Going For Broke

by Nina Howard

  ###

  Victoria went up to see Trip. She didn’t want him wandering around Chicago unsupervised anymore. She knocked on the door and he answered it wearing nothing but a towel.

  “Hi there,” he said with a leering grin.

  She walked past him, in no mood for any sexual banter. “Get dressed, Trip.”

  “Suit yourself. Your loss,” he said as he headed back into the bedroom, but not before taking off the towel and using it to snap it at her. Boy, he was tanned and looked good, Victoria thought. It was remarkable that she could have looked at the same naked body for twenty years, and always had a fresh appreciation for it.

  He quickly returned wearing a just a robe.

  “Don’t you want to get dressed?” Victoria urged.

  “I’m good. Besides, I’m waiting for them to bring up my suit. I had it sent out this morning. You don’t mind, do you?” he said, looking down at his robe.

  “No, I don’t. Really, there’s not much that shock me anymore,” she said, sitting down. It was at times like this she wished she still smoked. Instead, she looked through her purse for a mint.

  “Don’t be nervous. I don’t bite,” Trip said.

  “Hard!” Victoria said, laughing. The doorman for the building of their first apartment used to say that to Victoria almost every day. It became a private joke between them, and always got one or the other to laugh. It still worked today.

  “Do you remember that guy?” Trip said, happy to have softened Victoria up a bit.

  “Do you remember that apartment? We could barely fit two chairs in the living room it was so small.”

  “With only a full-sized bed in the bedroom. I’m amazed we both could sleep in it.” He looked at her wistfully. “We were young and in love.”

  She stiffened slightly, and he noticed it. “You were the one who had to have that Upper East Side address.”

  “Oh, and I loved that lobby. The elevator! It was prettier than our living room - with a crystal chandelier,” she said.

  “And bigger than our living room,” he said and they both laughed.

  They each sat for a moment with the happy memory.

  “Those were the happiest days of my life,” he said.

  There was a knock at the door, and Trip jumped up. “That was quick. You’ve got to love the housekeeping department here,” he said as he opened the door.

  He grabbed the suit and went back into the suite. He looked through the hangers and swore.

  “They forgot my damn tie!” he said, a little too angrily for the transgression. Perhaps he was more stressed than he let on. Victoria was starting to feel for the guy.

  “I’ll just be a minute. They should be up with the tie in a jif.” That was a bit of the old Trip, she thought.

  While she was waiting for Trip to dress, she idly picked up one of the shopping bags. The Gucci bag held not one but two pairs of shoes. Two pairs of brand-new, this season Gucci shoes. A pair or loafers and a pair of slippers! Irate, she tore through the other bags. A cashmere sweater from Nieman’s (he must had been distracted if that was the best he could do), a beautiful leather belt from Hermes, three new shirts from Paul Stuart, and the Cartier bag that she was convinced held an olive branch for her had a men’s wristwatch. She picked up the receipt: A Cartier Rotunde $29,000 watch!

  He came out in a perfectly pressed Caraceni suit, looking like the million bucks the suit probably cost. At least it wasn’t new - she remembered having him fitted for it the last time they were in Milan. She couldn’t help but tally the cost of the suit in with the rest of his booty. The suit easily cost $8,000, that with the watch, the sweater, the shoes, the slippers (slippers, really, he needed slippers?), he was easily sporting about $50K worth of menswear. Victoria had a new appreciation as to how far $50,000 could go. Tthis definitely was not how she would spend it.

  She threw the watch at him as he entered the room.

  “Whoa - what the hell was that for?” he asked.

  “Are you really an idiot? Seriously? I’ve been working at a Goddamned thrift store and you’re buying all this crap? Do you know what we’ve been through?”

  “Baby, those days are over,” he said, moving forward to try to soothe her.

  “It’s all about us now. We’re in this together.”

  She picked up the Gucci bag. “Really, together? You didn’t even buy anything for anyone buy yourself. It’s always about you Trip. What an asshole!”

  She was about to head out of the room but there was another knock at the door.

  “I don’t know why you just didn’t buy a new tie - why have the old one cleaned?”

