Breaking the Bank Read online

  “How many of those martinis have you had, anyway? I’m really going to give it to him.”

  “It’s not his fault. I’m a big girl.”

  “I suppose you are,” Julie conceded. “You sure you don’t want to wait? We don’t have to go out. You can stay over at my place. Avoid the night with Lloyd altogether.”

  “You’re a sweetie, but no. I should get back.” The thought of Lloyd and Eden alone together in Mia’s apartment was especially galling, as if he had neatly elbowed her out of her own life.

  Julie looked like she was going to argue but then said, “Okay. If you change your mind, you can come over later.”

  “Thanks,” Mia said, slurring the word a little. She stood, and the bathroom swayed.

  “I’m calling a car service for you,” Julie said. “You can’t walk by yourself at this hour. And especially not when you are totally plastered.”

  Mia didn’t protest. Julie was right. She was totally plastered, and the thought of her bed, freshly made up with its silky new sheets, was a siren song.

  It seemed like in minutes she was climbing into the Lincoln’s back-seat, with its neat patchwork of duct tape, trying not to be sick from the scent of whatever God-awful air freshener the driver had sprayed all over. Why did anyone think this cloying, artificial smell was in any way pleasant or even tolerable? The car shot off into the night, and Mia pressed the button that opened the window. That was better.

  Much better. Her head was even a little clearer, and she focused on the dashboard and windshield area of the car, which was like a portable shrine, with several brass-plated statuettes of Indian deities, a knot of red beads hanging from the rearview mirror, and a collage of photographs. Mia leaned forward to inspect them better. A black-haired girl in a princess costume, a boy holding a baseball bat and grinning, a baby with its mouth open and a fine thread of drool dripping from its parted lips.

  “Yours?” Mia asked, indicating the pictures.

  “Yes, mine,” said the driver. He sounded both shy and proud.

  “Sweet,” said Mia. “How old?”

  “The boy is nine. The girl, six. And the baby”—his voice soft-ened—”she’s eight months.”

  “You have a lovely family,” Mia said. She looked at his balding head, his broad back, the little tuft of hair at the nape of his neck that tapered until it disappeared into his shirt collar. He was nice, this guy who clearly loved his kids and kept their pictures where he would see them always, his own personal constellation, there to light his way.

  The car slowed, and Mia dug through her purse for her wallet. But then she remembered that she was carrying two twenties from the first time the machine offered its mysterious bounty. They were not in her wallet; she had taken to keeping the bills and any change they spawned separate, like milk and meat in a kosher kitchen. The fare was eight dollars; she handed the driver the twenty and said, “Keep the change,” as she somehow knew she would as soon as her fingers touched the bill.

  “Thank you,” the driver said as he studied the bill, then sought her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Thank you so very much.”

  THE APARTMENT was dark and quiet. Lloyd and Eden must still be out, she thought. The momentary glow Mia had felt when she handed the driver the money faded when she thought of her ex-husband. She slipped out of her boots and jacket and padded into the bedroom. On the way, she saw that she was wrong—Lloyd was asleep on the air mattress, his big, handsome face pressed into the new pillowcase she bought just for this purpose. The blanket she borrowed from Julie was pulled up only partway; his chest was bare. Probably the rest of him, too; she had never known Lloyd to wear pajamas. She checked on Eden, who was also sound asleep amid a riotous pattern of trombones and saxophones. Petunia sat propped at the foot of the bed, alert as a guard dog. Mia watched briefly, deriving that peculiar satisfaction experienced by mothers everywhere, as her child quietly drew and expelled breath.

  So they were here. Well, it was late, after all. She went into her so-called room and took off the rest of her things. Rummaging through a drawer, she pulled out a large man’s shirt. The collar and cuffs were frayed, and the fabric had that particular softness achieved after years of washing, drying, starching, and ironing. It was only when she was in the bathroom, brushing her teeth, that she realized the shirt once had belonged to Lloyd. This made her weepy all over again, and she sat down on the closed lid of the toilet and cried for a while. It’s those dirty martinis, she decided. Dirty, dirty, dirty martinis. For the second time that evening, Mia wiped her eyes and tried to get a grip.

