The Wrong Kind of Money

by Birmingham, Stephen;

  “For Christ’s sake, what the hell are you doing here, Melody?”

  “I can sleep there—on your sofa.”

  “You’re goddamned the hell not sleeping here anywhere! What the hell do you think you’re doing here, anyway? How the hell did you get here?”

  “On—a bus.”

  “Well, you’re damn well getting on the next bus back to New York. You’re not staying here with me.”

  “Please don’t be angry with me, Noah,” she says.

  “Angry! This is just the goddamned most inconsiderate thing—”

  “I know it is.” Her chin trembles, but she is not crying. She reaches for her suitcase. “Well, I’m sure I can find a place to stay. I had at least six propositions made to me in the lobby while I was waiting for you to come out. Somebody in this hotel will take me in for a few nights, don’t worry about that.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” he says. “Tell me what happened. Tell me what made you do this.”

  “If I had a home I could go to, I’d have gone there,” she says. “But I can’t go to Japan! He’s started stalking me, Noah—Bill Luckman. After you left, I looked out the window. He was standing there, in the street. He’s got the building staked out, Noah. He looked up at me, and said—I could read his lips—‘I’m watching you.’ And then he—then he gave me the finger, and he looked up at me with—with a look of purest hatred. I can’t describe it. He frightens me, Noah.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “You told me not to.”

  “Or the building’s security?”

  “They can’t do anything about someone who’s outside on the street, can they? Anyway, I was too shocked—too terrified. I felt trapped. I just had to get out of there. I decided to sneak out of the building through the service entrance in the basement, so he wouldn’t see me leave. I thought—I thought if I could just stay here with you, just for a day or two, then maybe he’d realize I’d gone away. Then I could come back and be able to go out on the street again, to look for a job, without thinking that he’s following me everywhere I go. I guess it was a crazy thing to do, to come here, but I just couldn’t think of any other place to go. I was desperate, Noah.”

  “What did you tell Carol?”

  “I left her a note. I said I’d gotten a job with a theater company in New Haven. I hated to lie, but I just couldn’t think of anything else to say!”

  “Sit down, Mellie,” he says, and she sits down in one of the pair of armchairs that flank the sofa.

  “If you let me stay here, Noah, just for a day or so, no one will ever know.”

  “That’s not the point,” he says. “The point is that this is a five-day business conference. I’ve got meetings to go to every day. And when I’m not in meetings, I’m expected to be going around here socializing. Right now, right this very God-given moment, Mellie, I should be down at the bar, or in the casino, or upstairs in the hospitality suite, shaking hands, talking it up with these people who work for me, telling them what a great job they’re doing, smiling, being nice to all these—these stupid sons of bitches who are in the bar down there getting drunk and trying to pick up girls in the lobby! I just don’t have time to look after you, Mellie, or entertain you. I just can’t do that while I’m here.”

  “I don’t need to be looked after! I don’t need to be entertained! I’ll stay out of your way, I promise you!”

  “But I’ll need to do some entertaining in this suite. I’ll need to have people in. I’ll—”

  “If you have people in, I’ll go somewhere else. I’ll go to the pool. There’s a movie theater. I’ll go to the movies.”

  “But—”

  “You think I’ll leave traces of myself around? My shoes under the chair? My panty hose drying in the bathroom? I was brought up in Japan, Noah. I’m a very tidy girl. If I’m not here, there’ll be no signs of me, I promise you—not even lipstick on your facecloths. I’d never embarrass you, Noah.”

  “Well,” he says, hesitating. “Well, perhaps. Perhaps just for tonight. You can have the bedroom. I’ll take the sofa—”

  “No! I want it to be the other way around. I’m the uninvited guest.”

  “But just for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll work out something else.”

  “Oh, thank you, Noah!” She jumps from her chair and kisses him on the lips, and there it is again, that scent of her. “Thank you, dear Noah.” Just then the telephone rings, and Noah goes to the desk to answer it.

