The Penny Pinchers Club

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  “All right. Listen up, folks, here’s the deal.” Ramone hitched up his belt. “The good news is, I’m not charging Mrs. Griffiths with attempted theft, and Agent Wasko’s not going to pursue the federal counts.”

  It was as if a hundred pounds had been lifted off my chest. Thank you, I mouthed to Wasko, who wrinkled his nose, like it was nothing.

  “Mr. Rothschild makes a convincing case that Mrs. Griffiths was only in the E. W. Drummond Dumpster because she’d heard him cry for help, and after her own extremely lengthy description of the events leading up to this incident, we believe her.”

  It was weird the way they referred to me in the third person.

  “However”—Ramone pulled out his ticket book—“the bad news is that I am charging her and you, Mr. Rothschild, with defiant trespassing, New Jersey statute 2C: 18-3b, since her car was on private property after hours despite numerous ‘no trespassing signs’ and since you were in the Dumpster.”

  “Come on, Ramone.” Wade swung his feet off the table. “Defiant trespassing’s a bullshit law and you know it.”

  Wasko fixed him with a glare. “Now, listen,Wade. . . .”

  The door opened and a plump woman with frizzy strawberry-blond hair poked her head around the dispatcher. “Sorry to bother you, but there’s a Liam Novak here. He claims he’s got urgent information about a Mrs. Griffiths. You want me to tell him to wait?”

  Liam? What was he doing here?

  Ramone jutted his chin at me. “Who’s this Novak?”

  “My client.” My heart was thumping in my chest. My mouth was dry. I couldn’t tell if I was excited that he’d come to my rescue or mortified that he’d find me under arrest. “That’s why I was searching for antiques—because he’s redoing his house. It’s a mid-Georgian.”

  “Whatever mid-Georgian means.” Ramone scratched his head and said, “I’ll talk to him,” and walked out, leaving Wasko, Wade, and me in awkward silence.

  “Defiant trespassing,” Wade snorted. “That’s a joke.”

  “That’s thirty days in jail and not more than a $500 fine,” Wasko said. “Doesn’t seem so funny to me.”

  Two minutes later Ramone returned, motioned for Wasko to join him, and they both left. As soon as they were gone,Wade covered his mouth—I supposed so no one on the other side of the two-way mirror could read his lips. “Who’s Novak?”

  “A friend . . .”

  He placed my hand over my mouth and motioned for me to continue.

  “A friend and client of my design business. He’s the one on the hunt for antiques.”

  Wade said, “Is that it? What’s he do for a living?”

  “He’s the CEO of PharMax.”

  Wade scrunched up his face, trying to connect the dots. “That’s bizarre.”

  It was bizarre. In fact, the whole morning had been bizarre, starting with raiding grocery store refuse in the fog, to being questioned for hours by the feds, to Liam advocating for my release. For one, I was glad Griff was out of town, even if he was with Bree. He’d never have understood why my ex had come to my rescue.

  After what seemed like hours, though it was in all likelihood only minutes, the door opened and Ramone said casually, “Yeah, you two can go.”

  Wade hopped up, no questions asked, and split. I, on the other hand, was frozen to the table in shock. “What happened?”

  “Your charges were reduced to simple trespassing and they’ll probably be dropped after the prosecutor gets hold of the case.” Ramone waved me out like a traffic cop. “Come on. Don’t you want to go home?”

  No, actually, I didn’t because I knew as soon as I walked out that door Liam would be waiting for me and I was a mess. “How do I look?” I asked, smoothing a strand of hair behind my ear.

  Ramone was put off by the question.“I don’t know....You look like you got caught raiding trash. That’s how you look.”

  Bravely, I pasted on a confident smile and exited. Yup. There wereViv and Steve, standing impatiently as if itching to be somewhere else, and there was Liam in his Barbour, a white scarf casually and way too debonairly thrown around his neck.

  “Thank you for whatever you did,” I said. “But how did you know to come?”

