting her—like they had somehow singled her out for punishment …
… and don’t forget about Jessie — good old Jessie Spender …
“Hey! Watch it, lady!”
Susan had collided with a knot of people clustered at the corner of Schermerhorn and Court, in front of the state courthouse. They were gawking at a woman in a bright orange jumpsuit and handcuffs, being led from a prison van into the courthouse by a trio of brutish-looking female police officers. Susan brought a trembling hand up to her chest. The prisoner was Anna Mara Phelps, who had shoved her poor babies to their death from the rooftop on Livingston Street.
At the door of the courthouse, the prisoner stopped in her shuffling progress and turned to stare back at the crowd, her eyes wide and innocent and terrified.
Susan found herself staring directly at Anna Mara. “It’s OK,” she mouthed to the terrified woman, who looked so small and fragile surrounded by the escorting officers and the restless crowd, like a trapped bird. “It’s OK.” Anna Mara looked back at her desperately before being led away. Susan turned and stumbled down the street.
Strange words appeared again in Susan’s head, flashed before her eyes like neon on a dark street: not only on blood — on body and soul.
Susan didn’t know what it was, but something very wrong was going on, and she had to act.
“Oh, my God, Susan! I was just talking about you!”
“Really?”
Susan reached the intersection of Schermerhorn and Court Street and waited at the light, running her tongue over her dry and chapped lips, while Jenna prattled in her ear. “I was just saying to Rami — do you remember Rami? He’s the choreographer on Dignity, and his boyfriend went to college with you, actually — anyway, I was just telling Rami all about you, and how I seriously owed you a call.”
“That’s sweet. How’re you doing, Jenna?” Susan cleared her throat, trying to let some light and air into her voice. “Did that show open?”
“What? Yeah. We got — there was a pretty good review in the Times, actually.” In the background, someone, she guessed Rami, screeched “Pretty good?” with exaggerated incredulity.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I totally missed it.”
“That’s OK. You’re so busy.”
“Jenna …” Susan took a deep breath and steadied herself in the doorway of the Barnes & Noble. She winced at the reflection, haunted and haggard, staring back at her from the bookstore’s glass doorway. “I need to ask you a favor.”
It was no use. She could hear and feel the tears in her voice; surely Jenna could hear them as well.
“Susan? What’s up?”
The wind had intensified along the broad stretch of Court Street. It whistled and whipped at her ears. Susan held the phone closer and drew her coat closed around her chest. “Me and Emma need a place to crash.”
She ended with a hopeful rise in her voice and waited for eager, generous Jenna to say, “Oh, of course!” Or “No problem!” Or “I’ll leave the keys with the doorman.… ”
Instead there was only silence, and the light crackle of an imperfect connection.
“Jenna?” she said at last.
“What’s going on?” Jenna’s voice on the other end dropped to a whisper. “Is it the bedbugs?”
“Oh, no, no.” Susan spoke quickly, rattling out the words, her voice rising desperately. “Actually, no, remember? Kaufmann said we don’t have them, I thought I told you, I could have sworn I told you, and by the way thanks so much for the recommendation. She was — that was super helpful.”
Another silence. The tinny echo of the cell-phone connection. The wind whipped up into Susan’s sleeves. “No, it’s not that. It’s, um, it’s Alex. We’re having a really hard time.”