  “Hello, darling,” Carol says. “I just called to see how things were going. Is Atlantic City pretty awful?”

  “Pretty bad. This hotel is full of call girls.”

  “Well, you just keep your hands off them,” she says.

  “Oh, I will. You can count on that.”

  “Are you alone, darling? Or is someone with you? Somehow you sound as though someone’s with you.”

  “Frank Stokes just dropped by for a drink.”

  “Oh, then I won’t keep you. Beryl’s coming by for cocktails Wednesday night. Some people she wants to meet. Oh, and Melody’s found a job, with a play that’s trying out in New Haven.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? How did you know that?”

  “No, I mean—yes, she told me about that before I left this afternoon. She was pretty excited about it.”

  “Yes. Well, darling, I just want to wish you all kinds of success on Friday. Notice I didn’t say luck. I said success. Ballachulish is going to be a big hit, I know it is.”

  “Keep your fingers crossed.”

  “I will, darling. I love you, darling.”

  “Love you, too.”

  “Bye.”

  He replaces the receiver in its cradle, realizing that he has forgotten to ask her about the party for Anne and the Van Degan girl.

  “You lied for me,” Melody says. “You told two lies for me. They were white lies, but they were nice lies. Thank you for lying for me, Noah.”

  He looks at her face, upturned in the lamplight. He clears his throat. “Have you had any dinner?”

  “No.”

  “Hungry? Want me to have something sent up?”

  “Nothing much. Something simple.”

  “Chicken sandwiches?”

  “Perfect.”

  “There’s some champagne in the fridge. Would you like a glass of champagne?”

  “Yes,” she says.

  But later, in the dark bedroom of the suite, Noah cannot sleep, and his thoughts race uncontrollably. The drapes at the windows do not close properly, and from some invisible neon advertisement outside, lights flash white, then yellow, then blue, then white again. The red-lighted numerals of the digital clock at his bedside mark the time, and all the primary colors assail him in this mysterious, pulsating room where nothing will come to rest. For the better part of an hour he lies there, trying to keep his body still, trying to force his thoughts to separate themselves from himself. And just as he feels he is finally succeeding, and drifting off to a place where he feels his thoughts will float away from him, no longer be a part of him, but be rejoined with some vaster universe beyond this room, he is roused to consciousness by the sound of a door opening, and he raises himself on one elbow. There is a noiseless whisper of fabric moving, and the door closes again. Again there is a whisper of fabric, as though dropping to the floor, his bed sighs softly as it gives to the weight of a second person, and there is that fresh, clean scent of her hair.

  “Hush,” he hears her say. “Don’t turn on the light. Don’t say a word. I just want to lie down beside you for a while. I just want to make sure of something. I want to try something.”

  “Melody,” he says. “We mustn’t.” But he is well past caring.

  “But,” she says, “we already are, my dear Noah.”

  Much later, he hears her say, “Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife before?”

  “No,” he says into the pillow.

  “Then you have no reason to feel guilty. It was I who seduce
d you.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just that I’m—that I’m not—”

  “Not free?”

  “Yes.”

  “But, my dear Noah, that’s the thing I love about you most—that’s what’s best about us—that you’re not free. I know you love Carol, and I know Carol loves you, and I also love Carol, and I love Anne, and I never want anything to come between you and all those people you love, and who love you so much. You see, it’s because you’re not free that we can make love. Not being free, you are safe, and therefore so am I.”

  He takes her in his arms again.

  12

  Brief Encounters

  “Thank you for showing me your script, Noah!” she says.

  She is sipping coffee from their breakfast tray.

  “A travelogue,” she says. “Yes, I see what you mean. I like that idea. Now, go back to that third or fourth shot, the one of the ferry dock in the little Scottish village. Try starting with that one. That’s how you’d enter the village, right? If you were just stepping off the ferry …”

  “Right,” he says, finding the slide she wants and placing it at the head of the conveyor of transparencies. “This one?” he says as the image appears on the screen: the ferry dock, the little village, the houses of the picturesque town rising from the grassy banks of the loch.

