New Money

by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal

  Mom sniffed and composed herself. “Calm down,” she said. Her voice was back to normal. “Let me explain.”

  Calm down? I couldn’t calm down. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say and that felt strange, because we didn’t fight much. We’d always been so close. At least, that’s what I’d thought.

  “Don’t bother,” I said, and headed for my room, but Mom caught up to me in a few strides. She grasped my arm and spun me around.

  “Remember what I told you before,” she said as her fingers dug into my flesh, “about not staying anyplace where you’re uncomfortable and not appreciated? Well, that’s exactly how I felt about New York. I wasn’t going to let Edward Stone turn me into something I wasn’t. And I couldn’t fit in with a bunch of stuck-up, judgmental people who’d never accept me. I’ve always told you not to settle … and I didn’t want to.”

  The room was spinning, and whatever she’d just said was only a jumble of words. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t,” she said, and pointed to the couch. “But I want you to. So sit down and let me tell you everything.”

  I jerked my arm away. “It’s too late. I wouldn’t believe a word you said, anyway. I’ll find everything I need to know in New York.”

  Mom’s spiral curls had wilted around her face. But she absorbed my venom like she deserved it and then put her hands on her hips. “Don’t talk crazy. You’re not going anywhere.”

  I glared at her. “Why shouldn’t I? I thought you wanted me to leave Charleston. You’ve been bugging me about it for the past two years.”

  “Yes,” she said, “but I didn’t want you to do it this way or to go there. Anything having to do with Edward Stone is the last thing I want for you.”

  I didn’t care what she wanted. She’d never asked what I wanted when it came to that man. She’d never even told me that he existed, and it was my right to know.

  “Well,” I said, “we don’t always get what we want, do we?”

  She called my name as I stormed across the carpet and into my room, where I locked the door behind me. I paid her no attention, even when she banged on the door and threatened to take it off the hinges, which she’d done all by herself when I was in tenth grade.

  She’d cut her hand on a screwdriver then. I didn’t want her to do the same now, but I couldn’t let her in. Maybe I needed to leave this room and this house and South Carolina for good. Maybe this was the push I needed, as painful as it was. So I dragged my barely used suitcase out of my closet and called Mercedes Rawlings Stark.

  “If you’d like to book that flight for me,” I said, “I’m so ready to go.”

  Three

  The next morning, I buckled my seat belt and stared through a window at the tarmac. Mercedes Rawlings Stark had booked me on Tuesday’s earliest flight to New York City out of Charleston International, and I hadn’t let Mom drive me to the airport even though she’d wanted to. At least let me give you a ride, she’d said, but I’d refused. I’d taken a cab, leaving her standing on our porch in her nightgown and slippers as she gave me a limp good-bye wave.

  I blinked that image away. I had enough to worry about—my fight with Tina, New York, Edward Stone, and the stewardess who was demonstrating how to properly use an oxygen mask and a flotation device. The middle-aged man in a tan business suit sitting in the aisle seat beside me listened intently, but I didn’t.

  The possibility of needing an oxygen mask or a flotation device made me nervous. It made my stomach churn and my palms sweat. I’d only left South Carolina and been on a plane once before—when the Charleston High cheerleading squad attended a competition in Lehigh Acres, Florida—and that flight had been filled with bumpy air, a sharp drop in altitude, and screaming teenage girls. The memory of it made me bite my nails, which Tina had always considered the vilest of habits.

  Get yourself together, Savannah, I heard my own voice say. That flight was in high school. You’re a grown-up now. You can handle this. You can handle all of it.

  Right. Sure. Of course I could. I took my fingers out of my mouth and pulled my cell phone from my pocket, thinking I should text Tina to let her know where I was and what was going on. I wanted to unload the whole Edward Stone mess, but then I remembered I couldn’t. She was mad at me. I was mad at her. Maybe you’re jealous, she’d said. But that didn’t make me miss her any less.

  I glanced at my phone and saw a new text from Mom: Please have the courtesy of letting your mother know when you land. And come back as soon as this nonsense is out of your system.

