Breaking the Bank Read online

  At the very least, the meal was delicious. Gail and Stuart were serious foodies both and must have been preparing for a solid week. Mia could have done with a little less exposition from Gail while they ate—did she really need to know that the turkey was soaked in a fresh-herb-imported-peppercorn brine for twenty-four hours prior to roasting, or that the fresh cranberry sauce (organic berries, locally grown) was made with the rind from a blood orange and pulverized nuggets of crystallized ginger? But this, she realized, was a small price to pay for eating the meal itself, and for watching Eden, who had somehow been transmogrified into a celebrity by her country cousins and was basking in their attention. No one ragged on her for being a vegetarian; Cassandra and Marguerite were actually impressed, Skyler hung on her every word, and even Gail listened to Eden’s impassioned defense of animal rights with a thoughtful, receptive air.

  After dessert, Hank had offered to drive the girls to the house of Cassandra’s best friend, Jessie, who owned a horse.

  “Can we go for a ride while we’re there, Mom?” asked India. “Can we, please?”

  “If Jessie’s mother says it’s all right. But you’ll have to change first,” Gail said. She looked at Cassandra. “You must have a pair of jeans that will fit Eden.”

  “Sure,” said Cassandra, and together, the girls rushed off toward the stairs.

  Mia tried to conceal her amazement—not only had Gail been un-characteristically pleasant all day, she had actually suggested that Cassandra lend Eden one of her own, hallowed garments. Mia waited for her sister-in-law to ask if Eden had lice, impetigo, or possibly leprosy. But Gail started clearing the table without a word.

  Mia went off in search of her bag, which she remembered leaving by the door when she came in. The Magic of Money was inside, and she thought this was a good moment to give it to Stuart. Then maybe she could sneak in a little snooze while the girls were with the horses. She was grateful no one suggested that she go along with them; horses, with their massive heads, fist-sized nostrils, and lethally heavy hooves, repelled and terrified her. Still, she didn’t especially want to communicate her fear and disgust to Eden; she was just happy not to have to witness, firsthand, any girl-equine bonding that was about to ensue.

  Now where was her bag anyway? She didn’t see it. Perplexed, she wandered into a small room with an open door; it looked like a den, with a sofa and overstuffed chair both covered in the same tweedy fabric, and shelves that were filled with leather-bound books. Mia examined one and found that its gilt-edged pages were uncut—books for decor, not for reading. How very un-Stuart. A bowl filled with cinnamon-scented potpourri sat on a table; long-stemmed white tulips in a tall vase kept it company. Something on the wall nabbed Mia’s attention, and she walked over to have a closer look. It was an oil painting, six inches at the most, depicting a bird’s intricately woven nest and three tiny, moon-gray eggs. Two were perfect little ovals, but the third was cracked and empty. Search for the missing bag momentarily suspended, Mia stood there admiring the painting—so much Stuart’s kind of thing and welcome evidence of his sensibility in this lavish funeral parlor of a home—when she heard voices, low but nonetheless penetrating.

  “How about in here?” her mother asked. “No, not in the dining room. Let’s go into the living room.” That was from Gail.

  “You’re going to let me talk first, right?” asked Stuart. Worry nipped at his tone.

  “Where is she anyway?” asked Gail, sounding annoyed.

  Mia followed the sound of the voices and came upon the three of them, all fairly reeking with guilt. Well, her mother and brother, anyway; Gail—with her bulbous blond chignon, pearl earrings, and freshly painted lips—looked impervious to guilt, or any other emotion .

  “Looking for me?” Mia asked. Her bag was still nowhere to be found, but she decided it would wait. This didn’t seem like the moment for gift giving after all.

  “Oh, so there you are,” said Gail. Her tone was silky, polished. “Let’s all go sit down for a bit, shall we?”

  Mia followed her obediently but was instantly flooded with suspicion. What musty old drawing room comedy did she dredge up that worn bit of dialogue from anyway? Shall we? Was she planning to curtsy, too?

