The Chocolate Money

by Ashley Prentice Norton

She takes a step in my direction.

  “I’m sorry, but I just don’t understand how you got here.” The tree in the front garden blocks my view, but I can feel that Babs has come back. I don’t know what her next move is. I just focus on Mags. Want to say something that will make sense, to come up with a story that will satisfy her.

  “I was driving around with my mother and I had to go to the bathroom and she pulled into the driveway of what looked like a nice house. She saw the car out front and knew someone would be home.” Even though Babs often calls me a liar, everything that I have said so far is true.

  “Why didn’t your mother drive you to the door?” Mags asks.

  “Um”—I think quickly—“she had an errand to run.” Not true.

  “Oh, that’s silly,” Mags says. “I’m sorry you had to walk.”

  “No, it’s okay. Thank you,” I say. “I should get back to the car.” I know Babs is waiting for me. Getting impatient.

  I turn to walk away, but Mags grabs my arm.

  “Wait; why do you look familiar? Maybe I know your parents?”

  “I don’t think so,” I say. Really not true.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Bettina.” Wrong. I should’ve made something up, kept working in the lie column. Mags releases my arm as if I have burned her. Probably wishes she had told me to drink the toilet water rather than pee in it.

  “Bettina?” she asks, just to make sure.

  “Bettina,” I repeat.

  Mags’s eyes are no longer friendly or maternal.

  “Bettina,” she says. “You should not go to strangers’ houses. Even when you need to use the powder room. That’s not how we do things in Grass Woods.” She is holding a trowel firmly in her other hand, digging her fingers into the handle. Throw it at me, I want to say. I have no good answers.

  She turns her back on me and walks toward the side entrance of the house.

  “Have a nice day,” she says flatly, kicking the dirt off her gardening clogs as she goes inside.

  “Thank you, Mags,” I say, trying to tuck an I’m sorry into this goodbye.

  She snaps around and looks right at me. Had she been another type of woman, this is the moment when she would have yelled.

  Instead, she just says, “It’s Mrs. Morse. You need to go now. Goodbye, Bettina.”

  I watch her disappear into Tea House. I go back down the driveway to find Babs.

  She’s leaning over, picking some dandelions from the lawn. She really does look like she belongs here.

  She looks at me. I have my pensive face on. Thinking about Hailer. Where is he? A tennis clinic at Hopsequesca? Sleep-away camp? I finally met Mags, but now I realize the one I really wanted to meet was him.

  Babs slides into the car. I do the same. She lights up a cigarette and pauses before starting the car.

  “So,” she says, “how was it?”

  “Um, fine.” I’m not sure what to say.

  “Did you see her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think?”

  “She was pretty.” Since Babs is beautiful, I don’t think she will mind my assessment.

  “Pretty shitty. Everyone in this village looks the same. And they all share the same brain. They aren’t smart like you. They flip through coffee-table books and believe they are actually reading. Go to the ballet or opera once a year and think they are cultured. There’s got to be more going on than pretty. Did she talk to you?”

  “Yes. She was mad that I was there.”

  “I thought as much. These women are vicious. Now you know why Mack comes to the aparthouse. You were brave to go in there. But Tea House is beside the point. I wanted you to see firsthand how limited these women are. Never, ever live in the burbs. All the fucking tennis and golf. Gardening and driving their nasty kids everywhere. The only time they orgasm is when they have star fruit at Oscar’s Market. Thank God I got out.”

  Everything she has described to me doesn’t sound that bad, but there is nothing for me to say. We leave Grass Woods once and for all.

  Back at the aparthouse, I know Babs is waiting for an angry response from Mack. Anything to bring him back, even if it’s using me to mess with his wife.

  I imagine the rebuttal she has planned:

  My mother installed that goddamn toilet. What’s more innocent than a child asking to use the bathroom?

  But there is to be no confrontation. Weeks and weeks go by. Mack still does not come.

  8. Funeral

  August 1980

  TWO MONTHS AFTER WE visit Tea House, Mack dies in a car accident. He slams into a tree on his way home from Aces, a Grass Woods bar. The hood crumples, and his face smashes into the steering wheel. Too much scotch.

