Breaking the Bank (23 page)

The second time was better—slower, less rushed. He had a nice smell to him, she decided. Still, when it was over, Mia had the powerful urge to cry. She didn't give in to it though; it would only hurt him, and she wouldn't feel any better.

“Hey,” Fred said, tracing a finger down her spine. “Where'd you go?”

“Sorry,” she said. “Everything's catching up with me, I guess.” She raked her hands through her hair. “What a night.”

“It must have been creepy to have them going over all your stuff.”

“Don't ask,” she said. “They found everything, and I do mean everything.” Abruptly, she got up, pawed through a drawer, and handed Fred the blue velvet bag.

“What's this?”

“Go on, have a look.”

When he pulled out the vibrator, he grinned. “This, too, huh?”

She nodded. “You're funny, you know?”

“Funny ha-ha, or funny strange?”

“Both.”

“Should I be insulted?”

“No,” said Fred, and he leaned over to kiss her nose. “Not at all.”

“Okay, then. I won't.” She sat up. “We'd better get dressed.” He pulled on his pants while she put on an oversized T-shirt and gathered the clothes she had been wearing earlier. The ruined panties went into the trash. Then she picked up the locket and let it dangle, momentarily, from the broken chain.

“I'm really sorry about that,” Fred said. “Can it be repaired?”

“I'm not sure. I might have to get a new one.”

“Would you let me take a look? Maybe I can fix it.”

Mia placed it in his waiting palm. He examined the break and pulled out his Swiss army knife, the one with a hardware store's worth of tools concealed along with its blade. He tried several of the small, sharp implements, but none seemed to do the trick.

“Sorry,” he said. “I'll spring for a replacement.”

“It's all right,” she said. “Maybe I can take it back to the store where I bought it.” She popped it open, revealing the two blond children. “Maybe you could help me with this though; I've been meaning to take those pictures out.”

“That should be easy.” Fred used the knife's tip to pry the photos out. “Hey, there's an inscription in here.”

“Really? Let me see.”

“The writing is so tiny,” Fred complained. “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

She did and she knew just where to find it. Together, they examined
the engraved script that filled both sides of the locket's interior
. To FB from JK. A gift from one whose name is writ in water. Use it well.

“Sounds sort of poetic,” Fred said. “I wonder who FB and JK were.”

“He called it
Keats's locket,
” Mia said softly, disbelievingly, as she stared at the words through the lens. “But I didn't think he meant it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The man who sold it to me. He said that the locket could have belonged to Keats.”

“I still don't get it,” said Fred. “JK would be John Keats. FB would be Fanny Brawne. The line about his name being writ in water—that's his epitaph. He wrote it before he died.” But what about the words
Use it well
? They weren't part of the epitaph; she was sure of it.

“So you think the locket really did belong to this poet?”

“I really don't know,” Mia said. “If it did, it would be worth of lot of money, right?”

“A
lot
of money,” Mia echoed. “But the inscription doesn't really prove anything. I'd have to find out more about it.”

W
HILE
F
RED WAS
in the bathroom, Mia put the chain in the shoe box with the magic money. She ran her thumb over the circle of gold before closing the lid. John and Fanny? Could it be real? Not likely. But still . . .

“Maybe I should sleep on the love seat,” said Fred when he came back into the room.

“It's pretty small; you won't be very comfortable.” Then she remembered. “I still have Julie's air mattress. That'll work.”

“‘Night,” she said when the bed was all made up. “See you in the morning.”

“Good night.”

She was on her way back to her room when he said, “So really, Mia, what are you going to do?”

She stopped and turned. “I'm not sure.”

“I know you don't want any more recommendations from me, but you've really got to find yourself a lawyer. Soon.”

“That's what I've been working on. All day long. While I was supposed to be focusing on my job.”

“And?”

“Nothing yet. I don't want just anyone.”

“Of course not. But you're going to have to tell a lawyer—any lawyer—the truth about where you got that bill,” said Fred. “No more secrets.”

