New Money

by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal

  “I work in the newsroom,” Darcelle told me. “There might be some openings, and—”

  “There aren’t,” Ned cut in, tossing the ball toward a bookshelf. It landed beside a photograph of him in a tux and Kitty in a wedding gown. “Speaking of the newsroom … aren’t you needed down there, Darcelle? Your show can’t start without its anchorwoman.”

  “The boss has spoken,” she said brightly before dashing into the hallway.

  Kitty stayed beside me. “Ned,” she started, “do you have a position ready for Savannah?”

  He plucked a silver pen from a drawer and twirled it between his fingers. “I do not,” he said, staring at me with eyes that had frozen into olive-green ice. “The company doesn’t have anything to offer at the moment … unless she wants to work in the mailroom.”

  Kitty bristled. “I think you can find your sister a better job than sorting envelopes.”

  He dropped the pen onto the desk, tossed his wavy hair, and leaned forward. “Caroline’s my only sister, and she’s starting here tomorrow. As for Savannah … I’ll be happy to employ her as a mail clerk. It’s that or nothing. She can decide for herself.”

  Kitty slung her arm around my shoulders. “Do you mind waiting outside for a minute?” she asked, sounding embarrassed as she led me toward the door that she closed when I was in the hallway. I stood there and listened to her voice through the wood.

  “Stop being such an asshole,” she said. “You know very well that how your father left his money isn’t her fault … and even though it’s been hard on you and Caroline, you have to stop trying to punish Savannah for it.”

  “If I wanted to punish her,” he said, “I’d find something more painful than the mailroom.”

  “Stop it, Ned. This isn’t who you are … you’re a much better man than you’re leading her to believe. Now if you won’t give her a decent position, I will. I fired my assistant last week, so I’ll let Savannah have the job.”

  He chuckled like this was a crazy idea. “You can’t put her in a position she isn’t qualified for. Being an editor’s assistant requires a college degree and skills you don’t acquire from handing out fries at McDonald’s or whatever she did before. It would be unethical to take nepotism so far that we hire an uneducated hillbilly at one of our magazines.”

  My blood heated up. I wasn’t surprised that he saw me as an ignorant scrap of nothing, but that didn’t make me any less angry. This was exactly the type of job I’d always wanted, and I wouldn’t let anybody keep it from me, especially Ned Stone. So I opened the office door and burst inside, where I slapped my crinkled résumé down on his big mahogany desk.

  He was still in his chair, and he didn’t move. All he did was glide his eyes over the résumé and then shift them back to me. He kept his face straight, but there was a trace of annoyance in it, like I’d beaten him at a critical move during a chess game.

  *

  After Kitty graciously offered me the job and I enthusiastically accepted, she brought me to a lower floor that was decorated in a more modern and less formal style than the corporate division of Stone News. The furniture was made of shiny metal and sparkling glass, and the magazine’s title was splashed in purple paint across a white wall.

  “As you can see,” Kitty said as we waltzed past the reception desk, “it’s called Femme.”

  Really? Really? Really? I’d been a fan of that magazine since it started a few years ago. It was edgy and witty and smart and fun, and when I read it on my porch swing I never imagined I’d get to be a part of it. But I couldn’t jump up and down and giggle and squeal like a goofball. “Oh,” I said coolly. “I think I’ve seen it around.”

  Kitty led me to her spacious office, where she settled behind a desk and I sat across from her while she told me about the magazine—that it mixed stories such as “How to Choose a Red Lipstick That Won’t Make You Look like a Bordello Madam” with “Ten Ways to Outwit the Office Psycho” and “Keep Your Hands off My Birth Control, Uptight White Man.”

  “We’re online and in hard copy,” Kitty said, showing me Femme on a Web site and in glossy print. “As you might know, our articles focus on what interests women: politics, entertainment, fashion, relationships, and sex. We also have a literary feature … we run short fiction written by readers.”

  “Oh,” I said again. “I’m a fiction writer. Well … I want to be, anyway.”

