How I Paid for College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater

by Acito, Marc

  “What would you like to sing, dear?” asks the perpetually cheerful Miss Tinker, as she pulls out a stack of Broadway vocal selections.

  “I'm going to sing Je ne regrette rien,” Ziba says, as if she were announcing it in a nightclub.

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Tinker says, “I'm afraid I don't have the music for that one.”

  “That's all right. I don't need it,” Ziba says and then, leaning against the piano and tilting her head up like she's Marlene Dietrich searching for her key light, she begins to make a sound that can only be described as a braying cow with a head cold.

  “N-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-on rien de rien . . .”

  Miss Tinker valiantly tries to maintain her Romper Room–lady smile for encouragement, but she obviously doesn't know what to make of this strange girl. I must say, though, that what Ziba lacks in vocal talent she sure makes up for in commitment. It's a very dogmatic interpretation, kind of how you'd imagine Mussolini would sing.

  “That was very . . . original,” Miss Tinker says when Ziba finishes, “though I'm not sure you're really old enough to sing about regret, dear.”

  “That's what you think,” Ziba mutters.

  Miss Tinker tells her that unfortunately there's no room in the soprano or alto sections, but Ziba informs her she'd much rather sing with the boys anyway. Unorthodox as it may be, even Miss Tinker has to admit that we could always use tenors.

  Natie keeps a watchful eye across the street to see when Al and Dagmar go out together. The first step in his supposedly simple plan requires us breaking and entering into my old house to get at Al's financial records. Of course, it's actually unlocking and entering, which, as we've discussed before, isn't a crime, as far as we know.

  When Natie finally calls I'm alone at Kathleen's without a car; Kelly's been taking the Wagon Ho even though she hates to drive, just to spite me. I go out to the garage to see if I can find a bicycle.

  Now it's a funny thing about people with old money. They seem to take pride in having old stuff, even if that stuff is old crap. So, unlike the garages at my house or Natie's, which are spacious, well-lit, two-car deals, Kathleen's garage is more like an abandoned garden shed where you'd expect to find a key hidden under a flower pot in an Agatha Christie mystery. No one even parks in it. After struggling to open the antique door and then bumping my head on a kayak hanging from the ceiling, I scrounge around in the dark until I find a creaky old bike that looks like it was last used when Miss Gulch tried to bring Toto to the sheriff. It's a humiliating mode of transport, but it's all I've got. I make my way slowly on the icy streets, almost getting run off the road by a couple of assholes in a TransAm who roll down their window to mock me for riding a bike that has a wicker basket with plastic appliqué daisies on it.

  I arrive at Natie's both sweaty and freezing. I ring the bell and hear Fran scream, “SOMEONE'S AT THE DOOR!”

  Natie answers it. He's dressed in black pants, black turtleneck, and a black woolly cap. He looks less like a burglar than a big charcoal briquette. “Jeez, what took you so long?” he says.

  “You know, if you actually bothered to get your license you could have picked me up,” I gasp.

  Natie shrugs. “Some of us are meant to drive, others are meant to be driven.” He glances at Miss Gulch's bike. “Hide that thing behind the hedge, will ya'? You're lowering the property values.”

  Then he turns and shouts, “HEY MA, EDWARD AND I ARE GOING TO BREAK INTO HIS HOUSE NOW.”

  “WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?” Fran screams from the other room.

  This is why I couldn't have lived here.

  “WE'RE GOING TO EMBEZZLE SOME MONEY FROM HIS DAD TO PAY FOR EDWARD'S COLLEGE,” Natie shouts.

  From another part of the house I hear Stan Nudelman shout, “WHAT ARE YOU BOYS UP TO?”

  “THEY'RE GOING TO BREAK INTO EDWARD'S HOUSE TO EMBEZZLE MONEY FROM AL TO PAY FOR EDWARD'S COLLEGE,” Fran shouts.

  Stan laughs. “YOU KIDS,” he says.

  As far as Fran and Stan Nudelman are concerned Natie can do no wrong, which is why he possesses so much self-confidence despite the fact that he's a total cheesehead. Over time Natie has discovered that rather than lie to his parents about his various nefarious schemes, he might as well tell the truth because they refuse to believe he's capable of doing such things anyway. Which is how we find ourselves slinking across the street to Al's house with Fran and Stan's blessing.

  It's only been a month since I left, but the house feels foreign and strange to me, as if I've never lived in it at all, which, of course, is exactly what Dagmar wanted. Natie and I creep down the hallway to Al's study, our feet echoing on the carpetless floors. I suppose the creeping isn't really necessary, but it just seems like the thing to do. We skulk into Al's office and Natie holds the flashlight while I open the drawers of the desk, hunting for checkbooks. There are files marked “Insurance,” “Investments,” “Receipts,” and “Taxes,” among others, but the actual bankbooks are nowhere to be found. I start to wish I had paid more attention during those boring-ass business dinners.

  “I thought you said you knew where all this stuff was kept,” Natie whispers.

  “I thought I did,” I whisper back.

  “Well, it's not there now,” he hisses.

  “Why are we whispering? Nobody's here.”

