Breaking the Bank (6 page)

“Maybe I do,” she said finally. “How much is it?”

“Two hundred and fifty.”

Two hundred and fifty was very reasonable for this locket. In fact, given the high price of gold, it was a steal. Still, that same two hundred and fifty dollars could have gone toward so many other things. But Mia wanted the locket. Wanted it in a way she had not wanted anything in a long time. At least any material thing.

“I could do a little better if you were seriously interested. Say two hundred?”

Mia looked at the man, presumably the Mofchum—or one of
them—indicated on the sign. She saw the dispirited slope of his shoulders, the defeated look of his mottled forehead. How long had it been since he'd made a sale? How long could a little dump like this, the kind of little dump that made New York so quirky and so interesting, stay afloat?

“Two hundred,” she repeated, and peeled the bills into his hands.

“I'm glad it's going to you,” he said. “You're its rightful owner.” Mia must have looked puzzled because he said, “Every piece has its rightful owner. It may take years for the two of you to find each other. But usually you do.”

Mia declined a bag; she had already decided she wasn't going to take the thing off. Before she left, he pressed his card—graying, with worn, bent corners—into her hand.
GERALD MOFCHUM. FINE JEWELRY. BUY AND SELL
.

“Come back and see me again,” he said. “And bring your daughter.” He turned to Eden. “I've got something for you, too.” He fumbled through one of the display cases until he found what he was looking for—a link bracelet that jingled with a cluster of gold-tone charms. “Let me tell you about this . . .” he said. It was another ten minutes before they left the shop and emerged onto the street.

“See?” Eden said. “I told you that was the right place.” She shook her wrist and the charms on her bracelet tinkled.

“You were right.”

“Where's the locket? I want to touch it.”

Mia leaned forward so Eden could reach.

“Who are they?” Her fingers had found the clasp, and she snapped the locket open, revealing the two blond children.

“I don't know,” said Mia. “But someone must have loved them very much.”

“Are you going to leave them in there?”

“No, I'll keep them somewhere safe. But I want a picture of you in there.”

Eden thought about that for a moment and then asked, “What about the other side?”

“I haven't figured that out yet,” Mia said.

Eden looked like she was going to say something else, but a raindrop landed on her head with a small plop and she looked up instead. Mia followed her gaze. Clouds that had been hovering for much of the day had begun to gather and darken. She wondered whether it would be worth buying an umbrella. As soon as rain threatened in the city, the streets seemed to spawn guys hawking cheap, folding versions with spokes that turned inside out in the slightest wind. The insistent cries of the vendors—UM-brella, UM-brella—were one of those distinctive New York melodies.

Looking around for one such vendor now, Mia saw instead a small black woman wearing a green plastic trash bag over her clothes. She was sitting with her back against a building, her legs tucked under her like a cat. A cardboard box sat in front of her.

As Mia and Eden approached, Mia could see that the woman had actually done a decent job of adapting the bag into a garment; there were holes cut for her arms, and she tied a sash of some kind around her waist. The cardboard box with its neatly lettered message—
PLEASE HELP
—held a few coins and a single crumpled dollar bill.

When she and Eden reached the woman, the sky suddenly opened and it began to pour. Quickly, the woman grabbed the box and scooted it underneath her, using the bottom of the bag as a kind of tent. Then she pulled the neckline of the bag up and over the back of her head. All this was done in mere seconds, as if she had done it many times before. Watching, Mia felt as if she were coming apart, a stuffed toy with sawdust leaking in a slow, snail-like trail behind her. She quickly ushered Eden under an awning, where they stood, shaking off the rain.

“My Barneys bag is wet,” said Eden, rubbing the drops away with her forearm; again, the charm bracelet jingled.

“It should be okay until we get home.”

“I wanted to keep it. I'm collecting shopping bags.”

“You are?” This was news to Mia.

“Well, I'm starting today. This is going to be the first one. And now it's ruined.”

