The Grift

by Debra Ginsberg

  Cooper’s smile reached all the way to his eyes as he tucked Marina’s card into his jacket pocket. “Well, I guess we’ll see about that,” he said. “It was good to meet you.”

  Marina nodded as he turned and made his way back into the throng. The three hours she’d been paid for began now, and she steeled herself for the onslaught.

  Chapter 4

  “He’s a Scorpio,” the girl was saying, “and you know how they are—so secretive and all. So I think this would be a great birthday present for him. I want to shake him up a little. Well, I want you to shake him up. What do you think?”

  What Marina thought was something she couldn’t say, namely, that the girl seemed terrifically out of place at this party, and that with the Scorpio in question, she was likely in way over her head. Marina’s head was buzzing. The two hours so far felt very much like ten, a mad kaleidoscope of hopes, dreams and fears shoved into every minute. The thick flow of people into her tent showed no sign of letting up and her throat was parched. She couldn’t wait to pack up and leave. One more hour. She turned her attention back to the girl—Kelly, Katie…no, Cassie, her name was Cassie—who was waiting for an answer.

  “Well, I’m biased,” Marina said, “but I think a reading is a terrific and unusual gift to give someone. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

  “You know what?” Cassie said. “I think he will.” She bent down to retrieve her oversize purse from the straw-covered floor and started rummaging through it. “What do you take? Like, Visa or, um, a check? Or I might have…” Cassie brought out a few crumpled bills and placed them on the table.

  “Cash is always great.” Marina smiled. “I do take that.”

  “I’m so glad I came to this party!” Cassie exclaimed as she searched her purse for more money. “I wasn’t going to because I thought it would be, you know, some kind of weird boring thing. When Madeline invited me—she’s a client of mine, I do her hair. I’m a stylist, by the way. I should give you my card, too, in case you ever need…oh, good, I knew there was another twenty in here. Anyway, I’m really glad I decided to drive all the way out here tonight, because I met you. It’s a sign!”

  Marina kept smiling and nodding until Cassie had emptied enough cash from her voluminous purse to cover the reading she was buying for her Scorpio. Then, as soothingly as she could, Marina placed her hand on top of Cassie’s and said, “I look forward to meeting him. He’s very fortunate to have someone as thoughtful as you in his life.”

  “Yes,” Cassie said. “He is, isn’t he?” She nodded slowly, hypnotizing herself into believing it. “It’s never easy being in love, is it? I mean, maybe I’m just an incurable romantic, but I’ve always believed that the power of love can conquer everything. Well, it should, anyway.”

  Marina bristled. Being in love would be a damn sight easier for this girl if the object of that emotion wasn’t a married man who was clearly using her for “love” in its most physical, base sense. Not that Cassie had told her in so many words that her Scorpio was committed to another woman, but she hadn’t needed to. The information was as visible as if it had been branded on her face. How to answer her? Marina disliked being made into an advice columnist. “I suppose you’re right about that,” she said. “If it were easy, there would be much less unhappiness in the world.” It was a banal, vanilla-flavored statement, but it was what Cassie wanted to hear.

  “Are you…You must be in love with someone,” Cassie stated. “I can tell you know exactly what I mean.”

  Marina felt irritation crawling across her skin and struggled to keep it at bay. She wanted badly to tell Cassie that she not only wasn’t in love with anyone now, she’d never been in that kind of love: the heavy turbulent undertow that drove one to extremes of action and emotion. Every working day brought Marina these tales of love lost, out of reach or gone bad. Even the happy ones were constantly on edge. Does he love me as much as I love him? Is he going to leave me? Will we be together forever? Is he the one? For most people, it wasn’t even about love, it was about not wanting to be alone. But Marina was not afraid to be alone. Not that her personal life was any of Cassie’s—or anyone’s—business.

  “I do know what you mean,” she told Cassie, straining to keep her voice sincere. “The heart is its own mistress.”

