Breaking the Bank (10 page)

“Oh, you know . . . the usual.”

“The usual.” Fred made a face. “As in, life's a bore and then you die?”

“I thought it was life's a bitch and then you marry one.”

“Touché.” He smiled again; the chipped tooth winked. “So what are you drinking? It's on the house.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Thanks so much.”

“Don't mention it,” said Fred. That tooth again. That sexy tooth.

“Well, what do you recommend? Your magic elixir, your secret potion?”

“Dirty martinis,” Fred said without a second's hesitation. “Here . . . wait.” He turned away and began pouring and stirring. Then he whipped around and handed her a glass. “Voilà!”

Mia sipped delicately at first, and then with greater enthusiasm. “Mmm, this is good,” she said. “What's in here?”

“Snips and snails and puppy dogs' tails.”

“No, come on, Fred, really.”

“Organic vodka. Spanish olives. Fresh basil.”

“Killer combo.” Mia took another sip.

“Slow, okay? Those things can be lethal,” said Julia as she swung by the bar for another order.

“Worrywart,” said Fred.

“I'm okay, Julie,” Mia said, already feeling a pleasant buzz. “I'm fine.”

“You've eaten dinner, right?” Julie persisted. She placed the brimming glasses on her tray.

“I'm eating now.” Mia reached into a small earthenware bowl filled with Goldfish crackers and popped one into her mouth. These things had cheese in them, didn't they? And what was this? A bowl of peanuts? She took a handful. So she had some dairy and some protein going on, too. The basil leaf and the olive in her drink could be construed as vegetables. Dinner. And look—it was free.

“Fred?” Julie turned to him. “Don't let her get too drunk, okay?”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Fred said, with a mock salute.

“Fred!” She gave him an exasperated look and then she was gone.

“Don't worry, I'll take care of you,” Fred said.

“You're a pal, Fred. A real pal.” The salty snacks were making her thirsty; she needed a drink, and hey, would you look at that, her dirty martini was still right there in her hand, ready to do the job. “Organic vodka,” she murmured, as she took another long sip.

“You say something?” Fred asked. Mia didn't answer. The bar was getting crowded, and she lost sight of him. He was pretty busy now anyway, pouring dirty martinis and what have you for all and sundry. But whenever her glass was empty, he refilled it quickly. Mia nursed her drink, and didn't even try to talk to the clot of twentysomethings whooping it up next to her. Instead, she arranged the peanuts and Goldfish in pleasing little patterns—a star, a heart, a flower—on her napkin, and when the design was completed, ate it. Every now and
then Julie swooped by; on one of those occasions, she hustled Mia up from her seat and off to the ladies' room.

“But I don't need to go,” Mia said.

“That doesn't matter,” said Julie. “Come with me anyway.”

It was cooler in the bathroom; Mia realized only then that she was hot in her high-necked sweater. Waiting for Julie to finish, she stared in the mirror, studying her flushed cheeks and tousled hair. Her lipstick had worn off, and she rummaged around in her purse to see if the tube was in there. It wasn't, but she found the perfume samples from the day at Barneys with Eden. Eden, who was right now with her father, the man Mia used to love more than anyone on the planet. How could it all have come to this? The two of them together while Mia was alone and exiled to the bathroom of a bar? Tears suddenly started to flow, an unexpected and seemingly involuntary response, as if she had been slicing onions.

“Mia?” asked Julie when she emerged from the stall. She hastily washed her hands and placed them, still wet, on Mia's shoulders. “What is it?”

“Everything,” Mia blubbered. “Just everything.”

“You mean Lloyd?” asked Julie, succinctly boiling down the vastness of “everything” to a single word.

“I guess.” She sniffed loudly, and Julie passed her a tissue from a box on the sink.

“I know this is a tough weekend,” Julie said.

Mia didn't say anything but blotted her eyes with the tissue.

“Listen,” Julie said, looking down at her watch, “my shift is over in about half an hour. If you can hold on, we can go someplace quieter. How does that sound?”

“Thanks, Julie.” Mia tossed out the used tissue and ran her fingers through her hair. “But I'm totally wiped out. I think I should just go home.”

“Fred wanted to join us.”

“Fred? Why?”

“I think he's got a little crush on you.”

“Oh.” Mia put her head in her hands. Fred. Had a crush. On her. She saw the smile, the chipped tooth. Suddenly it was all too much. She couldn't imagine going out, even chaperoned by Julie, with Fred or anyone else tonight. She lifted her head again. “Maybe some other time.”

“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.”

T
HE 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 had 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—