  “That’s it.” She sits, in her stocking feet, her legs tucked beneath her, on the sofa beside him, while he, in his shirtsleeves, operates the carousel. She begins to talk, in a low, calm voice that is also rich with excitement, and he immediately sees that she is writing his presentation for him: “For me it all began in the tiny Scottish village of Ballachulish, population three hundred and sixteen, not far from the entrance to the Firth of Lorne. It was in the early summer of 1992, and the air was crisp and fresh and new. What was I doing in this little town, so small and remote that it doesn’t appear on most maps, a town that reminded me of Brigadoon, that magical town that reappears only every hundred years, and only for a day? It was because I’d heard that here lived a man named Angus Kelso, who distilled a single-malt whiskey that was like no other in the world.…”

  “Hey, this is great!” he says eagerly. “One of us should be writing this down!” He rises and begins pacing the floor.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll remember it. I’m a quick study when it comes to lines. But I’m thinking, Noah—what about a little music? Not all through the show, of course, but just right here, at the beginning? A tape playing, very softly, one of the songs from Brigadoon. And then maybe, at the very end, a reprise of the same song? What do you think of that?”

  “I think that would be—just great!”

  “A tape shouldn’t be hard to find. I’ll pick one up today. Now let’s cut straight to that close shot of Mr. Kelso.”

  He rearranges the slides again, and the image of the redheaded, smiling Scotsman appears on the screen, and she continues her narration: “Meet Mr. Angus Kelso. What would you guess his age to be? Forty? Forty-five? Mr. Kelso is actually sixty-nine, and the secret of his eternal youth may just be his whiskey, which he tells me he pours on his breakfast pancakes every morning. Pause for a laugh. He also assures me that his whiskey cures barrenness in women and impotence in men. Pause for laughter. Incidentally, his whiskey also cures the common cold. Oh, and I almost forgot—it also cures cancer. I hope all you advertising people are taking notes, because these are pretty impressive claims—claims no other distiller has ever dared to make. Pause for more laughter. And we’d cut the music right here, I think.”

  “Melody, this is just wonderful. Wonderful!”

  “Now I think we could move to the picture of the caves. Can you find that one?” He finds it, inserts it next, and the dripping white limestone caverns appear, their pools receding mysteriously into the dark interior of the earth, and Melody continues: “But Mr. Kelso also told me that the secret of his whiskey’s extraordinary flavor and lightness, as it is in the case of every single-malt, lies in his water, which is drawn by hand from these deep limestone caves. He calls his water ‘the sweetest water you’ll ever taste on God’s green earth.’ I tasted some, and I had to agree.… And now the shot of the hillsides.…”

  He finds the shot, inserts it: pine-clad hills. “But there’s more to this water of Ballachulish than just the deep limestone caves,” she says. “The rainwater that has been gathering in these caverns for centuries is first filtered through a thick blanket of pine needles. In some places on these hills the blanket of pine needles is more than three feet thick … Now the close-up of those pine needles …”

  He finds that, pine needles adrift like golden snow.

  “… And very slippery. I know, because I tried to climb those hills.… And now the shot of you landing on your fanny in the pine needles.…”

  He finds it, and she laughs and claps her hands. “Pause for laughter. I like it, don’t you?”

  “I love it!” he says.

  “And now a close-up of Mr. Kelso’s whiskey in the glass. But it was when I tasted Mr. Kelso’s whiskey …”

  “Melody, we’ve got to get all this down on paper.”

  “All I need is a typewriter.”

  “I’ll have one sent up.”

  “And paper, of course. Or do you want it on cue cards?”

  “Cue cards maybe?”

  “That could be risky. You’ll be standing at a lectern. If you drop one, or get one out of place, then you’ll be all fouled up. I think a triple-spaced script would be better.”