  The new sheets were as smooth and luxurious as she imagined, and she fell asleep almost immediately. She began to dream, a complex dream in which she was navigating mountains of garbage. She held a staff, the sort of thing seen in a fifteenth-century painting depicting a pilgrim, only the staff was made of some lightweight metal, like aluminum. But that was okay; she was happy, a happy hiker, with her twenty-first-century staff, her canteen, and her binoculars. She was as nimble-footed as a goat, as joyful as a lark . . . until she wasn’t. She began to pant. The staff became a crutch. Her canteen was gone, and she was thirsty. Walking was a torment. But she kept going until she reached the biggest mountain of all, except it wasn’t really a mountain, it was a wave of garbage: broken dolls, blackened banana peels, sodden diapers, and rotting heads of lettuce all rising up, threatening to rain down on her. In a panic, she woke.

  Mia remained in bed, waiting for her heart to slow, but even when it did, she was unable to get comfortable again. She turned this way and that, listening to the sounds of the apartment at night: steam hissing through the pipes, a door banging shut down the hall. A muffled shout, from somewhere in the street. A car alarm, with its predictable, annoying wee wop, wee wop. Damn. Mia sat up in disgust. She was drunk and exhausted, but she couldn’t get back to sleep.

  She yanked off the covers and headed into the kitchen, for what she was not sure. Hot milk? Cold water? She stopped to look at Lloyd. He was on his side now, a position she remembered well. She used to snuggle into the attenuated comma created by his body, his long arm casually draping across her chest, claiming her, keeping her safe.

  Was it this memory or the backlash of the dirty martinis that caused Mia to cross the room and slip into the air-filled bed beside him? It didn’t matter. Julie’s warnings echoed faintly in her brain, but she quickly shushed them. Nothing is going to happen, she silently argued with Julie. You don’t have to lecture me. Carefully, she settled in, trying not to wake him. There. She drank in the sense memory of his arms, his shoulders, the familiar rise and fall of his chest. She moved, ever so slightly, and her hand grazed his bare skin—she had guessed correctly, still no pj’s—and she let it stay where it was. He was no longer her husband, but he had been once. And that meant something, although she was not sure what.

  Husband. Such a cozy, happy-sounding sort of word. When they first got married, she would repeat it in the privacy of her own mind, and found numerous excuses to work it into the casual exchanges she had with other people. My husband loves that cut of beef, she could remember saying to the butcher. I’m looking for a sweater for my husband, she told a salesman at Bloomingdale’s. It’s his birthday next week. But now all that was over. Instead of a husband, she had an ex. She even hated the sound of the word—just a short vowel away from ax—and brimming with a kind of latent violence that was an affront to her sensibility and her soul.

  Tentatively, she moved closer. He was warm. He smelled good, too—a combination of some new, citrus-infused aftershave mingled with his own, inimitable odor. Here he was. Her ex. The father of her only child. In her apartment, naked. And she was right next to him.

  She continued pressing, and though she thought he might have still been asleep, she felt him stir. Which, she realized, was exactly her aim. She hadn’t had sex in ages; she hadn’t wanted to. Right now, though, she very much wanted to have sex. And crazy as it was, she wanted to have sex with Lloyd. She knew him, and she h
ad loved him. Maybe she still loved him, hard to know when she was always so angry with him. But even if she didn’t, he was her past, and, in some perverse way, she felt like he was still hers.

  “Mia?” he asked quietly. So he was up.

  “Were you expecting someone else?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious.”

  He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t try to stop her, either. Mia felt his body responding, and his breath quickened, just the slightest bit, in her ear. This was permission enough, and she guided Lloyd into her from behind, a position they had both always liked. She shuddered when the connection was made. Had she thought it didn’t matter about his having a big dick? Well, she was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. She started to move against him and placed his hand between her legs, so that he could stroke her, too. She loved those big hands of his, with their skillful, knowing fingers, she always had—

  But then he stopped and eased himself out of her. “Where did you go?” she said.