  “To tell you the truth, I’ve had a hellish week, and I was hoping I could close my eyes for twenty minutes,” said Mia, trying to head Gail off at the pass. She lifted a tasseled down pillow from the couch and gave it a meaningful squeeze.

  “I know you must be exhausted,” Gail said. “But we really did want to have this little chat while the girls were out.” Her gem-heavy fingers, with their expertly manicured nails, laced tightly together.

  “Gail, you said you’d let me start—” began Stuart, but Gail’s frown silenced him.

  “Start what?” asked Mia, impatience poking through her rickety facade of manners. “Why are you all staring at me anyway? Do I have boils? Blood dripping from some orifice? You’re making me very uncomfortable.”

  “Honey, don’t get upset,” said Betty. She scooted over on the couch so she was sitting closer to Mia. Mia resisted the impulse to move away; something about this whole setup was triggering all her alarms.

  “You see, we want, no, we feel we need, to do an intervention,” said Gail.

  “A what?” Mia was outraged. What manner of psychobabble was this? If Eden were here, Mia would walk out of this house now. But instead she pulled the pillow onto her lap and began to tug at one of its tassels.

  “Gail, you promised,” Stuart said. “Now, I want you to be quiet and let me talk first.”

  Gail, apparently stunned, crossed her arms over her chest and actually shut up.

  “You see, the thing is, Mia, we’re worried about you. You and Eden.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about,” said Mia. She continued yanking on the tassel. “We’re fine. It’s been a little rough lately, it’s true . . .” This statement called for an even more aggressive series of yanks. “That’s temporary though. Strictly temporary.” She knew she was lying, but she felt both exposed and cornered. If they had been alone, she might have been candid with Stuart about what she’d been going through lately. But not with Gail and their mother sitting here; didn’t he know her any better than that?

  “That’s not what we’ve been hearing,” Stuart said. “Oh? It’s not? Who’s your source of information anyway?”

  “Lloyd.” Stuart had the good grace to look abashed. “You’ve been talking to Lloyd?” Stuart talking to Lloyd? About her? It didn’t, wouldn’t add up. The sense of betrayal was blinding.

  “Well, he called me. He’s worried, too.”

  “If he’s so worried about us, how come he left? Can you tell me that?”

  “There’s no point in going over all that again, now, is there, sweetie?” asked Betty. “That’s in the past. What Lloyd wanted to focus on was Eden.”

  “You’re defending him? After what he’s done?” Mia stared at her mother. “I really can’t believe this, Mom. Don’t you know that Lloyd is the enemy?”

  “Lloyd is still Eden’s father,” Betty said quietly. “Do you think he’s her enemy, too?”

  “Did he call you, too?” Mia knew she was being shrill but didn’t care. This was not an intervention, whatever that was; this was a witch hunt.

  “No,” Betty said. “I called him.”

  “You what?”

  “I know you think I shouldn’t have, but Stuart and I both felt that you weren’t being totally . . . forthcoming with us.”

  “So what did he tell you that I haven’t?” Sensing that a loss of control would only add to the already considerable ammo being stockpiled against her, Mia struggled to stay calm. Or at least to seem calm, even if she was roiling within.

  “He said that she was having a lot of trouble in school, and that he’d gotten two phone calls from Ms. Frobisher. They had a meeting when he was in New York.”

  “Ms. Frobisher?” Mia drew a blank. “Eden’s teacher,” Stuart supplied; Mia could feel his
pity—she doesn’t even know the name of her daughter’s teacher—and it outraged her even further.

  “I’ve talked to her, too,” Mia said. “Numerous times, in fact.” Despite those conversations, the woman’s name would simply not stay rooted in her brain. But did that mean she wasn’t in touch with what was going on in Eden’s life? That she didn’t care?

  “Yes, I know,” Stuart said. “She told Lloyd that you’re very hostile and that she thinks you may be part of the problem.”

  “And then there’s the matter of your losing another job, and of the sociopath in your building who murdered the dog. It doesn’t seem safe, honey. Not for you, and certainly not for Eden,” Betty chimed in.