  “You’re right. Melody, you’re certainly going to be earning your credit for your winter work period.” He studies her. She is wearing a slim blue skirt, to the knee, a matching cashmere sweater, the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, a gold circle pin, and her dark hair is pulled back in a simple ponytail. “You know, it’s funny,” he says.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You don’t look like a Bennington girl.”

  She laughs. “What’s a Bennington girl look like?”

  “From the ones I’ve seen on campus, it’s jeans, battle jackets, knapsacks, boots and Reeboks. It’s either grunge or long, flowing Mother Hubbards. And little felt hats.”

  She laughs again. “Those’re for the heavier girls,” she says. “It’s the heavier girls who go in for muumuus. Remember, I’m an actress. You dress for the part. You dress for the casting call. If the part calls for a slut, I dress like one of those girls hanging around your hospitality suite. But for this assignment I decided I’d dress like someone’s executive secretary. Anyway, I’ll have your script typed up for you by the time you get back from this morning’s meeting.”

  He frowns. “Following this meeting there’s a lunch.”

  “After the lunch, then. Whatever.”

  “And after the lunch I’ve got two more meetings, back to back. I told you I wouldn’t have much time to spend with you this week, Mellie.”

  “That’s all right. Whenever you get back here, I’ll have a draft of the script ready for you to look over.”

  “And, at six o’clock, I’ve invited some people up here for drinks.”

  “Don’t worry. By six o’clock you won’t find hide nor hair of me. Not even the typewriter. Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless when I finish, you’d rather I just hopped on a bus back to New York,” she says. “The way you said last night.”

  He hesitates, looking at the square of carpet between his feet. “No, I don’t want you to do that,” he says. “By about nine o’clock I should be free.”

  “All right. I’ll phone the room at nine o’clock.”

  “And then we—”

  “Can have a bite to eat.”

  “Chicken sandwiches.” He sits down again.

  “Our chicken sandwiches. Have you ever seen the movie Brief Encounter, Noah?”

  “No.”

  “Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard. David Lean directed. It’s about two people, neither of them free, who meet and have a—w
ell, that’s the title of the film.”

  “Brief encounter. Mellie, I—”

  She holds up her hand. “Don’t say it. I think I know what you’re going to say, but I don’t want to hear you say it.” She glances at her watch. “You’d better hurry and finish dressing, Noah, or you’ll be late for your meeting.”

  He rises and looks down at her as she sits, very still, on the sofa, her legs tucked beneath her slim blue skirt.

  Without returning his look, she carefully picks up her coffee cup again and takes a small sip. “And do something about that,” she says. “You can’t go to your meeting in that condition.”

  Now she is saying to him in the darkened bedroom:

  Me? You mean you want to hear about my childhood, and all that? It really wasn’t all that interesting, at least it wasn’t up to a point. At one point it did get interesting, but by then I wasn’t exactly a child anymore.

  As you know, my father works for the State Department. I used to think my father was some kind of god. After all, he worked for the United States government, and in Japan anybody who works for the government is considered very important. A businessman may make more money, but to work for the government is supposed to be this great honor. As a kid it seemed to me we had all sorts of special privileges. The government gave us a car, for instance. We didn’t even have to pay for gas. We could park our car in places that said “No Parking” because our car had diplomatic plates. We could shop at the military post exchange and get lower prices. If my father had to travel for his job, he could fly for free on a navy plane, at least if the navy plane happened to be going where he had to go. If not, the government paid for the travel. There were other little things, discounts and so on, that you get if you work for the U.S. government. It was also considered good that my father was paid in U.S. dollars, not in yen, though for the past few years that hasn’t meant so much. Anyway, I grew up thinking that my parents were the greatest thing since sliced bread. All my Japanese friends were envious of me, and I liked that. I must have been a horrid little snot.

  Later, I found out that my father wasn’t any kind of god at all, and wasn’t even very important. My Japanese school friends were so impressed because we had an autographed photograph of the president of the United States in our living room. Later, I found out that everybody at my father’s level got one of those.