  “This is not a good idea.”

  “No, it’s not,” she agreed.

  “Then why, Mia? Why do it?”

  “For old time’s sake?” She tried to be jaunty but failed miserably. At least she wasn’t crying. Not yet anyway.

  He was silent, and so was she. When the silence stretched a little longer, Mia tried willing herself to get up and off of the mattress, but it was no use. She was lonely, she was heartsick, she missed Lloyd and the life they used to have together. She was drunk, too—weepy, self-pitying drunk as opposed to angry drunk, jolly drunk, or philosophical drunk. Weepy drunk, she knew from experience, was the worst.

  Then she felt him move against her again, and within minutes, they were at it in earnest. It was wet, it was hot, and it was over all too soon. Lloyd came with a small grunt, and then remained still, breathing hard. Mia didn’t know what to say, so she waited; when she ventured his name, he let out a clipped, guttural snore—he had fallen asleep. Mia wished she could drift off next to him, but the thought of Eden—who might find them together the next morning and infer all sorts of happy endings that were most emphatically not going to come true—propelled her back to her own bed. The insides of her thighs were chafed and sticky, but she fell asleep anyway, almost as soon as she closed her eyes.

  SIX

  MIA AWOKE THE next morning awash in shame and remorse. Plus she had a monumental, sanity-obliterating headache; she couldn’t even open her eyes without pain. Sex with Lloyd? What a truly terrible idea. Why had she initiated such a thing? To establish the scope and shape of her own hurt, the way she might touch an iron, to test the heat, and then snatch the finger away again? Only she hadn’t snatched her finger away soon enough; she’d let it stay put and now the burn remained. The thought of facing him, in Eden’s presence no less, was unendurable.

  There were noises coming from the kitchen; Eden’s high, excited voice blending with Lloyd’s deeper one. The noises added a new dimension to her pain. She kept her eyes closed and her head very still. Soon there were smells. He was making French toast, one of his specialties. His version called for cream, nutmeg, and grated orange peel; since she had none of these ingredients in her kitchen, he must have gone shopping to procure them. Eden would eat at least three slices of this confection. She would eat anything Lloyd prepared—Mia was grateful for this, if not for much else about Lloyd—and lick the plate clean, too. She had always adored her father, but since he left, she fairly worshipped him.

  Mia’s stomach rumbled. She was hungry. No wonder, considering her largely liquid meal of the night before. But she couldn’t rise up over the wall of pain to get out of bed and deal with Lloyd. So she remained where she was, treating her throbbing head as if it were a centuries-old Ming vase, too fragile and precious to be handled. Soon she was asleep. When she next opened her eyes, the apartment was quiet and the throbbing in her head had retreated sufficiently for her to contemplate getting up. She ventured into the kitchen, where dishes had been washed and put away. On the fridge, she found a check and a note:

  Thought I’d let you sleep in. I’ll take Eden today, so you can do whatever you need/want. We’ll be back after dinner.

  She was somewhat mollified by the check, but remained roiled, first by Lloyd’s presence, and then by his absence. To shake off the mood, she took a shower in the still-clean bathroom and used one of her plush new towels. Her head still hurt when she got out, but it was a mild hurt, almost a relief when compared to the earlier pain. And she discovered that she had gotten her period. Another relief. At least she wasn’t pregnant.

  After the shower, she found that Lloyd had left the French toast batter in a Saran Wrap–covered bowl on the counter. There was a loaf of sliced challah bread next to it, and she made herself two slices while considering how to deal with the rest of the day. She could work on

  All That Trash, which was intermittently brilliant but also uneven. She could run errands. And she could visit Julie to confess her idiotic behavior of the night before, though the conversation would no doubt be peppered very heavily with I-told-you-sos. But Julie, who was on occasion prone to equally idiotic behavior when it came to men, would also be sympathetic.

