Breaking the Bank (37 page)

“No wonder you're freaked out,” said Patrick. “But why? What's his beef ?”

“He says I'm not a fit parent. Because I spent a night in jail.” Mia suddenly felt self-conscious. She still had no idea what Patrick was in for that night, and she was not sure she wanted to find out.

“So? Plenty of innocent people end up in jail. Doesn't he know that?”

“Evidently not,” she said, staring down into her water glass.

“What'll it be?” asked the waitress, who had appeared with her pad.

Mia hadn't even looked at the menu but that didn't matter; all coffee shops in New York had the same food.

“Rice pudding,” she said. “And a cup of coffee. No, make that tea.” The last time she'd had coffee here she had rued it for hours.

“I'll have a spinach omelet, rye toast, and home fries,” said Patrick.

“Bacon or sausage with that?” the waitress wanted to know.

“No bacon.” He handed her the menu and leaned over. “I'm a vegetarian. No leather either.” He stuck his foot out in the aisle to display one white canvas sneaker.

“So is my daughter,” said Mia.

“You miss her a lot.”

“Yes,” she said, eyes pooling again. “I really do.”

“Of course you do,” he said soothingly. “She's your kid. Your only kid, right? So all your eggs are in that basket.” Mia nodded, grateful. “You've got a lot invested in that, haven't you? Like, just about everything.”

“That's right,” she said. “Everything.”

“That ex of yours really sucks,” Patrick said. “First, because he dumped you. And now, because he's stolen your kid. ‘Cause that's what he's done, you know—stolen her.”

“I'm not sure a judge would see it that way.”

“Judges,” Patrick said. “Bunch of thimble-dicked shit suckers.”

Mia didn't say anything, but opened a packet of sugar to empty into the tea when it appeared.

“So he doesn't like that you were in jail. What was it, anyway? One night? Big fucking deal.”

“One night,” said Mia. The tea, which had arrived along with their food, was good, hot, and sweet. “What about you? Have you ever been in jail?”

“You mean, like, done time?”

Mia just nodded, wide-eyed.

“Nah. I've spent a night or two here and there. But I've never gone behind the wall.” He seemed quite calm as he said this, and he began to eat his eggs. “What'd you do, anyway? I mean, I know we weren't going to bring it up, but . . .”

“It's a long story,” said Mia.

“Aren't they all?” asked Patrick, and raised his golden eyebrows with such contained eloquence, such understated compassion, that she found herself telling him everything, but everything, the words bubbling up and pouring out of her mouth like foam from a shaken bottle of beer.

“You mean to tell me that there's a machine that's just handing out money? Money that it doesn't record?”

“I know it's hard to believe, but it's true.”

“I believe it,” said Patrick.

“You do? Why? No one else has.”

“I do because you told it to me, College Girl. And I believe in you.” Delicately, he took a bite of his omelet.

Mia wanted to cry all over again.

“Hey, don't look so weepy,” he said, reaching across the table for her hand. She let him take it. “Maybe you should eat something. You haven't touched your rice pudding.” He looked at the glutinous mound and then pushed it aside. “Here—have some of my toast.”

“No, that's okay.”

“I insist.” He raised the toast to her lips. The surface was lightly browned and gleamed with butter; she could smell the yeasty odor of the bread. Patrick's hand remained where it was until she finally opened her mouth for a bite, just a small one. Oh, it was good. So good. She didn't know she was this hungry, and she kept taking bites until the entire piece was gone. He was still holding her other hand in his, and she withdrew it slowly, even reluctantly, so that she could pat her mouth with a paper napkin.

“So I've got another question for you, College Girl,” he said. “How
come a girl like you is so hard up for a buck? Don't you have a family who could help you? Friends?”

“I do,” she said. “But there's a little tension in my family right now. More than a little. And my best friend, well, she and I had a kind of falling-out.”