  Liam cocked his chin to Viv. “Viv called me. Something about you getting in trouble with the police because you were on the hunt for antiques and a group called the Penny Pinchers. I came as fast as I could.” His gaze dropped from my greasy hair to my bloodstained shirt and jeans and returned to meet my eyes with a look of pity. “Poor kid.”

  Poor kid. A favorite phrase of Liam’s I hadn’t heard in years.

  “Excuse me.” Viv gave Liam a look of gratitude before turning to me. “I just want to know if you’re free to go. Because, if you don’t mind, Steve and I want to step out for a cup of coffee. His break ends in ten minutes.”

  “I’m going to show your sister this new coffee shop,” he added, as if he needed to justify their impromptu date.

  “Go ahead, go ahead. I just want to go home and take a bath, anyway.”

  Viv sighed and came over to give me a kiss on a cheek, a not-so-subtle attempt to hide her whispered words of advice. “Be careful, Kat. You’re kind of vulnerable these days.”

  Spinning around, she hooked her arm in Steve’s, an inch or so shorter than he. At five foot nine inches, Viv’s greatest obstacle to finding love had been finding a man who didn’t need to wear elevator shoes. Steve had passed the first test.

  When they were out the door, Liam said, “You’re not going home.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you don’t have a car, for one thing.”

  “Yes, I do.” I gestured out the window to my trusty Corolla.

  Liam, an inveterate snob when it came to such things, turned a pale shade of green. “That’s your car? That does not seem Kat Popalaski’s style at all.”

  He used my maiden name! “I used to drive a Lexus, but then I traded it in for this right before Christmas.”

  “Because ...”

  “Because,” I began, remembering the Penny Pinchers mantra that there was no shame in being frugal, “because I didn’t want to spend $250 in monthly car payments.”

  Liam remained stock-still. “No husband, no quality wheels,” he said. “We need to talk. Alone.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Liam boldly took my hand and led me out the police department double-glass doors into the misting rain. That was just like him to step in and take control. Next, he’d be ordering my entrees and making my dental appointments like he used to.

  “Here.” His BMW was parked illegally in a space reserved for cop cars. In a million years, Griff never would have done such a thing.

  I got in and slammed the door with the impressive thud of German engineering. Ah, luxury, I thought, running my hand over the buttery seats, drinking in the smell of fine leather. Oh, how I’ve missed you.

  Liam started up the car, reversing and stepping on the gas like we were hightailing it out of Dodge. “Unbelievable.” He brushed his bangs to one side and checked the rearview. “For them to interrogate you like that for two hours for trespassing. It’s harassment.”

  “Well, it was a Dumpster for a high-security firm.”

  “That’s no excuse. They only treated you that way because you didn’t have a lawyer.” He hooked a right with one finger on the wheel. “Though, I gotta say, Kat, what the hell were you doing in some company’s trash to begin with? Yeah, yeah. I know about the search for antiques. Viv said you did it for me, which was why I rushed down here with enough cash to bail you out for murder. But I don’t want someone else’s trash. It’s not like I’m lacking in resources to buy what I want.”

  He wasn’t getting it. Dumpster diving was a chase, a pursuit. The brief thrill I’d had from trespassing and lusting after Wade’s booty from the Shop-N-Buy must be, on a larger and cruel scale, what big-game hunters experienced on a safari. Anyone can buy something—meat, antiques—but finding it in the wild? Ahh, that wa
s the ticket.

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said, looking out the window at my town as Liam whizzed past the turnoff to our development. “Where are we going?”

  “To my house so you can clean up and I can do a little interrogating myself.”

  I gave him a look.

  “That’s right—interrogation. My brief discussion with your sister while you were in that room was very revealing, as was that Toyota.” He braked hard at a red light. “You’ve been lying to me, Kat.”

  “Don’t take it personally.” I’ve been lying to everyone.

  “First, let’s get you to my house and out of those clothes. . . .” He slapped his forehead. “I mean, into some new clothes while those wash. Also, after going through garbage, you kind of . . .”

  “Stink?”

  He shrugged.

  Great. How positively, ultimately humiliating. So much for the dyed hair and polished nails and trying to impress the ex. Liam had seen right through me. Or, rather, smelled.

