The Chocolate Money

by Ashley Prentice Norton

  “What I want you to do, Bettina,” she continues, “is to put all the matches in chronological order. I’ve written the dates in the inside cover of each matchbook so you know what follows what.”

  I can do this, I think. Maybe I’ll even get credit as a coauthor. Babs and I haven’t worked on something together since the Hangover-Brunch Cruise Party. And this time I will have real responsibility. There’s the possibility that Babs really is different now that I am older. Unlike when I planned my dance number, I know I can do a good job. Finally please her after all this time.

  Babs pushes her chair away from the table and walks up the spiral staircase to her room. I follow as if these stairs are just like any other. We go into her shoe closet. It isn’t a closet, per se, more of a room with at least three hundred shoes. Organized by color in specialized racks. It looks like the shoe department at Saks, only with more offerings and all in Babs’s size.

  She reaches in the back of the closet and pulls out three shopping bags full of matchbooks. There must be at least two thousand matchbooks total. She hands them to me.

  “This should keep you busy. I know it’s a lot of work, but you have nothing else to do. Nothing cures boredom like a good challenge. And I so appreciate it, my darling girl.”

  I float on her praise as I lug the bags back to my room. Then reality hits.

  This project could take me until January. Despite what Babs has said about us working on this together, it won’t be true. Just me alone in my room trying to make sense of this mess. Another room thrash, just not as messy and more prolonged. I will have to stay up late, make order from chaos. No mother-daughter bonding after all.

  I put the matchbooks on the floor by my desk. I pull one out, Maxim’s, and open the cover. September 1976 in Babs’s handwriting, just as she said. None of the matches inside are missing, since she uses lighters for her cigarettes. She always says that only tacky people use matches to light cigarettes; they make cigarettes taste bitter and remind her of gas stations. Matches are only good as souvenirs.

  The bars and restaurants on the matches might be different, but the story is always the same. Babs absent from the aparthouse, wearing fancy clothes, drinking fancy water, talking in her invented vocabulary. Absent from me.

  I have no clue how to start this project. Should I dump them all out on the floor? Pull them individually from the bags and sort them as I go? I finally decide I will sort them by years and then continue from there. This plan seems clever to me, and I work until I can no longer keep my eyes open. Fall asleep, four A.M.

  I wake up at noon the next day. I have made a lot of progress and can’t wait to tell Babs. I go down to the kitchen. She is up, wearing a waffle robe from Raffles in Singapore and talking on the phone. Tally? Some friend I don’t know? I pause in the doorway before she can see me, and listen.

  “Yes, the kid is home and will be until after Christmas. Porter’s is taking her, no surprise there. It will probably cost me another building.”

  Pause.

  “Of course she’s bright, but getting caught having sex at her age is just fucking stupid. Whole thing probably took three minutes. Cost three years at Cardiss.”

  Pause.

  “Yep. You heard right. Mack’s son.”

  Pause.

  “Best part for me: Mags was beside herself. Can you believe that bitch still won’t let it go? But I did the ladylike thing and said nothing. Or almost nothing. I even played the good mother and offered them some dough to let her stay. I knew Cardiss was too fucking earnest to take that bait, and it probably forced them to kick her out. They couldn’t be seen taking a bribe. But I know it horrified Mags.”

  Pause.

  “No, the last thing Bettina needs is therapy. You have to be interesting to go a shrink, otherwise you’ll bore the shit out of him.”

  Pause.

  “Just organizing stuff for me. But I’m sure she is going to fuck that up too. I already hired an assistant to start after Christmas. I just needed to get her out of my hair.”

  Pause.

  “Sorry to bore you with all this. No, I’m not going to talk to her about it. I feel how I feel and that’s it. I will just do my best nicey-nicey and soon she’ll be off to Porter’s. Slim chance of her getting busted for sex, unless she tries the whole lesbo thing. Even then, not sure this is against the rules.”

  Pause.

  “Bye. I’ll be in touch, darling.” She hangs up.