  “Right,” says Natie. “Okay, let's think. If you were Al, what would you do?”

  What would I do if I were Al? Get a better haircut, for starters. C'mon, Edward, think, think. I try to imagine I've been cast in the role of my father and it's my job to figure out his motivation, but I can't even conceive of how my father thinks. If I were Al, I'd want to be, well, more like me: an artist, not a businessman. Now if it were Dagmar's checkbook, that would be a different story . . .

  That's when I remember my evil stepmonster's secret bank account. “C'mon,” I say, and lead Natie back down the hall and into Dagmar's studio.

  The walls are lined with contact sheets and works in progress—photos of toxic waste sites, canneries, and a Dumpster behind a Dairy Queen—and I find myself thinking how strange it is that such a compulsively neat woman would photograph such filthy places. Mixed in are some exceedingly silly fashion shots of Dagmar from her days as a model.

  “What are we doing in here?” Natie asks, peering at a picture of a dead squirrel.

  “You remember the account that Doug said Dagmar was using to siphon off Al's money?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, if this were your room, and you didn't want Al to find something, where would you hide it?”

  Natie doesn't even need to think about it. “The closet inside the closet!” he says.

  “That's using your Nudelman.”

  Back when Natie and I were kids we sawed a hole inside my closet so we'd have a secret place to hide things like firecrackers and matches. (Natie used to be something of a pyro, although they never proved a thing when that gazebo in the park burned down.) As I got older I used it to stash porn and the occasional bag of weed.

  We push a table out of the way and slide open the closet door. There, hidden behind some rolls of background paper, we see the jagged hole we created ten years ago. I reach in, convinced as always that I'm going to get bitten by a rat, but instead feel something shaped exactly like a bankbook. I pull it out and wave it in the air, nearly knocking over a light stand in the process.

  “Wunderbar!” I cry.

  Natie grabs the book, flips it open to the ledger, and points his flashlight. “There's $12,320 in this account,” he says. “Jeez, Al really is a shit-for-brains pussy-whipped toad.”

  John fucking Gielgud, here I come.

  I hold the flashlight while Natie carefully removes a check from the back of the book, explaining to me that this way Dagmar won't notice the check is missing until after it's too late. “And it's not like she can go tell Al about it because she stole it from him in the first place. It's the perfect crime.”

  We both jump up and down and do a little happy dance. �
��I just need a signature I can forge and we're done,” he says. “Where do you suppose she keeps her canceled checks?”

  I grin. “We don't need canceled checks,” I say. I wave the flashlight around the room at Dagmar's photos. Each one is signed “D. Teufel” in huge letters, like she wanted to be certain everyone knew who did them.

  Natie's button eyes brighten. “Jeez, this is almost too easy,” he says. He does a few practice drafts while I relax on the floor. I lie back, gazing at a still life of moldy bread. For the first time in months I feel completely, totally at peace. I've bought myself a year, a whole year! Natie writes a check for $10,500: ten grand for Juilliard, five hundred for his commission. He leaves the rest in the account in case Dagmar writes a check.

  “Now all we need to do is launder the money and we're done,” Natie says.

  “Okay, explain to me what money laundering is again.”

  “Jeez, Edward, didn't Al teach you anything at those business dinners?”

  He's about to explain when we hear the rumble of the garage door.

  “Shit, they're home!”

  We frantically put the closet back together, knocking our heads together like we're Laurel and Hardy, then make a mad dash down the hall for the front door. But right as we reach the entryway the back door opens. Adrenaline soaring, I grab Natie by the scruff of the neck and pull us both behind the sofa in the furniture museum. My heart is beating so hard it feels like it's banging on my chest to get out, but I feel reasonably safe. No one ever goes in the Museum of Furniture.

  I hear the click of Dagmar's spiky heels on the kitchen linoleum, followed by the sound of Al's keys as they slide across the counter. “I still don't understand what I did wrong this time,” Al says.

  “Vell, if you don't know, I'm certainly not goink to tell you.”

  “That makes no sense. How am I supposed to find out, then?”

  “Oh, you know already.”

  “No, I don't. I really don't.”

  “LIAAAAR!” Dagmar screams.

  I feel Natie flinch next to me. The yelling at the Nudelman's doesn't sound anything like this.

  “You play tsese games to torment me!”

  Al groans. “I don't know what the fuck you're talking about,” he says. “All's I said was ‘Did you have a good time tonight?' and you've been screaming at me ever since.”

  “Goot time? Goot time? I'll show you a goot time.”

  For a split second I worry that this little scene might be some kind of sick prelude to a noisy, angry fuck when I hear the unmistakable sound of glassware being thrown.

  “What're ya' tryin' to do, kill me?” Al yells.

  “No, it is you who are tryink to kill me,” she screams. “How can I create ven I am subject to your rules, your restrictions, your chudgments? I am suffocatink here! Suffocatink!”

  I know how she feels.

  Dagmar starts to wheeze and I hear her grab her asthma inhaler and suck in.

  “You all right?” Al asks.

  “Stay avay from me,” she croaks. I hear the swoop of the keys as they're lifted off the counter, then the clicking of Dagmar's heels on the linoleum.

