The shoebox was light, too light to hold even a dainty pair of size sixes. Curious, Gerry pulled it down from the shelf and opened it.
Envelopes with cellophane windows. Bills. Six months of bills. He didn’t know much about bills—what fourteen-year-old boy did?—but he quickly realized these were unpaid.
They don’t make money off of us. They make money off people who don’t pay their bills.
His mother had said that to him once when he was trying to understand why a simple piece of plastic could be substituted for cash, why stores would accept it. In the 1960s, there was a single Baltimore charge card, accepted by all the local department stores. He had hovered at his mother’s elbow, watched the clerk press down on it with the metal machine that looked like a stapler. It made no sense to him. All he understood was his mother’s pride at not being one of the people that the store made money from.
He was fourteen. He wanted to shove the box back on the shelf, continue to look for her chocolate. Instead, he sat at the kitchen table and made neat stacks of bills. She had been using a charge account at Graul’s from time to time; strange, because she seldom shopped at that grocery store despite it being in view of their house. She always claimed it was too expensive. But it was the kind of store that would allow customers to have charge accounts. Bills for clothes, but all for him, and not many because he wore a uniform to Gilman. The car payment. Utilities. C&P Telephone.
It was a school day, late afternoon, the sky gray, a boisterous wind whipping around the house. When his mother came through the kitchen door and saw what he was doing, she didn’t seem particularly surprised. If anything, her reaction seemed to be one of relief.
“Gerry,” she said.
“Get your checkbook, Mother. And your paystubs. I can get us out of this—and make sure it never happens again.”
He did, eventually. He worked out payment plans with those who were owed money, then created a household budget. He also got a job—at Graul’s, as a stock boy, which meant not only did he contribute money to the household, he sometimes was allowed to take home unsellable goods—badly dented cans, cans with missing labels. His mother made a game of concocting dinners from these rejects. They were not particularly good dinners, but he admired what they jokingly called her “can-do” attitude.
And every month, he sat at the kitchen table, filling out the checks and then passing them to his mother to sign. He couldn’t help noticing that his father’s name was still on the account, which worried him to no end.
April
“I GAVE UP MY APARTMENT,” Leenie says.
“What?”
“I told you I couldn’t make the rent without Victoria. Besides, you have all this space here. I told Phylloh that I would be staying here until you’re healed.” She frowns. “She asked me about Victoria. I don’t like her. I think she’s nosy.”
Gerry chills at this pronouncement. Time was, he would have agreed. Now he worries something might happen to her. Curvy, innocent Phylloh, who reminds him of a poppy seed muffin, which is something one’s not supposed to say anymore, but can he at least think it? In his aging body and his aging mind, can he allow himself the thoughts and metaphors and pronouns that were permissible when he was young? Is that so much to ask?
“There’s no spare bedroom,” he says. “As you know, there’s only my office and the little study, with the sleeper sofa.”
“That’s okay. I’ll sleep in your bed. You’re not using it, after all.”
He does not like the idea of Leenie in his bed, for which he is filled with overwhelming nostalgia. One thing Sarah had taught him during their brief marriage was the importance of good sheets and linens. His bed is a basic wooden frame and he doesn’t go in for all those extra pillows that have to be removed at night—what’s the point of pillows that one removes every night?—but he misses his king-size bed. He wants to leave this bulky, ugly hospital bed and go back to his true love. Except—he also never wants to leave this hospital bed. It’s complicated.
“Is this really necessary?”
“I told you, I can’t afford the apartment without Victoria.”
“Not even for another month?”
She shakes her head.
“If you must—you must.” He can buy new sheets, when this is over. Will this ever be over? How does it end?
“Also—may I use your computer?”
This is even more disturbing than the thought of her in his bed.