  “That’s beautiful,” Cassie whispered and stood up. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  Marina had barely enough time to deposit Cassie’s payment into her own purse before another fortune seeker strode in, grabbed the chair and planted himself at the table. This one was close to fifty, Marina gauged, if he wasn’t already there, and was trying unsuccessfully to look younger or at least hipper than he was. There were the hair plugs, for one thing, and the glaringly white Nikes, for another. This wasn’t a man who spent much time in his sneakers. Nor did he seem comfortable in the professionally faded jeans and silk crewneck he was wearing. He held a drink in one hand and the other reached up to adjust a tie that wasn’t there. This was a man who lived in expensive suits, if his casual clothes were any indication—a man who made a great deal of money and wanted everyone to know it. He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs and polished off the last of his drink with a single swallow. He regarded Marina with an air of ownership and played with the thick elaborate gold band on his ring finger as if it were a small toy.

  “Everything okay in here?” he finally asked. Marina could smell the alcohol on his breath.

  “Oh, yes,” Marina answered, touching her tarot cards. “Would you like a reading?”

  “Nah,” he said. He pointed to the cards. “Never touch the stuff. I just wanted to check in. People”—he gestured toward the living room—“are very happy with you—so I had to see for myself.”

  “Are you sure I can’t interest you in a reading, then?” Marina asked, hating the flirtatious tone she’d adopted but knowing it was necessary just the same. “Since I’ve come so highly recommended.”

  “Right,” he said, and shook the ice in his glass. “I don’t need a reading, sweetheart. This is my house. I’m the schmuck paying for this shindig.”

  So this was the man who’d made his fortune selling expensive tokens of love, Marina thought. How appropriately ironic that he seemed so loveless and angry himself. “Well,” she began, and looked directly into his slightly bloodshot brown eyes. “It’s a lovely shindig. And you have a beautiful home.”

  “Thanks. Can’t take credit for the party, though. This was all my wife’s idea. I’m just paying. That’s what I do.” He shook his ice again and Marina knew that it would probably take several more drinks to slake the kind of thirst he had going. The word resentful presented itself and lodged in her brain. It was as if everything and everybody in this big beautiful house annoyed and chafed at him, including Marina, whom he now looked at with growing disdain.

  “I’m Andrew, by the way.” He extended his hand and Marina took it in hers. She wasn’t surprised that he had a crushing grip.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, Andrew.”

  “Yeah, pleased to meet you, too.” Andrew stood but did not turn to leave. “You’re psychic, huh?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Psychic like you can see into the future and all that? How about dead people? You talk to dead people, too?”

  “I see what I am allowed to see,” Marina answered. “Some call it having second sight. Some call it being psychic.”

  “So I suppose you can ‘see’ that I think this whole thing is a bunch of bullshit, right?”

  Marina hesitated, unsure of whether to suggest again that he sit down for a reading, though she knew she couldn’t tell him what an angry person he was, his pent-up fury pulsing so close to the surface it was almost visible. In any case, Andrew didn’t give her a chance to speak.

  “Doesn’t really matter what I think, though, does it?” he said. “As long as people are getting their money’s worth. My money’s worth.” He took a last swallow from his thick etched glass. “I have to h
and it to Maddie. I wouldn’t have been able to think up this crap in a million years.” He growled out a laugh. “A psychic at a party. Whatever.” He marched out of the tent calling out, “Next!”

  At exactly 11 P.M., Marina threw her tarot cards into her purse and returned the fake crystal ball to the table. There were still people milling around the tent, but the partygoers had become progressively drunker as the night wore on and most of them were slow and swaying now, giving in to alcoholic entropy. It was easy enough for Marina to brush by the thinning crowd and head into the center of the house. It was slightly more challenging to find someone who could tell her where to find a bathroom. The likeliest candidate would have been Madeline, but the party’s hostess, who had not paid a visit to Marina’s tent, was nowhere in sight. Her husband, Andrew, whom Marina spied across the room, would have been her second-best bet, but he was deep in conversation with Cooper’s blond man. It looked to Marina like they were whispering, their conversation vaguely furtive, although with Coldplay blaring over some unseen sound system there was hardly any need to worry about being overheard. Cooper himself was absent and Marina wondered if he’d had enough of his date’s cold shoulder and gone home.