  “You’ll have to shut that off,” said the stewardess. She’d finished her presentation and was beside me. “We’re about to depart.”

  The flight was drama-free until the plane approached John F. Kennedy Airport. Then it descended through a mass of thick clouds that made everything shake. I dug my nails into my thighs until I heard my voice again. Get yourself together, Savannah.

  I took the final sip from a tiny bottle of orange juice the stewardess had given me with an equally stingy bag of pretzels. I’d skipped dinner last night and hadn’t eaten breakfast this morning, and my stomach growled so loudly that I was sure the man beside me heard it.

  “First time in New York?” he asked.

  Was it that obvious? I thought I looked professional. Stylish. Sophisticated. I wore a pin-striped black pants suit and a pink satin tank top that I’d bought for my interview at the library two years ago. And I’d set my alarm clock to go off extra early this morning so I could put on makeup and wash, blow-dry, and add some bounce to my hair with hot rollers. It hung down my back and was similar to Crystal’s. Even though she got on my nerves, her style attracted enough attention to be worth copying.

  I was sure my ensemble was appropriate for a 10 A.M. meeting with Mercedes Rawlings Stark at the law firm of Patterson, Simmons & Gold. I’ll send a driver to pick you up at JFK. We’re in the Condé Nast Building, she’d said casually, like its location was common knowledge.

  I glanced at the man beside me. He was fifty-something, and he had thick gray hair and a deep line in each of his cheeks. “Yes, sir,” I said. “It’s my first time here for sure.”

  He smiled. The plane cleared the clouds and sailed through still air. I looked out the window, where I saw water, a bridge, and rows of brick apartment buildings.

  “This is Queens,” he said with a tinge of scorn. “Manhattan is much better.”

  The plane hit the runway. I turned my eyes toward him. “Is it? Why’s that?”

  He shrugged a shoulder beneath his suit and I glanced at the briefcase tucked halfway under the seat in front of him. There was a luggage tag attached to it with a business card inside.

  “The boroughs are for…,” he began, moving his eyes around as if he was searching for words, “… average people,” he said in a whisper and with a wink, leaning too close to me. “I’m sure a stunning girl like you isn’t one of them.”

  I nearly gagged from the smell of pretzels on his breath. I’d thought he was a friendly older man trying to welcome a newcomer to the city, but I changed my mind. I edged away from him until my back was against the window. “I am one of them. So you should be more careful what you say … you never know who might be listening.”

  He let out a chuckle. “I didn’t mean to get you riled up, sweetheart. But you’re awfully pretty that way. And your accent is as cute as you are.”

  What a dirty lech. He was even wearing a wedding ring. “Don’t call me sweetheart,” I said as the plane headed toward the gate. The stewardess instructed all of us to keep our seat belts fastened, but I couldn’t. I wanted to bolt out of there.

  “Then what should I call you?” he went on. “I’ll bet you’ve got an adorable southern name like Georgia or Mary Lou.”

  I wished that weren’t true as I struggled to unlatch my seat belt. I was an intelligent person. I had a college degree. So why couldn’t I open this thing? But I finally did when the plane stopped at the gate. E
verybody turned on cell phones and iPods, sprang up, and opened overhead compartments to get their bags. I wanted to do the same, but this jerk had me trapped.

  “Listen,” he said in a syrupy voice, “I didn’t mean to get off on the wrong foot. You’re a New York virgin, and I’d love to educate you.”

  He did not just call me that. “There is nothing,” I said, “that you could possibly teach me. Now please get out of my way before I stop being polite.”

  He smirked like my seething anger was a turn-on. “You’re a feisty one. But you don’t know it all, honey. Let me take you out tonight, and I’ll show you a few things.”

  I knew precisely what he wanted to show me. I shook my head, but he didn’t give up. He put his fingers on my knee and squeezed.