  “Employees aren’t exempt from consideration, so you’re more than welcome to submit your work … directly to me, of course,” she said, giving me a wink, “to avoid pesky delays.”

  Did I see cartoon butterflies and bluebirds landing on her shoulders? Who was piping Disney music into the vents? Kitty was like a fairy godmother inside a swirl of glitter.

  “You should make time for your aspirations,” she went on, “but I have to warn you … you’ll be busy here. My last assistant left a lot of work, and our social media sites are in desperate need of updating.” She wriggled out of her jacket. “You know, I’ve never had an assistant who was truly interested in this job. Every one of them wanted to be something else … a singer, a dancer, an actress.…” She rolled her eyes. “I’m really happy that you’re a writer. You came along at just the right time.”

  “So did you,” I said.

  After that, Kitty gave me a rundown of my job duties, which included handling her schedule, monitoring reporters’ progress on articles, doing research whenever necessary, and maintaining Femme’s social media sites.

  “I’ll have an intern show you how to access and update the sites,” Kitty said as she balanced a pencil between her fingers. “It’s not the most exciting part of your job … and frankly, none of it is particularly enthralling … but it’s a start.”

  I nodded more enthusiastically than I’d intended. Everything about the job was fine with me. I was just happy to be there.

  Then Kitty brought me to my designated cubicle, where I spent almost two hours filling out employment forms and reading the employee manual. Just as I finished, Kitty came back and said it was time for lunch and she wanted to take me out as a celebration of my first day.

  I followed her into an elevator, through the lobby downstairs, past the protesters who clearly didn’t believe in a lunch break, and inside a taxi that drove us to Fifth Avenue and a restaurant that was airy and sunny and crowded with professional-looking people. I ordered a salad, and the waitress promptly corrected my pronunciation.

  “Fromage de chè-vre salade,” she said, enunciating each syllable like I was slow-witted.

  Fromage was cheese … of some sort. And way too risky.

  I glanced at the menu again. “What’s this?” I asked as I pointed to an item that I didn’t dare try to say.

  “Pen-ne fun-ghi tar-tu-fo,” she told me in her I’m-better-than-you way. “It’s—”

  “Pasta with mushrooms,” Kitty cut in, shoving her menu at the waitress. “I’ll have the endive-and-pear salad. And you can spare us the foreign language lessons.”

  The waitress left. I looked across the table at Kitty. “I’m used to fried chicken and she-crab soup,” I said. “I’ve only eaten fancy food at debutante balls, so this is fairly new to me.”

  She sipped her ginger ale. “I love fried chicken. And this,” she said, glancing around the restaurant, “is just boring people being pretentious because putting other people down makes them feel important. Don’t let it bother you.”

  Later, we were on Fifth Avenue again, where we decided to walk back to work. We strolled past a street lined with stores, and my eyes lingered on a baby doll in a frilly tulle dress inside FAO Schwarz’s front window.

  “A friend of mine has a six-year-old daughter,” I said. “I wonder if she’d like that doll.”

  Kitty smiled. “Buy it for her. Your new boss won’t mind if you’re a few minutes late.”

  I went in, swept past salespeople jumping up and down on giant piano keys to play “Chopsticks,” and returned with the doll inside a bright-pink shopping ba
g. “I hope I’m right about this gift. I don’t have much experience with children,” I said as we headed toward the office. “Do you have any kids?”

  Kitty’s face dimmed. I wanted to kick myself. I shouldn’t have asked; it was a personal question, and she probably would have already mentioned her children if she had any.

  “No,” she said, staring straight ahead. “Three rounds of IVF and I’m still childless, as my mother-in-law so eloquently puts it.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry—”

  She held up her hand. “It’s okay. I’d rather you hear the truth from me instead of gossip from the rest of the family. I’ve given up on fertility treatments for now … I’ve had enough of the nausea and the mood swings and the endless disappointment. I’ll try again when I feel ready, but my focus is making the magazine a success. Femme is my baby at the moment.”

  “You’ll make it a success for sure,” I said. “And I hope I can help.”