  She went to open the door for housekeeping on her way out. “I’m done with you Trip. Take your fucking toys and go back to wherever the hell you crawled out from.”

  She opened the door and was stopped in her tracks. Rather than housekeeping as expected, Mike Towner and two other FBI agents stood in front of the door to the suite. Mike looked at her with an apology in his eyes, and called out to Trip, who was standing directly behind Victoria.

  “Robert Vernon? FBI.” Trip flashed his badge as he and the two agents stormed into the room.

  CHAPTER 26

  Victoria couldn’t believe it. She wanted to turn Trip in, but she wanted to do it her way. She thought Mike would help her. He was probably in the hotel when she had called him earlier in the day. She felt double crossed by both Trip and Mike in one fell swoop.

  The agents were busy reading Trip his rights, and even put handcuffs on him. Poor Trip, she couldn’t help but think, he was used to having Tiffany cufflinks on his wrists. Trip called out to her as the agents began to lead him out into the hallway, “Victoria - call Jack Taggert!”

  “Yeah, I’ll call Jack Taggert a selfish bastard!” she yelled after him.

  She just watched them lead him away. She looked around for Mike, hoping for some kind of explanation. It looked like Mike Towner had gotten what he came for, and left her. She was a fool to think that there was anything between them, that he would help her. He was all about the case, and if he needed to use her to do it, he would. She should have known better.

  She stood in Trip’s room in the aftermath of the brief but intense scene that had just happened. She walked around the room and absent-mindedly caressed the plush chair, the silk pillow, the shiny finish of the antique chest of drawers. She walked into the bedroom and sighed as she saw the thick down comforter cased in 1,000 count Egyptian cotton sheets. She sat down on the bed and let her head fall on the crisp pillow.

  She barely was there a minute when there was yet another knock at the door. She jumped up, hoping Mike had come back. She ran to the door, breathless. She opened it to see a uniformed hispanic woman a large cart.

  “Housekeeping.”

  ###

  The next week, Victoria felt like she was watching herself in a movie. She went to work, signed the kids up for camp, stopped at the grocery store. It all felt like an out-of-body experience.

  Trip’s arrest had made the papers, of course, though it was on page 23 of the Chicago Tribune and barely was a full paragraph. The Trib had been redesigned years ago to resemble a 16 year old’s web page and now had content to match. The Journal and the New York Times had more expanded coverage, but fortunately for Trip a twenty-something actress had overdosed, so his limited news cycle was cut prematurely short.

  Andrea had called - apparently it had made the Romanian papers, even though it seemed to miss Tenaqua. She had offered to fly in, but considering the ruckus her last visit to Tenaqua made, Victoria thought that it was best if she stayed put. Besides, she just wanted to crawl into bed every night about 8:00 p.m.

  Scott Simons had called - not in response to Trip’s arrest - Victoria was sure he didn’t even know about it - but in an interest to pick up where they left off. He really was a great guy, but Victoria just wasn’t interested. She thought briefly about trying to fix him up with Martha Morrison, but figured Martha had already barked up that t
ree years ago. It wasn’t like she was subtle.

  One Saturday afternoon Barbara walked into the living room to find Victoria lying on the sofa, watching an infomercial on buying run-down properties and flipping them. She picked up the newspaper and threw it across the room and hit Victoria squarely on the behind.

  “Mom!” Victoria yelled as she sat up in response to the offending paper.

  “I had to get you off that couch,” Barbara said.

  “No need for child abuse,” Victoria said, picking up the paper.

  “You’re hardly a child, dear,” Barbara answered. “In fact, that’s why I’m giving you the paper. Time for you to find a place of your own.”

  “You’re kicking me out?” Victoria asked.

  “It’s more like gently nudging. If you want, kicking yes. Victoria, it’s time for you to find a place of your own. Bud and I love you, and I know you’ve been through hell these past few months, but living on my couch and watching television every night isn’t healthy.”

  “It works for me,” Victoria weakly offered.

  Wow. Victoria had never really thought past finding Trip, but now that was done, she guessed that her mother was right. She knew she had to do something, but she had no clue.

