The Penny Pinchers Club (16 page)

“Steve will help you get your energy costs down,” Sherise went on. “He’s good at that stuff. And take a couple of shopping trips with Opal and she’ll show you how to live on dollars a day. That woman feeds and clothes a family of four on what you, alone, take home, Kat. Like I said, count yourself lucky.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, clutching the sheet as if it were the answer to all my prayers. “Thank you, thank you.”

Velma took a bite out of her coffee cake and, wiping her lips, said, “I think our work here is done.”

Heavy footsteps tromped down the stairs. Steve stopped at the step above Libby and said, “By any chance, Kat, does your husband drive an old gold Honda Civic?”

Libby said, “Uh-oh.”

Holy crap! Griff was home . . . and the house was jam-packed with Penny Pinchers.

“You want to tell him now?” Sherise asked. “I mean, about your budget.”

I didn’t know. Running around the room, collecting the bills and rearranging them into the disorderly mess they’d been before, shutting down the computer, my one concern was that line in his email—that he already worried I was suspicious. If he saw me down here going through his stuff, he might admit to having an affair.

I couldn’t take him leaving now. I had to follow Toni’s advice and use this period of limbo to prepare. “Let’s wait,” I said.

Sherise nodded. “Okay. Then what
do
we tell him?”

“I have a few choice words,” Velma said.

“We don’t have to tell him anything.” I crumpled up the napkin and tossed it in the trash. “My mother always did say a hint of mystery sparks up a marriage.”

Though, when I stopped to think of my parents and their regular six P.M. dinners followed by the nightly ritual of the news,
Jeopardy!
, and
Dancing with the Stars
, my mother’s lofty advice seemed downright ludicrous.

Unless Opal said something to him first. . . . Eeep!

Rushing up, I found Griff in the kitchen picking at what was left of Velma’s coffee cake. Steve and Opal were nowhere to be found.

“There you are,” he said jovially, coming over to kiss me on the cheek like he always did. “I had a free afternoon, so I thought I’d come home for lunch.” He kissed me again, this time on the lips . . . and with meaning. It wasn’t lunch he’d come home for, that was for sure.

Over his shoulder, I caught sight of Velma shaking her head.

“You have friends over?” he asked, nodding at Libby.

“Uh-huh. Griff, this is Sherise and this is Velma.”

Sherise and Velma nodded as politely as they could manage.

“Nice to meet you,” Griff said, squinting, as if trying to place them. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Kat mention you before.”

“That’s because we just met,” Velma said. “Well, we better get going. I assume Opal’s waiting in the van.”

“I think she might be,” he said, his usual helpful self. “Tall woman. Purple kerchief . . .”

“Behind the wheel of the van?” Velma shot him a finger. “You should be a detective, Mister. Bye, Kat.”

I waved good-bye to them and thanked them for coming over and . . . for everything. I wanted to tell them they were angels, that they had single-handedly endowed me with the courage to face my fears, but Griff was there, so I couldn’t. Somehow, though, they knew. I could read it in their smile and warm handshakes.

When they were gone, Griff shoved his hands in his pockets and said, “They seem nice.” It was killing him, absolutely killing him that I refused to provide any context. “A kind of diverse bunch. Friends of Libby’s, are they?”

“You got it.”

Then I turned and went upstairs to the bathroom where, for the first time since I’d found the emails, I sat on the edge of the tub and had a good laugh.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

A
fter the Penny Pincher audit, I was CHARGED!

I was as motivated as a wayward stripper who’d seen the light at her first tent revival and was ready to put on her Sunday go-to-meeting dress to proclaim the Good News! I could not wait to begin my new journey down the path of frugality.

Right off the top, I conceived of a dozen easy changes that would bring me closer to saving $500 a week. Canceling the cable completely—not just HBO—was a no-brainer. Laura might balk about missing
South Park
and Griff would be bummed that he couldn’t watch basketball this winter, but I was confident that he, being an intellectual academician and nature lover, would applaud the move. Honestly, did we really need to pay to watch British Chihuahuas with bed-wetting disorders on Animal Planet or sub-IQ humans crash motorbikes on truTV?

