The Grift

by Debra Ginsberg

  “I am real,” she said finally. “This is real.”

  “This…,” he began, and he stopped for a moment, wrestling with the words. “This was a mistake.” He moved away from her, picked up his clothes from the floor and put them on with the grim determination of a soldier suiting up for battle. Marina saw clearly now how much he resembled his mother, whom she could almost see—no, could see—standing between the two of them. Marina looked at her hallucination dead on and Mrs. Golden looked back at her, her hand pointing first to her neck and then to Marina’s. Wear it, Mrs. Golden said. You promised to wear it.

  “If you knew who I was,” Marina asked, turning her eyes to Gideon, “why all of this?”

  They were both fully dressed now, only the rumpled bed to indicate that there had been any intimacy between the two of them. Everything about Gideon suggested stony distance, from his face to his rigid posture. He seemed so far away from her, which is why what he said next shocked her into trembling silence.

  “I fell in love with you,” he said.

  When Marina looked back on it later, she couldn’t remember any of the specific words that he’d used after that. She’d absorbed his story rather than listening to it—all the pieces hitting her like blows. He hadn’t come looking for her until months after his mother had died. It had taken him that long to put it all together. He couldn’t figure out where all the money had gone—why she’d been reduced to such a horrible state. She’d never told him anything and by the time he got to her in Florida it was too late. And there was the ring. He knew how much that ring meant to his mother, so far beyond its physical value, and how she wouldn’t have parted with it unless…well, he didn’t know unless what, couldn’t even begin to imagine. He’d finally figured out who had taken the money, but somewhere along the line he’d convinced himself that his mother had lost the ring, because by then he’d found Marina and realized that she couldn’t have taken it. Whatever else she was capable of, it didn’t include stealing the thing most precious to an old woman whose only fault had been to trust her. What was the most difficult thing for him to swallow now was how he had come to believe in Marina as well. That was what he’d wanted to tell her; that he’d come looking for her but that his desire for vengeance had turned into desire for her. He’d convinced himself that his mother hadn’t made a mistake after all; that leading him to Marina had been the last and best thing she’d done for him. But self-deception was obviously hereditary. Marina was a liar and a thief—a grifter to the bone. The proof was in his hand.

  By the time he was finished, Marina was damp with sweat and breathing hard. Tears she couldn’t remember shedding had made her face wet. “Please,” she said, “you have to believe me. Your mother asked me to wear this ring. I took…On our last session, she gave me three thousand dollars. That’s all.”

  “That’s all?”

  “No, you don’t understand! I wasn’t the only psychic your mother saw. She had—she had a whole roster of psychics she went to. She knew what she was doing, Gideon. All I took from her was three thousand dollars. She had more than that in her purse that day.”

  “I don’t believe you. You stole her ring.”

  “No, Gideon, no, no. I didn’t steal it. She gave it to me, she asked me to wear it. It’s the truth.” Marina hesitated, drawing in a breath. She had to tell him why she’d never given it back, although she didn’t know herself. Even now, she felt its absence like a hole in her chest.

  Gideon’s mouth was twisted into a mirthless grin. She needn’t worry that he was going to make trouble for her, he told her; she could carry on as she pleased. Sooner or later, she would be called to account for her actions, but it wouldn’t be by him. He was leaving, already gone. He picked up the vase of roses and for a moment she thought he was going to walk out with it, but he turned and thrust it at her so hard that the flowers hit her in the face. Several petals came loose, falling like pink confetti at her feet.

  “These you can keep,” he said. And then, “You’ll have to find your own way home.” Marina felt the rush of air as he walked past her and heard the door close seconds later. She stood there with the vase in her arms, the scent of roses enveloping her, until her muscles couldn’t support the weight any longer and she had to put it down.

  Salt water swirled around Marina’s feet and receded. The tide was coming in. Pretend everything is normal. That warning had sounded in her head the minute Gideon left her alone in that room, and it hadn’t stopped since. The only problem, Marina knew, was that nothing would ever be normal again.