  “Unless you’re going back to New York?” Barbara asked before she left Victoria alone.

  Back to New York was something that Victoria had not even considered. At all. Parker and Posey seemed so integrated here. In the play, on the baseball team - they had friends and seemed to thrive. Funny, after paying over $60,000 a year combined tuition, they found themselves in Tenaqua. The question was - had she?

  She had enrolled Parker and Posey in the Park District camp for the rest of the summer. Talk about coming full circle. They were thrilled. All their friends were doing it - who knew lanyards and spin art could be so fulfilling?

  She still was working at the Thrift Shoppe. For some strange reason, she thought that all her financial worries would be over once Trip turned himself in. From what Mercedes told her, it could be years before everything was unraveled. Shit out of luck for an undetermined time. Fortunately, she was able to sell Trip’s Cartier watch on Ebay for $20,000, a shame, as it was brand spanking new, but Cartier would only take it back for a credit. Like she wanted $30,000 worth of jewelry. $30,000 worth of real estate, now that would be something. Of course, in Tenaqua, $30,000 would buy you a driveway. Just barely.

  One day Victoria had to pick Posey up from a friend’s house on the East side of town. There, the houses sat on half acre lots in stately arrogance. When she was child Victoria didn’t have any friends who lived on the East side of town. Even today, riding her bike over to pick up Posey made her feel like an insecure twelve year old again. She rode up to the house, which looked like it should be on a university campus instead of a suburban town, and rang the doorbell.

  Posey’s friend’s mother answered the door. She was probably in her mid-40s and cute as a button. Victoria hated her on sight. She was clothed in actual clothes, rather than the dreaded workout outfit, but Victoria knew enough to know that the clothes were expensive, and since she didn’t recognize them, they must be current season.

  “Hi! You must be Posey’s mom!” Perkymom motioned her into the house. There was a day that Victoria would have sniffed at the reproduction secretary in the foyer, but today she just didn’t care.

  “Hi. I’m Victoria,” Victoria shook Perkymom’s hand. “Is Posey ready?”

  “Oh, I just have to have to say that we love love love Posey. She’s a hoot!”

  Victoria had thought Posey had many charms, but being a hoot wasn’t one of them. “Thanks,” she said, for lack of anything else.

  “Girls! Posey’s mom’s here,” Perkymom gave a hillbilly shout. Maybe it’s not just us, Victoria thought.

  The two women stood awkwardly for a moment. To break the silence, Victoria grasped at anything she could find. “I love your shirt. Is that Zac Posen?”

  Perkymom stood straight with pride. “Yes it is!” she said in her perkiest voice. “They just got it in at Kindred.”

  “Kindred?” Victoria asked. What the hell was that?

  “Kindred - you know!” Perkymom said it as if everyone knew Kindred. “Kindred. Fantastic store - amazing designers.”

  “Oh, Kindred,” Victoria said. “Great stuff.”

  “I know, right?” said Perkymom. Was she really over 40?

  Posey ran up and gave Victoria a big hug. “Ready to go mom! I’ll get my helmet.” Her kids were great about riding their bikes everywhere. Bud had promised Victoria he’d give her driving lessons, but for some reason, she resisted.

  As they rode home, Victoria took them on a route through the town. She wanted to find the store that sold Zac Posen. It didn’t take long - it was a small town - and Victoria came across Kindred. Victoria almost cried when she saw the window. It was a fall display featuring six different fall coats. She could tick off the designers one by one as if she was taking an exam: Prada, McQueen, McCarntey, St. Laurent, Sander and Lanvin. She had found the (local) mothership!

  The next day she rode up to Kindred to ask for a job. While she waited for the boss to come out to meet her, she perused the racks. She ran her hands down a stunning Caroline Herrera bright pink dress and closed her eyes. The feel of something brand-new was intoxicating. Lost in her reverie, Susan Kindra, the owner of Kindred, came out and cleared her throat. Victoria’s eyes flew open and she let go of the dress.

  “It’s beautiful,” Victoria said.