  You can handle this. I shoved his hand off my knee, snatched up his briefcase, and yanked the business card out of its holder. “Leland Barry … Professor of Economics at Columbia University,” I read, and moved my eyes from the card to his face. His smile had disappeared. “I hope you don’t treat your female students the way you’ve treated me. I’m sure the Dean at Columbia wouldn’t be happy to hear about it. And neither would your wife.”

  I stuffed the card in my purse. He grabbed his briefcase and glanced around, checking to see if anybody had heard. Then he smoothed his suit and looked at me. “I don’t know who you think you are,” he muttered before blending into the crowd that headed toward the exit.

  I don’t know who you think you are. Well, apparently I was the product of Edward Stone and Joan Morgan, but I had no idea who he was and I knew less about her than I’d ever imagined.

  *

  Mercedes Rawlings Stark had said that a driver would meet me at the baggage claim. By the time I found it, the only suitcase left on the conveyor was mine and the driver who was supposed to meet me wasn’t there. I wheeled my suitcase toward a row of chairs, where I plopped down and checked my phone. I would appreciate confirmation that you’ve arrived, Mom had texted. I hope New York hasn’t already made you lose your manners.

  I couldn’t deal with her right now. I snapped the phone shut and slumped into my seat as I watched people picking up luggage and hugging whoever had come to meet them. And then I checked my watch. It was almost eleven, I was late for my meeting, and I decided to catch one of the cabs waiting by the curb outside JFK. I slung my purse and my carry-on over my shoulder and wheeled my suitcase toward a set of automatic doors, but I stopped when I heard footsteps rushing my way.

  “Ms. Morgan?”

  A young man in a black suit was standing to my left. He wasn’t very tall. He had a slight build, reddish-brown hair, and dark-brown eyes. He couldn’t have been much older than me.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said in a nervous voice, breathing like he’d run a mile.

  “It’s okay,” I told him.

  He seemed surprised that I hadn’t thrown a hissy fit. “I just have to bring the car around. It’ll only take a minute.” He grabbed my suitcase and hurried off, and a few minutes later I was standing outside the airport in muggy heat while he loaded the rest of my luggage into the trunk of a fancy black sedan that looked as if it was polished daily.

  He opened the rear door, and I slid onto black leather. Then he slipped into the front, shut the door, and veered between cabs and shuttle buses as he drove away from the airport. Soon we were on a crowded street, passing those brick apartment buildings I’d seen from the plane.

  I stared at everything whizzing by—the graffiti on the concrete barriers at the side of the road; the old two-family houses with air conditioners sticking out of their windows; the blue-and-orange license plates everywhere. I supposed this was Queens like Professor Pervert had told me, but it didn’t seem common. It had a pulse, a buzz in the air, a feeling that everyone had somewhere to go and something to do. It was different from Charleston mornings, where things moved slowly and birds chirped in trees strewn with Spanish moss. There wasn’t any moss here, and instead of birds I heard car horns blaring and the radio that the driver had on low volume. “WCBS News time,” it said, “is eleven ten.”

  “Oh,” I said when we passed a huge plot of land crowded with gravestones of different shapes and sizes. “That’s Calvary Cemetery, isn’t it?”

  “Excuse me?” the driver said with surprise in his voice. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was completely wrong, or if being a tour guide wasn’t part of his job description, or if he just hadn’t expected me to talk. But I wasn’t about to pretend I was at a wake and keep my mouth glued shut for the whole ride.

  “I just asked if that was Calvary Cemetery,” I said, watching it disappear in the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah,” he said as he drove through an underpass, “it is.”

  “So I was right,” I said excitedly, leaning toward him from my seat. “I recognized it from The Godfather … the part with Don Corleone’s funeral. I’ve read that a lot of real-life mobsters are buried there … and some actors and Civil War soldiers, too.”

  “I know,” he said flatly, and turned up the radio.

  I sank back into my seat. Wasn’t there one friendly person in this city? I gave up on talking and stared out the tinted window until Manhattan appeared in the distance. Then I perked up and admired the skyline and its buildings that were shiny silver against the pale-blue sky.

  “It’s so beautiful,” I said, mostly to myself.