  I think of the velocity. Mack moving, then Mack not. All of that energy absorbed in that tree. Speeding in his Austin Mini, no seat belt. Completely reckless. Completely Mack.

  Babs gets the news from Tally. Babs doesn’t cry. At least not in front of me. She tells me death happens. There’s no need to get all fucking dramatic about it. There will be a funeral. Plans to be made, outfits to be purchased. Babs sees the service as a kind of party. All those people gathered together and dressed up to say goodbye to one of their own.

  The service will be held in Grass Woods four days after the crash. There’ll be a casket. Closed, since Mack was so badly mangled, but his body will be there nonetheless. Like some kind of rotting, putrid guest.

  Babs never even considers that it might not be appropriate for her to attend the funeral. She dons a black linen shift, a color she hates because so many women favor it. Wears her big black sunglasses and carries a pack of tissues in a black clutch. The pearl necklace she bought to get back at Mack is around her neck. Maybe she’s sentimental after all.

  She insists on bringing me, though from what I gather, most people don’t take kids to funerals unless they are related to the deceased. She dresses me in a pale pink linen dress with pink petals sewn around the neck, like I’m some kind of accessory, a bow perhaps, for her flaxen hair.

  I don’t want to go. After our trip to Tea House, Mags knows who I am. If I show up at the church, it will upset her. Part of me also believes Mack’s death is my fault. If I hadn’t fallen at the Hangover-Brunch Cruise Party and bled all over his clothes, he might have come back to the aparthouse. He would have been having sex with Babs in her bed that night, not drinking at a bar and then driving. I’m sure the whole smacking episode did the relationship in. More than he could handle. The bloody shirt too hard to explain to Mags.

  Franklin drives us up to Grass Woods in the stretcher. When we get to the church, Holy Trinity, we are late. There’s no one outside, and the big white doors are shut. Babs thrusts a bouquet of white roses into my hands.

  “Bettina, these are for Mack. I hate those stupid arrangements propped up on plastic legs. Makes the casket look like it’s in the winner’s circle at the Kentucky Derby. I want you to put this on the coffin. Understated, but tasteful.”

  Horrifying. I don’t see how I’ll be able to get them up there without everyone, especially Mags, looking at me.

  My hair’s pulled back in a bun. I look like I am going to a ballet recital, not a funeral. Babs holds my hand as she calmly walks up the steps, as if we really are here just to pay our respects.

  We walk in. They are in the middle of “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” Babs gives me a shove to continue forward into the church and now I’m on my own. She stands resolutely in the back.

  I walk up the aisle. People stop singing. Stare at me. I focus on the casket. Worry about my bouquet. There is nothing else on top of the coffin. It’s just shiny and black like a piano. I’m almost there when a hand grips my wrist. Prevents me from walking farther. It belongs to a handsome preppy man who looks like Mack. But most of the men in the church do.

  He pulls me away. I see Mags standing in the front pew. Her arm is draped around a boy about my age in a blue blazer. Hailer. His hair is dark like hers. His
head is down; he looks at the floor. He’s quite thin, like Mags. I see his shoes. Penny loafers. Holds a golf ball in his hand. Probably one Mack played a course or two with. Mags turns her head to look at me, but I don’t dare meet her eyes. I pray she sees this for what it is: me sent on another mission by my mother.

  The man—Mack’s brother? cousin?—gently leads me off to the side of the front pew. As if he means to redirect me, not scold me. For a second, I think he’s going to escort me to a seat. Help me get settled. Instead, we keep going to the back of the church. I still have the bouquet. The stems of the roses are wrapped in pink ribbon over the green tape. Its thorns neutered in a silk cast. These are the same type of roses I saw in Mags’s garden on my visit to Tea House. Looks as if I’ve stolen them.

  We make it outside the church. I think of Hailer sitting inside. He’s possibly the only one in the church who did not look up to see me. I remember the plaid hat I saw in the front hall at Tea House. Is it still sitting there? Or do you have to get all new clothes when your father dies?

  I walk by myself to the stretcher. Babs is sitting inside. She probably went back to it the minute I began my walk down the aisle. She’d made her point. No need for another scene.

  The engine idles and she’s sitting in the back, smoking leisurely. She studies the program for the service as if it were a Playbill. Fingers the stock.