  “I didn’t lose another job,” Mia said. She was breathing hard now, spoiling for this fight. “I was hired for a finite set of projects. They ended. I’m a freelancer, remember? And you’ll be happy to know that the sociopath is on his way to jail.”

  “Before this goes any further, I think you need to calm down,” Gail said. Since Stuart’s brief but potent admonishment, she had not said anything, and Mia had been happy to ignore her. Until now. Feigning, lying, insincere Gail, who had been poised and ready for the kill since the moment Mia and Eden walked through the door.

  “And I think you should shut up,” Mia said to Gail, and to emphasize her words, she gave a final tug on the tassel, tearing it from the pillow with a swift, decisive motion. Gail, however, was so shocked that she did not appear to notice, and Mia, finding the joys of petty destruction to be significantly underrated, immediately began working on a second tassel.

  “Mia!” Betty said, as if Mia were still Eden’s age. “Please don’t be rude. Gail is only trying to help. We all are, honey.”

  “You call this help? Talking about me behind my back, conspiring against me—that’s supposed to help? And please stop calling me honey and sweetie. It’s patronizing, and it’s insulting.” Something crumpled in Betty’s face, as if she’d been hit, and Mia was instantly sorry for hurting her. But the three of them bearing down on her like this was just too much.

  “No one is conspiring against you, Mia,” said Stuart. He sat down on a chair on Mia’s other side. Now she really felt hemmed in. “We just want to do what’s right for Eden. And for you.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “We’re not sure . . . that’s why we wanted to talk to you. Mom thought that maybe Eden should come out west and live with her for a while.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Stuart? What makes you think that I would let Eden do that?”

  “It may not be up to you,” Stuart said. “What are you talking about?” Now Mia’s anger was corrupted by fear. Was he threatening her? Stuart? Of all people? This thought was like a roller-coaster drop on a defective ride: wild and unpredictable. If she couldn’t trust Stuart, she couldn’t trust anyone.

  “Lloyd said you came home drunk the night he was there,” continued Stuart. “And he said that the incident with the dog terrified Eden. It may have even been traumatic. He also spoke to the school psychologist, and she agrees with Frobisher: they both think that Eden’s home environment is highly unstable.”

  “So you’re saying I’m not fit to raise her? Is that it?” Mia yanked off another tassel and tossed the pillow to the floor. Gail knelt to retrieve it, her expression a mixture of disbelief and horror.

  “Stop making everything so global,” Stuart said. “No one is saying you’re not fit. We’re just saying this is a rocky patch and something has to change. Maybe Eden needs to be somewhere else—temporarily—for that to happen.”

  “I will never, ever willingly agree to that,” Mia said. She looked around for another pillow to destroy.

  “Then you’ve got to work with us, give us some indication that you understand how serious the situation is, and that you’re going to do something about it.” The look he gave her was almost pleading, as if he expected her help in nailing her coffin shut.

  “Believe me, I understand,” Mia said. “I understand that you’ve been talking to my ex-husband, to the teacher, to the psychologist, to just about everyone in the world except me. And it hurts me, Stuart. It hurts me more than I can even tell you. But I’m not going to go there, okay? I’m not even going to address that now.” She paused, willing her voice to stay steady and her eyes to stop tearing. “What I do want to ask you now is this: If you’re so worried about us, why don’t you and Gail just break down and give me some money? No, forget that. Loan me some money. Just untiI I can get us up and running again. That would be a real help, Stuart. A real intervention. After all, it’s not”—she paused, looking around the room at the cascading drapes, the alabaster mantelpiece, the gilt-encrusted mirror that was the size of a small pool table—”as if you can’t spare it.”

  “You’re right—we could spare it. But we don’t think that would help you,” said Stuart.

  “That would just make us enablers,” Gail added. Her shiny lipstick had a self-righteous gleam, and she cradled the pillow as if it were a dead infant. Where did she get her nuanced psychological insight and expertise? The self-help section at Barnes & Noble? Mia wanted to slap the sanctimonious look right off her face. But she knew Gail; the woman would probably press charges. Thirty days in the slammer for slapping and pillow desecration.

