Going For Broke

by Nina Howard

  “Parker Vernon, please do not speak to your mother --” she stopped herself. “I am quite often in a good mood, thank you.”

  “How was the party last night?” Barbara asked.

  “It was fun, Mom. Really, nice women, lovely martinis...It was great to get out.”

  “Don’t you like being with us?” Posey asked.

  “Of course honey. Sometimes mommies need a little mommy time. Just like you have a play date, so do I.” That answer seemed to placate Posey. Barbara, on the other hand, raised an eyebrow.

  “How did you get home last night?” she asked.

  “Mother, what am I? In 7th grade? It was bad enough that I had to have Bud drop me off. I wasn’t going to call for a ride home.”

  “Were there just women at the party?”

  “Yes? Where are you going with this mother?”

  “Oh, nowhere. I must have been on the wrong track.”

  ###

  It had been a crappy day at the shop. Elise was out, and her husband Dick was filling in for her, which was always more trouble than it was worth. He didn’t know anything about running the shop, and felt compelled to order Victoria around like she was one of his secretaries in the mid 60s. Vicky, could you get me a cup of coffee, Vicky, you need to wash this bedpan that just came in. You can never be too careful. Vicky, there’s someone out front who looks like they might be stealing. Victoria couldn’t imagine how someone as sweet and cheerful as Elise could be married to such a Dick. At least he was aptly named.

  When she pulled her bicycle into the garage, she was tired, and all she wanted to pour herself a big glass of wine. Since she started getting paid, she was able to augment the grocery bill, primarily with bottles of crappy white wine. Maybe that Edna Valley wasn’t so vile after all. She parked her bike and she could hear squeals of laughter coming out of the back yard. The kids must be playing with the dog, she thought. Instead, she found Mike on hands and knees, with a baseball in his mouth. Posey could barely contain herself, she was laughing so hard. Parker would throw the ball across the yard, and Mike would scamper across the yard to fetch it. He would then throw it back to Parker, who was getting quite proficient both in the catching and throwing departments.

  Victoria’s was not amused. It was one thing for Mike to join her and Parker for a game of catch, but quite another for him to be playing with her kids unattended. Surely there was a line that had been crossed. It was bad enough that he followed her around town like a puppy. This was borderline creepy. The three of them stopped cold when they saw her. Parker and Posey knew that look all too well, and stopped playing and stood straight. They knew the look and wanted it to go away. Mike was having too much fun. He barked at her. Fritz echoed him.

  Victoria walked up to Mike and took the ball out of his mouth. Parker tried to explain, but Victoria stopped him before he began.

  “Parker Vernon, haven’t I warned you about talking to strangers? And letting one into our yard?”

  Mike knew enough to stand. The game was clearly over. “Don’t be mad, Vernon. It’s not their fault.”

  She turned on him, eyes like steel. “I know it’s not their fault. I know who’s fault it is. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Mom, that’s what I was trying to explain!” Parker said.

  “Parker, this doesn’t concern you. Take your sister and go inside. I need to talk to ... to the exterminator, here.”

  “We can’t,” Posey said. “We’re locked out.”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Parker sighed as he resolutely sat on the back stairs.

  “Parker, you know where we hide the key,” Victoria said obtusely, not wanting to disclose their high-security hiding place.

  “I looked under the planter and it wasn’t there. I looked everywhere,” he was on the verge of tears.

  “Let me explain,” Mike said gently.

  “You wait right here,” she said to Mike. “Come on kids, let’s get you inside. Where are your backpacks?”

  “We left them at the front door. We were out there for a while,” Parker answered.

  Victoria opened the back door with a jiggle of the key and a firm thrust of her hip. “Okay, get a snack and I’ll be in a minute. Something healthy!” she called as an afterthought.

  She turned back to Mike. “My kids? Really, Mike. It’s bad enough that you tail me constantly, can’t you keep away from my kids?”