  Susan held out her hand. “You must be Victoria. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “You have?” Victoria didn’t even want to guess. Had she read about Trip’s arrest?

  “I’ve been losing customers to the Thrift Shoppe of all places. All because of you!” Victoria smiled. More Tenaqua moms had come into the store looking for a unique look. Apparently word spread quickly. “I was wondering when you’d come in.”

  “Your store is fantastic,” Victoria said as she picked up a paper-thin Merino sweater off the display table and refolded it. “You have a great eye.” Not small praise coming from Victoria. “I’d love to work here.”

  “I’d love to have you. I don’t have any openings. Right now.” Of course you don’t, Victoria thought. I can’t buy a break in this town. “But Celeste’s baby is due in a couple of weeks, and I can’t tell you how much I’d love to have you fill in.” Susan smiled a hopeful smile. She knew how valuable Victoria could be for her small shop.

  They exchanged numbers and promises to call when the baby finally arrived. Victoria had really expected a job, right then and there. Maybe things were finally going the right way for a change.

  ###

  Three short weeks later, Victoria and the kids were ensconced in their new life. They had moved into a small furnished rental - a coach house of one of the mansions on the lake that had previously been occupied by the owner’s pot-smoking college son. They finally got the courage to kick him out, and promptly rented it to Victoria to make sure they wouldn’t relent and let him back home. As a result, Victoria got a steal in rent, and while the furniture was a bit worse for the wear, and a bit fragrant, it was perfect for their needs today.

  Celeste had her baby early so Victoria said a tearful goodbye to Elise and the Thrift Shoppe. She took to Kindred like a pro and rang up record sales in her first week alone. She was able to talk the young and beautiful housewives of Tenaqua into that $800 belt to go with their $1,200 slacks, and did it in a way that had them feeling great about themselves when they walked out the door. From the window displays to the lighting in the dressing room, Victoria brought her unique point of view to every aspect of the already successful store. Susan Kindra knew what an asset she had in Victoria, and switched her to an hourly pay along with a generous commission. For the first time in her life, Victoria was making enough money to support someone more than herself.

  Even though she and Bud had their weekly driving lessons, Victoria loved riding
her bike around town. Every night, she still took a walk, though she didn’t have Fritz as an excuse any longer. She started cooking for the kids and herself, and even if the results were less than four-star, nobody ever complained. They were the Three Musketeers and were settling into a happy routine.

  One of the joys of settling into her new life was the freedom to say ‘yes’. It was summer, so she let the kids stay up late. They ate when they wanted, where they wanted. They had access to the beach through a small path past the owner’s estate, and at night would build bonfires and make s’mores. Kathy and Bob Berner would join them, bringing a bottle of wine (or three) and they’d make a party of it. They were the golden days of summer, and Victoria had never enjoyed herself more.

  One evening after dinner the doorbell rang. Posey ran to the door and squealed when she opened it.

  “Mommy! Parker! Oooh look!” she yelled.

  Parker and Victoria ran to the door. There, they found a basket with a big pink bow and an adorable apricot puppy, not larger than a Beanie Baby. At first, Victoria thought it was a stuffed animal. Posey picked the puppy up out of the basket and nuzzled it.

  “Mommy, can we keep it!” she asked.

  Even Parker lost his ten year old cool. “Can we Mom? Can we?”

  Victoria looked past the puppy, instead she scanned the yard outside. Who had left this little package at her door?

  “Isn’t he adorable?” He had stolen the complacent pup out of his sister’s hands. “What should we call him?”

  “How do you know it’s a him?” Posey asked. “I think she looks like a princess!”

  “No way! It’s a guy dog. Mom!”

  Victoria snapped her self back into the conversation. “What?”

  “Is it a he or a she?” Parker demanded. “I think he looks like a Ralph.”

  “Lulu!” Posey insisted.

  “Let’s take a look.” Victoria gingerly picked up the pup, who couldn’t have weighed more than three pounds, and took a quick peek at the equipment. “Congratulations! It’s a girl!” She handed the puppy back to Posey, who was triumphant in winning the debate.