  “Cream is iffy,” she tells me. “It says ‘wedding.’ I would have gone with stark white. Also less feminine. And the font—a tad too informal. What the hell was she thinking?”

  She holds it up to the light and inadvertently ashes on her black dress. She brushes herself clean with the program in her hand.

  We’re not moving. Franklin knows better than to drive without instructions. Babs could easily say O’Hare or Newport. She finally looks up at me. Sees the bouquet. Not pleased. At all.

  “Bettina,” she says, “you were supposed to put the damn thing on the casket. Even handing it to Mags would have been a nice touch. Mack actually liked you, you know. This was your chance to say thank you. I am going to have a lot of men in my life. Not many of them are going to give a shit that I happen to have a kid.”

  She looks out the window. Is she going to make me go back inside, try again? The only thing I know for sure is that my bouquet of roses won’t be coming home with us.

  “Maybe I could just leave them on the steps?” I offer.

  “No,” Babs replies. “Someone would trip over them and fucking sue me.”

  I study the hearse parked just in front of us. Maybe I can give the flowers to the driver and he can put them on the coffin. At present, he has nothing else to do.

  “Bettina, he’s not a fucking florist,” Babs says. Reading my thoughts, as usual.

  I would eat the roses if I could. I know plan B isn’t going to be any better than the first.

  It is a bright day with hard shadows. I think of how many fractured nights of sleep Mack had before this eternal rest. Sex, showers, leaving the aparthouse at three, four A.M. Two women. Two beds in one night. Exhausting.

  Babs says, “Oak Lawn,” and we’re off to the cemetery. Franklin knows exactly where it is. He drove Babs there when Mont and Eudy died. Two caskets, two hearses.

  We pull into Oak Lawn. Inch down a long driveway. Babs signals to Franklin to stop and we get out to walk. Babs is wearing her ladylike heels, and they dig into the ground like golf tees. She pulls a heel out of the wet grass with each step. It rained the night before, and the outdoors seems to stick to us. My pink ballet flats are now a smudgy brown. They look like Babs bought them at a thrift store.

  Maybe we are going to visit Eudy and Mont. Leave the flowers on their graves. But when we had our picnic on their plot after our Tea House visit, Babs didn’t bring a bouquet. She thinks leaving flowers for the deceased is dumb. Dead people can’t enjoy them, and the flowers just wilt and die. So why am I carrying roses for Mack? No clue. We’re walking in the opposite direction of where my grandparents are buried. I can’t see precisely where we are going yet, but I just know.

  Here we are. There is a white tarp surrounded by freshly dug ground. There’s a man standing over it, walking around the perimeter. As if it’s a swimming pool and he doesn’t want anyone to fall in. He’s wearing a short-sleeved checkered shirt, khaki pants. Has short gray hair, thinning a bit. Babs walks right up to him, puts her hand on his shoulder.

  “Hello, Carl,” she says.

  “Tabitha! Well, hello,” he says, glad to see her. His eyes get all soft and there’s a tenderness in his tone that surprises me. But there’s no way Babs has slept with him. He is way too old and not good-looking enough.

  “How are you?” He reaches out with one hand, soft and wrinkly with age, and touches her. I have never seen someone so comfortable in her presence. He must remember when her parents died.

  “They don’t often go two together,” he says to me, softly but kindly. I now realize he sees Babs as no one else does. Abandoned and lonely. An orphan. She holds Carl’s elbow and dabs a tissue at her eyes. But there are no tears.

  “Mack and I were close. Especially after the sale of the house.” She says this like a normal person would, even, but tinged with sadness. “He was good to Bettina. I didn’t want to take her to the funeral—that would be too much—but I thought we could come and say goodbye before everyone else gets here, after the service. You know our parents were such good friends. He was the brother I never had.”

  Carl nods. Like this is really true. He seems to be the only person in Grass Woods not to know that Babs and Mack had an affair. Or maybe he just has things in perspective. Knows how everything turns out in the end. He strokes her hand.

  “Of course, Tabitha. Take your time. I’ll leave the two of you alone. I need to get a drink of water myself. I’ll be back in a bit. The rest shouldn’t be along for another half an hour or so.”