“Fred!” She hurled a pillow in his general direction. “You promised you wouldn't badger me.”

“That was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I made you mine.”

Made you mine?
Was he kidding? Insane? Mia had to stifle the sound— a cross between a snort and a yelp—that desperately wanted to pop, gremlinlike, out of her mouth. Did he really think that a roll in the hay, or even two, automatically entitled him to some sort of claim on her? She was ready to say all this, too, until she looked at that earnest Boy Scout face of his and realized, yes, that was
exactly
what he thought.

“I'll deal with that when I have to,” was all she said. And then added, “I was even considering”—she paused—”calling my brother.”

“He's a lawyer?”

“Not just a lawyer. A partner.”

“You're on the outs with him, right?”

“Right,” said Mia. “Well, I just want you to find someone who can help you.”

“I know, Fred,” she said gently.

ALONE IN HER room, Mia spied the blue velvet bag still lying on her blanket, and she shoved it as far under the bed as she could.

Then she tried to settle down, but sleep just flat out refused to come. Fred's last remark reminded her of her fruitless, harried day and the dozen phone calls she made, each more dead-ended and frustrating than the last. So the final result was that she still had no lawyer
and
she was behind on the manuscript. And what to make of the inscription on the locket. A hoax? A joke of some kind? But Solly Phelps had been so interested in it; was that because he had guessed something about its provenance? When she went back to the shop to replace the chain, she would ask about it. Maybe Mofchum could tell her more.

The room was too hot, the pillow felt like it was filled with sawdust, her lower back was sore, and her head hurt where she had whacked it into the wall. She got up, cracked the window, and turned over once, twice, a third time. Then she gave the pillow a serious punch. It didn't change anything, but the gesture made her feel better, at least for a minute.

The sharp air from the open window was like a balm, and Mia turned her face toward it. Finally,
finally,
she felt herself starting to unwind. Closing her eyes, she remembered. Sixteen inches of snow, all the schools closed. She and Stuart wading through the thigh-high drifts to get to Central Park, the sled an inert and useless object dragging behind them. But once they arrived, positioned the stubborn thing at the crest of the hill, climbed on, and shot down like a comet, the sled, like the whole, wonderful, white world, came brilliantly alive, sprays of snow and ice-bright crystals rushing all around them. She could taste that ride, the stunning cold, the bite of the wind as it chapped her cheeks and lips and chin; she could taste it even now, thirty years later, and as she surrendered to sleep, she wished to God that she could have it back again.

T
HE JAIL CELL
was a horrid little eight-by-eight cube, and the floor was filthy: obese dust bunnies under the metal beds that were bolted to the wall; a spreading gummy patch over by the stainless-steel toilet; grit crunching underfoot everywhere Mia stepped. It was also cold, a penetrating, invasive cold that seemed to travel up from her bare soles to her very core. Where were her shoes, anyway? How could she have lost them? All of her fear and disgust about actually being in jail were funneled into that question: Where, oh where were her shoes when she needed them most?

She picked her way over to the bottom bunk; the top one was occupied by a small woman whose face was turned away from her. She was talking to herself very quietly, and she seemed to have taken a bath in booze; even from down here, Mia thought she could be in danger of a contact high. But at least she could pull her feet up and under her, which she did.

How did she get here, anyway? She couldn't remember. Maybe she was drunk, too, but she hadn't been drinking—she was quite sure of that. Who brought her? The prizefighter, Costello? Her two boy toys with the rhyming names? Anyway, what about Mia's rights? Her one phone call? She wanted to get up, rattle the bars—if she could stand to touch them, that is—and get a guard's attention. But the floor. The floor! How was she going to navigate that?