  She turned toward me and smiled. “As do I … that’s why I hired you.”

  We went back to Stone News, where I spent some time on the phone, scheduling Kitty’s meetings and figuring out how to record them in her online calendar. When that was done, I headed to the ladies’ room and almost slammed into somebody when I rounded a corner.

  “You must be Kitty’s new assistant.”

  “Yes,” I said, looking at a pretty young girl with a dark-brown bob and a tiny waist.

  “My name’s Ainsley Greenleaf. I’ve heard all about you.”

  “Is that right?” I said as she grabbed my hand and shook it.

  “Uh-huh. Word travels fast at Stone News.”

  I wrenched out of her crushing grip. “Do you work here?”

  “I’m an intern,” she said so proudly that her brown eyes sparkled. “I’m going into my freshman year at Purdue. Well, I’m not officially an intern because you can’t be one until your junior year. Or is it senior year? Anyway, my dad was a close friend of Edward Stone’s so Ned made me an unofficial intern. I do everything the real interns do, though. I’m a mass communications major … I want to work as an investigative TV news reporter or become a journalist who covers wars. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

  I was dizzy from the information avalanche. She reminded me of a cheerleader on my squad at Charleston High who’d been voted Miss Effervescent.

  “I float,” she said. “I go where I’m needed. Sometimes I’m in the corporate division, sometimes the newsroom, and sometimes I come down here and assist the assistants. Do you need help with anything? I can handle whatever task you throw at me. Just let me have it.”

  Her enthusiasm was exhausting. “I have nothing to throw right now. But thanks.”

  Then she was gone and I went back to work, e-mailing reporters about the status of their articles-in-progress until Kitty popped her head into my cubicle. She was holding her purse, and her blazer was draped over her arm.

  “It’s five o’clock,” she said. “No overtime on your first day.”

  I glanced at my lengthy to-do list. “But I’ve got all this work, and—”

  “There’s a big city out there, Savannah. Don’t waste a beautiful summer night sitting behind your desk. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do, right?”

  How sad it was to be in the most exciting place on the globe and have nothing to do and nobody to do anything with. “Of course,” I said, pushing my chair away from my desk like I couldn’t wait to hit the town.

  She smiled and left, I called Tony, and he said he’d be there in a few minutes. I picked up my FAO Schwarz bag, went downstairs, and walked through the revolving doors and out to the street, where the gang of protesters from this morning had dwindled to six. One of them—a fiftyish man with a graying goatee who wore a Mets baseball cap backward—came up to me when I was standing a few feet away from him, waiting for my ride.

  “You work there?” he asked, nodding toward Stone News.

  “It’s my first day,” I said as I noticed a birthmark on his face—a reddish-purple stain between his eyebrows that was shaped remarkably like Spain on a map.

  He spit into the gutter. “Make it your last. Stone News is the Evil Empire. They don’t report the news … they cover it up to protect their interests. Do you want to be part of a company that looks the other way when innocent people are being put in the ground?” Spit bubbled at the corner of his mouth, and he stood so close to me that I could smell tobacco and sweat. I didn’t know what to say—nothing had been proven, and it made no sense that Edward would protect a company that was putting an entire community in danger. What was there to gain except a bad reputation? “You’d be wise to rethink where you get your paycheck,” he added.

  Tony pulled up in the black sedan. The man walked away, I slid into the car next to Tony, and we headed into rush-hour traffic. “The temperature,” the radio said, “is eighty-nine degrees.”

  “This is a tip,” I said, putting the FAO Schwarz bag in the backseat.

  “I can’t accept gifts, Savannah. It’s company policy that drivers aren’t allowed to—”

  “Your daughter has nothing to do with your company policy. The gift’s meant for her, so hush up and take it.”

  A bus nearly grazed the car. Tony punched his horn, and then he was quiet for a moment as he navigated through a crowded street. “Thank you,” he said finally.

  “You’re welcome. By the way, what’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Marjorie,” he said. “It’s old-fashioned, but it’s my mother’s name and I thought she deserved to have a grandchild named after her. She’s earned it.”