“Not ruined,” said Mia. “We'll leave it out to dry when we get home, and I'll press it flat under some books. It will be fine.” All the while Mia was mouthing this soothing parental patois, she was watching the woman wearing the garbage bag. She huddled under it, managing to keep reasonably dry. It would have been easy enough for her to get up and try to find shelter elsewhere. Or maybe not. Maybe her feet hurt or she knew that there was a good chance she'd be asked to move. She didn't look unhappy though. She looked resigned, adjusting the bag more securely over her head, wiping water from her cheek.

Mia thought of the last few hours: wandering through Barneys, ogling, fondling, getting, spending. Then the stop at the jewelry store. More ogling. More spending. Around her neck Mia now wore a golden locket; in her bag was the card that Gerald Mofchum had given her.
Buy and Sell.
But there were other transactions, weren't there? What about
Give and Receive
? She flashed onto the bills, bills that were not technically hers yet had somehow found their way into her hands and her wallet.

“Stay right here,” she instructed Eden.

“Where are you going?”

“Over there.” She pointed to where the woman in the bag sat.

“Why?”

“I have to do something.”

“Tell me,” Eden said, a familiar whine creeping into her voice.

“I'll tell you everything in just a minute, sweetie,” Mia said patiently, now quite sure of what she had to do.

She stepped from the awning into the rain, which had tapered off a bit, and toward the woman. She thought of Mr. Ortiz and his dog, the guy on the street with his coffee cup. The shame of that exchange
was breathing in her ear now, propelling her forward. Wanting to help someone wasn't enough. You either helped. Or you failed.

The woman looked up. Her eyes were large and brown; the lid of one of them drooped a little, making it seem as if she were winking, a slow, private gesture.

“Here,” said Mia. In her hand were three twenties. “These are for you.”

M
IA WAS ROUSED
the following morning by the bleating of her cell phone. She groped around the floor near her bed until she found it, sitting on top of the copy of
Swann's Way
she had been moving around her bedroom for months, without summoning the energy to open and read.

“Hello?” Her voice was sleep-cracked and raspy, which she hated; it always put her at a disadvantage. What time was it anyway?

“Mia honey?”

“Mom. Hi.” Mia leaned back into the pillow, trying to keep her voice low. Sometime in the middle of the night, Eden had had a bad dream and had climbed into bed with her. She was still there, burrowed into the blanket on one side of the mattress, and Mia didn't want to wake her.

“You sound congested. Do you have a cold?”

“No. No cold.”

“Then what? I didn't wake you, did I?”

“Of course not. I've been up for ages,” Mia fibbed. Back when she and Stu were still teenagers and living at home, Betty had made it clear that sleeping late was for losers, deadbeats, slackers. She herself took great pride in the fact that she rose between five and five thirty every morning.
I'll sleep when I'm dead,
she would announce proudly.

“That's good,” her mother said. “I'm sure you're busy.”

“Oh, that I am,” Mia said. “Busy as a bee.”

“But not too busy to pay us a visit,” said her mother.

“A visit?” How was she going to afford a trip out west?

“I was actually hoping you'd come for Thanksgiving.”

“Thanksgiving is not until the end of November,” Mia said. “If you want to get a good deal on the airfare, you have to book early.”

Mia knew her mother was right about this, so she approached the subject from a different angle.

“What about Stu?” she asked. “Did you invite him, too?”

“Well, I think he and Gail were planning to go to her family. But if I tell him you and Eden are coming this year, it might change his mind.”

“Really?” asked Mia. Her mother didn't just live in a different state now; she lived on a different planet. Didn't she know that Gail would no sooner spend a holiday weekend in New Mexico with Mia and Eden than she would board the New York City—bound train from Greenwich stark naked and singing “Amazing Grace”?

“Yes, it would be so wonderful to see all of you. Hank wants to do the cooking; did you know he's a fabulous cook?”

“So you've said.” Mia had her doubts about this; her mother had always displayed a cheerful and marked indifference to food. Stuart used to say that it wasn't Betty's ear that was tin; it was her palate.

“He's found all these regionally inspired recipes. Fire-roasted turkey. Sausage, sage, and chipotle stuffing.”

None of which Eden will eat,
Mia thought.
But why bring that up now?

“I can talk to him about it if you'd like,” Mia offered.

