New Money

by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal

  That type of talk worried me. I knew she’d never make a serious play for a married man, but she sure would flirt with one. “Why’d you bring so much stuff?” I asked to distract her, nodding toward all the luggage on the cart.

  “What do you mean? That’s just a few weeks’ wardrobe.”

  Of course it was. How silly of me. “So you don’t mind leaving Raylene?”

  Tina shook her head. “I discussed everything with her, and she told me to come.”

  “Well … I always knew she was a smart kid.”

  We reached my apartment, and I opened the door and showed her around while Tony unloaded her bags in the guest bedroom.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, leaning her elbows against the marble countertop in my kitchen.

  I pulled a chair from the table and sat down, glancing at Marjorie’s thank-you note on my refrigerator. “I’m glad you like it … and that you came. But I’m not happy about the way you got here. Your father called and yelled at me.”

  She frowned. “Sorry about that. You wanted me to stand up to him, though.”

  “Standing up to someone doesn’t mean being sneaky and deceitful, Tina.”

  She sighed and sat on the windowsill. “I didn’t know how else to do it.”

  “That’s what I told him. Call him back and do the same.”

  She turned her head to stare at Central Park. “He shouldn’t be upset … this is just a vacation.”

  I wanted more than that. I’d been doing my best to face this city alone, but it would be so much easier with Tina around. “It doesn’t have to be. You can stay here for good.”

  She looked puzzled. “I might be able to convince Daddy to finance a few weeks … but he won’t do more than that.”

  I got out of my chair and sat beside her. “You don’t need him to. I can try to get you a job at Stone News so you can take care of yourself. Isn’t that what you want?”

  She shifted her gaze to her French manicure. “I guess. But first I need to relax,” she said, studying the immaculate white tips on her nails. “This has been an unbelievably exhausting day.”

  I stared at her. Dark hollows were seeping through the makeup below her eyes. “I’m sure it must have been. Have you eaten anything?”

  “Not since breakfast,” she said, and perked up in her seat. “And I’m starving … so can we go to a diner? I know it’s stereotypical, but whenever I see movies set in this city, people are always eating in diners. I want a pastrami sandwich on rye bread and a big old hunk of cheesecake. That’s New York–ish, isn’t it?”

  I smiled. Manhattan was going to be so much more fun with Tina in it.

  *

  I walked into the kitchen the next morning, wearing shorts and a T-shirt and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. The room smelled like toasted bagels and Tina’s mango perfume.

  “I woke up early and bought breakfast at a deli down the street,” she told me.

  That was thoughtful. I thanked her as I pulled out a chair and sat down across from her, looking at fruit salad and doughnuts and glasses filled with juice.

  She took a sip from her glass and looked at me above the rim. “I called Daddy. We had a long talk … and he understands why I want to stay here.”

  Seriously? That seemed to have come too easily.

  Tina reached for a bagel, stood up, and shoved it into the toaster. “I’ve always told you he’s a smart man. He finally realized I need to be on my own, and he’s agreed to support me until I find a job.” She glanced at me over her shoulder. “Wipe the shock off your face. And hurry up and eat your breakfast. As fabulous as this apartment is, I don’t want to spend a Saturday in it when Manhattan’s right outside. Oh, and I made a reservation for dinner tonight at Le Bernardin,” she said, popping her bagel out of the toaster and onto a plate before she sat across from me again. “I’ve been dying to go there ever since Eva Lee came here on a family vacation. She bragged about that restaurant for two weeks straight. And today … I want to go shopping on Fifth Avenue. Eva Lee did that, too.”

  Soon we were strolling by archaic churches and Fendi and Chanel as double-decker tour buses drove up and down the street. We browsed at Saks and I bought us matching Gucci purses that we swung from our wrists while we strolled along, stopping to pick up souvenirs to send to Raylene. I also bought Chanel sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats for both of us because it was blindingly sunny outside. Our glasses had violet-tinted lenses and oversized frames, and Tina said they made us look like celebrity twins dodging the paparazzi.