  Marina finally found the room she was looking for, but it was more like a chamber than a bathroom, complete with dressing table, stage lights and marble flooring. The toilet itself was behind another door, which Marina found to be locked. Marina waited for a minute, then two, then five. Just as she was debating whether to find another bathroom, the door to the toilet opened and Naked Sushi Girl emerged, now dressed in a pink miniskirt, a micro T-shirt and strappy heels, her long black hair straight and flowing down her back. She was disconcertingly beautiful, Marina thought; her face, to which she was now applying lipstick and mascara, was just as pale and expressionless as it had been when she was nude and covered with raw fish.

  “Can I help you?” the girl asked. Marina realized she’d been staring.

  “Some party, huh?”

  The girl shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Is it difficult?” Marina asked.

  “Is what difficult?” The girl had a slight lisp, which made her sound as if she had a foreign accent.

  “It must be hard to lie that still when people are poking you with chopsticks.”

  “You want to know how I can stand to have people eating off me. You think it’s some kind of sex thing, don’t you?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re the psychic, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know, then.”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s a job, just like yours. You sat in a tent. I lay on a table. I just happened to be naked.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Let me ask you a question: Are you a whore?”

  Marina shook her head. “No, obviously I’m not.”

  “Yeah, well…neither am I.”

  The girl adjusted her skirt, pulled her tiny top down to cover her navel, turned away from Marina and exited, slamming the door behind her. It was only after a couple of stunned moments that Marina noticed the girl had left her lipstick behind. Marina picked it up and held it, feeling the small weight of it in her palm, and then she dropped it into her purse. She wasn’t often surprised by people, but Naked Sushi Girl had done just that. It wasn’t her hostility or her unusual profession that had Marina perplexed; it was that the girl hadn’t seemed the least interested in getting a reading or even a quick bit of psychic insight for free. What kind of person, Marina wondered, had no need to know what was in store for her?

  Chapter 5

  In southern California rain fell with a great deal of flash and excitement. The wind tore at wet palm fronds, flinging them into driveways; gutters poured out miniature waterfalls. Exit ramps flooded and cars inevitably spun into guardrails. It was rarely catastrophic, but in Encinitas, located on the northern coastal edge of San Diego County, rain refused to be ignored. Here, rain was not a weather condition, it was a cinematic performance.

  It was the rain, or rather the sound of it beating against the studio windows, that kept Madeline from fully relaxing into savasana after a particularly challenging hour of yoga. This was usually the best part of the session, when her muscles unwound and her breath came easy and slow. But the hammering rain had been bothering her since the minute they’d started. Usually she could think about nothing but getting through each asana as the instructor, Lydia, put them through their paces, but today Madeline had been completely distracted by the noise. She lay still now, eyes closed, wrists and ankles loose, but her brain refused to stop twitching. Rain was supposed to be soothing, but to Madeline it sounded like a spray of bullets hitting the glass.

  Maybe it wasn’t the rain, Madeline thought as she tried to keep her fingers from squeezing the sides of her yoga mat. Maybe it was the hormones that were making her teeth grind and her synapses crackle. She was on the fourth cycle of her Clomid prescription and the only thing growing inside her was nausea, bloating and excruciating tenderness in the tissue surrounding her C-cup breast implants. If nothing happened in the next two months, it would be time to start talking about in vitro, a process that Madeline was not eager to experience. But Andrew was unlikely to give up his quest for progeny. He was fifty years old and had suddenly decided that time was running out. Well, not that suddenly. He’d been talking about having a baby for a while. In truth, Madeline had to admit that Andrew had been on this quest since they’d married six years ago. No, even before. “Sure,” Madeline had agreed, “of course I want kids. Sure, sooner rather than later. But not just yet. Let’s enjoy this time for ourselves. Let’s redecorate the house, take an extended honeymoon…We’ll never be able to see Europe with a baby in tow.”