As for the Internet,Velma—who turned out to be a bit of a cyber geek—suggested approaching the neighbors and sharing a wireless connection. BRILLIANT IDEA! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Or Griff? It was so stupid for each of us to be paying these exorbitant bills when wireless technology made communal Internet a snap.

Then there was my Lexus. It would have to go since those $250-a-month car payments were killing us. Better to buy an Elantra or a used diesel car I could have retrofitted to burn vegetable oil from McDonald’s. (Libby suggested I hit up Wade, who apparently had ties to the underground “Mazola cartel.”)

Netflix was gone, to be substituted with movies rented from the library. Ditto for my cell phone. Yes, one might argue cell phones were necessities now that all the old pay phones had been ripped out and, therefore, if I got a flat in the backwoods of New Jersey or an inner-city neighborhood harboring . . .

Okay. I’d keep the cell phone, I decided, but the landline was outta there. An instant savings of at least $600 a year.

That said, there were a few big-ticket items I unfortunately had to buy. There were the glass containers Opal recommended, along with a pressure cooker so it wouldn’t take days to cook the hard dried beans I’d keep in them. Since I had a job that required me to be out of the house, she also suggested a bread maker in which I would mix the ingredients, set the timer, and come home to freshly baked bread. Just like food that came in boxes, Opal did not trust food that came in chemically manufactured plastic bags. And that included bread.

Then, of course, there was the deep freeze. Steve said he could get a sixteen-cubic-foot freezer off Craigslist for under $100. I had no clue what I’d do with a freezer that large until Opal explained I could use it to store tomato sauce and vegetables freshly picked from my garden. Which might have made sense if I’d
had
a garden. Since my patch of a few withered tomato plants could hardly qualify, Opal said she’d help me with that, too.

Unfortunately, I’d forgotten to take into account how Griff would react to all this.

Two weeks after my Penny Pinchers audit, he strolled into the kitchen earlier than I expected and nearly tripped over the bread maker box. “What is all this stuff? And why is there a ‘For Sale’ sign on the Lexus?”

Uh-oh. I hadn’t planned on telling him about my budget so soon, not until I got my first check from the work I did for Madeleine Granville. Then I planned on sitting him down and laying out my plans to start my own interior design business, gradually building up enough clients so I could finally tell Chloe to kiss off. I’d also use Madeleine’s check as an excuse to explain why I felt it necessary to open my own bank account that, unbeknownst to him, would be used to not only finance my business, but also my life after he asked for a divorce.

“Because . . . ,” I began, stalling, remembering there is no more effective lie than the truth, “I’m going on a penny-pinching program.”

“Are you now?” His lips twitched. “And how, pray tell, does a penny-pinching program necessitate you cleaning out half of Bed, Bath and Beyond?” He eyed the brand-new Cuisinart pressure cooker.

“You gotta spend money to make money.”

“Oh, I think you got that down—the spending part, that is. The question is . . . how does that make money?”

He wasn’t taking me seriously. Just like Viv, who’d burst out laughing when I proudly announced that we would live on $200 a week, he thought this was just another one of my phases. Like the time I wanted to raise llamas and sell the wool.

“I know you don’t believe me, Griff. But I mean it.” I plunked a bunch of dried spaghetti into a glass jar, getting so aggravated by his persistent smile that I started talking off the top of my head. “I’ve got a plan for us to start saving $500 a week so that by the time Laura graduates, I’ll have $16,000 of my own.”

Griff quit smiling. “Why would you need $16,000? And why by Laura’s graduation?”

Shoot. I’d practically let it out of the bag. He cocked his head and was about to ask me something else when I jumped in and said, “For Laura’s college, of course. You know we have absolutely nothing set aside for her.”

“You don’t!”

Laura was at the kitchen door holding a venti iced mocha, her lips wearing a whipped cream mustache of shock. “You guys don’t have a college savings plan for me?”