  Tony turned a corner. I started thinking about dinner and eating it by myself, which I wasn’t used to. Mom had always been across the table, and whenever she wasn’t I’d had Jamie or Tina passing the okra or the ketchup. I considered asking Tony if he’d like to join me, but that quickly fizzled. It wasn’t proper to invite a married man to dinner, even if all I wanted was company.

  “What’s your favorite restaurant in Manhattan?” I asked.

  Tony combed his fingers through his hair. “I usually eat at Subway or Burger King,” he said with a laugh. “I’m not into those fancy, overpriced places with tiny portions where you leave as hungry as you came. But for my last wedding anniversary, I took my wife to a nice restaurant on East Forty-sixth. It’s perfect for a meat-and-potatoes type like me.”

  I asked Tony to take me to East 46th, where I got out of the car. He drove away, and I passed a man who sat slumped on a bench outside the restaurant. He looked like an old sea captain, with a fuzzy white beard, a grizzled face, and soiled clothes that were too heavy for July. He said hello to people on their way into the restaurant—men in sharp suits, women who wore simple black dresses. They kept their eyes straight ahead, pretending they couldn’t see or smell him.

  “What a pretty lady,” he said to me.

  “Thank you, sir,” I replied.

  I went into the restaurant, which had red leather booths, lit candles on tables, and black-and-white autographed photographs of celebrities covering the walls.

  “How many?” asked an attractive hostess.

  “Just one,” I said.

  She looked at me like I was as tragic as that homeless man outside. She asked me to follow her, and then I was sitting alone in a booth with filet mignon and a baked potato. When the bill came, it floored me even though I could afford it.

  “How come a potato is fifty cents at the Piggly Wiggly in South Carolina and it’s more than eight dollars here?” I jokingly asked my waiter.

  “At the … where?” he said with a straight face.

  I shrank into my seat. “Never mind. Can you please wrap this up?” I asked, pushing half of my steak to the edge of my plate.

  The waiter came back a few minutes later with a mini shopping bag. I tossed some cash into it and reached over to an empty table to swipe a set of silverware, which I tucked into the bag for that man on the bench. I wasn’t going to let him eat fi
let mignon with his fingers.

  *

  I unlocked the door and walked into my apartment. It was nearly dark, and long shadows streamed through the windows and covered the furniture. I left my purse on the coffee table, flipped on the lights, and wished I weren’t alone. I wished things were back to normal with Mom and Tina. But they weren’t, so I consoled myself with the pint of chocolate ice cream I’d picked up on the way home. I ate it straight from the container while watching TV on the couch. Then I pulled my cell phone from my purse and decided to text Mom. I’m okay, I wrote. Just wanted to let you know.

  Good, she texted back a minute later.

  One word was better than nothing. I was still looking at the message when my phone vibrated in my palm. Tina Mae Brandt, the caller ID said.

  “I decided to be the one to give in,” she told me after I answered. Her Dixie drawl sounded like home. “Since you’re stubborn and thickheaded.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, like you don’t know about being either of those things. But I’m not as bad as you think. I actually considered calling and apologizing for the other night. I still stand by what I said, but I didn’t mean to upset you … so I’m sorry.”

  She paused. I heard crickets in the background, and I wondered if she was on her window seat, exhaling smoke into the muggy Charleston air.

  “I accept your apology,” Tina said after a moment. “And I’m sorry for what I said, too. It was a really low blow. But I’ve heard that your paternal status has changed since then.”

  I sat up straight, hoping the news hadn’t spread all over town. “How’d you know?”

  “Your mother told me everything. She wants me to convince you to come home.”

  That figured. “Well … before you give it a try, let me tell you my side of the story,” I said, and rested my feet on the coffee table while I told her about the job and the money and gave her every detail about the apartment.

  “Jeez,” she said with a gasp. “It sounds like a fairy tale. It seems perfect.”

  “Nothing’s perfect.”

  “True,” she said slowly. “I’m sorry about what happened to your father, Savannah. You must feel like you lost him twice.”