  The implications of visiting the house of an ex-boyfriend to shower and talk while my husband was out of town were not lost on my tired brain. It had been dangerous enough agreeing to work for him and letting him set up a line of credit while telling Griff none of this. But visiting his home on a nonprofessional basis was one step over a very important line.

  There were no showers on the first floor, so I followed Liam up the narrow stairs to a guest bathroom. He handed me a couple of towels and stood outside the door so I could toss him my sweatshirt and jeans; I hoped he wouldn’t be nosy enough to check the size on the waistband.

  Warm water and soap were exactly what the doctor ordered. I shampooed and toweled off, feeling like a new woman. When I got out, I found a maroon terry cloth robe slung over the counter, along with a pair of socks. He’d come into the bathroom while I was in the shower and put them there.

  This was wrong. Really wrong.

  But if Liam shared my concerns, he didn’t show it. I found him in the kitchen wearing a plaid flannel shirt and jeans at the stove mixing scrambled eggs as casual as could be. Coffee was being brewed, a cantaloupe was sliced on a cutting board, and the sports section of the Trentonian was folded and propped up against the toaster. We could have been any other couple on a lazy Sunday, except I was married and he was not.

  “A late brunch,” he said, smiling at my robe. “Feel better?”

  “A thousand times.” I sat on a high wooden stool and took in the kitchen with its outdated cherry cabinets and oversized soapstone sink, a leftover from when this house used to work as a farm. This was going to be the biggest part of the renovation and one we planned on saving for this summer, when Liam could take off a month to spend at his family’s compound in Avalon.

  He poured me a cup of coffee, adding a splash of milk and about three grains of sugar. “You remembered?” I exclaimed as he slid it to me.

  “Hard to forget, Kat. I never met another woman who was so persnickety about her coffee.”

  I had already noticed two cups in the sink from this morning. Also, a pink razor in the bathroom. Women were so crafty the way they marked their territory.

  “But,” I said, “you have met other women.”

  He turned off the stove. “You know me. I’m not the type to kiss and tell.”

  “That’s a relief.” I went over to the drawer and took out two forks. Liam insisted on cloth napkins, instead of paper, which I found in a tidy stack in another drawer. A woman’s touch? Or had my ex, who’d been known to toss his old socks so carelessly that they could be found on light fixtures, changed his bachelor ways? Perhaps his neatness was Paige’s influence.

  I set the thick pine table and Liam brought over the plates. We were working in perfect synchronicity until he surprised me with a pitcher of fresh orange juice and a bottle of champagne.

  “To celebrate your emancipation,” he said, popping the cork, holding the bottle away from his body as the foam exploded over the rim. “Also, I thought it might be welcomed after the day you’ve had.”

  The champagne was incredibly thoughtful and incredibly Liam. When we were dating, he was forever pulling rabbits out of the hat like this—roses sent to me at work for no reason, a private masseuse at my door after a stressful week. He’d spoiled me forever, I thought as he mixed the mimosas. I needed to make sure I didn’t slip into the shrewish habit of comparing him to Griff.

  “To you!” He lifted the orange juice and champagne. “And what I hope will be the end of your trash obsession.”

  If he only knew how fun Dumpster diving could be, I thought, taking a sip. It was delicious and swiftly intoxicating. In the course of becoming a Penny Pincher, I must have lost my tolerance for bubbly—a sad side effect.

  Across the table, Liam was amused. “Your nose still goes red right away.”

  “Pardon?” I put down my glass and, starved, took a bite of the eggs.

  “Only with champagne, nothing else. One sip and you’re like Rudolph.”

  “Oh!” I said, horrified. “That’s awful.”

  “It’s not awful. It’s adorable.” Liam buttered his toast.

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Hasn’t Griff ever noticed that?”

  “If he did, he never told me.” I delicately bit into a piece of melon. “Then again, it’s not like we drink a lot of champagne.”

  I should have been more mindful. Liam took advantage of that thoughtless aside to probe into my affairs further. “Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.”

  Uh-oh. I pretended to become very fascinated with the china pattern on the saucer.