  Carl gently pats my cheek and walks away. I’m still holding the bouquet. Am not clear where all this is going. Is Babs going to make some kind of weepy speech? Seems unlikely. Mack’s gone. Time to fucking move on. She looks at me.

  “Put the flowers in the grave. This is much, much better.”

  This seems easy enough. I bend down. Set the bouquet carefully on the white tarp that shields the hole, the six-feet-under. But the flowers look haphazard sitting there, like someone tripped and dropped them. Not at all deliberate.

  Babs says, “No, not there. In, not on the grave.”

  When I look up, she stands so tall, despite her sinking heels. For a moment, I am actually afraid she will push me in. That I will be stuck and Mack’s coffin will be lowered on top of me. I might scream, but no one will care enough to pull me out.

  But Babs doesn’t touch me, just says impatiently, “Bettina, goddamn it, put the flowers in.”

  I can tell Babs wants to be done with it and get the heck out of here. I slide back the tarp and drop the flowers in. I can’t see them land. Don’t even hear a thud.

  Babs bends over me, hurls something in. Looks like a fistful of marbles, all attached. I look up and see that her neck is bare. The pearls. The flowers will rot, but the pearls will always be there. They will lie under Mack’s casket like tiny rocks. Irritate him forever.

  We see Carl slowly walking back, shading the sun with his eyes. Babs strides to him. Grabs his hands.

  “Thank you,” she says quietly, as if we had really just been standing there saying a prayer. Thinking sad thoughts.

  “You’re welcome, Tabitha,” Carl says evenly. He looks at me a little too intently. Maybe he saw what we did. He gives us a little wave goodbye. Resumes his post by Mack’s grave. Babs turns and begins the walk to the stretcher. I follow. Then look back. Carl is still watching. Maybe he’s wondering which one of us is going to die next.

  Part II

  9. Cardiss

  September 1983

  SEPTEMBER 9, 1983, is a bright, crisp day in Cardiss, New Hampshire. The leaves are green and sharp. The trees robust
, sturdy, and tall. The sky has none of the dampness or gray tones one might expect to find across the pond in an English boarding school. I am fifteen when I arrive as a sophomore, or a Lower, in Cardiss-speak.

  Cardiss presents the same front to everyone who arrives there. It is beautiful in this way. It looks like a college, only smaller. The buildings are red brick with white marble steps. There are Latin sayings over most of the doorways. Lawns sprawl for the mere experience of sitting on them. Attractive boys and girls lounge, books and binders open, as if they were sunning themselves on an academic beach.

  I don’t go back to Chicago before starting Cardiss. Babs says, It’s your deal, babe, you are too old for me to unpack your clothes, help you with your bed. She has no interest in watery coffee and meeting all of the chipper parents who want to make small talk. But she does buy me a silver-and-gold pen from Tiffany. Has it engraved with my initials. I plan to save it for exams. She also hands me a large check for tuition and airfare, and a wad of traveler’s checks to cover expenses for the whole year. It makes me feel independent. And sad.

  After three months in France with Cécile, I fly directly from Paris to Boston. I take a cab to campus, about forty-five minutes away. Most new students arrive with their parents. I worry people will feel sorry for me, coming alone; will wonder about the cab. But the driver takes me right to the front gates of campus and pulls away before anyone can notice.

  I have one small bag. A Louis Vuitton duffel I bought on rue Georges V. Babs hates LV. Thinks it’s tacky to have logos stamped everywhere. Makes you look like you’re trying too hard to prove you can afford something expensive. But I like the bag. It’s completely incongruous with the things the other kids bring. Trunks filled with new sheets, down comforters, flannel PJs, stereos. My duffel, I hope, makes me look cool. Like I have purposely opted out of such teenage clutter. Chose to bring a few pants and tops from agnès b. and Petit Bateau because that’s what I like. But the truth is that I don’t have a clue what you’re supposed to wear at boarding school. I don’t know anything about the bluchers, rag socks, flannel pajamas that the others have. I didn’t have the catalogs to order them from. I do bring the silver medallion of my father’s that Babs gave me. I have yet to try to find him, but maybe I will now that I am at Cardiss. Who knows. It will change things between me and Babs and I’m not sure I am ready for that.