“No, it’s dark, in the house and outside.”
“It’s a big one,” Arthur confirmed. They could hear something heavy fall in the house, and the Victorian wooden structure was groaning, but it had survived the quake of ’06, so Arthur wasn’t worried. “You have to be careful of falling objects afterward, and broken glass. The aftershocks will shake loose whatever this one didn’t. Do you know how to turn off the gas?”
“I’m not sure. What do I do?” Peter asked him, as the earth and the house stopped shaking and the noise receded, like a wounded beast going back into its lair underground.
“The valve is on the side of the house. You need a crescent wrench. We have one in the tool closet. Let’s go outside first, and see what’s happening there. Someone will be able to show you how to do it.” This was precisely why he hired a person like Peter. His last night man had worked for him for four years, and had gotten married shortly before he hired Peter. It was for times like this that he needed someone with him, and occasionally to help him get to bed, if he was exhausted after a concert. But most of the time, he preferred to manage on his own, as long as he knew Peter was upstairs. He used an intercom to call him. He wasn’t a demanding employer and Peter loved working for him, and living in the handsome old house. Moving there had been a godsend for him, and in some ways reminded him of his boyhood home in Illinois. He still missed it at times. He rarely went home now. He didn’t want to leave Arthur alone. After a year of working for him, he felt responsible for him. “Let’s go outside,” Arthur suggested to Peter. “Be very careful if there are live wires down. Don’t step on them!” he warned him, and Peter helped him out from under the piano, led him carefully down the stairs and out the front door. When he opened it, there was a man standing at their front door and a woman with two young children standing in front of the house next door. Peter suddenly realized that the man had been pounding on their front door, and in the excitement, and the noise at the tail end of the earthquake, they hadn’t heard him.
“What took you so long?” Andrew almost shouted at Peter.
“We were busy,” Peter answered him, leading Mr. Harriman to a cluster of people standing outside his house and talking. He was gregarious and an extrovert, and Peter knew he would want to talk to them.
“We need a wrench to turn our gas off,” Andrew said, once he realized that the older man was blind, and bringing his tone down a notch.
“So do we,” Peter said. “I think we have one in a tool closet. I’ll go back inside and look in a minute. You can come with me. We need a crescent wrench and I’m not sure what that looks like. You can use ours if we find it.” Andrew followed him into the house a few minutes later, as Arthur chatted with their neighbors, and Tyla and the children walked over to him. He was telling them all about the quake of ’89.
Andrew used a flashlight to guide them through the Harriman house, and they found the closet easily. Andrew pointed to the crescent wrench they needed, and Peter handed it to him. Then he looked at Peter.
“Is that Arthur Harriman, the concert pianist? I didn’t know he lived next door to us.” He seemed surprised and impressed. “Or does he just look like him?”
“No, it’s him. He’s very discreet, and he travels a lot for concerts. He’s had the house soundproofed so the neighbors can’t hear him practicing.”
“Are you his son?” Andrew asked him, curious. He spoke to Peter in a pleasant tone, and smiled warmly at him. Andrew could be very charming when he wanted to be. He had been much less so when Peter opened the front door. His tone had been harsh, but not now.
“I work for him,” Peter said with a smile. “I’m his ‘sleeper.’ I sleep at the house at night, in case he needs anything. But he manages fine on his own most of the time, except for something like this.”
“I don’t suppose our other famous neighbor will make an appearance tonight. The gates hardly ever open, and I hear she never goes out,” Andrew said cryptically.
“Who’s that? Mr. Harriman never talks about his neighbors.”
Andrew looked surprised Peter didn’t know. She was a legend in the neighborhood, and the city. It was a name everyone knew, all over the world.
“Meredith White, the famous movie star,” Andrew told him. “She’s been a recluse for the past ten or fifteen years. No one ever sees her. She’s like a UFO. People wait for sightings, but she’s elusive. My wife thought she saw her at a yoga class once, but it’s not likely. I don’t think she’ll come out unless her house falls down, and that’s not going to happen.” He pointed toward the mansion on the corner, surrounded by the tall hedge, and Peter looked surprised. Arthur had never mentioned her. Maybe he didn’t know, and Peter never wondered who the neighbors were.
“I didn’t know she lived there. My mother saw all her movies. I’ll have to tell her.” Peter smiled at the thought.
The two men walked out of the Harriman house together, and Peter went with Andrew to help him shut off the gas at his place. Then Andrew followed him to turn off the gas for Arthur’s house. They could hear helicopters overhead by then, flying low, checking the city.
“It sounds like a war zone,” Andrew commented.
“Where are we all going to sleep tonight?” Peter asked him. “I’m not sure any of our houses are safe, even with the gas off.”
“I have to show up at the hospital pretty soon,” Andrew told him. “It’s our protocol for citywide emergencies. I’ll have to figure something out for my wife and kids.” He looked pensive. “I think there may be shelters set up at the public schools. The auditorium at the hospital will probably be set up too.” He could always take them there. They were discussing it when they joined Arthur, Tyla, and the children.
* * *
—
Joel Fine and Ava Bates had been making love when the earthquake hit. For an instant, Joel thought he had hit new heights with her, and then they both realized what it was, leapt out of bed, and rushed to the doorway where they stood and kissed, still naked.
“That was a good one, babe, wasn’t it?” he teased her, while Ava looked panicked and clung to him, as the sound of the earthquake roared around them, and all the books fell out of his bookshelves and crashed to the floor. Joel had founded two brilliantly successful startups and made a fortune. His house had been decorated by a famous interior designer, and he had a Bentley and a Ferrari in the garage. Ava had been living with him for two years. He was forty-two years old and Ava was twenty-nine. She was a tradeshow model they had hired to do ads for his most recent startup, and she had caught his attention immediately when he attended a photo shoot. He had taken her to Vegas for a weekend, and she never left. She was going to college online now, and wanted to be a graphic designer. When he met her, Joel thought she was a gorgeous girl, and had applied all the same rules to her he always did. Give them a great time, concentrate on having fun, keep them around as long as they’re amusing and easy to be with, and future plans not included. He never dragged out a relationship once it stopped being fun, and Ava had lasted longer than most of his women. He was divorced and had no interest in getting married again, and said so. His first marriage had cured him. So had his own parents’ bitter divorce. He had spent his youth as an only child in Philadelphia as a pawn between parents who hated each other, and he fled gratefully to college at UC Berkeley. He had married after business school in their entrepreneurial program. And when he caught his wife cheating on him, he had divorced her, before they could turn into his parents. He had learned his lesson early. Marriage wasn’t for him, and he had no intention of trying again.