The Penny Pinchers Club (28 page)

“The one in New York? Or the one in Princeton?”

Velma could be such a hick. “New York. As in overlooking Central Park. And he had a private plane and went to Princeton.”

“I don’t care,” Libby said, lifting her chin. “Sure, it’d be nice not to be so strapped for cash all the time, to be a little less anxious when the bills come in. But we have everything we need in my cozy apartment. We have each other.”

Velma made a face. “Which would you rather have? Fifty million smackeroos or a man?”

“Not any man.” Libby bowed her head. “Wade. He’s all I need.”

Libby’s gushing love reminded me of when I was young and felt the same way about a piss-poor grad student. If it meant not being with Griff, I, too, would have spurned millions—heck, I did by turning down Liam. I remember the warm feeling of anticipation at the end of the day, driving home from work, knowing we’d be together in our own tiny apartment, just the two of us. I’d felt so lucky in those days, so blessed to have Griff as my own. What was money compared to that kind of bliss?

“Well.” Velma threw up her hands. “Not my business.”

“Not mine, either,” I had to agree. But still!

After Libby and Velma left, I called in Jasper and headed for our basement, which served as refuge and reminder of the home improvement loan we were still paying off. Whenever I flipped on the lights and saw that expensive shag carpeting, the entertainment center, the idle Barcaloungers, and
huuuge
television, I cringed. It was like the “fat picture” dieters tape on the fridge to remind them to stay out.
Never again
, I thought, sitting at Griff’s desk.
Never again.

Turning on the computer, I ignored the bouncing postage stamp indicating Griff had new email and logged into our checking account. $4,634. Enough to cover the mortgage, the home loan, the electric bill, and make a few more payments on Discover andVisa. (I often paid them two or three times a month in tiny amounts just to drive them nuts.)

The postcard kept bouncing.

No! I was not going there again. Too painful.

Ripping open the mortgage, I grabbed a checkbook and carefully wrote out the amount, adding $50 more to the principal. Then I recorded it in Quicken.

What to do aboutWade and Libby?
, I wondered, turning my thoughts to gossip while I paid the bills, a trick I’d learned to lessen the pain of draining my checking account.

Should I call him? Take him out for coffee and explain how Libby, who’d been born and raised with nothing, would surely appreciate a taste of luxury? Or should I do as Velma suggested and stay out of it because it was none of my business?

Bounce. Bounce.
The postage stamp would not give it up. I’d made a firm resolution after the incident last summer to never, ever check Griff’s email again. I was so proud of myself. And yet . . .

Bounce. Bounce. Bounce
.

... We
had
been getting along so much better lately.

So maybe, just maybe, one of these emails might be positive, I thought. What if he’d written [email protected] to say plans had changed and he did love me after all and had absolutely no intention of leaving me and that was the real reason Bree was crying in the car? Sure, that was a fantasy. But if it were true, wouldn’t I feel better about him being in the woods of Alaska with her?

Of course, I would. The future of our marriage hinged on whether or not I read those emails. Not just our future, but Laura’s, too.

I was seconds away from clicking on the postage stamp when the phone on Griff’s desk rang and I snatched it up, hoping it was him.

“Griff?”

There was an awkward pause. “Actually, it’s me. Liam.”

Liam. I hadn’t spoken to him since the article ran in the
Princeton Pen
.

“I tried reaching you at work, but some new girl answered the phone,” he said. “Is it true you’re not working there anymore?”

How to break it to him in a way that didn’t make him feel guilty? Certainly, it hadn’t been his intention to get me fired. “Afraid so.”

“Please tell me it had nothing to do with the photo that ran in the paper.”

I didn’t answer.

“Shit. I was worried that was the case. I thought your name in print would be some free publicity since . . .”

“It’s all right, Liam. Don’t worry about it. Chloe was . . .”

“A piece of work.” He chuckled. “Still, I feel bad. I know it’s not like you can afford to...” He stopped short of calling me broke. “Look, I might just have a solution.”