  We wandered the streets for a while and ended up on West 57th. Tina complained about being hungry just as a thunderstorm sprang up, so we ducked into The Russian Tea Room, where they were serving royal high tea. A hostess told us that reservations were required, but a spot miraculously opened up after I slipped her some cash. She seated us at a round table, and a waiter brought us glasses of champagne.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Tina said giddily, glancing around.

  I nodded, noticing a woman at a nearby table staring at our hats. I supposed she didn’t know it was improper for men to wear hats indoors, but it was appropriate for ladies. Those were the rules in Charleston, at least.

  I ignored her and admired the mirrored walls and a tree-shaped sculpture with what looked like glass Easter eggs dangling from its branches. Everything was so bright and colorful that it seemed as if we’d crawled inside a kaleidoscope.

  The waiter came back with a plate of tiny sandwiches on white bread with the crusts cut off, miniature cupcakes, and crackers covered in caviar. Tina and I hadn’t known what to order, so we’d asked him to bring whatever was most delicious—but this wasn’t what we’d had in mind.

  “Caviar?” Tina said, eyeing it like it was a squashed armadillo on the street at home.

  “Crystal had it on the menu at your debutante ball,” I reminded her.

  “That doesn’t mean I ate it, Savannah.”

  I hadn’t, either, but it was time to get adventurous. “We should give it a try,” I said as the waiter filled our cups with tea.

  I was hoping she’d go first, and she did. She picked up a cracker, bit into it, and then her face scrunched up and she spit a mess into her napkin.

  “It tastes like rotten fish bait,” she said.

  As if she’d ever tasted fish bait. I kicked her under the table as the waiter sighed.

  “Shrimp salad with rémoulade, smoked sturgeon with dill and sour cream, and artichoke with sun-dried tomato goat cheese,” he said, pointing to the sandwiches. “Enjoy.”

  He left. Tina sank into her red velvet chair, and we stared at each other.

  My eyes scanned the table. “I don’t know about sturgeon or goat cheese. But cupcakes and champagne are a good combination,” I said, swiping my finger against chocolate frosting.

  Tina perked up and a smile crept across her puffy lips. “To cupcakes and champagne and nothing but good things ahead of us,” she said as she lifted her glass and held it over the table to clink with mine. It sounded as hopeful as a toast on New Year’s Eve.

  *

  Another storm blew into the city at dinnertime. Tina was in her bedroom, where she’d unpacked her bags and was ironing a white lace dress from Lilly Pulitzer as she faced a half-open window and I passed the doorway.

  “Tina,” I said, rushing in to slam the window shut. “It’s pouring.”

  She shrugged. “I just wanted to feel the air. It’s so different here.”

  I sat on the bed, sinking into the soft comforter. “I know,” I said, looking at a pile of dresses beside me. She seemed to have planned for every possible occasion. “Mind if I borrow one for tonight? I didn’t bring much from home, and I haven’t had a chance to buy new clothes.”

  “Take whatever you want.”

  She’d always been generous, letting me choose from her closet like it was Tina’s Boutique, where everything was free. She’d even let me borrow a dress when I went to her debutante ball—a strapless number with a satin
bodice, full skirted and covered with flowers made of rhinestones, in a shade of pink called lipstick rose. For some reason, she’d brought it along with her.

  This time I chose a navy-blue tunic dress with crocheted sleeves. Tina slipped into her lace dress, and then we were outside, where I tried to hail a cab.

  “Why are we standing out here in this disgusting humidity?” Tina asked. “We don’t need a cab, do we? I thought Tony was always at our service.”

  He is. But that’s an awfully tight dress you’re wearing and I don’t want you sticking your assets in his married face. “Not always,” I lied, and a few minutes later we were in the back of a taxi that took us to West 51st and Le Bernardin, which was chic and elegant and had soft lighting and gigantic flower arrangements.

  “Well,” Tina said, tossing her napkin onto the table after we’d finished dinner and split a slice of cake. “Eva Lee does have good taste when it comes to some things.”