  “Won’t you at least consider letting us have her for a while?” Betty asked. She sounded almost timid. “Hank and I would love it. Think of it as a change of scenery for her. It might be just what the doctor ordered.”

  “I told you—no. Eden is staying with me.” But when she looked at the three of them, so convinced of their sincerity and brimming with their own good intentions, Mia felt her resolve ebbing. Yes, she felt attacked and undermined by all of them, but she had to rise above it. What was the right thing for Eden in all this? That had to be her north star, no matter how much it hurt her. She turned to

  Stuart. “Well, I’ll consider it, all right? But considering is not the same as agreeing.”

  “Okay,” said Stuart. “That’s something, right? Some movement, some progress.” He ran his hands through his hair, and Mia noticed with an unarticulated pang that it was thinning. “I want to talk about this again. See where things stand by Christmas.”

  Mia didn’t reply; she waited silently as Stuart and Gail moved toward the door—Gail first, with Stuart lagging slightly behind. Mia knew he was looking at her, but she wouldn’t look back. Her mother, however, remained where she was; when Mia did look up, it was Betty’s troubled gaze that she met.

  “Are you all right?” Betty ventured. Beneath the tan, she looked old. “No!” exploded Mia. “I am not all right!” But Mia’s anger ebbed as quickly as it had frothed. Betty was—had always been—so clueless really. Mia would lash out to get a reaction, and then she would regret it. “I’m sorry, Mom,” Mia added.

  “I know things have been very hard for you, honey. Oops!” Betty clasped her hand to her mouth in an almost comic gesture. “Maybe Stuart and Gail didn’t handle the conversation properly,” Betty continued, “but their hearts are in the right place, Mia.”

  “Gail has no heart,” Mia said. “You know this is not just about the money,” Betty said, as if Mia had not spoken. “If it were just the money, it would be easy to fix.”

  “Then what is it about?” To Mia, it was always about money when you didn’t have enough.

  “The choices you’ve been making. This implacable hatred of Lloyd—”

  “Mom!” Mia burst out. “How can you sit there and say that to me?” She had gone from zero to eighty again, in a matter of seconds; just because her mother was clueless didn’t mean she was harmless.

  “Mia, I think that what Lloyd did was terrible and wrong, and I will never forgive him for it. Still, Eden needs him, and so you have to find a way to have him in your life that isn’t eating you up inside.”

  Mia knew Betty was right, at least about this, so she said nothing. Her feelings for Lloyd were eating her up inside, chewing
and grinding her to a pulp. And she wasn’t helping Eden with all her out-of-control flailing. But her feelings of isolation and loss were even stronger now than they had been when she, beggar at the banquet, had walked into this house of plenty.

  The noise of Hank’s car pulling up and the sounds of the girls as they tumbled out onto the gravel driveway offered a brief reprieve. Mia stood, and her heel touched her bag, which had somehow gotten shoved under the couch. So that’s where it was. She reached for it. Why was it so heavy? Then she remembered.

  The girls burst into the room, with Stuart trailing after them. “Mom, you should have seen that horse!” said Eden. “He was so big!” added India. “Here,” Mia said, handing The Magic of Money to her brother. “Happy birthday.”

  ELEVEN

  NINETY THOUSAND WAS a tidy little sum. Not a fortune, but a beginning. Ninety thousand was roughly what her now-verified-as-authentic ten-thousand-dollar bill was worth on the market, give or take. Mia thought of it as a down payment on a place of her own, maybe in Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace, or even Bedford Stuyvesant— one of those soi-disant emerging neighborhoods, where the prices were not as high as they were in Park Slope. At least not yet. She was angling for a place where she and Eden could settle in, feel secure. Mia envisioned a dwelling—a row house, maybe—with space enough to rent out; she was determined to provide herself and her child with income that was layoff proof, alimony proof, just-about-anything proof.

  To make this happen, though, she was going to have to sell the bill. But how? Could she go back to see Solly Phelps? He had verified the bill’s authenticity. He had shown interest in putting it on the market. Now she just had to come up with a viable story for how she happened to have it in her possession, a story that Solly and everyone else would buy. Piece of cake.