  Mike approached her, to try to settle her down. “It wasn’t until they had been sitting by the front door for more than a half hour when I went to them. They both seemed upset. Posey was crying and Parker looked like he wasn’t far behind. It had to be fairly scary for them.”

  “Not as scary as some creepy exterminator coming out of nowhere,” Victoria countered.

  “Parker recognized me right away,” Mike said, explaining away her objection. “Anyway, I thought they’d be happier-- and safer-- if they were in the back yard.”

  “With you?” Victoria wasn’t buying his explanation.

  Mike sheepishly nodded and went on. “Parker asked if I would throw a ball with him while we waited. He seemed so excited. I didn’t want to upset him even more. We were only here for about fifteen minutes.”

  “Even you must know that kids are not supposed to talk to strangers,” she said.

  “I’m not a stranger,” Mike answered. “We were having fun. Don’t take it out on them.”

  “Don’t tell me how to raise my children!” Victoria ranted.

  “Come on,” Mike cajoled. “Don’t get yourself so worked up. Every thing’s fine. Nobody’s hurt.”

  “Nobody is hurt? Really? You have no idea what you’ve done to me, to my children, even to my mother. You have single-handedly ruined all of our lives. Every day I wake up thinking it was all just a bad dream. Then I realize that I’m sleeping in my mother’s guest bed -- a twin bed! -- and that I have to get up to go to work. At a store where they sell clothes that other people have already worn. And that it’s another day that my children have to wake up knowing that they’ve been ripped from their only home. Trust me, Mr. Towner, people have been hurt.”

  “This isn’t about the kids. This is about what happened between us.”

  “Haven’t you done enough, Mr. Towner?”

  “Vivi, I didn’t want to --”

  “But you did. You did this to me. You know what, just stay the hell away from my kids, away from my house - away from me!”

  “Hey, I don’t want to be here any more than you want me to be here. Do you think I really want to spend my days waiting for some thieving asshole to come home to his spoiled wife? A day that I think will never come. And for the record, honey, I don’t think I can blame the guy.”

  Victoria caught her breath. That was below the belt. “We’re done here,” she said, quietly. Mike immediately wished he could take it back. Victoria walked into her house, and never looked back.

  ###

  Parker and Posey stood at the window watching their mother and the nice man talk in the backyard. Their mother was obviously angry, waving her arms all over the place, getting red in the face.

  “Parker, do you think Dad will ever come back?” Posey asked.

  “I don’t know,” he answered. He asked himself that same question every day.

  “Do you think Mommy scared him away?” Posey said.

  “Who knows?” Parker said. He didn’t want to seem like he cared.

  “Do you think she’ll scare away the nice man, too?”

  “I hope not,” Parker answered. “I have baseball tryouts next week.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Riding on the train, Victoria was pouting. Although she had quarreled with Mike the previous afternoon, she was surprised when he didn’t follow her onto the train this morning. She had even grabbed a seat for two, expecting him to show up. Instead, a foul-smelling, heavily sweating businessman had lumbered down the aisle, lighting up when he saw the seat next to Victoria was vacant. She wished she had a larg
e bag to place there to hold the spot, but Old Smeller literally heaved into the seat.

  “Good morning,” he said with a smile that would have been a leer if he didn’t have the remains of his morning bagel still in his teeth. “You heading downtown?”

  No, dumbshit, I’m going to Wisconsin. Of course I’m going downtown. Instead, Victoria gave him the tight-lipped smile she had perfected over the past decade that immediately read don’t. Don’t make small talk, don’t hit on me, don’t sit here if you can help it. Her commuter companion was a quick study. He grunted, then dove into his newspaper. Of course he was reading ‘USA Today’. Loser.

  Victoria didn’t even bring the newspaper, she was used to chatting with Mike. How dare he abandon her? She wanted to get up and find a single seat upstairs, but the train was already packed. Instead, she turned to look out the window and got lost in thought.

  When she was a kid, before her father had died, she and her mother used to take the train downtown to visit him at his office. He was a comptroller for a large law firm. Victoria had always thought that he was a lawyer, and it wasn’t until she was in college that she even knew what a comptroller was. She had been so disappointed that he just was a glorified accountant, and not a great legal mind.

