Dear Money

by Martha McPhee

  I can take a D, but a D-minus?

  A sweet, small bookstore in Chicago. All the books hand-selected, personally and thoughtfully read by the owner and her assistant. A jolly pair: one old, one young; one stout, the other thin; one a big laugher, the other sardonic. A book group of five attends the reading. They are deciding if they will read Generation of Fire. Their decision will be based on the passage I read. "Not to put pressure on you," one of them says with a giggly smile.

  "Lily Starr was here last week," the owner says boisterously. "She mentioned she was a friend of yours. She was so delightful. So talented. The place was packed! If we get her back for the paperback, we're selling tickets."

  Washington, D.C.: My parents are the audience. My mother, a flurry of positive comments about the bookstore, how important it is to be asked to read here. Too bad about the weather—such a beautiful evening keeps people outdoors.

  New York City: The store is packed. Theodor brings out all our friends, cousins, parents from the girls' school. The Chapmans invite everyone over afterward for drinks.

  At the girls' school, a mother asks, "Have I missed the reviews?" In the paper that same day: Lily Starr is the winner of this year's Washington Award. Three days later the paper will announce her nomination for the biggest prize, the Golden Fleece: the Eiseman.

  Midnight. I am on a high-speed ferry home from a reading in Little Silver, New Jersey. Alone. All the commuters safely in bed. It is so black outside we could be high in the air above the Atlantic. It is raining, but I cannot see the rain for the dark. I can see nothing out the window. Inside the cabin the lights are bright. The reading was a good one. Thirty women in the audience. So many questions. This is the way it goes: a sudden high to give you that bit of hope. "Your masterpiece," one woman said. "I've read all your work and this is it. This is the hit. Trust me. I'm a reader. You've captured perfectly the personal disconnection one feels against the backdrop of the hedonism of the late twentieth century." Appreciated, understood and feted in Little Silver. Well, that was something, anyway.

  I cross the black water of the Narrows. Somewhere the Verrazano Bridge looms. Other boats are out there, but I cannot see them. I'm alone on a high-speed ferry with my face pressed to the glass. I could vanish easily, without a trace. Would I attract attention then? In my lap Will Chapman's manuscript languishes. It is good, very good, if long. So fine it has been taking me a long time to read it—in part because I savor it, in part because I am jealous. He will sell the book, and well.

  A young man appears. I can see him standing before me, reflected in the window glass. Out of nowhere, he tells me he's nineteen years old. He says it's raining outside and that I'll need an umbrella. He says, "Funny, on nights like these, how you can't see anything." Tells me he's working the ferry while in college, to see him through. "Can I talk to you?" he says eventually.

  "Aren't you already?" I ask.

  He chuckles, says "Funny." Then, "You're all alone."

  "Observant," I say. He laughs again. We're in a bubble of light, just the two of us, in a vast darkness. He pops open a broken umbrella and tells me I can have it.

  "Thank you," I say. "Where's the bridge?"

  "Out there," he says.

  "Oh, really?" Again I press my face to the window, and again I see nothing.

  "I figured you might want some company." He wants to talk, so I let him. "This is the last shift of the night. Manhattan means quittin' time. I love this ferry. Do you ride it often?" He looks me in the eye. He's an adorable boy, not too tall, fit, filled with enthusiasm for life that seems to buck from his face, that cocksure innocence that seems to know already how the whole world works, as if on a formula, a recipe. "This boat teaches me everything I need to know. You know that? It does. Amazing how a boat can teach what you need to know. The people that ride this boat, they're the bosses of all those people who take the subways, the buses, the trains. The people here are the rich cats. It costs them seven hundred a month just to ride this boat to work. They come in here looking all tired and frazzled and worn out. And they're impatient and touchy and jumpy. I look at them and I feel sorry for them. And for all their money, they're still like lemmings." He stops and looks at me. "You mind?"

  "Of course not."

  "Why are you on this ferry, anyway?"

  "I gave a reading in Little Silver tonight."

  "A reading?"

  "I'm a writer."

  "You are, are you? Cool. Just like fate," he says with genuine astonishment. He is not an ironic boy. "I've got an idea for a novel, you know? You want to hear it?"

