Breaking the Bank

by Yona Zeldis McDonough

  “Promise?” asked Mia. “Scout’s honor,” said Fred. “So where’s Julie?” She watched as he set about pouring, stirring, and heating. “I haven’t been able to reach her.”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?” He turned back and handed her a steaming mug.

  “Heard what?”

  “She’s in love.” He folded his arms, waiting for her reaction. “In love?” Mia felt distinctly excluded. How was it that Julie was in love and Mia had to hear about it from Fred?

  “She met a guy—I don’t know, maybe three weeks, or even a month ago. He totally swept her off her feet.”

  “Well, she could have called me back and told me about it.” Mia blew gently on the surface of the drink, not wanting to scald her tongue.

  “She’s not calling you because there’s no service where she is now.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mia tasted the drink. Apple cider, a touch of brandy. A little nutmeg, a sprinkling of clove. Could there even be a dab of butter in there? She had to admit it was good.

  “This guy Dean has a sailboat. And that’s where they are right now. Somewhere off the Florida Keys, I’m guessing.”

  “Oh,” said Mia. “Great.” But her voice sounded flat, even to her. She took another sip, and then another; it felt so smooth going down.

  “If it’s any consolation, I haven’t heard from her since she left town, either.”

  “Which was . . . ?”

  “About a week ago.”

  “I still can’t believe she didn’t call me.” Mia was almost finished with her cider; it would be so nice to have another one, but she knew it would be a bad idea.

  “Maybe she got really busy.”

  “Too busy to call her best friend?”

  “Look, she’s in the head-over-heels phase. Completely smitten, gaga, whatever. Remember?”

  “Huh,” said Mia, looking down into the empty mug. She remembered. Remembered all too well.

  Fred took the mug and, without asking, began preparing a refill. Mia decided she would drink this next one very slowly, and make it her last.

  “So what else is bothering you?” Fred asked, elbows on the bar, blue eyes staring into hers.

  “Something else bothering me? What makes you think that?” asked Mia, mug suspended in the air.

  “Oh I don’t know. You just look kind of “—he stared some more, as if trying to nail it—”preoccupied. Tense.”

  “Well, I guess I am,” she said. Drink number two was going down even more easily than drink number one.

  “Is it money?” he asked. “What else?” she said with a little smile, looking down into her mug. What a nice little elixir, she thought. Then: Elixir? Who was she kidding? Drink. It was an alcoholic drink.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe love?” His blue eyes probed a bit. “Nope. Not love. Not now, anyway.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.” He was still looking at her with that pool-blue gaze.

  “Fred,” Mia said, setting the mug down on the bar and glancing around to make sure there was no one else in earshot. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  Mia had the sense that she was taking a flying leap from a very, very high place. If the water below turned out to be rank and freezing, why that was just tough, wasn’t it? Because once she’d stepped off the edge and taken the plunge, there were only two choices open to her: Swim. Or sink.

  “Have you ever seen a ten-thousand-dollar bill?” she asked.

  THREE DAYS LATER, Mia was sitting in the same bar, anxiously awaiting the arrival of a man Fred identified only as “Weed.” Not a nickname that inspired confidence, but Fred assured her that he was an okay guy.

  “How do you know him?” Mia asked. “I’m a bartender, remember? Bartenders know people.”

  The logic of this escaped Mia, but she had certainly been willing to talk to Weed. After two long cell-phone conversations and another brief one, he had agreed to meet her at the bar, to inspect the bill himself. So here she sat, checking her watch and sipping the ginger ale Fred had thoughtfully poured for her. The bar was closed; it was after two a.m. Wild youth notwithstanding, Mia was no longer used to being out this late, and she knew she would pay for it the next day. At least she didn’t have to worry about Eden, who was spending the night with Luisa upstairs; even though Luisa shared a room with her three sisters, Inez, her mother, had insisted that there was plenty of room, the girls would be fine.