Then she had a brilliant idea. She unzipped and then lowered her jeans so that their flared bottoms covered her feet; if she shuffled along slowly, she would be able to reach the bars without actually having to have contact with the floor. Fortunately, her jacket was long enough to
cover her butt, or most of it anyway. Of course she would have to get rid of the jeans the second she got out of here; she would burn them, that's what she would do. Set them ablaze on the fire escape of her apartment and watch them turn to ash. This thought actually buoyed her a bit, and she accelerated her pace until she was almost at the bars when suddenly her left ankle was yanked out from under her and she fell, chin first, to the floor.

Mia tasted blood—she must have bitten her lip—and something else vile that might have been fecal for all she knew. She wanted to boil her tongue. Using her hands for support, she tried to pull herself up, but her ankle felt as if it were caught on or even in something. She struggled, but the, the,
thing
was stronger. Reaching down, she tried to pry it off. It constricted even more tightly. Her fingers grazed something covered in scales and strangely animate, like the limb or body of a reptile. And in that instant, she heard a low but terrible sibilant sound, a menacing little hiss. She screamed, jolting herself awake.

Awake! Thank the living God! She palpated the quilt, the mattress, her own face, filmed over by a slight coating of sweat. Her ankle was tingling, but that, she realized, was from a lack of circulation; she must have been sleeping in some weird position. What a dream. What a horrible dream.

“You okay?” Fred stood in the doorway to the room, scratching the back of his head. “I thought I heard you scream.”

“You did,” she said. “I was having a nightmare.”

“Want to tell Uncle Fred about it?” He came over and sat at the foot of her bed.

“No,” she said, closing her eyes again. “I don't.”

“All right then,” he said. “How about some breakfast? New College Inn? My treat.”

Mia sat up and opened her eyes. Lloyd never would have taken no for an answer. He would have hounded her until she told him every last detail about what she'd dreamed, and then he'd have spent the next
thirty minutes analyzing it. Fred's easy willingness to let it drop was positively liberating—imagine being with a man who didn't want to probe and pick through every single aspect of your existence. Who didn't live with a metaphoric microscope hanging from his neck. She scooted down along the bed and gently put her arms around his neck.

“Breakfast,” she said, “sounds great.”

They dressed, rounded up the girls, and headed for the diner on the corner of Union Street and Fourth Avenue. It was not crowded, and within a minute of their being seated, the waitress appeared with coffee. Mia drained her cup right away and then looked around, hoping to catch the waitress's eye so she could get a refill. Between sex with Fred, who was wrapped in some sort of honeymoon-like postcoital bliss this morning, and that god-awful dream, Mia was ready to go back to sleep.

“I'll have the pancakes, please,” said Kyra, when the waitress appeared again to take their order.

“The same for me,” said Eden, snapping the menu shut. Fred ordered what to Mia sounded like a massive quantity of manly type fare: fried eggs, hash browns, toast, and sausage. Mia, suddenly in sync with Eden's vegetarian stance, was revolted at the thought of it.

“Just the coffee will be fine for me,” she said. Maybe she could avoid looking in his direction when the sausage arrived.

“You're not hungry?” Fred said, his tone threaded with worry. “Yeah, what's up with that, Mom?” said Eden. “You should have something to eat.” How ironic was that, Mia thought.
Eden
coaxing
her
to eat. The waitress waited, pen poised above her pad.

“All right. I'll have an English muffin. Lightly toasted.” Could she take a nap? Right here at the table? But the food arrived quickly enough, and she was able to deflect the attention away from her eating—or rather not eating—and pretty soon they were done.

The four of them stood in front of Mia's building, saying goodbye; Fred had his motorcycle parked around the corner. The two girls
gave each other big, dramatic hugs, while Mia and Fred confined themselves to chaste pecks on the cheek.

“Fred and Kyra are so-o-o awesome,” Eden said as she accompanied Mia into their building. “Can we do that again sometime?”

“We'll see,” said Mia as they mounted the stairs. As she climbed, she had to press her hands against her stomach. All that coffee—and lousy it was, too—was now sloshing and roiling around inside her.

“Mom, where did Fred sleep last night?” Eden asked abruptly. “In the living room. On the air mattress.”

“Oh.”