“How about the boyfriend? Couldn't you touch him for a loan?” She shook her head, and he didn't press any more. Mia took another sip of her tea. There was no doubt that Patrick was a strange guy, but in that moment, she decided she liked him. He was the first person who had heard her story and not implied that she was crazy—or a criminal.

“So tell me more about this machine. It sounds pretty wild,” he prompted.

“Do you want to see it?” she asked.

“The machine?”

“Yes. I haven't shown it to anyone, but I want to show it to you.” Mia felt as if she had crossed some boundary, stepped neatly outside her life and into some other, parallel zone, in which Patrick was not an alien to be feared and reviled, but a kindred spirit, or even, God help her, an alter ego.

“Okay,” he said. “I'll just finish my eggs.” He continued to eat, with no particular haste or impatience. When the check came, he wouldn't let Mia anywhere near it. “I called you, remember? Besides, I owe you.”

“No, you don't,” said Mia. “Not a thing.”

O
NCE THEY WERE
actually on their way, Mia was nervous. She hadn't tried the machine since it gave her that ten-thousand-dollar bill. She hadn't even gone near it. Now, the bank was almost empty, and no one was using the cash machines at all. Still, she felt like she was being watched.

“It's that one, on the left,” she told Patrick in a low voice. She approached it warily. He stayed close, but averted his eyes while she tapped in the code, asking for one hundred dollars. The machine emitted
its customary whirrs and hums; no lights, and certainly no music. Mia grabbed the bills as they were ejected from the slot.

Twenties, just twenties. And there were only five of them.

“Shit,” she said, raising her face to look at Patrick. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“It's not what you thought?”

“No!” she exploded, thinking of Chris Cox, of her brother, of the judge who would, in a matter of days, have to sift through and weigh every word she uttered. “No, it's not.” She stuffed the money in her bag and charged out the door, nearly colliding with a woman on her way in. Patrick hurried to follow.

“Slow down,” he called when she was halfway up Garfield Place. “You're going to bust a gut.”

Mia slowed, but only a little.

“I can't believe it,” she said when he had caught up to her. “I have to appear in court on January fourth, and what am I going to say to that judge? Can you tell me that? Can you?” She was yelling now, yelling right in the middle of the street. An old man with a cane glanced in her direction and edged away, giving her a wide berth.

“Just calm down. You're going to kill yourself, give yourself a heart attack or something.”

“You're right: if I lose my daughter, I will kill myself.” Her head throbbed, and she felt like the energy was pouring right out of her, glugging away into the gutter like so much dirty water.

“Don't say that, College Girl,” Patrick said with unexpected tenderness. “You can't say that.” He leaned close, his face hovering near hers for a second. Then he kissed her.

At first, Mia was too surprised to pull away, and by the time it occurred to her to do this, it was too late. His kiss was galvanic, electrifying, brain-sizzling, crotch-drenching—every single hackneyed, porn-derived cliché she could think of. She kissed him back like she was drowning and he was the rope, like she was choking and he was the open window, like she had waited her whole life to do it, which, she
thought giddily, maybe she had. It was Patrick who pulled away first, and when he did, he looked as dazed as she felt.

“Well, fuck me stupid,” he said softly, gripping her tightly by both shoulders. “Who knew a College Girl would be like this?”

“Now what?” she asked, breathing heavily, a bitch in radiant heat.

“I don't know. I don't have a fucking clue.”

“The machine,” she moaned, as the rank reality of her situation settled itself back down in her, obliterating her options, canceling out her choices. “What am I going to do about that machine?”

“Listen, tell me again about all the times it worked. Every single time you tried, every single time it happened.” He looped an arm around her shoulders, and slowly, they started to walk back down the block.

“Well, the first time was in September. I had bought groceries and ended up leaving them in the street. So I needed to get some food for Eden. For supper.” Her voice caught a little when she said Eden's name, but she went on, recounting all the times she had gone to the machine and received something more than she had asked for.

“So what was different about today? Anything?”

“Only that someone—you—were with me.”

“I have an idea. We're going back to the bank.”

