Breaking the Bank (43 page)

Cox reached for the check, but Stuart got there first. “It's on me,” he said. “I'm treating all of youse.” He looked at Mia, and she burst out laughing. Cox and Fred just looked at each other, not sure what was so funny. Mia and Stuart laughed harder. When it was clear no one was going to explain, Cox stood, gathering his coat and briefcase.

“Tomorrow,” he said, giving Mia a small salute. A signet ring glinted on one finger; it was even bigger than the cufflinks.

“Tomorrow.”

“Can I give you a lift uptown?” Cox asked Stuart. “Sure.” But he hesitated, looking over at Mia. “We can talk later,” she said, silently urging him to please leave already. Poor Fred had been mute ever since they had left the courthouse, and she really did need to talk to him.

“All right.” He looked at Fred, and then at Mia again. “I'll be in my office. You can call me.”

Then Mia and Fred were alone. The waitress appeared again, clearing the mugs and wiping down the table. But since the place was nearly empty—no great surprise there—she didn't rush them out.

“You slept with him,” said Fred as soon as the woman had gone. “You slept with that guy. He's a criminal, and you slept with him.”

“He's not a criminal. He's never actually done time.”

“Done time?” Fred repeated. “Listen to yourself. You're even talking like him.” He stared down at the table.

“It's just an expression, Fred.”

“Yeah.
His
expression.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Very sorry.”

“Why should I believe that?”

“Because it's true. And I was going to tell you, too.”

“When? On the Fourth of July?”

“Today. I would have told you today. I had no idea he'd show up in court. That was a total surprise to me, too.”

“I thought we had something. I thought maybe—” He stopped, reached for her hand, but didn't take it.

“You thought what?”

“That you were falling in love with me.”

“Maybe I was,” she said, thinking of what Bev had said. “Maybe I was.”

“So then why did you screw him?”

“I don't know. It's something that just . . . happened.”

“Screwing someone doesn't just happen.
When
did it happen? How many times?”

“Does it matter?”

His blue gaze was clouded and angry, but Mia didn't lose purchase. “No,” he said after a moment. “You're right. It doesn't. Once, twice, five times. It's all the same. You slept with him. But it was me who got screwed.”

“I'm sorry,” she said again. “I really am.”

“Sorry doesn't cut it,” he said bitterly. “I've got to know where you are with this. Do you actually want this guy? Or do you want me? Because you can't have both of us.”

“I don't know what I want.” Mia put her fingers against her temples, feeling the slight throb beneath their tips.

“Well, if you figure it out, you can call me.” He stood, groping for his jacket.

“You're leaving?”

“Bright girl.” He turned. She could still call him back, get him to stay. But would that be fair? She was being truthful before: she really didn't know what she wanted, other than to dig her way out of this
courtroom mess and bring her daughter home again. She saw Eden's small face in her mind; she conjured the smell of her skin, her hair, and felt an emptiness that was as ravishing as it was total. Then she looked across the table. Fred was gone.

A
T HOME
, M
IA
changed out of her Laura Bush drag and began making phone calls. There was a driven, desperate quality to the effort, as if she were marooned on some ice floe, frantically sending out distress signals. She tried Stuart, who was in a meeting and could not be disturbed. She tried Eden but got only her recorded message. She tried Lloyd, who didn't pick up. She even tried Lloyd's mother, Virginia, who said that neither Lloyd nor Eden was there at the moment.

“He didn't say when he'd be back,” she said. “Can I give him a message?”

“No, that's all right,” said Mia. “I'll try his cell again.” Why did Virginia sound so uncomfortable, as if she were covering up something? Mia fretted over this as she said good-bye; but she continued making calls. She considered calling Julie, but something kept her from it. She tried Patrick—she never had asked for his cell number, or found out if he even had one—but the phone in the house in Coney Island just rang and rang. She called her mother in New Mexico, only to hear from Hank that she was on her way to New York.

“New York? Are you sure?”