  Back then, ‘downtown’ had been an exotic, yet scary place. In the early 70s, Chicago’s Loop was rough and seedy. The old movie palaces had been turned into meccas for Blaxploitation films, flanked by $4.99 steak joints. The walk from the train to her father’s office terrified her. She was still young enough that her mother made her dress up in her best Marcia Brady dress, knee high socks and Mary Janes. Everyone else had on bright colors, leather jackets and more facial hair than she had ever seen in her life.

  After they had popped in to say hello to her father, they would continue on to their true destination: Marshall Field & Co. When they would enter the doors under the giant clock on State Street, she could feel her mother noticeably relax as they strolled the aisles filled with beautiful things. There was an entire cavernous room dedicated to just makeup and perfume. They’d travel on to the Land of Purses. They’d walk up past the shoe department that spanned the entire third floor and end up in Victoria’s favorite place. The Coat Department.

  Each fall her mother would allow her to get one (only one!) new coat. She could only choose one from the racks and racks of beautiful options. Midi, Maxi, Pea, Swing - it was like asking a mother to choose only one of her children to save. She would try her best to wrangle two coats - something for church and something more sporty, perhaps, though her mother always stood firm. In the end, Victoria would ride the train home, cradling the coat which was encased in the distinctive dark green plastic with the famous signature emblazoned across it.

  Now, of course, Marshall Field’s was gone. It was a Macy’s, God forbid. Even if she could afford to shop retail, you couldn’t pay her to go into a Macy’s. Especially after what they did to her beloved Marshall Fields. The shell was there, but the heart of the store was gone. Not unlike how she was feeling herself.

  Mr. bagel-breath got up as the train stopped, and started to say something to Victoria as a last-ditch effort to make a connection. Again, she flashed the same smile, and again it had its intended effect. If she could trademark that thing, she’d be rich. Again.

  She made it to Mercedes’ without event. She intentionally took a different route today. She wasn’t in the mood to run into Scott Simons again. Prince Charming on the train was enough man for one morning.

  The meeting with Mercedes went well. She didn’t even comment on Victoria’s new hair color. They had a court date, which was something. Residency in Illinois was working for them, in that it would show the court that she was living a separate life. They had not had any contact from Trip - she wondered if they could get Mike to testify to that. If that wouldn’t work, she could just model her new thrift shop wardrobe for the judge.

  As they were wrapping things up, Mercedes looked toward the waiting area.

  “No date today?” she said.

  “Either I’m very proficient at evading the law, or I’m really boring and they just lost interest.” She tried to sound flip, though she was a bit afraid that it was true.

  “Oh,, I don’t think they’re gone. The FBI are like gnats. Just ‘cause you don’t see them doesn’t mean that they’re not there.”

  “Maybe I should get an exterminator,” Victoria said as an inside joke to herself. Mercedes obviously didn’t get it, so she got back to business.

  “Okay, then. The next time we meet, it’ll be in front of a judge. I’m sorry we couldn’t get something on the docket sooner. As it is, September is not bad. Everyone will be back from vacation.”

  “Are you heading anywhere this summer?” Victoria didn’t really care, she was just making smalltalk. She wanted Mercedes to like her.

  Mercedes clapped her hands like a schoolgirl. “I’m so excited! I’m going to New York!”

  ###

  Back on the train, Victoria took the outside seat so she wouldn’t get stuck with some freak on the way home. She positioned her big-enough Birkin on the middle of the seat next to her, and then took out the Wall Street Journal she picked up at the news stand on her way to the train. She didn’t really like the Journal, that was Trip’s domain, though she did like the Personal Journal. Today was Thursday, so it was all about Travel and Real Estate. A girl could dream. On both topics. She held the paper high to cover her face, so she wouldn’t have to make eye contact and forfeit the empty seat beside her.