  “Viv tells me that the way you ended up in Drummond’s trash is that you’re a . . . Penny Pincher.”

  “That’s right. It’s a club. The Rocky River Penny Pinchers Club.” I figured if I made it sound as innocent as a book group, he’d let it drop. “Which reminds me. Have you considered bar iron penny nails in the wood floors? Very authentic for the time period.”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” He wagged his finger. “You’re not getting off that easily, Popalaski.” Holding up his hand, he ticked off the evidence against me. “You raid a Dumpster. You’re part of some coupon-clipping group that meets in the bottom of the library. You’ve traded your Lexus for a Toyota, and”—he frowned—“your husband doesn’t meet you at the police station.”

  We regarded each other evenly in a match of resolve. Liam, an expert negotiator, would not be the first to declare uncle. That much I knew.

  I said, “So?”

  “So, you gave me the impression that you were happy.”

  I poked at my toast, now dry and cold. “Look, Liam, just because I don’t guzzle champagne or go around burning gas in an M3 doesn’t mean we’re not happy. We’re regular people, Griff and I, and we have a daughter to put through college. So, yes, I’m on”—I rolled my eyes—“a budget.”

  “You?” His shoulders heaved. “A budget?”

  “Why not?” I dropped the toast on the plate. “For your information, I’m doing quite well. I’ve got my spending under control, I’ve got several thousand—more than several thousand—saved and, thanks to you, I’m starting my own business.”

  “Congratulations. But I didn’t ask how your finances were going.” He paused, grinning. “I asked if you were happy.”

  “Of course. Of course I’m happy.” Was it hot in here? It certainly felt like a furnace, I thought, loosening the heavy robe. I wanted to ask when my clothes would be out of the dryer so he could drive me to my car and I could be free of my second interrogation of the day.

  Liam sat back, tenting his fingers, trying to decide whether to pursue this line of questioning further. “Then what about Griff?”

  “Griff didn’t come to the police department because he’s in D.C. doing research for this book he’s writing on the Federal Reserve. I guess it’s kind of like an exposé of where they went wrong, if the Fed was responsible for the economic crisis, et cetera, et cetera.” I rolled my hand, figuring if I kept bab
bling he’d quit pestering me about my so-called happiness. “You understand. Business school stuff.”

  “So, it’s more of an academic treatise than nonfiction for business travelers?”

  “Strictly small university press.”

  “You know, a small university press pays shit while a major publisher willing to promote a book that could get on the NewYork Times nonfiction bestseller list could help put Laura through NYU.”

  “It’s not set in stone that this will be a small press book. For example, it won’t be if Griff snags an interview with Hunter Christiansen, though that’s a long shot. The man hasn’t given an interview since he stepped down as chair of the Federal Reserve and, apparently, has decided to publish his memoir posthumously. Super secretive. I don’t know if you know about this Christiansen . . .”

  “Actually, I talked to him just last week.”

  I nearly choked on my coffee. “Get out.”

  “No, really. I tapped him to be on this Wharton alum board I oversee. Hunter’s a great guy. He got a bum rap back when he was at the Fed.”

  “That’s what Griff thinks, too.”

  “Then we agree on something. I mean, besides . . . you.”

  My fingers drifted to the opening in the robe that, having loosened for air, I now pinched a little tighter.

  “I don’t want to make this awkward,” he began, fiddling with his spoon. “But, I can’t help but feel somewhat protective of you, Kat. You were my first great love, the woman I was sure I’d raise a family with and sit with on the porch to watch the sun set in our golden years.”

  I swallowed back a torrent of emotions, thinking of how many hopes he’d invested in me—and how I’d dashed them on that beach in Avalon. Now was not the time to break down, not while we were alone and I was so vulnerable, as Viv had wisely noted.

  “Liam . . .”

  “Please. Let me say it and then I’ll shut up. The thing is, I may be totally off base, but I sense a sort of dissatisfaction inside you, like life didn’t turn out the way you expected. Maybe as someone who feels the same way, I can sense disappointment and regret in another person, especially in someone whom I once loved and of whom I remain very fond.”