  We were crossing a bridge, and the car rattled on metal grates. The driver glanced over his shoulder. “What is?” he asked.

  “That,” I said, pressing my finger on the window. It looked as if I were touching the spire on top of the Empire State Building. “It’s so much bigger than in pictures.”

  “Oh. I’ve lived here a few years now … I don’t pay much attention to it anymore.”

  I couldn’t imagine not paying attention to such a thing. I edged forward, watching his key chain dangle from the ignition. It had a plastic circle with a photo of a little red-haired girl inside. “Where are you from?” I asked, deciding to give him another shot at polite conversation. From the way he’d been acting, I got the feeling he was used to driving around stiffs who focused on their iPhones and pretended the car was on autopilot.

  “Upstate,” he said, then told me that he lived on Staten Island now but didn’t say anything else, so I tried to think of another topic as he drove along.

  “Is that your daughter?” I asked, nodding toward his key chain.

  We were in Manhattan. The streets were crowded and he swerved through traffic, coming so close to cabs and cars that my stomach felt like it might lurch right out of me.

  He nodded when he stopped for a red light. “She’s six … and she’s the reason I was late picking you up. She skinned her knee on the stoop at our apartment building, and it took a while to get her cleaned up … and Ms. Stark will cut my head off for keeping you waiting.”

  The light changed. He started driving again, past sidewalks jammed with people and massive buildings made of glass and steel. “She won’t,” I said. “I’ll tell her it was my fault.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that, Ms. Morgan.”

  “You have no say in it. And you should call me Savannah. What’s your name?”

  There was a traffic jam in front of us—a bus, a taxi, a lady poking her head out of a Porsche while she leaned on its horn. “Tony Hughes,” he said as he stopped behind her.

  I stuck out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Tony Hughes.”

  He took my palm in his, giving me a puzzled stare that made me think I was as different to him as New York was to me.

  *

  Before he left me at 4 Times Square, Tony said he’d keep my bags in his trunk and Ms. Stark would let him know when he should come back to pick me up. I got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, taking everything in—the noise and the lights and the bicycle messengers zooming by. Skyscrapers loomed above me, and I was surrounded by giant billboards advertising Broadway shows and designer un
derwear modeled by well-endowed men with oil-slicked skin.

  I stayed frozen until a UPS driver carrying an armful of packages and heading toward the Condé Nast Building grumbled that I was blocking the service entrance. So I went into the lobby, which had a scalloped ceiling and a glossy floor. Then I dashed into a crowded elevator and rode it to Patterson, Simmons & Gold LLP.

  The office was sleek and modern, like something out of an Architectural Digest I’d skimmed at the library. A brunette who was attractive enough to be an actress sat behind a silver desk, answering the phone with the firm name and good afternoon.

  Was it afternoon already? I was so late. I waited for the girl to get off the phone, but it kept ringing and she didn’t even glance up, so I walked toward a wall a few feet away. It had built-in shelves covered with glass vases in different colors. The prettiest was red and in the shape of a flame, and I couldn’t resist running my finger over the smooth, cool glass.

  “Can I help you?”

  I spun around, my fingertip still on the glass. The receptionist was staring at me, and my heart jumped when I felt the vase tipping forward. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, please don’t break.

  I grabbed it before it hit the floor. I put it back on the shelf and then held my hand to my chest, thinking I’d escaped a coronary and a bill for whatever outrageous sum that thing was probably worth. “Well,” I said with a nervous laugh, “that was embarrassing.”

  I was hoping for a comforting response—something like It could have happened to anyone or Don’t give it a second thought—but that didn’t happen. All I got was a blank stare.

  I cleared my throat. Her phone rang again. She picked it up, listened for a moment, and then turned toward me. “Are you Savannah Morgan?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Her eyes glided from my strappy sandals to my bouncy hair like I was something that wasn’t worth buying. She told whoever was on the other end of the phone that I was here, and a minute later I was sitting inside a corner office with floor-to-ceiling windows, a wide desk, and framed diplomas from Ivy League schools.