  I agreed, thinking that food in fancy restaurants tasted so much better when I had somebody to share it with. “So what do you want to do now?”

  “Dance,” she said.

  We asked the hostess for a club recommendation and gave the address to a cabdriver who dropped us off all the way down on Orchard Street. The club wasn’t crowded at first, but as the night went on it got crammed with guys and girls who guzzled drinks from glowing glasses and rubbed up against each other under strobe lights on a jam-packed dance floor like they were in a techno-music rapture.

  We danced by ourselves for a while, and then we went to the bar where Tina downed three Manhattans and five vodka shots while I sipped Sex on the Beach and ignored the lustful stares of two overly tanned guys who had hair that was stiff with gel. It wasn’t long before they made their move, asking the standard questions about where we were from and what we did for a living, as if they cared and weren’t just trying to get us under their sheets.

  “We’re from the Bronx,” said the guy who’d sidled up to me. He kept trying to look down my dress and up Tina’s. He oozed sliminess and his friend was even worse, but Tina was too drunk to catch on. She let her guy stand between her legs as she sat on a barstool and smoked a Marlboro Light until a bartender slid an ashtray in her direction and said the club was smoke-free. She shrugged, crushed her cigarette, and went on flirting.

  “You should be more like your friend,” my guy said after he’d given up on enticing me and I was gazing at the dance floor with a bored stare. “She’s a good time.”

  The last sentence made me mad. “Don’t talk about her like that,” I said, glancing in Tina’s direction. All I saw was an empty stool.

  He jerked his thumb toward the back of the club. “They’re in the men’s room.”

  I panicked. Tina made such poor decisions when she was drunk. I jumped off my seat and shoved through the crowd until I reached the bathroom, where I opened the door and found her bolting from a stall with the other guy from the Bronx staggering after her. He was bent over with veins bulging out of his neck and his hands clutching his crotch. I caught Tina’s arm and yanked her from the bathroom into a dim, private alcove. Her whole body was quivering.

  “I just wanted him to kiss me,” she said. “I miss kissing so much. My last boyfriend always went straight for the golden ticket.”

  Booze never failed to bring out her secrets. “You deserve better than everybody you’ve dated, Tina. And for future reference, any guy who wants to fool around with you in a men’s room isn’t Mr. Right.” I glanced down and saw that her dress was hiked to the tops of her thighs. “Are you okay?” I asked nervously, imagining he’d tried to force a good time out of her.

  She yanked the dress toward her knees and tightened her jaw. “Of course I am. Like I said, I was just going to make out with him … he was the only one who thought that buying me one lousy shot entitled him to a horizontal jog. But nothing happened. He stopped being so pushy when I jammed my knee into his baby maker.”

  I guided her out of the club, where she sat on the curb while I tried to hail a cab under the crescent moon. But every passing taxi was filled or driven by someone who wasn’t in the mood to stop. Or maybe I just needed lessons in taxi hailing, since I was terrible at it.

  I pulled out my phone and clutched it in my palm, figuring out how to get home. We were way too far from the apartment to walk—especially in heels. I didn’t even know where to find the nearest subway station, and I hated to call Tony. After six on weeknights and anytime during the weekend is overtime pay … so feel free to call whenever, he’d said, and I reminded myself of that as I dialed his number. I hoped he might be in the area anyway, getting overtime pay from another annoying night-owl client.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  He wasn’t in Manhattan. His voice was muffled and sleepy, and I shouldn’t have called. I almost hung up, but then I remembered that caller ID would expose me. I also remembered that he wanted a little house in Nassau County.

  “I’m sorry, Tony. I know it’s late, but—”

  “No,” he said through a yawn. “It’s okay, Savannah. Where are you?”

  I told him, and he said he’d be here soon. Then I sat beside Tina and waited, watching a woman sleeping in an alley across the street. There was a shopping cart beside her filled with stuffed garbage bags.

  “That makes me so sad,” Tina said, inhaling a ragged breath.