  Mia ardently hoped so. She had seen the grimy pink bedroom shared by four children: two sets of bunk beds flanking either wall, deflated Disney princess comforters covering each thin mattress, a scarred dresser like a deserted island marooned in between. There was no television set in this room, no computer, no DVDs, no iPod, though there was a single Sony Walkman that the girls took turns using. Eden told Mia about the dresser drawer filled only with white tube socks (“You just reach in and try to find a pair that fits,” she explained), the suppers of bright yellow rice and ink-black beans (“Like a sunflower,” said Eden), the underwear that was washed by hand in the bathtub and hung (“with those cool wooden clippy things”) on a line outside the window to dry. To Eden, Luisa’s life was picturesque, quaint, and slightly unreal, like something she would read about in a mold-speckled book found at some roadside yard sale. To Mia, Luisa’s parents, Inez and Hector, neither one taller than five feet and looking uncannily like brother and sister in their matching McDonald’s uniforms, were heroes.

  Mia checked her watch again. Now it was two eleven. Weed had said two, but really, what was another eleven minutes when her whole night and next day were shot to hell anyway?

  “He’ll be here,” Fred said for the third time. “Trust me.” Clearly, he was nervous, too. Mia liked him for this, as well as for listening intently to her story about the bill and not pressing her for details about where she had gotten it.

  EVEN THOUGH THE bar was closed, Fred acted like he was still on call, wiping down counters with a fat green sponge, rearranging bottles of imported gin.

  “Hey, aren’t you off duty?” Mia asked. “Good bartenders are never off duty,” said Fred. “Couldn’t you make an exception? Just for tonight?”

  Before he could answer, there was a soft but distinct rattling of the metal gate covering the big plate-glass window. Weed. Mia watched as Fred let him in and the two men engaged in some ritual guy shake that involved pumping hand motions and gripping of forearms. When that was over, Fred nodded in Mia’s direction, and Weed followed him across the room to where Mia was sitting. Everything about him was thin: lips, eyebrows, the pair of deep, curved lines incised around his mouth. His shoulder-length gray-blond hair was held by a silver clip at the nape of his neck, and the contrast between his puffy down jacket and his long, skinny legs made him seem unbalanced, like he might easily tip over.

  “Can I see it?” he asked without preamble. His tone—soft, coaxing, intimate—made the request sound vaguely obscene.

  Mia shrugged the Hello Kitty backpack from her shoulders, laid a sheet of clean white paper over the bar’s surface, and pulled on a pair of latex gloves; she had to thank Solly Phelps for the idea. But before she could reach into the pack’s zippered pocket, she dropped it on the floor. Her phone, wallet, and a tube of bronzer came skittering out. Mia grabbed for her things, but Weed was there first. He placed his hand on the wallet, which had flopped open. “Mia Saul,” he read from her driver’s license. “Nice.” Mia hurriedly crammed everything into the backpack. He knows my name, she kept thinking. He knows my name. But the deal had already been set in motion; it was too late to pull out now.

  Mia placed the bill down on the bar. Weed said nothing, but she could feel the hum of his interest growing steadier, louder, like the vibrations of a tuning fork. He leaned over, fingers hovering delicately above it.

  “Here,” Mia said, offering him a second pair of gloves. “Thanks.” He put them on and lifted the bill off the bar by its two upper corners. “Fred, can you turn up the lights a littl
e?” Fred, who appeared to be transfixed by the sight of so much money in so little space, blinked and dropped the sponge. “Fred?” Weed said again, in a patient tone. “The lights?” Fred shook his head ever so slightly, as if he were clearing it. Then he picked up the sponge, set it near the sink, and fiddled with the lights.

  Apparently satisfied, Weed brought his face so close to the bill that he and Salmon Chase were virtually eye to eye. He examined the front, the back, the edges. Then he put it back on the bar.

  “I’ll do fifty thou,” he said, with the same detached calm he might have used to order a tuna on rye. He peeled off the gloves and set them neatly on the bar.

  “It’s worth over ninety thousand,” Mia said. “Then go to the guy who’ll give you that.”

  Mia felt Fred staring at her, but she didn’t return the look. What was the point? She knew what she had to do. Use it well. It was time to start.