“What for?”

“To try it again.”

“It won't work. You saw; you were there.”

“You didn't let me finish, College Girl. We're going to try it again, but this time, I'm not going to stand so close. I'm going to be off to one side, see? I'll be able to watch what's happening. But I won't be right in front of the machine.”

“Like that will make a difference?”

“You never know, do you? I mean, maybe they don't teach you everything in college.” Mia had to smile at that.

Together, they walked back into the bank and neared the machine. But before Mia touched the keypad, Patrick moved off to the right. He
could see her, could see everything she was doing. Just from a slight remove. She inserted her card and punched in the request. One hundred dollars, just like every other time. There was a rapid flickering of the screen from dark to light to dark again. She waited, lungs flattened by anxiety, for the machine's whirring to stop. Then she reached for the bills, and, as she did, her mouth opened into a perfect O.

The bills, all ten of them, were hundreds. The receipt, when it emerged, was for one hundred dollars. But in her shaking hands, she was holding a thousand.

Before Patrick could say a word, a woman in a knit poncho walked into the bank to use the machine. Mia quickly stepped aside, and silently handed him the receipt. She saw his eyes grow larger and rounder, a dumb show of recognition, as he compared it to what was in her hands. It was only when the woman finished her transaction and walked out again that Patrick spoke.

“It worked,” he whispered. “Just like you said it would.”

“I told you it was amazing.” She was clutching the money tightly, watching his face.

“No, it isn't,” Patrick said.

“What are you talking about?”

“It's you. You did it.”

“No, I had nothing to do with it—”

“You're the amazing one,” he interrupted. “Not the machine. You. It was always you. I knew it right away.” And then, with the bills still a leafy green salad crumpled between them, he kissed her again.

“Get a room,” said a man who had to sidestep them on his way out of the bank.

Patrick turned to confront him while Mia shrank back, anticipating an ugly scene. But Patrick only nodded in a formal and even dignified way. “Thanks for the advice,” he said. “I think I'll take it.” Mia hastily stuffed the money away, and the disapproving onlooker gave them one last disgusted look before he left.

* * *

M
IA DIDN'T QUESTION
the wisdom or even the sanity of what was about to happen. She simply brought Patrick back to her apartment, where they proceeded to have sex without any sign of tiring for the next sixty minutes. To say it had never been like this was not very original, but it happened to be true. Not even in her earliest, headiest days with Lloyd had she felt this exposed, this exhilarated, this known, this freed. He was beautiful, Patrick was, with a well-proportioned body and marble-white skin. His chest was surprisingly smooth and hairless, but the thick hair on his legs and between them was gold and silky. When they finally rolled away from each other, she was quite literally speechless. She didn't have the words to tell him what this was like for her, but then, he didn't require any because he already seemed to know.

Carefully, she got up from the bed. The clothes that were still on it from yesterday were now on the floor, and Mia picked her way through them on her way to the bathroom. Every orifice in her body was tingling and raw, and when she looked in the mirror, she saw that her lips were swollen. She turned on the water to wash her face and heard her phone ringing in the other room.

Jesus, she had completely forgotten about the time. She raced for the phone, clicking on just as Patrick, still naked, walked into the room.

“Hey,” Fred said. “Sorry I didn't call you sooner. It's been crazy. Just crazy. First, I found out that not one but
two
of the waitresses aren't going to be here tonight. Can you believe the timing of that? Then that shipment of vodka I was counting on never showed . . .”

The boyfriend?
Patrick mouthed. Mia nodded. None other.

“So anyway, I've just been racing around all day, putting out fires. How about you?”

“I've been okay,” she said, unable to meet Patrick's gaze.

“Did you reach Eden?”

“No,” she said. “I didn't.”

“I'm sorry. I know you wanted to talk to her.”

“I think Lloyd's behind all this.”

“You're probably right—” He paused, and she heard him saying, “Not yet. I'm still waiting. They swore up and down that it's coming.”