This was our gravest shame, that we’d never socked away money like other parents had—our own included. Not that we didn’t try. We did. Just that whenever an unexpected expense arose—car repairs, new flashing for the roof, a new furnace—we dipped into that fund. Then, as we got closer to college and saw tuition rise to $40,000 and above, we figured, screw it. What middle-class family already absorbing the costs of raising kids was able to save $320,000 along with plowing money into an IRA for retirement?

“There’s no point in saving money for college,” Griff said, far more somber than he’d been minutes before when he was laughing at my penny-pinching plan. “It’s a joke. The schools only count it against you when they’re putting together their financial aid, anyway.”

“But all my friends have college savings plans. Sylvie’s parents started it when they found out they were
pregnant
with her. That’s how much they cared.”

We didn’t know what to say. When I was pregnant with Laura, we were having enough struggles trying to pay the rent while Griff finished up his PhD.

“Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” he said, giving her a fatherly pat on the back. “This is your mother’s and my problem, not yours.”

I loved Griff at that moment. I loved him because he was calm and in control—and he was my ally in the strange war that occasionally erupts between parents and their teenage children. It was too bad he wanted out when our best years were ahead, just the two of us. At last.

“Besides, you shouldn’t have everything handed to you, kiddo.” I told her about Sherise, who’d awakened to a cruel reality when she discovered in her twenties that she needed to support herself instead of forever relying on her parents.

“I have a job, Mom.”

The guilt I felt when she said that made me want to crawl under a rock.

“Good. ’Cause you’ll need every dime.”

Turning to me, Griff said, “Kat, don’t you think we should talk about this in private?”

Griff had been raised in one of those starched families where money was never discussed, like sex and religion. But having had my eyes opened by Sherise’s life story, I disagreed.

“Actually, I think Laura needs to understand money and she needs to hear this.” I picked the venti iced mocha out of her hands. “You spent at least five bucks on this drink. That’s a waste.”

“It’s my own money,” she protested.

“Exactly. Which is why you need to hear what I have to say. You, too, Griff.”

I could tell by the way the lines were creasing between his brows that my abrupt bossiness had him concerned. Money was our marital bogeyman and he had been conditioned, as had I, to avoid addressing it whenever possible.

“Geesh, Kat. I’ve had one hell of a shitty day. That’s why I came home early, to relax. Can’t this wait?”

“No, it can’t, because there’s something I’ve needed to say for a long, long time.” I took a deep breath. Laura sat on the couch, hands clasped in her lap, her mouth open. “I’m . . . sorry.”

“Sorry?” Griff shrugged. “What are you sorry for? Our decision not to save for Laura’s college was mutual.”

Laura turned to him. “You made a
decision
not to save for college? I mean . . . that was something you did
intentionally
so, what . . . so you could redo the basement? I thought you lost money in the market crash like everyone else.”

“That, too.” Griff winced. This conversation was killing him.

I wanted to tell her now was not the time, that there were moments when children were better not seen
and
heard, but I figured I’d already earned enough strikes as a bad parent that afternoon. “It has nothing to do with your college saving, at least not directly. My apology is directed at Griff.” I pointed to him. “Your father.”

He said, “Really?”

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a careless spender. But mostly, I’m sorry to have burdened you with handling all the finances and for behaving like a baby when you grilled me about the Visa bill.”

“Wow.” Laura reached for her mocha and took a slurp. “Never thought I’d live in this house long enough to see this.”

“I know I’ve spent a lot while you’ve scrimped to offset my costs. I know that, coming home today and seeing the pressure cooker and new bread maker . . .”

“You bought a bread maker? Bread costs a buck fifty a loaf! Why would you need a machine?” He got up and went to the bread maker, turned it around, and frowned. “It’s huge and hideous and it’ll clutter up our kitchen until we finally throw it away, like that damned chiminea. How much did it cost?”

I was hurt. I so wanted him to be grateful for my apology and proud that I was at last taking control.

“Two hundred, but . . .”

“Two hundred bucks?
That’s
your idea of a penny-pinching program?”

“For your information, a loaf of good bread costs more like three dollars, and, yes, that’s my idea of saving. You’ll see.”