  “Is that seat taken?” She didn’t look up. There were other open seats on the train, pal, pick one of them. The interloper didn’t give in. “Um, do you mind if I join you?”

  Victoria looked up to see Scott Simons. She was like a magnet for bad luck and men these days. Just not the one man that could get her out of her particular situation. Scott was harmless and she really could use some company. She picked up her bag and scooted over.

  “Wow, you’ve got to have some muscle to handle that suitcase you’ve got there,” Scott said as she placed her bag on her lap. She would have never put it on the dirty floor of the train.

  “It’s not used to public transportation,” she said as she stroked the outside of the bag.

  “Oh, does it like traveling in a chauffeured-driven car, with classical music and air conditioning blasting”

  You have no idea. “Something like that,” she said. She patted the bag, like someone reassuring a cranky child. “Busy day at the office?” It wasn’t the wittiest of repartee, but she wanted to change the subject from chauffeurs and limousines.

  “It’s been crazy these days. I had to sneak out early today or someone’s computer would have been thrown out of the third floor window. Mercy killing.”

  Victoria laughed. “Rough office.”

  “Really, it’s a great place to work. Creative, fun people. We’re getting ready for a huge pitch and the creative team has been working past midnight, and that makes for some cranky employees during the day.”

  “You’re not creative?” Victoria asked.

  “Well, I like to think I am. I’m the suit.” Victoria looked at him puzzled. He was wearing a crisp white shirt and khaki pants. No socks, and she did notice he had on Gucci loafers. It was an acceptable, if casual look. How could he be the suit?

  Scott laughed as he saw her reaction. “Oh,no -- in a creative business, the suit is the poor guy that has to sell what the ‘creatives’ come up with. I’m an account guy. Professional schmoozer.”

  Probably a very good one, Victoria thought. This guy was charming just getting out of bed in the morning. “Is that what it says on your business card? Schmoozer?”

  “Might as well. It’s okay, I don’t mind -- I know where my strengths lay.”

  Victoria found his guilelessness refreshing. Still quite blonde, he was like a big yellow Labrador puppy. It was hard not to get caught up in his playfulness. She thought she’d throw it back at him. She raised an eyebrow
and said, “Really?

  Scott rose to the bait. “I have quite an impressive skill set. ”

  “I can only imagine,” she slyly responded.

  “I don’t think so. Few people are that imaginative.”

  She laughed again. “Okay, you win! You are quite a guy.”

  “Thank you. The sooner you realize it, the better. If only everyone was such an easy sell.”

  Victoria feigned mock indignation. “I’ve been called many things in my day, but easy is not one of them.”

  He took an appreciative look at her. She could feel herself blush. This playful banter was getting a little out of control. They sat in silence for a while. Suddenly, Scott turned to her and fingered a piece of her hair.

  “You changed your color,” he said.

  “Long story,” black clouds gathered over her head at the thought of her hair-in-a-box.

  “I like it. It suits you.”

  “I don’t know,” she couldn’t return his steady gaze.

  He looked at her like he was apprising a piece of art. “Yes, definitely. You seem like you have a bit of fire in you Vicky Patterson.”

  The fire had crept up to her face. She felt like she was back in her Biology class, although this time had worked up the courage to turn around.

  “Maybe just a little.”

  ###

  The flirtation continued for the rest of the ride up to Tenaqua. Like a Heisman running back, the conversation zigged and zagged, ramping up into full-blown flirtation, and then ebbing back into easy conversation. The half hour trip flew by.

  As they got off the train, the sun was just beginning to set. They walked up the stairs, Victoria went to get her bike. Scott stopped at the top of the stairs, and turned to her, excited.

  “Hey, why don’t we stop and grab a bite,” he said.

  Victoria wanted to beg off. It had been a long, mostly lousy day. She should get back to her kids, too. “Oh, I should be getting home.”

  “Come on, we’ll just grab a burger at the corner,” he said. She found it hard to refuse him. He was just so damned - charming.

  “A quick bite. I have to get home to my kids. Let me give them a call,” she said as she headed into the station house.