  "Sure," I say politely.

  "It's about an artist, an artist who's sick of all the posers, really sick of the fraud. You know, the guy who says he's an artist but isn't really, just wants to make a buck. The kind who makes the buck, many bucks, because people believe he's the real thing because as a fraud he has the routine down, knows how to sell himself? Well, the real artist can't stand this type. The real artist is a Pollock or a Johns or damn, a Picasso. The real McCoy. Well, he beats up the frauds, really messes them up—at bars and art parties, in galleries. Anywhere he can. And then he uses their blood to paint his pictures, really beautiful pictures made of fraudulent blood. What do you think?"

  "Does he kill the frauds?" I ask.

  "Oh, no. No, he definitely doesn't kill them. Not at all. Just their blood he wants. Rips them up a bit, but he doesn't kill them."

  "So you're a writer," I say. "Write by day, work the boat by night?"

  "No."

  That makes me curious. "A painter?"

  "I just work the ferry," he says, "to get me through college. I'm going to be a bridge builder someday. I want to build little bridges. Not the big ones. The little ones that get you over streams and such. I'm learning how in college. I want to really know how to make something, something with my hands. Not like all these people riding this ferry. Not like them. The people who ride this thing, they're like cattle at the gate, jostling to be let in. No dignity. Pushing up against the gate, rushing in to get their seats, waiting to do it all over in the morning. Day in, day out. They don't look happy. No smiles on their faces. You know who their bosses are? Their bosses are the ones who get to work in helicopters. That's the top of the crop. These cats think if only they could fly to work in a helicopter, then they'd have arrived. That's what they want. Imagine that." He brushes his hair back with his hand, using the window's reflection as his mirror. He unzips his fly and loosens his pants to tuck his shirt in. "Cattle," he says, and then asks again, "Do you like my idea?"

  Ten

  IN THE OLDEN DAYS, as my daughters like to say, fifty, sixty years ago, just after the Second World War, a mortgage was a relatively simple thing. People deposited money in their local banks and accrued a little interest. The banks in turn loaned that money at a higher rate, most commonly for home mortgages. The profit, of course, belonged to the bank. Before the war, mortgages were a bit more complicated. Panic-driven runs on banks caused the banks to create callable loans, meaning that if a bank needed to, it had the right to ask for the loan back for any reason, at any time. This made loans nearly impossible for the working-class family. After the war, all of this changed. The government stepped in with greater force and a housing policy that subsidized a vast portion of home mortgages, making them affordable for almost everyone (except African Americans, because it was believed they would bring down neighborhood property values, thus making loans riskier).

  A young couple visits the local savings and loan and presents their financial picture to the loan officer. The husband works in the city, a commuter. The wife stays at home. Yes, they want a family. Oh, they'll be in the house for a while. Three bedrooms, plenty big. The local school district, excellent. Tree-lined street, house after house, mailbox after mailbox, driveway after driveway—the great American suburb. Hedges and emerald lawns, fanning sprinklers, perhaps a basketball hoop in the blacktop driveway, a pool, white clapboard Cape or ranch, picket fence, a pink dog
wood, certainly the dream. They are a handsome couple, they will have beautiful children, they'll grow into the house, then out of the house. They'll upgrade—use the equity to get a four-bedroom, perhaps a five-. Then one day the children will be gone. The house in that little suburb, on that dandy street, is too big and worth so much more than they bought it for. Husband and wife smile at each other as if thirty years hadn't just passed—all of those memories and then all of that profit.

  Go back thirty years. In front of the loan officer, a little nervous, a little scared (she with her kidskin gloves, he in his fedora), the couple is given the 10.8 percent fixed-rate for thirty years on their $30,000 loan. Husband and loan officer discuss the particulars. Wife quietly feels that she, they, have just made one giant leap up the social ladder. She has always believed in the best.