  A small child ran past Marina and splashed into the water. He was wearing a tiny red bathing suit and had a headful of blond curls. She could hear him laughing as he smacked the wet sand with his little starfish hands. He ventured a little farther out and sat down, the water rising up above his rounded belly. Marina looked behind her and saw a woman in a yellow bikini lying on the sand, her face raised up into the sun as if to catch every tanning ray. Marina knew what was going to happen two seconds before the wave came in and covered the child. She scrambled to her feet and ran into the water, diving down to pull out the little boy. But there was nothing in the surf except sand and seaweed. It couldn’t have dragged him out so fast, Marina thought, and turned back to the shore in a panic. The woman was gone now, too. Marina was wet and her eyes stung from the salt. The whole scene had been a hallucination. Marina felt the pressure building behind her forehead, a combination of headache and forming tears. She had to get out of here and go to her office. Today she had to work. Tomorrow she would start thinking about whether it was time to leave California.

  She crossed the sand, the wet edges of her skirt clinging to her legs. But she didn’t care about being wet; all she wanted at that moment was a cup of hot coffee. It wouldn’t be Rosa’s. Something else to cross off the list forever. She was almost at the edge of the beach when she saw them coming toward her, the little boy in the red suit and his mother in the yellow bikini. Excited and ruddy-cheeked, he ran ahead of her by several feet.

  “Connor!” the mother called. “Slow down!” The boy wasn’t listening to her. And soon, Marina thought, she wouldn’t be listening to him.

  Marina stopped directly in front of the woman. “You need to watch him,” she said. “The tide comes in very fast. He could get hurt or…You need to watch him. Carefully.”

  “Who the hell are you?” the woman said. “What is your problem? Connor! Come back here!” This time he came back and stood next to his mother, wrapping one chubby arm around her slim tan leg.

  “Just watch him,” Marina said, moving forward.

  “Watch yourself!” the woman yelled at her. “This is harassment, you know. Telling me how to take care of my own kid!”

  Marina kept walking. She only looked back once when she got to the main road. The woman had picked up her boy and was holding him tight on one hip as she walked down to the water.

  Chapter 20

  The night is so thick and dark that she feels blinded by it. There are no streetlamps, no moon, and the stars give no light. She is walking, walking and her feet are aching. The road feels like a treadmill under her; she can’t get there, can’t reach him. The smell of roses and smoke clings to her, invades her senses. He is walking several yards ahead, hands in his pockets, looking down at the road. She is running now, sharp rocks piercing her feet, but somehow the running makes her slower. She yells out to him: Stop! But no sound comes out of her throat. She is choking on the smoke and the smell of the roses. He stops walking and turns. She knows this place. Stop! He can’t hear her. Now she is right behind him, the distance closed, and he is turning around. She tries to shut her eyes but they are already closed. She hears an echoing cough and watches him turn. There is a flash of light, an explosion, and then everything goes black again.

  Marina woke with a start and an unstoppable surge of nausea. She ran, stumbling, to the bathroom, barely making it in time to lean over the toilet and vomit until her stomach was empty and she was rack
ed with painful heaves. It took a long time to stop, and by the end of it she was exhausted and sweating. She leaned her hot head against the cool bathroom tiles and waited for the worst of it to pass. She could not remember ever being so aware of every little flicker and stirring in her body. She could hear the blood moving through her organs; feel the slight twitching of the muscles around her mouth and her neck. And there, deep within the bones of her pelvis, she could feel a growing heaviness, a pulling of tendons, the approaching shadow of future pain. It didn’t feel like pre-or postmenstrual cramping. It felt like a rushing together of cells, gathering energy, pulling focus from every other part of her brain and body to that one center point. It felt like an alien invasion.