  “Deal,” she said. She heard Fred exhale, big time. “I have cash,” Weed said, unsnapping his jacket to reveal a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt. It looked lumpy; she understood why when he reached up and under the shirt for what must have been a concealed pouch of some kind. He began extracting bills. One-thousand-dollar bills—in the now-bright light, Mia studied Grover Cleveland’s heavy jowls and lip-obscuring mustache. When Weed had finished counting, he gestured for Mia to do so. Fifty bills, fifty thousand dollars. Again, she could feel Fred’s stare, and this time, she looked back.

  “Would you?” she asked. He took the stack, and she watched his lips move while he counted. When he was done, he gave them all back to her. The wad felt fat, almost alive, in her hands. Weed put on the gloves before picking up the bill and inserting it first between the cardboard sheets and then into the envelope. Mia wondered where he would put it now and resisted the impulse—ludicrous, she knew—to offer him her pink-and-red backpack. Then she saw he had one of his own, a frayed gray affair, one that would draw no attention to itself whatsoever. He zipped the thing up, and Fred accompanied him to the door, where they talked for a minute. Weed didn’t say anything to her, but then again, he didn’t need to. They had successfully transacted their business; what else was there to say?

  FRED INSISTED ON taking her back to her apartment on his motorcycle. Mia was surprised to see the thing—small, black, and glossy— parked at an oblique angle near the streetlight right out front. But then she was equally surprised to have a wad of thousand-dollar bills stuffed into her backpack, and two more wads each tucked into her boots; she could feel them shifting slightly with every step she took. It had been, all around, a night of surprises.

  “I didn’t know you had a motorcycle,” she said. “There are a lot of things about me you don’t know,” he said, handing her a helmet.

  It was scary, streaking down Fourth Avenue at three in the morning; trucks roared by, and all the cars seemed to be speeding. And it was freezing, though at least her head was covered by the helmet, and the front of her, pressed tightly against Fred’s back, was somewhat protected by the contact. When they reached her building, she felt obliged to ask him up. She willed herself to ignore—and certainly not apologize for—the state of the lobby, which this month was showcasing a partial set of wrecked dining room furniture, all chips, gouges, and missing legs.

  The apartment was dark and still. Eden was upstairs with Luisa’s family, and Mia never left a light on just for herself—she hated to waste electricity. Feeling the emptiness of the apartment made her wish she owned an animal. Cat, dog, parrot, pig. She had a sudden memory of the rabbit Lloyd had given her, its big rabbit self such a comforting weight in her arms when she’d held it, but then she banished the thought and turned to Fred.

  “What a strange night,” she said. “What a strange guy.”

  “No stranger than anyone else,” Fred replied. “No stranger than a woman who has a ten-thousand-dollar bill in her possession and can’t say where she got it.”

  “You promised not to ask about that,” Mia said. “Remember?”

  “I remember.” Fred looked as if he wanted to do something—touch her shoulder, her face—but instead began unbuttoning his jacket. Mia took it from him and then dumped it on a chair along with her own jacket. She headed for the kitchen, Fred following along behind.

  “I’d offer you a drink, but the strongest thing I have is grapefruit juice,” she said, nervously peering into the refrigerator as he hovered behind her. “Of course, it’s practically time for grapefruit juice anyway, so why don’t I—” She stopped; he had put his arms around her and was kissing her softly on her open mouth. Oh, she thought. Oh. The kiss was warm, but not overly insistent; he was clearly waiting for a cue from her. She knew, of course, that this was coming. Was this payback? she wondered as she let herself kiss him in return. Quid pro quo?

  Feeling her respond made him a little bolder; he used one hand to press her body closer to his; the other traveled from her face to her neck to the opening of her shirt, just below her collarbone. He brushed the gold locket briefly, and then moved on. But then he pulled his mouth away from hers and said, “Okay?” into her ear.

