the costs and benefits of group membership (she might find her dog, but she might be wasting her time); how information was transferred (low, polite speech and understated gestures); how decisions were made (Julie was in charge). Could there be anything more than the mean sum of the parts given the strained manners of this Upper West Side cocktail charade? Was entertaining the fantasy of a higher-level group mind emerging from this ill-sorted assembly just that: a fantasy?
When it came to starlings, the basics of collective action involved seven factors: density, orientation, polarity, nearest neighbor distance, packing fraction, integrated conditional density, and pair distribution. If only she could unravel the dynamics of the room in the same way she analyzed murmurations of starlings as their kinetic formations twisted, turned, swooped, and spun, creating an electrifying effect as a unified flock of ten, several hundred thousand, or even a million. Unlike the off-putting scene before her, the rapidly changing shapes formed by the clouds of birds appeared paranormal. And yet they were nothing more than birds so common they’d long since been identified as an invasive species. It was legal to shoot, trap, poison, or destroy starlings, their nests, eggs, and hatchlings anywhere in the United States.
So what about density? It hardly applied. They’d formed a small group self-selected by geographical location and therefore by class, excluding those who’d lost dogs in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Everyone in the room was upper- or upper-middle class by New York standards. The single male in the room, seated to her left, had that patrician effortlessness (never mind his blindingly expensive-looking clothes) that subtly but clearly signaled the presence of both freshly minted and musty bills.
What about the orientation of bodies? They were not all pointing in the same direction the way a shoal of fish do; rather, they formed a neat circle, as a spherical murmuration might at the crucial midpoint of a sharp turn. This critical transition—when the birds swooped around, impossibly coordinated, turning the whole group with such precision it behaved as a single organism—mesmerized Alice every time she’d witnessed it. There was nothing even close to it happening on the twenty-second floor of Central Park West. Their claims to group membership were ultimately so emotionally disparate that the most they definitively shared were their parts in the pulpy, seething mass of humanity that was the life of the city itself.
Suddenly despairing at her ordinary plight, Alice skipped over the complexities of polarity. Humans exhibited some instinct for direction, one that was likely based on a magnetic mechanism in the eye similar to the starling’s. Surely Maebelle had the same. Maybe she would find her own way home.
Shaking off a wave of self-pity, Alice considered her nearest neighbor distance (NND). She estimated the distance between herself and Nancy to her left. Nancy’s ensemble of silver Birkenstocks, frosty pink toenail polish, white linen pants, and embroidered peasant blouse was roughly sixteen inches away. To her left sat the man with sockless feet in loafers, fine poplin pants in midnight blue revealing a slice of bony, hairy ankle, his razor-sharp shirt with minuscule blue-and-white stripes concealing what appeared to be the hint of a fading winter tan. St. Barts? Guadeloupe? Majorca? He had scooted as far from her as he politely could—right to the edge of the cushion. Perhaps he didn’t want to be suggestive? Sitting too close could imply all sorts of things.
Relaxing into her game, Alice shifted her weight toward the back of the sofa, abandoning the awkward edge-of-the-seat position as she settled deep into the plush down that filled the sofa’s massive white leather seat cushion. Assessing the group for any outliers, she noted the whole was neatly contained in its circular order. If not that, there was always the packing fraction to consider. It was an amusing, if not particularly useful, consideration. Given the vast glass table and the luxurious depth and breadth of the sofas, the packing fraction would be well above the standard for a murmuration. Alice stared at the oversize low vase of pink and white peonies at the center of the table. Using the flowers as her set point, she tried focusing on the overall shape of the group. It was a turbulent mess, really. They were a loose network. Alice froze for a moment, considering how her smallest movement—reaching forward to grab an hors d’oeuvre—would alter the whole. Julie, the hostess, might lean in to help her reach the tray or a cocktail napkin, thus ending her conversation with Jody, which might have led to an idea that would enable her to find Maebelle. Alice refrained.
The ignorance behind serving red wine in late May, when it was still eighty degrees outside at 6 PM, nibbled at the edge of Alice’s good manners until her thoughts were diverted by the prospect of the damage her red wine could inflict on the expensive sofa and white Berber rug should she collide with anyone (or anything). She then sat with the forbidden pleasure she might take in a ghastly spill and the diversion it would offer.
Finally, Julie stopped her talk. People began to chat among themselves. As she considered her next move—whom to talk to as her self-contained silence began to feel conspicuous—she tried to correct her impulse to scoot away from the hint of patchouli wafting her way from Nancy’s direction. Why not talk to the man? After all, he looked almost as awkward as she did. Right next to her, he sat staring straight ahead. He’d been nibbling a single morsel of smoked salmon on toast for quite some time. Maybe it had gone off and he was trying to figure out how to politely get rid of it?
Starting the conversation would be an effort. For the past week Alice had done little other than walk the twenty-block radius around her building taping flyers on scaffolding, building entrances, crossing signs, lampposts, subway stairwells, and trees. She’d called the local precinct, veterinary offices, and regional shelters every day. The rest of the time she spent on the web, either monitoring found dogs or updating her posts about Maebelle. She hadn’t really talked to anyone. In fact, she’d avoided calling Bette and Emile. She and Peter had agreed not to tell the girls the dog was lost—yet. Why upset them? They were just finished with finals and about to start their prestigious summer internships at the Women’s Environmental Network. They had no plans to return to New York before late August.
I’m Alice Foster, she said, haltingly extending her hand and turning her body right to engage what she’d finally determined was an undeniably handsome man. He wasn’t facing her, which forced her to speak louder than she would have liked to. What she hoped was a disarming smile was wasted on the air as he continued to stare straight ahead, studying the pattern of dill sprigs on his bitten canapé. After an awful pause during which she feared she’d need to loudly repeat herself, he sensed her eyes on the side of his head and turned with a tiny start.
Oh—hi. He smiled, showing too-white teeth and extending his hand. George McClintock.
Alice, she repeated as she gripped his cool, positively prissy, smooth palm. This wasn’t just a man who didn’t work in the trades—this was quite possibly a man who didn’t work at all. Just carrying a briefcase or suitcase would produce more callous than this George possessed.
I remember you from our chats. You’ve lost your mutt.
Strictly speaking, Maebelle was a mutt. Although he said it kindly, with a sympathetic warmth that came with a nice crinkle around his fifty-something eyes, she bristled at the word.
Yes. She’s a Chihuahua-Dachshund mix. Tiny. Sweet. Aren’t they all? Then she recalled that he’d lost a German shepherd. Not tiny and likely not at all sweet. Alice couldn’t stand the breed—it always reminded her of Hitler’s believed Blondi. That Hitler showed affection for a dog eroded the humanizing value of her relationship with Maebelle. If a man as profoundly evil as Hitler could love a dog and the dog could love him back, then the capacity for loving a dog said nothing about human character, compassion, or morality. Alice liked to think she was more sensitive to dogs than others were, that her bond resulted from her superior ability to understand animals. Of course, charming Rin Tin Tin was also German shepherd, and J. R. Ackerley’s sexy companion Tulip had also been a shepherd—or an Alsatian, as the Brits called them. What a strangely wonderful story that was. Alice hoped this man hadn’t been quite so handsy with his bitch as Ackerley had so famously been with his.
Yes, well, he said, Slim isn’t exactly tiny. But she is sweet. Ninety pounds of devotion last I checked. I miss her like hell.
Ick, thought Alice. Ninety pounds of devotion. It sounded like a line someone might use in a Tinder profile. A shame.