  The best: social and economic capital, generous tax deductions that would allow them to amass wealth, have access to a better education for their children, accrue equity so that they could send their kids to private colleges, allow them to save for retirement, and pass some of the wealth on to their kids. The best: this house would allow them to better their lot in life, thus their children's and their children's children's. And so the cycle went. No wonder the wife perspired as the loan officer studied the documents, asked questions about her husband's salary. Thirty thousand was a stretch. Nervously, she flapped her gloves against her thigh, caught herself, stopped and then caught herself again. This was freedom, their right to own land—a little tract of America. Approved!

  The savings and loan held the mortgage. The couple paid their monthly bill to them. They accrued interest, reaped government subsidies, grew wealth—an acceptable form of lending and financial growth. The couple built equity, had a voice in the community, a say in the direction of the local schools. On Saturdays they all converged at the country club—husband and loan officer playing a round of golf. If the husband got in trouble, lost his job, say, he knew where to go, knew the flaws in the loan officer's angle of attack, knew his frustrations with repeated fat shots. Always the husband encouraged and praised the loan officer, because this was the way it worked: someday the husband might need help, and if he and the banker were friends ... On Sundays they congregated at church. They prayed together, week in week out, and so it went. They both grew older, the late seventies arrived, and then everything changed.

  Let's be more personal. Remember the Hovs? "Chekhov without the chek," the elderly couple who owned the Victorian cottage in Maine, the one Emma Chapman coveted in order to complete her dreams? In 1951 the Hovs bought a three-bedroom ranch in Realville, New Jersey. Mr. Hov had a tenure-track job at Rutgers—a renowned Swift scholar. They were hoping to start a family. The house cost $24,000. With 20 percent down, they got a thirty-year fixed-rate mortgage of $19,200.

  By 1958, the value of the house had risen, giving them considerable equity. So when the cottage in Maine became available that year (Mrs. Hov had been vacationing at Pond Point since childhood) for $20,000, they easily qualified for a second mortgage. By the time Mr. Hov retired, both houses had been paid off in full, owned outright. His Rutgers salary would never have made him rich, but in essence his real estate decisions did. In the fall of 2003, Mrs. and Mr. Hov, together on the phone, called Emma and Will, not long after Will let go of his job to become a full-time novelist, and not long before I saw them again at the fundraiser at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Make us an offer we can't refuse," the Hovs said in unison, the pitch of Mr. Hov's voice a bit deeper than his wife's.

  "You're selling!" Emma nearly screeched. Standing in her Tribeca kitchen, with its view of the sailboats on the Hudson, everything chrome and Sub-Zero, she covered the receiver with her hand and screamed with joy and surprise and did a little dance and mouthed to Will, who was also on a phone, their unbelievable good fortune. How was it that everything, everything, always worked out so well for them? The house would be hers. Will loved seeing her like this, electricity lighting her up with joy. And now he too would have the time. They could spend entire summers at Pond Point, do a few renovations, make the house more comfortable, sand the floors, change the windows, upgrade the kitchen.

  "We'll get back to you," Will said. "This is exciting news." He used his most professional deal-making voice to temper his enthusiasm. He thought. He went into the library and drew the doors, told Emma to give him some time. "But can we? Is this prudent?" And again he asked her for just a little time.

  He sat at the desk with a pad of paper and a pen before him. He felt as if he were back at work. He liked the feel of strategy, the taut tendons of the deal's structure. He missed that most in his new life, the physical feel of the deal. He thought some more. He could juggle things. His accounts were solid. His credit was impeccable. They owned the Tribeca loft. They'd bought low and real estate now soared. Their equity had accrued, as it does. Real estate never goes down—not in the long term. Given his new circumstances, the budget was tighter, but that house couldn't be worth much. It sat on a quarter of an acre. To Emma, back in the kitchen, he said, "What unbelievable luck." This was his first mistake.

  Research revealed that in this market the property (you really couldn't say the house, because it was not the house they were buying, but the view) would sell for a lot. An offer the Hovs couldn't refuse was $1 million, at a minimum, but even that was not a guarantee. "A million?" Emma asked, astonished, her blue eyes actually becoming a prettier shade with fear. A million was out of their reach, certainly, given that Will did not have a job, given that they could use the house only four months of the year at best—it was not winterized and could never be, unless it was knocked down and rebuilt, which they would never do.