  As soon as she could stand without dizziness forcing her back to the toilet, Marina splashed water on her face, got dressed and headed out the door. A few minutes later, she was standing in the middle of the Rite Aid on Encinitas Boulevard, staring at the vast array of pregnancy test kits. There were early tests, late tests, any time of day tests. Plus sign, you’re pregnant; negative, you aren’t. Pink stripes, blue stripes. Two for $12.99, store brand for $8.99 plus a $2.00 mail-in rebate, please allow eight to ten weeks for delivery.

  Or nine months.

  Some careless person who clearly had no right to be a parent had left an infant on the floor in the middle of the aisle, Marina noticed as she moved closer to the rack. The baby couldn’t have been more than a few months old, so small and encased in one of those tiny terry-cloth suits. The suit was white (stupid color to put a baby in, Marina thought) with shiny snaps and covered feet. She—Marina could tell it was a girl—lay calmly on the dirty plastic tile of the Rite Aid, looking around with big hazel eyes, kicking up those small covered feet. Marina looked up and over to the pharmacy window, thinking maybe the baby’s mother was there waiting for a prescription and would be looking over to make sure the child was all right. But the empty window showed only a listless-looking pharmacy assistant leaning against the jamb.

  Marina’s eyes flickered back to the baby, but she had vanished. And that was when Marina realized that it was happening again. A fresh swell of nausea gathered in the pit of her stomach. Below the nausea, her strange not-quite-pain grew in strength, reminding her why she’d come here. Marina knew what the answer to this test would be, but she had to pick one and buy it anyway. She needed proof.

  As she was reaching for the least expensive generic brand (because what did it matter if the test had a brand name?), Marina felt a tug on the hem of her skirt. Looking down, she saw what she immediately knew to be an older version of the disappearing baby from before. This little girl was about five years old, her long dark hair tied in a neat ponytail and her startling green-gold eyes staring into Marina’s core. The girl wore a white cotton dress with eyelet detailing on the hem. Her small feet were bare, the small clean toes painted a happy pink. She smelled sweet, like sugary candy. There was a bitter taste in Marina’s mouth.

  “What do you want?” she whispered to the little girl, who looked so much like Marina at that age. She whispered because she had to speak to this child, hallucination or not, but kept her voice low enough to avoid appearing more like a crazy woman than she already did. She’d seen them plenty of times, those homeless schizophrenics shouting at God and the government, their misspelled cardboard signs begging for help.

  The child said nothing. Marina closed her eyes, nausea welling up. For a horrified moment she thought she was going to vomit on the pregnancy test display in front of her. For several seconds Marina just stood there, eyes closed, willing herself back to normalcy. When she could no longer feel the pull on her skirt or detect the sweet smell, Marina opened her eyes and looked around. Nothing—except for an elderly man examining vitamins at the end of the aisle and trying to watch Marina out of the corner of his eye. She needed to leave and get out before she called any further attention to herself.

  A teenage girl in white shorts and a T-shirt brushed by Marina too close and bumped her slightly. “’Scuse me. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Marina mumbled, distracted and woozy. The girl breezed by and Marina turned to watch her round the corner, her long dark ponytail swishing. Before disappearing into the next aisle, she turned and fixed Marina with a smile, hazel eyes sparkling, one dimple, identical to the one in Marina’s own face, showing on her left cheek. What’s your name? Marina wanted to ask her. Are you happy? Where is your mother?

  The line at the cashier snaked all the way into the shelves of seasonal candy markdowns. Marina didn’t know how long she’d be able to stand amidst this crowd, which seemed to be pressing in closer and closer. But then someone must have opened a door, because a breeze suddenly grazed Marina’s cheekbones and she felt she could breathe again. The nausea subsided a little and she started to feel almost normal. The people in line next to her looked normal as well—solid and real, not visions. A middle-aged woman in a too-tight suit clutched a chilled bottled coffee drink and a printer cartridge in one hand while her other held a cell phone to her ear.