  “Okay,” she said back, wanting it to be true but not knowing for sure if it was. “Okay.” Now he was lightly rubbing one nipple and then the other. It felt good, and she liked him, so why was she so skittish? It wasn’t like she hadn’t had sex with anyone else since Lloyd had left her. Though she had been slightly drunk the few times it happened. No, make that very drunk. So that was the difference. She was sober and was going to have to take full responsibility for what she was about to do.

  “Maybe we could go somewhere and lie down,” Fred said softly.

  She led him into her tiny bedroom—astonishingly, the bed was made—and they both stretched out. She heard the clunk of Fred’s shoes as they hit the floor, but her own boots still had the money in them, and even though they felt uncomfortable, she was afraid to take them off.

  “Your hair,” murmured Fred, touching it gently. “It’s so pretty.” This is how it goes, she thought, all those first touches, first glimpses, the little revelations, the little discoveries. She knew that it was her turn now; she was supposed to say something to him. But she didn’t have a thing to offer, so she closed her eyes, letting him unbutton her shirt and slip down the straps of her bra. The bra, at least, was sexy. It was this red lacy thing she had bought as a mental “fuck you” to Lloyd when he left her, and Mia was glad she was wearing it now, instead of one of the stretched-out, once-upon-a-time-was-pink-but-now-is-puddle-gray numbers in which she seemed to specialize. It was only when Fred pressed his lips to her skin that she started, without warning, to sob. She thought, uselessly, of Lloyd, both in the beginning, and at the sorry end. She thought of the first boy she’d ever kissed, at summer camp, his mouth, only recently emptied of spear-mint gum, a cool, wet surprise. And of Josh, in high school. Her mind was crowded with too many people; there was no room for Fred.

  “What?” he asked, moving his face up and away so he could look at her. “Is it something I did?”

  This only made her cry harder. “Jeez, Mia, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please tell me what’s wrong.” He stopped when she put her open palm over his mouth.

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” she said. With effort, she got the sobbing under control, but her eyes were still leaking tears. “I like you, Fred. I really do. And what you did for me tonight was . . . amazing.

  Simply amazing. I’m incredibly grateful, and I want you to know that. But I guess I’m just not ready for—” She looked down at her partially unclothed body, at his knee pressed between her parted legs. “For this.” As soon as she said the words, she felt a huge, visceral sense of relief, like she’d set down a big sack of stones.

  “That’s all right,” Fred said, clumsily attempting to pull the two halves of her blouse back together. He didn’t entirely succeed, and her breasts, encased as they were in red lace and poking out of the blouse, seemed faintly ridiculous.

  “I can wait.”r />
  “You can?” she asked, rubbing at her wet face with her hands. “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her toward him. “Think maybe we should try to get a little rest? I could stay here with you and we could sleep, okay? Just sleep.”

  “Just sleep,” Mia echoed, into his chest. Suddenly she was so, so tired. She shifted once, then twice, trying to find the most comfortable position and wondering, through the fog of her fatigue, why it was that the oblivion she craved was eluding her. Then she remembered— she was still wearing her boots, the ones with the thousand-dollar bills packed into their linings, tamped down like so many soft, silvery-green feathers.

  THIRTEEN

  EVER SINCE THE automated teller had given her the ten-thousand-dollar bill, Mia had not been back to the bank. She hadn’t dared. The words Use it well continued to turn up—in a television commercial, mouthed by a trim middle-aged woman with china-white veneers on her teeth; in a magazine article written by a financial expert; splashed across a billboard on the West Side Highway—with an eerie frequency. So Mia still believed herself to be in the thrall of something not quite normal, and she was afraid to tamper with whatever it was.

  But the Monday after she met with Weed, she knew she had to set aside her apprehension and march herself up there. It was either that, or keep fifty grand in a shoe box at the top of her closet, an option that she was willing to concede was neither smart nor safe. So she placed three of the thousand-dollar bills in the zipped pocket of the Hello Kitty backpack and set off with Eden toward school. Eden did not appear to notice how nervous Mia was—what if the bills were numbered or marked in some suspicious way? what if the bank teller started asking her questions?—but she did eye the backpack with a mixture of mild curiosity and somewhat stronger disdain.

  “So you really like that thing?” she asked.