“That's what she told me,” Hank said. “Well, she didn't tell me.” She was puzzled; why would her mother keep a visit to New York a secret? She tried Stuart again; now he was on a conference call.
Jesus,
she thought,
where
is
everybody today?
Enough. She had to get out of here. Now.

She pulled on a big sweater and a tired old parka with a drawstring hood—she still hadn't gotten herself a new hat—before locking the door behind her and heading for the stairs. As she passed Mr. Ortiz's apartment, it occurred to her that she hadn't seen her neighbor in a
while; was he all right? She stopped, wondering whether she ought to ring the buzzer.

There was a sound, a small but distinct
yip
from the other side of the door. Was that Mariposa, the dog she helped rescue? Then she heard the sound repeated:
yip, yip, yip
. That was not a dog. That was a puppy.

Curiosity won out. She rang the buzzer, and when the door opened, there was Mr. Ortiz, with the black Pom at his feet and a tiny black-and-brown creature in his arms.

“Señora Saul! I am so glad to see you.” He stepped aside so she could come in. “I have stopped at your door, but I do not find you at home.”

“I've been busy,” she said, eyeing the puppy. “But it looks like you have, too.” The animal Mr. Ortiz held was a strange-looking thing with a stubby snout, pointed ears, and a kind of chewed-up-looking ruff of fur around its tiny neck; it couldn't have weighed more than three pounds.

“Mariposa is a mama,” he said proudly. Mariposa dipped her black head downward and pawed the floor, as if aware she was being discussed.

“A mama!” echoed Mia, incredulous. The girl at the shelter had assured her the dog was spayed.

“I was also . . . surprised,” said Mr. Ortiz. “My cousin came to visit with her Pepe; he's a Yorkshire terrier. They must have gone in the other room. We didn't see it happen.”

“Well, congratulations,” Mia said. She offered her hand to the puppy to sniff. The puppy wriggled in Mr. Ortiz's grasp and unspooled its pink tongue. Eden would love this.
If
Eden ever came home again.

“His name is Tiki,” said Mr. Ortiz. “And he has a brother. But my cousin kept him.”

“Does he use the litter box, too?”

“He is learning,” Mr. Ortiz said, looking fondly at the puppy. “Aren't you, papi?”

“He's adorable,” Mia said as she moved toward the door.

“Thank you, Señora Saul,” said Mr. Ortiz. “For everything.” Mia was nodding and smiling, ready to go, but she sensed there was something else he wanted to say. She was not wrong. “I am hoping your troubles are over.”

“I'm all right,” she said stiffly. Mr. Ortiz was a very sweet man, but she didn't want to be discussing her private life with him.

“I don't see your little girl anymore,” he continued. “She's with her father now,” Mia said.
Maybe forever.
“I see,” he said, and she thought he probably did. “When you speak with her, tell her about Tiki. Tell her to come visit him when she gets back.”

“I'll tell her,” says Mia. “I'll tell her as soon as I can.”

O
UTSIDE IT WAS
cold, and a few snow flurries had begun to sift gently down. Mia walked quickly up the hill, toward Prospect Park. The winter light was weak and fading, but she thought she could do a quick loop around the park before it grew dark. She entered at Third Street and stayed on the main road, just to be safe. Most people were heading out, toward home, but there were still a handful of joggers and a couple of die-hard cyclists. She walked quickly, hands in her pockets, hood pulled tight around her head. The park offered a vision of spare winter beauty—black, ice-bright branches against a Wedgwood sky; the flat silver expanse of the lake, ringed by flecked gray stones—but she didn't really take it in.

She was thinking instead about Lloyd and Eden, and of her mother's mysterious visit to New York. Stuart never called her back. And Patrick—what had happened to Patrick after they hauled him away? Mia couldn't believe that he was nutty enough to come into the courtroom and pull a stunt like that. Was she the teensiest, tiniest bit happy to see him, crazy as his behavior was? Because he was crazy, all right—as crazy as she sometimes thought she was. Or maybe not crazy. Impulsive, emotion-driven, spontaneous. Like her.