  “I told him we were going to need four of those,” the woman was saying. “I know I told him, like, a dozen times at least. I’m not going to be responsible if…what? Well, I don’t care what she says…”

  The woman was going to get fired from her job, Marina knew suddenly. She was going to be outraged, hire an attorney and attempt to sue for wrongful termination, but then they were going to find out about the petty cash she’d taken for her own use—Marina had a fleeting vision of a very expensive piñata at a child’s birthday party with several adults drinking mojitos in the background—and the company was going to end up suing her. She was going to go bankrupt and would have to move—Marina could see U-Haul boxes on a scraggly lawn…

  Marina shook her head, took a deep breath and moved her gaze to the skinny young man with bad acne who was shuffling from foot to foot as he waited in line. He was holding a liter of motor oil, a liter of Coke and a half gallon of generic vodka. Marina had to stop herself from telling him to put the vodka back on the shelf—that if he planned to drink it tonight, and she knew that he did, he was going to get into a car accident. He wasn’t going to die, but he was going to get arrested and lose his license.

  Ahead of her, a young woman—tan, excessively fit, silicone-enhanced breasts protruding from the sides of her small, lime green tank top—was arguing with the cashier about the advertised special on mascara. Marina found herself getting irritated by the sheer ridiculousness of it. Why bother? she wanted to ask the young woman. Mascara isn’t going to make a difference. He isn’t going to call you tonight, tomorrow or ever again.

  Marina fumbled in her purse for cash. She needed to complete this transaction as quickly as possible and get away from these swirling conversations and mirages.

  Finally, the woman gave up her quest for the extra dollar off and left the register with a swish of indignation and it was Marina’s turn. She laid her test kit on the counter and looked up. That the cashier was an older version of the three girls she had already seen in the aisles of the store was not a surprise to Marina, but this didn’t make it any less disturbing. The cashier smiling at her now, asking if she was paying with cash or credit, looked so much like Marina at twenty years old that she could have been a replica. If not an exact copy, then…She could have been Marina’s daughter. Yes, that was it, Marina realized now. She was looking at her own daughter—a child whose existence would soon be confirmed by the test Marina held in her shaking hands.

  “Ma’am? Cash or credit?”

  Marina mumbled something about cash and dug around in her purse. When she looked up again her daughter had disappeared, replaced by a skinny little blond girl who looked to be at the end of her patience.

  “I’m sorry,” Marina said. “Thank you.” She handed the clerk what seemed like the right amount of money and then turned around and left, moving as fast as she could and not looking back.

  Marina got into her car and headed to her office, deba
ting how to go about doing what had to be done next. Her pregnancy test had been definitive in a way she was sure nobody else had ever experienced.

  Earlier, when she got home from Rite Aid, she was trembling so badly that it had taken several minutes to open the box and then the sealed plastic packet inside. All the while she thought what a pointless endeavor it was; the outcome was obvious. When she finally managed to wrest the test stick out of its packet, she laughed, the way people sometimes did at funerals. The test was of the plus/minus variety: a plus sign for yes and a minus for no. But the answer was already there when Marina opened the factory-sealed, unused test: a pink neon plus sign that seemed to glow in the dim light of her bathroom. She threw the test stick on the floor, hearing it clatter on the tiles, and left her house immediately. She needed the safety and sterility of her office to figure out what to do now that she had her answer.

  But Marina didn’t know where to start. Did one just open the phone book and start calling doctors and clinics at random? It wasn’t as if anyone advertised abortions. Her brain felt thick and stupid. She’d never needed anything like this before, a small miracle in itself really, but still she should know where to go or who to call.

  “Like mother like daughter.”

  At first Marina thought the sound was coming from inside her own head and she blinked hard as if that would shut it off.

  “I wanted to do the same thing to you. The sins of the mother…”

  Marina recognized the voice and it wasn’t her own. Nor was it coming from inside her head. Next to her, reclined in the passenger seat, her dead mother sat inspecting her dirty fingernails. Her hair was long and unclean, her clothes were wrinkled and slept in and her bare feet were black with grime. Death, Marina thought, had done nothing to improve her mother’s appearance. Marina forced herself to keep her eyes on the road and not engage with the specter, but it was all she could do to keep from pushing her filthy mother out of her car.