“Solutions are good. I’m listening.”

“The family getaway in Avalon. You’ve always loved that place.”

The very place where I broke his heart. “Are you kidding? Your house is a gem. I mean, there can’t be that many rambling nineteenth-century frame structures still on the beach, right?”

“Whatever ones there were have been torn down to build bigger, sturdier showplaces. That’s what my brothers and sisters want to do, but I want to preserve its decor of shabby chic. I told them I’d foot the bill for a spit-and-polish if they’d give me a chance.”

I held my breath. To do two jobs for him, not just one, smacked of extreme charity. Or more than that. Yet, the potential income would be hard to resist. I was in no position to turn down job offers, not with Griff and Bree executing the final stages of their escape.

“And before you conclude I’m doing this out of guilt over the
Princeton Pen
article or some other reason”—he cleared his throat—“rest assured that my primary motivation is purely logistical. You’ve been a great help on my house in Princeton, Kat. You understand me and you listen and you’re easy to work with. I know you’d be the same with this project.”

“I’m speechless.”

“Obviously not,” he joked, “because you just spoke.”

“My only hesitation is Griff.”

“Ah, yes. You still haven’t told him about the Macalester House, have you?”

“I was getting around to it. Haven’t quite found the right moment to bring it up.”

“Though it has been almost five months.”

I winced. “It’s complicated. It’ll be bad enough when he finds out it was your one phone call to Hunter and not his months of emails that got him that interview.”

“So he
did
get the interview?”

“He’s in Alaska as we speak. Somewhere over Canada, I presume.”

There was a pause on Liam’s end. “Look, I’m afraid you might take this the wrong way, but . . . I’m headed to Avalon this afternoon to open the house for the summer. How about you join me tonight, before the rest of the family descends tomorrow? We can talk and generally brainstorm.”

My chest went hot. It was bad enough that I hadn’t told Griff about working for Liam or about my run-in with the cops and showering at Liam’s house. For me to spend a night with him down at the Shore would be inexcusable. It would deal a serious blow to our marriage.

“That’s very nice, Liam, but . . .”

“But what? It’s perfectly on the up-and-up, Kat. It’ll give you a chance to look the place over without being under the microscope of my family.”

“So it would definitely be just the two of us.”

There was a beat before he said, “Is that a problem?”

Another flush of heat.

“Look, Kat, there are five bedrooms, as you may recall. All have locks on the doors and I promise not to use my secret master key, though you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

I couldn’t help but giggle. Flirtation, as my mother used to say, made the world a nicer place, and Liam was proof of that.

“Ah, at last I made her laugh. So, what say you?”

Before I gave in to my lesser half, I said, “Think I’ll have to pass on it tonight, but thank you. It sounds divine.”

“I assumed as much. Hey, if you change your mind, call me. You know my cell.”

I told him thanks again and hung up, feeling totally conflicted. Liam was looking after me, I knew that. Despite his claims to the contrary, he was throwing me work to keep me afloat. That was just his style because he, like I, worried about being financially secure.

I had to admit there was something very alluring about a man who went out of his way to protect me with such respect and dignity. Even if that man was not my husband.

Sighing, I turned my attention to the bills and caught sight of that dancing postcard. What the hell, I thought, clicking on it. After the sacrifice I’d just made by not taking Liam up on his offer, reading a few emails didn’t seem like the biggest sin in the world.

I scrolled past a new email from the department secretary to find an old one from Bree to Griff. Oddly enough, it began with her thoughts on the calculating economist, Ayn Rand.

 

You mustn’t feel that way, Griff. I know you’re no fan of Ayn Rand, but as a devoted disciple and confirmed Objectivist, let me reiterate the value of “rational selfishness.” Why should you have to put your life on hold for your wife when you’re meant for greater things?

Kat can look no farther than her own backyard of Jersey. Her world is the superficial one of shopping malls and consumption, while you were meant for loftier goals and purer surroundings—mountains, woods, books, reflection, and deep intellectual thought.