  I took some money out of my wallet, dodged cars as I crossed the street, and tucked the cash into a coffee can beside the woman’s feet. Then I sat next to Tina again and we waited for Tony, who eventually pulled up in the sedan, got out, and looked down at Tina.

  “Need some help?” he asked.

  She held her wrist in the air. He took it and helped her into the car, where she collapsed onto her back and hogged the whole seat. I sat in front, and Tony turned on the radio when he pulled away from the curb. “WCBS News time,” it said, “is one fifty.”

  He glanced in the rearview mirror at Tina, who’d fallen asleep. “Is your friend okay?”

  I shrugged as we whizzed past lit-up skyscrapers and sidewalks crowded with people even during this ungodly hour. Everything was amazingly alive and I wanted to feel it, so I pressed a button to lower my window and let the electrified air sweep across my face. “You know something? I just found out before I moved here that I’m Edward Stone’s daughter. Until then, I had no idea who my father was.”

  I kept my eyes on neon signs while Tony drove through Times Square. He was quiet, and I wondered if the one drink I’d finished at the club had made me too gabby.

  “I’ve never met my father, either,” he said after a while. “My mother raised me alone.”

  I shut the window and turned toward him. He really was sweet looking like Tina had said—wholesome and boyish and clean. “Mine too,” I told him.

  “So we have something in common,” he said. “I think I’ve mentioned that Mom takes care of Marjorie when Allison—my wife—and I are working. She did a great job raising me … but I promised myself a long time ago that no kid of mine would know what it feels like not to have a father around.”

  I nodded slowly. “Then your daughter’s a very lucky girl.”

  Soon we were back at my building, and Tina was still spread out on the backseat. I shook her shoulders to wake her while Tony waited on the curb, but it didn’t work. And he couldn’t leave with a plastered girl in the car.

  “I’ll bring her upstairs,” he said.

  He carried her into my apartment like she was a bride on her wedding night, and then he put her on the bed in her room. Her eyes flickered open, and she squinted at him through a strip of moonlight that glimmered against his face.

  “Aw,” she said, splaying her palm on his cheek, “I knew you were sweet.”

  He moved her hand away and rested it on the mattress before he walked out. I followed him, closed the door behind me, and we went into the living room, where I took my wallet out of my purse so I could give him a well-deserved tip. I stuck a hun
dred-dollar bill in his hand.

  “I can’t take this,” he said.

  “Sure you can. You’ve earned it.”

  He gave the money back and left the apartment after saying good night. I watched from the window as he drove off in the shiny sedan, wishing that Tina hadn’t been right when she said, The best guys are always taken. She needed a sweet guy like him.

  Eight

  Tina and I slept late the next day. When we woke up, we went to a diner where she sat across from me, devouring a stack of pancakes. “Tell me,” she said, “what happened after we got into the car last night. I don’t remember a thing.”

  “You passed out, Tony carried you to your bedroom, and then he left.”

  “Carried me to my bedroom,” she said slowly, then licked her lips like every word was made of sugar. “I’ll have to get sloshed around that boy more often.”

  I shook my head. “No, you won’t. Do yourself a favor and forget him.”

  But she didn’t forget. On Monday morning, when I was sitting beside him in the sedan and he was just about to take off, there was a tap on my tinted window. I rolled it down, and Tina stuck her hand inside to dangle a brown paper bag in front of my face.

  “I made your lunch,” she said, and I took it from her while she leaned forward, pressing her cleavage against the window frame and giving Tony a coy smile. “Did you know there’s an off-Broadway show called Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding?” she asked. “I saw a commercial on TV.”

  I hit a button to close the window. Tina waved from the sidewalk as Tony drove us away.

  Then I was at my desk at work and Kitty walked into my cubicle, looking like an Ann Taylor ad in her mocha jersey dress and single-strand pearls. Her hair was shiny and her skin glowed, and she held an envelope in her hand.

  “You must be feeling better,” I said.

  She leaned against the wall and tapped the envelope against her thigh. “I am. And it seems as if a gang of elves slaved all night to get your work done.”