  She studied her husband as he pondered this, his beautiful jaw, his green eyes and thick dark hair. He was so familiar to her, his looks no longer had that searing appeal. In studying him she hoped to understand whether this plan of theirs was viable or foolish. Instead, he made the call to the Hovs, proposing $1 million. The offer was contemplated. Several days of anticipation, nail biting, hair twirling, pacing, fantasizing, lying in bed late into the night and drawing pictures with their words of all they would do to their house. Emma lay in her silk nightgown, promising the stars that she would never take fortune for granted again. Will, on his side, worried, of course, but he was a banker, after all. If he couldn't swing this deal, then what had all those years taught him? He knew how to borrow from Peter to pay Paul and make a killing in the process. That's what credit markets were for, and paper was cheap these days.

  Finally the Hovs accepted. The Victorian shack would belong to the Chapmans, and in turn the Hovs would officially be millionaires. Real estate had done what it was intended to do.

  Borrowing from Peter to pay Paul was an easy task. With interest rates at historic lows, Will refinanced the Tribeca loft. Bought for $1.3 million in 1998, it was now worth $2.1 million. He took equity out to use as a down payment, and while he was at it, to shore up his ability to pay the girls' tuition and the family's expenses for the next several years. As a banker they'd lived on 45 a month—that is, $45,000, after taxes. The marquee loan of this year, 2003, was the interest-only loan. This would allow Will to make lower monthly payments for the first few years, thus ensuring their ability to keep up with the payments while they adjusted to the new circumstances.

  For the house in Maine he used a different mortgage structure. Instead of putting down 20 percent, he put down 0 percent and took out a 2/28 mortgage—that is, a mortgage with an initial two-year teaser rate of 3.5 percent, which would (he was well aware) be adjusted in two years to a market-dependent rate, usually higher. In this way, he'd have more time to figure out his new financial picture.

  Given the market, the Maine house and the Tribeca apartment would continue to rise in value. He could refinance or, worst-case scenario, he'd have to sell Maine. But he knew enough to know that you had to take risks in order to win, and he had both money and wits to risk, and the horizon looked clear and long
. In fact, his greatest concern involved storms wreaking havoc with the house. But even that bothered him little. Insurance, though expensive, would take care of it. The house had been there since the 1880s and nothing had knocked it down yet, and if it came down, they'd be free to rebuild.

  Maine was theirs.

  When I saw Emma again at the Met, in her red velvet gown, her black hair pulled back in a French knot, she was bursting with excitement. The evening well lit with votive candles, drenched in champagne, Emma took my hands, kissing me on the cheek, and flooded me with news of her new house. "You'll have to come stay with us, continue that novel of yours..." Smiling her nuthatch smile.

  "The plot has just made a turn," I said.

  "Indeed," she said.

  "How did you kill them?" I asked. I couldn't help myself. She looked at me, confused, a smile quivering on her lips as if it could rise and fly away. But she wouldn't let it. The smile turned to laughter, bubbles bursting forth as she recalled the reference.

  "Actually, I think the Hovs killed us," she said, standing before me regally with all the confidence of someone who can frame financial ruin in a joke.

  Money could always be had, more made. It would not run out. This room in a grand museum, filling as it was, was a testament to that. And I wondered too if she had more news, news of the sale of Will's book. Failure was not in the Chapmans' vocabulary. He'd sell the book for a million, part one of a series. It was clear to me after having finished the book (he'd also given me part two) that it would be published in two volumes—a woman's life as it spans the twentieth century, Laura Ingalls Wilder for the new world, written by a man, a banker turned novelist, riches to "rags." Perhaps it was already sold, his marketing scheme the icing on the deal. Of course Emma did not explain the fancy mortgages, the subtleties of Will's financial prowess. I'm not certain she knew the details or understood the risks, what it meant to be completely leveraged. And if she had tried to explain these complexities to me (which she never would have, because she knew that it smelled a bit too much like a scheme, a way for someone with not enough to afford more, like those o percent credit card loans I was so fond of), I would not have understood much. The house in Maine belonged to them—it was that simple from my point of view—not to the bank, not to a complicated compilation of fancy mortgages. I congratulated her.