Now, thanks to me ☺ you have the opportunity to chuck this job and this trap of suburban life and follow your bliss, as they say. My advice is to tell her everything when we get back from Alaska.

After that . . . let the chips fall where they may.

 

 

B.

 

 

The pain under my sternum was so sharp, it was as if the wind had been knocked out of me. This Bree, this awful, selfish
Ayn Rand lover
, was urging him to leave me. For her. For the woods, mountains, and deep intellectual thought.

Oh, please.

Crazed with heartbreak, furious with resentment, I scrolled through his inbox searching for more. But Griff must have kept faith with his promise last fall to be more careful, because there were no other messages from her.

And only one from him to Bree in his outbox.

 

Your advice is well taken. Let’s discuss in Alaska.

 

 

Griff.

 

 

Curse him.

Without thought, without reproach from my inner voice, my hand reached for the phone and dialed the number I’d come to memorize.

“What time do you want me there?” was all I said.

“I’ll be there around six.” Liam’s voice was low and gruff. “You don’t know how happy I am that you changed your mind.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Novak estate was a rambling white house of many stories on an unkempt oceanfront lot. Its overgrown grass and crazy split-rail fence lent a wildness to it that made the neighboring pristine homes with their tidy, white sidewalks and pebbled yards seem foolishly prim. It remained a beautiful destination with splendid white beaches that never suffered a from the overcrowding just a few miles to the north. Since Liam and I had dated, though, the real estate values here had inflated to ridiculous proportions. Elaine told me the other day that a simple two-bedroom bungalow, two blocks from the beach, went for two million dollars.

I couldn’t begin to calculate the worth of Liam’s 4,200-square-foot estate.

The churning ocean was steely gray since the sun had almost set when I arrived around seven thirty on the unseasonably chilly May evening. A spring breeze was tinged with salt, and a fine mist cut through the black turtleneck that had been enough to keep me warm back in Rocky River but here was as worthless as Kleenex. But that didn’t stop me from lingering outside to inhale the invigorating air and listen to the steady thunder of waves crashing in the descending darkness.

“It’s awesome, isn’t it?” Liam came down the wide front steps.

He took my bag and kissed me lightly on the cheek, adding absently, “I’m always on my secretary Lilly about her cavalier use of
awesome
. It’ll be a shock to that generation when something awesome really happens and they’ve run out of words to describe it.”

I said, “You’re beginning to sound like an old man.”

“Old men aren’t so bad. We have our talents. And experience.” He put an arm around me and rubbed my shoulders. “You’re freezing. I’ve got just the ticket to warm you up.”

“A fire?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a fiery cabernet, but I’ve heard this fire thing works well, too.”

Possibly afraid I’d turn and flee, he hooked my bag over his shoulder and led me by the hand up the stairs, my mind racing.
What am I doing here? What possible positive outcome can result from this?
Fire was right. I was playing with it and I had a very good chance of getting burned.

Liam had been spot-on about the shabby chic since every item, though ratty, was of high quality. The beautiful hammered-tin ceilings showed signs of slight rust corrosion in the corners from exposure to salty air, and the Southern yellow pine floors were scuffed and darkened with age and sand. Faded antique throw rugs, small enough to shake outside, set off a thick farmer’s table and a Franklin rocker mended at the joints. An old cast-iron woodstove provided some heat, but not enough to combat the drafts blowing through the chinks.

“See what I mean?” He flicked on a light in the kitchen, and an overhead brass candelabra flickered precariously. “Definitely due for a renovation.”

“It’s fantastic and you know it.” I kicked my bag to the door, ready for a quick getaway. “Every other place in Avalon is white tile, yellow walls, and vinyl siding. It’s like a Florida retirement community.”

He opened a drawer for a corkscrew. “Remember this?” It was an old scoop with SPRINGER’S on the side, the name of the ice-cream parlor we used to hit almost every night in Stone Harbor for mint chip.