everywhere. She rolled down the windows so she could taste the salty air, the blue sky, the brown beaches. Oh, Staten Island, here comes Wendy Clarke of Enjoy! magazine. Mrs. Roy Clarke. Mother of Shy, Chloe, and Anna Clarke. Seagulls hovered in the misty air, their beaks open in silent yawp. Below the bridge, the deep water tossed and sucked. Wendy’s tongue tingled with the rankness of it. Her nostrils flared.
Yes, fireworks. There had to be someplace that sold them. Staten Island had everything.
* * *
Elizabeth had been arrested for serving and selling alcohol without a license, a misdemeanor criminal offense with up to one year of prison time. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Monte was a real bar serving liquor to the public and that bars had certain rules. She’d received notices with threats of fines when she’d taken over the site months ago, but she’d thrown the notices away without even opening them. The police had ransacked the bar and confiscated the liquor. The odor of dead fish in the basement and “evidence of foul play” down there made them even more suspicious. They put a dead bolt on Monte’s door and sealed it with yellow police tape.
Tupper tried to be helpful.
“It’s art,” he protested. “She’s an artist.” He supplied the authorities with video footage from the Macaw—proof that her unusual behavior was all in the name of the work.
Elizabeth was kept in a holding cell on State Street until the police had taken their statements and reviewed the video. In the end, the fact that she was a renowned artist and Tupper a respected industrial designer helped quite a bit. The New York City Police Department wanted to appear open-minded. Elizabeth was sentenced to only five days prison time and fined thirty thousand dollars—more than twice the cost of a New York State liquor license.
Due to overcrowding at the holding prison, Elizabeth was transferred to Rikers Island for the last three days of her detainment. Tupper visited her the first morning, traveling from Cobble Hill to Pier One by Citi Bike, Pier One to Wall Street, and then on to Queens by NYC Ferry, and the rest of the way by kayak. As he paddled across the murky, swiftly moving water, barely escaping death by ferry collision, trash floe, or the charge of a barge, he saw how easily one could deposit a body, or anything else, in the cold New York–area waters. There were so many islands, so many marshes and canals and inlets. Determined to continue his and Elizabeth’s work despite this little hiccup, he’d taken a wooden arm with him in the kayak. He released it in a ferry’s wake and paddled on.
How wonderful that he knew just where to find her. She was locked in a cell, right where she’d been deposited the night before. He knew it was wrong, but he’d even been a bit coy with the lawyers, not returning their calls right away, giving them only limited information, because he’d really almost rather she stayed in jail than leave him again.
* * *
Bettina had read The Handmaid’s Tale. She knew about having babies against your will.
“I just got accosted by some kind of weather specialist,” Isabel announced. “He asked me all these really bizarre questions like, ‘Did I feel any fragmentation?’ And then he put his hand on my stomach. Scientists are so creepy.”
* * *
Much to Tupper’s disappointment, Elizabeth’s jail time was cut short. Her concerned patrons, including the CEO of Apple, the Italian politician who’d funded her last show at the Venice Biennale, some rich art collector in Iceland, and Roy Clarke himself, bailed her out early. They also wrote letters, lauding her work and clearing her of all malintent, that were published in the New York Times, Artforum, the Wall Street Journal, and Italian Vogue.
Tupper brought her home from Rikers that very day. He cooked a late lunch of fish and noodles and demonstrated his latest prototype.
“It’s the Money Pit,” he explained. “Sort of a cross between a peach pit and a sea sponge.”
Elizabeth stared at it and hugged her bowl. She forked a pile of noodles and fish into her mouth.
The Money Pit was a wallet made from a spongy material that literally absorbed your bills and change into its pores and then flattened in your pocket. It was revolutionary. He’d gotten the idea while trying to conceal a Barbie arm in the bark of a dead, rain-dampened tree.