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By Root 631 0

that went on among some others. Stephanie would never have said that she liked Kathy; Kathy was a Republican, one of those people who used the unforgivable phrase “meant to be”—usually when describing her own good fortune or the disasters that had befallen other people. She knew little about Stephanie’s life—would surely have been dumbstruck to learn, for example, that the celebrity reporter who had made headlines a few years back by assaulting Kitty Jackson, the young movie star, while interviewing her for Details magazine, was Stephanie’s older brother, Jules. Occasionally Stephanie wondered whether her friend might understand more than she gave her credit for; I know you hate us, she imagined Kathy thinking, and we hate you too, and now that we’ve resolved that, let’s go rub out those bitches from Scarsdale. Stephanie loved the tennis with a ravenous aggression that half embarrassed her; she dreamed about line calls and backhands. Kathy was still the better player, but the margin was shrinking, a fact that seemed to pique and amuse them equally. As partners and opponents, mothers and neighbors, Steph and Kath were seamlessly matched. The only problem was Bennie.

Stephanie hadn’t believed him at first when he’d told her, the summer after the invasion—their second in Crandale—that he felt people giving him odd looks by the pool. She’d assumed he meant women who were admiring the clutch of brown muscles above his swim trunks, his wide dark eyes, and she’d snipped, “Since when do you have a problem with being looked at?”

But Bennie hadn’t meant that, and soon Stephanie felt it too: some hesitation or question around her husband. It didn’t seem to bother Bennie deeply; he’d been asked, “What kind of name is Salazar?” enough times in his life to be fairly immune to skepticism about his origins and race, and he’d perfected an arsenal of charms to obliterate that skepticism, especially in women.

Around the middle of that second summer, at another hedge-fund-fueled cocktail party, Bennie and Stephanie found themselves chatting, along with Kathy and Clay (or Cardboard, as they secretly called him) and some others, with Bill Duff, a local congressman who had come from a meeting with the Council on Foreign Relations. The topic was the presence of Al Qaeda in the New York area. Operatives were present, Bill confided, especially in the outer boroughs, possibly in communication with one another (Stephanie noticed Clay’s pale eyebrows suddenly lift, and his head gave a single odd jerk, as if he had water in one ear), but the question was: how strong a link did they have to the mother ship—here Bill laughed—because any kook with a grudge could call himself Al Qaeda, but if he lacked money, training, backup (Clay gave another quick head shake, then flicked his eyes at Bennie, to his right), it made no sense to allocate resources…

Bill paused midsentence, clearly baffled. Another couple broke in, and Bennie took Stephanie’s arm and moved away. His eyes looked placid, almost sleepy, but his grip hurt her wrist.

They left the party soon after. Bennie paid the babysitter, a sixteen-year-old nicknamed Scooter, and drove her home. He was back before Stephanie had even glanced at the clock and reflected on Scooter’s prettiness. She heard him setting the burglar alarm; then he thundered upstairs in a way that made Sylph, the cat, dive under the bed in terror. Stephanie ran from the bedroom and met Bennie at the top of the stairs. “What the fuck am I doing here?” he cried.

“Shh. You’ll wake up Chris.”

“It’s a horror show!”

“That was ugly,” she said, “although Clay’s an extr—”

“You’re defending them?”

“Of course not. But he’s one guy.”

“You think everyone in that group didn’t know what was going on?”

Stephanie was afraid that it might be true—had they all known? She wanted Bennie not to think so. “That’s totally paranoid. Even Kathy says—”

“Again! Look at you!”

He stood at the top of the stairs with fists clenched. Stephanie went to him and took him in her arms, and Bennie relaxed against her, almost knocking her over. They held each