  Now Madeline wasn’t sure why she’d resisted at all. She’d known all along how important children were to Andrew. Madeline was positive that if she was unwilling or unable to avail herself as an incubator, Andrew would find someone who wasn’t. And he wouldn’t have to look far. It was pretty clear to everyone that Andrew was loaded. As the head of Royal Rings, a wildly successful chain of jewelry stores that specialized in “the unusual, the spectacular and the best” engagement and wedding rings, Andrew had been voted San Diego’s “most eligible bachelor” by America’s Finest City magazine before Madeline had taken him off the market. He was so wealthy that his lawyers had insisted she sign a prenuptial agreement. Having a baby was not only an insurance policy but an extremely small sacrifice to make for her future security. Women routinely did far worse for much less.

  God, that was a terrible thought. It wasn’t as if having a baby was such an awful thing. It was just that Andrew had been so desperate about it lately. Madeline clenched her left hand into a fist, feeling the small, reliable bite of her beautiful and very expensive Royal engagement ring and wedding band. Damn it, she was trying everything she could to conceive: a low-fat, high-protein diet, organic foods, no caffeine, yoga twice a week and Pilates almost as often. She’d even asked her stylist, Cassie, to stop highlighting her hair with the standard bleach lest it affect her fertility. Madeline had also given up alcohol, surprisingly the most difficult thing to do. She hadn’t thought of herself as much of a drinker before, but she missed that nightly glass or two or three of good red wine.

  And then there was the sex. For months, she and Andrew had been copulating daily. Andrew had gotten himself a refillable prescription for Viagra and was drinking wheatgrass and vitamin E smoothies every day. Madeline couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone more than twenty-four hours without Andrew banging away at her. Madeline had always enjoyed sex with Andrew before all of this—he was a considerate lover and he knew what made a woman feel good. Occasionally, he was even inspired, which made Madeline want to please him in ways that most wives avoided like the plague. But then she’d always wanted to please Andrew sexually. She wasn’t blind enough to ignore the fact that Andrew had married down with her, and that her own best assets were a beautiful
face and a great body. And she had no money of her own.

  When she met Andrew, she was just getting by, running a small business making gift baskets out of her tiny apartment. He had been enjoying his success for years already and knew exactly what he wanted out of life: a wife, children and a big house in Rancho Santa Fe, a neighborhood so exclusive that the houses had no mailboxes. Madeline had wanted that, too, which was why she was not only willing but happy to please Andrew, in bed and out of it. It was also why she didn’t complain that what they were doing now had no feeling in it and nothing to do with lovemaking. They were trying to make a baby. She was trying—hard.

  No, it wasn’t she who wasn’t cooperating, it was her body, and she couldn’t be held accountable for what her body decided to do or not do. Unless…Madeline sighed and opened her eyes. Unless the reason she couldn’t get pregnant didn’t have anything to do with her body but with something much less easily defined. Maybe, deep down, she had some kind of mental block about having a baby. Madeline supposed she could spend more of Andrew’s money on a psychiatrist to discover if she had any buried memories, motivations or issues that were keeping her from getting pregnant, but she didn’t trust psychiatrists. One of Andrew’s friends, Max, was a shrink and he was absolutely nuts. How else to describe a therapist who was gay but pretended otherwise? Not that he’d ever come out and said that, but come on, it was so obvious. When she’d first met him, Madeline thought that maybe Max kept up the heterosexual pretense because of Andrew’s homophobia (it was subtle but it was there), but it soon became clear that the guy actually thought he was straight. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the profession.

  For Madeline, the likelier possibility was that there was some problem with the combination of her body and Andrew’s that was preventing them from ever having a baby of their own. Madeline felt a clutch of panic twist her insides. What if that was the problem? How long would it take for Andrew to run out of patience? He’d made it very clear that he was in no way interested in adoption. No Chinese, Russian or Guatemalan babies for Andrew. No babies that hadn’t sprung directly from his own loins. So there was really only one option. But what if that option was unavailable?