She kept her pace swift, slowing only when she came to the entrance of the zoo. She hadn't been here in ages. She and Lloyd used to come with Eden when she was younger, but since the divorce, Lloyd had switched his allegiance to the Bronx Zoo. Mia stood, weighing her options, and then walked up to the ticket booth. If she couldn't find any human company today, she could still consort with animals.

“One adult, please,” she said, taking out a bill. “Zoo'll be closing soon,” said the young woman who took her money.

“I'll be quick,” said Mia.

The sky was turning a deep jewel blue, and harried parents were leading tired children along the paths, toward the exits. There was a little boy crying, being comforted by his father, and a pair of twins— cheeks reddened from the cold—asleep in their double-wide stroller.

Where to go? Chimps? Penguins? Lions or tigers or bears? Most of the cages seem uninhabited; the animals must be hunkered down, unseen, for the night. It was only when she came to the habitat of the great horned owl that she was rewarded by the startling swoop of the creature; she could actually feel the draft from his sudden flight on her face. His appearance was so silent that she hadn't heard him approach. Mia's first—okay, her only—Newbery-winning book had been about an owl. She had known that book would be a winner from the moment she had found it in the slush pile, winking up at her like a gold coin in the gutter.

Owls rock,
she imagined herself telling Eden if she were here.
Owls rule.

The owl flexed his wings and then settled on a roost very close to where she stood. Mia remained as still as she could, and they looked at each other across the great, yet somehow meaningless divide between species. Meaningless because she could feel, suddenly, what it might be like to be him, the ancient-looking talons gripping the roost, the lemon-lime eyes studying her so closely. His thick feathers were so glossy they might have been oiled. She had a sudden longing to press her face into them. What would they feel like? Soft or bristly? How
would he smell? The owl continued to look at her, his unblinking eyes as bright as headlights. Mia didn't blink, either; it seemed imperative to keep her own eyes open and her gaze steady.

“The zoo is closed now,” said a uniformed guard walking past. “This way out, please.”

Reluctantly, Mia took leave of the owl. He continued to stare at her.
I'll be back,
she silently told him.
I promise I'll be back.

The light was gone now, and she still had a fair distance to go before she got home. She cut across Long Meadow instead of completing her circuit, and she walked back down the hill, melding with the commuters pouring out of the subway at Grand Army Plaza. She was tired by the time she reached her apartment, and she lay down with all her clothes still on, just, she told herself, for a few minutes. But she fell asleep and didn't get up until the sky was light. Her neck ached and her shoulder was sore; in sleep, she must have been twisted like a pretzel. What time was it anyway? Anxiously, she checked her watch. Only six thirty. Plenty of time to shower and change, to look alive before Cox arrived and the curtain went up again. She was just toweling off when the phone started ringing.

“Sorry I didn't call you yesterday,” said Stuart. “I had a lot of fires to put out.”

“That's okay.” She surveyed her sartorial options. She had no directive from Cox but that was fine; today she was going to wear what
she
wanted to wear.

“So are you ready?”

“I think so,” she said. “I'm going to try to make it out there.”

“You don't have to.”

“I know,” he said. “I want to, though.”

“Well, I appreciate it.”

“And what about Fred?”

“I doubt it,” Mia said.

“I could tell there was a storm brewing when I left. What's up with him? He your new boyfriend?”

“He was. But not anymore.”

“Too bad.”

There was a pause that Mia knew she was supposed to fill. “I'll tell you all about it, Stu. Just not now, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I should go,” Mia said. “But I have to ask you one more thing. I called Mom yesterday, and Hank said she was on her way to New York. Do you know anything about this?”

“Yeah.” He waited a beat. “Actually, I told her to come.”

“You did? Jesus.”

“Don't get all hissy. She has a right to be here, you know.”

“I suppose,” Mia conceded grudgingly. “Anyone else you've invited without telling me?”

“Well, Lloyd is coming, too.”

“No!”

“It was his idea. And he's bringing Eden.”

“He is? Why?”

“Hey, I thought you'd be happy.”

“I am. Only I don't trust him. He's been so adamant about shielding her from my so-called bad influence. Why is he bringing her back here all of a sudden?”