  Armed with something like a plan, Mia dressed, brushed her teeth—with extra vigor, as if that would scour away last night’s excesses—and settled down with the manuscript. She used color-coded Post-its and Sharpies; she jotted down extensive notes that she would type up at the office on Monday. While she worked, she had the enormously gratifying sense that she was doing something tangible; her red editing pencil was a trowel, a ruler, a pair of scissors.

  The palpable sense of accomplishment carried her out into the day.

  It was a gorgeous morning, the weather a kind of Pied Piper, calling people out of their brownstones and apartments and into the brilliant sunshine, newspapers and cups of coffee abandoned in favor of the golden day. Mia ran into Caitlin and her mother, two other girls from Eden’s grade, a woman from the exercise class she used to attend, and a puffed-up, self-important guy from the Food Co-op, whom she adroitly dodged because she was delinquent in working her shifts and knew she hadn’t a prayer of catching up. And then she bumped into Fred, who looked, in the crisp October air, even better than he had last night. The bar was too dark for her to have taken proper notice of quite how blue his eyes were, for instance. The sun ignited his buzz cut to an amber sheen. And then there was that tooth.

  “So we meet again,” she said, striving to sound playful. “So we do,” he bantered back. He scrutinized her face and added, “You look pretty good, considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  “How looped you were when you left. Julie really chewed me out. She said it was my fault you had to go home.”

  “Julie worries too much. I was fine,” Mia fibbed. “Just tired after a long week at work.”

  “I’m glad that was all it was,” he said, and his blue-eyed gaze held hers for a second or two longer than was necessary.

  “What else would it have been?” she said, but she had a feeling she knew what was coming next and did not want to hear it.

  “I thought maybe you didn’t want to go out when Julie told you I wanted to come along.”

  “Now why would you think that?” But Mia knew perfectly well why. She felt uncomfortable knowing it, too. Fred was a decent guy, and decent guys were hard to find. The only catch was that it seemed she had no interest in decent guys right now. Only the perfidious, reptilian ones. Like Lloyd. She burned afresh at the thought of last night. “I was really wiped out.”

  “Some other time then?”

  “Sure.”

  “Like when?”

  “It’s hard to say. Between work and my daughter, I hardly ever come up for air.”

  “Why don’t you call me when you’re free?” Fred said, digging into the pocket of his jeans and producing a card with his name and number in crisp block lettering.

  “I will,” she said. “Call
you.” She took the card, which she had a momentary impulse to deposit in the next trash can she saw. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. She actually liked him quite a bit. But she didn’t feel ready for the wild ride of courtship, the crazy dips and drops. Then she looked at Fred, all buzz cut and hopeful smile. Just a date, she thought. A quiet dinner somewhere, a drink or maybe two afterward. She could deal with a date. The card fit neatly into her wallet. She would call. She just couldn’t say when.

  “See you,” he said, giving her a last blue-eyed look, and then he was gone.

  Mia continued down Seventh Avenue, wishing she had a pair of big Jackie O sunglasses. There were times when Park Slope felt a little too small, and this was one of them. Up ahead, she saw a group of people milling around on the corner of First Street. Maybe she should cross over, just in case there was someone else she knew and needed to avoid. But the light was against her, and she remained on course.

  As she approached the cluster of people, the reason for the crowd became apparent. She saw several kittens in plastic carriers. A big sign read take home some love. adopt a pet today. People were cooing over dogs, fondling cats. Good thing Eden was not here; she’d want to adopt every single mutt they had. Mia was almost past the display when the sight of a small black-and-white dog stopped her. Something about the animal’s pointed ears and snout looked familiar.

  “What kind of dog is that?” she asked one of the volunteers, a teenage girl with a frizzy top knot and multiple facial piercings.

  “Pomeranian,” the girl replied. “Isn’t she cute?”

  Mia would not have described the creature as cute. She was scrawny, with a terrified, slightly crazed look in her black eyes.