“Would you? That would be so nice. He thinks the world of you, Mia honey. I just love that the two of you are still so close.”

“Yeah, that's us all right. Couldn't be closer.”

They talked for a few more minutes before saying good-bye. Eden rolled over, flung an arm out in Mia's direction, but remained asleep. They had stayed up late the night before making popcorn and brownies, which they ate while watching
Saturday Night Fever
on late-night TV. Even all these years later, the sight of John Travolta with his blow-dried black hair and eyes as cool and blue as a Siberian husky's stirred
something in Mia. Regrettably, Travolta had of late lost his avid, lupine look and had instead puffed out like a blowfish. He'd become a Scientologist, too.
Johnny baby,
she wished she could ask,
where did you go?
As if he—or any of the other men she'd wanted to ask, ex, brother, father—could have told her.

Lying in bed, Mia mulled over her mother's request and knew that, irritated as it would make her, she would call her brother and extend the invitation. Though if this plan did actually materialize, she didn't know how she would pay for the plane tickets or, worse, tell her mother that she wasn't able to. Betty was not an ungenerous soul, but she was certainly not rolling in dough the way Stuart was. And her mother did not believe that any money she did give to Mia would be used well.
You're extravagant,
Betty had said, more than once.
You're worrying about rent and you take her to Barneys?

S
TILL HOLDING THE
phone, Mia rummaged around for her clock, which had, as it turned out, gotten kicked under the bed. It was a bit dusty, and she tried to muffle the resulting sneeze. Eden stirred, but slept on. It was past ten. Mia debated waking her; if she didn't, she would never be able to get her to go to sleep that night and tomorrow morning would be a fresh hell.

She was just about to do it when the phone bleated again. It was probably her mother, calling with something she'd forgotten to say during their initial conversation. Calls from Betty usually took place in several installments; when Mia clicked back on, she didn't even bother to read the number on the screen. But it was not her mother on the line. It was Lloyd.

“Hey,” he said in that rich, resonant baritone of his that always got to her, even now, after everything he had done. “How's it going?”

“How's it going?” she echoed. “What do you mean,
How's it going?
Where have you been all this time? What about Eden? Did you just forget about her?” Mia tried to keep her voice down. But Eden must
have had a Daddy radar that worked even when she was asleep, because she briefly lifted her head from the pillow and gave Mia a baleful look.

“I know I should have called sooner, but you have no idea how crazy things have been. But I'm calling now, aren't I? Let me talk to Eden.”

“Well, isn't that just dandy! How about all that time when she didn't hear a word from you, not a single word—”

“Who's that?” Eden sat up.

“Is she right there? I know she's there. Let me talk to her.”

“Is that Daddy?” asked Eden at practically the same moment. When Mia didn't answer, Eden reached for the phone. “It
is
Daddy, I know it is. I want to talk to him!”

Mia handed the phone to Eden and then, so she was not tempted to eavesdrop, got out of bed. The apartment was cold, and she found a sweater to pull on over her T-shirt and sweats. But she couldn't locate her flip-flops or even a pair of socks, so she padded into the kitchen barefoot. It was still a mess from the night before—bowl sloshing in the sink, dots of batter blobbed all over. The brownies were on the counter, and Mia broke off a piece to munch on while she made coffee. She could hear Eden, still in bed, giggling. Snatches of conversation drifted in her direction.

“And then that stupid teacher—”

“Mom and I went to—”

“So the boy who sits behind me—”

“I miss you; when are you coming?”

Was it an accident that Mia overheard that last sentence in its entirety, or had Eden's voice gotten louder, for emphasis? She stood, still barefoot, still chilly, in the kitchen, looking out the window as she sipped her coffee. It was not much of a view—a glimpse of the tiny backyards on Garfield Place—but it was better than the constant stream of cars and trucks that barreled down Fourth Avenue. And there was something so uselessly, heartbreakingly hopeful about the
way people made use of even the smallest of outdoor spaces, cramming them with grills, picnic tables, aboveground pools, sandboxes, flower pots, metal chairs, a collapsed beach ball, a rusted red tricycle.