  “Where are you going now?” Al asks.

  “Avay from you!” she bellows, then slams the door.

  “Crazy bitch,” Al mutters.

  From the garage we hear Dagmar's voice echo, “I heard tsat, azzhuuuull.”

  It's quiet for a long time and I wonder what Al's doing, but I don't dare move. Finally there's the sound of crunching glass as he walks out of the kitchen and around the corner to the entry of the furniture museum. I peek between the couch and the end table and see him standing there, rocking back and forth on his heels and jingling the change in his pockets absentmindedly. He looks old to me. His shoulders sag and he sighs as he slouches over to the liquor cabinet. He pours himself a drink, straight, downs it and then pours another. Can't say I blame him. I knew Dagmar was a monster, but I hadn't realized it had come to this. Al flicks on the stereo and pulls a record off the shelf.

  It's Frank, of course. “That's Life.” A good choice.

  Al roams the room aimlessly, listlessly picking up various pieces of bric-a-brac and putting them down as he sings along. He begins softly at first, but as the music builds, his voice grows stronger and louder and I hear for the first time what my father's singing voice sounds like. He sounds just like me, actually, or I guess I should say I sound just like him. I had no idea. It's a warm and croony sound, and has a real vibrato. I always assumed that I got my talent from my mother, who is the creative one, so it's a real shock to realize I inherited my voice from my dad. Al gives a full Vegas-style performance, and it's really so good I almost want to applaud at the end. But when the song's over, he turns off the stereo and, shoulders sagging again, trudges out of the furniture museum and down the hallway to his bedroom.

  I almost feel sorry for the guy.

  The next day after school Natie and I go to the Wallingford Public Library to do research. We have to walk there because Kelly's off in the Wagon Ho with Doug, no doubt losing her virginity, and by the time we've arrived the place is full of students pretending to work. We wander around looking for a table until we see Ziba by herself in the corner with her Jackie O sunglasses on, as if she were hiding from the paparazzi. A shaft of sunlight falls across her table from a tall library window and as we get closer I can see all the particles of dust floating in the sunbeam. Is that really what the air we breathe looks like? Disgusting. Ziba is concentrating very hard on three open volumes of encyclopedias spread out in front of her.

  We put our backpacks down on the table. “Whatcha doin', Zeeb?” Natie asks.

  She doesn't look up. “Trying to decide which of these articles to plagiarize for American history.”

  “It's best to take a little from each,” Natie says. The voice of experience.

  Ziba takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. “It's useless. There's no way Ms. Toquitz is going to believe I could write anything so dull.” She slams a book closed in frustration. “Persian culture dates back to 3,000 BC,” she says. “As far as I'm concerned, something that happened two hundred years ago isn't history, it's gossip.” She gathers her hair in a bun and sticks a pencil in it to hold it in place. “What are you boys up to?”

  I look at Natie. I'm not sure it's necessarily a good idea to tell anyone we're looking to find the name of someone our age who died as a baby so we can steal his identity.

  “We're looking to find the name of someone our age who died as a baby so we can steal his identity,” Natie says.

  “Oh,” Ziba says like she hears it every day, “need help?” This is what I love most about Ziba: she is completely unshockable. She treats identity theft as if it were a cool elective she couldn't get into because of a scheduling conflict.

  The whole reason we're stealing an identity is so we can launder the money we're draining from Dagmar's account. I just wanted to make the check out to cash, but Natie told me we'd have to cash it at Dagmar's bank and such a large amount would immediately raise questions. By opening a bank account under an assumed identity we can deposit the check into a new account and withdraw it as cash without Dagmar being able to trace it back to us.

  Now in case you've never stolen an identity, here's how it works: you comb the obituaries of your local paper from around the time of your birth and find the name of someone who died in infancy. Then you get a resourceful but unscrupulous friend like Nathan Nudelman to find out the Social Security number for you and forge a new birth certificate.

  Do I have great friends or what?

  Unfortunately, as the three of us sift through the microfiche of back issues of The Towne Crier we discover that infants don't die very often in Wallingford. After three hours of thoroughly depressing reading all we've come up with are three Vietnamese orphans and two Thalidomide babies. Despite being one of the Best Young Actors in America, I think I'm going to have a hard time convincing a bank teller that I am either Asian or th
ree feet tall with flippers instead of arms. While Natie and I argue over the possible use of makeup and prosthetics I notice Ziba lean back from her microfiche machine and wipe a tear from her eye.

  I've never seen Ziba cry before and I rush over like I'm the little Dutch boy who has to plug up the hole in the dike. I kneel down next to her and look at a microfiche of a page from The Towne Crier dated June 11, 1968.

  (Battle Brook) Four-year-old LaChance Jones was killed Tuesday afternoon while playing in her front yard, the innocent victim of a bullet intended for her uncle, Leon Madison, 28, a convicted felon and suspected drug dealer. The identity of the two gunmen hasn't been determined, but Mr. Madison has been held for questioning. The girl's mother, Alicia Jones, 25, was shot in the side as she tried to shield her daughter from the spray of bullets. She is reported to be in stable condition and is expected to recover.