The Cave Dwellers by Christina McDowell (readict books TXT) 📕

“They said you were disgruntled because you got fired,” Bunny says, trying to bury the terror of the possibility that he did do it, confirming the worst of her suspicions.

“Yeah, they fired me after that.”

“But they never said why you were fired in the news.”

“Nope.…”

Bunny hesitates; the ball is moving too fast and she feels a little uneasy, a little unsure if she’s up for this, if her gut is right or if she’s been misguided.

“So would you help me find a better lawyer then?”

“I—I need to talk to a few people first,” she says, looking back into the screen.

“If you can’t help me, then get the fuck out,” Anthony says. He’s about to slam the phone down.

Bunny pleads, “No, wait, I’m—I’m going to figure this out—”

The sound of an alarm, time’s up.

Anthony calms himself, swivels in his seat.

“I’ll come back next weekend.”

Visitors begin standing, phones clicking. Anthony hangs up.

Bunny heads for the gates of the graveyard but feels someone watching her. She spins around and looks up. A white man in an orange jumpsuit stands in the window, holding something in his hand, a broom or a mop. The sound of an alarm again. Bunny keeps walking, passing the tower of the jail covered in barbed wire. To her left sits a little blue guardhouse with mirrored windows; she tries to look inside but only sees herself.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Before Betsy picks up the girls from school, she decides she will drop off the application at the Washington Club in person, for a few more minutes of face time. She has also (upon many nights filled with ambitious dread) decided that prior to setting up the interview lunch with the director, she will take a look at The Social List of Washington, DC (aka the Green Book) to prepare herself for the meeting. Because that meeting will determine whether her personality, her social position in Washington, her personal history (she’ll deal with her dead ex-husband’s reputation later), her immediate family reputation, her husband’s job, and how much they give to charity are enough for her to be inducted into the club of clubs.

Embarrassed by not having heard of the Green Book in her earlier days in Washington, which makes Betsy feel even more inadequate, and unwilling to ask Linda for a glimpse of her personal copy, she has made an appointment at the Georgetown Library’s archives to leaf through it.

Upon entering the Georgetown public library, Betsy is horrified. It smells like an alleyway: garbage and piss with whiffs of old newspaper. As she passes two long tables with computer stations occupied mostly by homeless men using them to look for jobs and check e-mail, she is particularly disturbed by one white man—bald pate, rat ponytail in back—playing a computer game in which a guy in a tank is running over and shooting up civilians with his AK-47; the balding man is whispering to himself, “It means I can kill ten thousand digital bodies.”

Betsy places her new Hermès neck scarf over her nose and walks up to the information desk.

A young man wearing a silver bracelet looks up from his magazine. “Hi, Queen,” he says.

“Oh. Hello!” Betsy can’t help but giggle. “Do you greet the entire general public this way?”

“Oh no, honey.” He smiles. “I love your scarf.”

“Thank you! I—I’m looking for the Peabody Room.”

“Of course you are.” He grabs his set of keys on the desk. “Follow me. It’s on the third floor.”

Betsy watches the young man turn the key next to the elevator’s third-floor button, thankful she’s on her way to a private room, which she hopes smells better.

“You here for genealogy?” he asks.

“More like… society.” Betsy winks, trying to make light of it. “A bit of research for a project I’m working on.”

“Ooh-la-la, nothin’ like a little afternoon with the haves and the have-nots!” he jokes. The elevator door opens. He holds it for Betsy but does not exit with her. “No need for a key to get back down. George in the back can answer any questions you have. Ta-ta!”

“Thank you!” Betsy waves. The doors close.

Betsy is relieved to see bygone books in glass cases and DO NOT TOUCH signs on historical documents; there’s a not-great but better, more vague library smell. An old man who seems rather disconnected from reality shouts from the doorway to the back storage area, “Can I help you?”

“Oh, just looking for right now, thank you,” Betsy replies, clutching her new Gucci purse close to her side. When the man goes back to his desk to resume reading, Betsy takes a gander, trailing along bookshelves. She sees titles like Black Georgetown Remembered, which indicates she’s going the wrong way. She walks across the room to the other corner and reads titles like The Georgetown Set and The Georgetown Ladies’ Social Club and she knows she’s getting warmer. Finally she spots the little green book in between something boring and something else boring, a book the size of a hardcover elementary school telephone directory.

The Social List of Washington, DC is scrolled in gold letters on its cover. Betsy pulls out the two boring books next to it so as not to appear… lame, but more like a student doing her diligent research on Washington society. Betsy takes a seat at the mahogany table in the far corner below a portrait of George Peabody, the old “father of philanthropy” and financier who rose from humble beginnings to become a pioneer in American credit and banking.

The Green Book begins with a table of contents of Washington hierarchy: The White House, The Supreme Court, The Congress, The Diplomatic Corps, and Businessmen and Women (financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, etc.), which informs those worthy enough to obtain a copy of home addresses, in addition to the summer, winter, and retirement home addresses, and the occasional fourth home (usually somewhere in Europe). Betsy takes photographs with her iPhone of the addresses she finds in McLean, Virginia, so she