  I back out of the doorway before Babs can see me. Walk upstairs to my room, reeling. Two scenarios about the project. One: Babs has played me. She’s punishing me for getting kicked out. For proving that, for once, the chocolate money can’t buy her whatever she wants. She doesn’t really expect me to do anything useful with the matches, just waste my time. She’s already planning on hiring an assistant to do it all over, erase all traces of me. Babs will be nice because she likes watching me trust her and enjoy what I think she’s giving me.

  Two: She really is happy to have me home. Wants to work on the project together. What she says on the phone is just how she talks to people. She can’t admit to anyone, even herself, that I have finally won her over.

  I want scenario two, of course. But her conversation went on so long. Needs to get me out of her hair. Do the whole lesbo thing. Offering Cardiss money not to save my ass, but to piss off Mags.

  The real question is, why I am giving myself options? Why am I still bothering with this fucking book?

  I gather up all the matches that are strewn about my bedroom floor. Put them back in the shopping bags. I change out of my pajamas and leave the aparthouse. Go see a movie at Water Tower Place. Sit in the dark and eat a bucket of popcorn and drink a large Diet Coke. I don’t really watch the movie, just think until I have a plan. One that will test which is more important to Babs, the matches or me. I think I know the answer. I imagine my father’s reaction to all this. If Babs tells me to leave once and for all, at least I will have somewhere else to go.

  I succeed in avoiding Babs the rest of the day. That night she goes out to dinner. I eat meat loaf with Lily in the kitchen. Excuse myself early, saying I am still tired from the night before.

  I go to sleep. Set my alarm for three; Babs will be home and asleep by then. She’s not fucking anyone at the moment. When the buzzer goes off, I gather up the bags of matches and go downstairs. I stop in the living room. I like the darkness: it enables me to see the cars speeding down Lake Shore Drive, with their bright headlights and their definite places to go. I also like the dark waves of Lake Michigan that crash on Oak Street Beach. A machine working overtime, since there are no people sitting in the sand watching me.

  I walk around to the terrace of the aparthouse. Babs once told me she fucked lots of men there, but unlike Mack, they were not bed-worthy, and she never invited them to stay over, sully her sheets. Across the way, the John Hancock Building is dark. People have left their offices, and in the apartments on the upper floors, everyone has gone to sleep.

  I walk to the railing and stand there. I think about the medallion she gave me, the tutorials about sex, the package she sent to Cardiss. Gestures that seem to me like Trying. Maybe she just doesn’t know any better. But at this moment, this is no longer enough. I know I have to act quickly or I will lose my resolve, get swept up in the fantasy of a Babs who is doing the best she can. I love her, after all. But, finally, I realize I want to be loved back.

  I slowly reach for the first bag and dump it out into the nighttime air. My pouring is tentative and slow. With the next two bags, I gain momentum, throwing the matches over the railing like they are heavy buckets of water. I watch as the wind catches them, and they slowly float down, making patterns in the sky before landing in the street. Like the Splushes I discarded when I was a child, the matches are gone forever. Unlike the solid pebbles of chocolate, they will have a more graceful landing, float to the sidewalk like butterflies.

  But no matter. I have taken what Babs probably sees as her life’s work and s
cattered it about the street. Thrown it away forever. There will always be more Splushes, but the matchbooks are irreplaceable.

  I leave the empty shopping bags on the terrace and go upstairs to bed. I don’t bother to tiptoe up the steps; I let them creak under my weight. At that moment, I feel no remorse. I don’t need to get in my bathtub and chase the smash to alleviate my anxiety. I get into my PJs, crawl under my covers, and sleep soundly.

  36. Goodbye, Babs

  November 1983

  I WAKE UP AROUND NINE and go downstairs for breakfast still wearing my PJs. I see the three shopping bags that once contained the matches sitting in the back hall. Lily must have found them outside and decided to keep them since Babs likes to save such sturdy bags to pack odds and ends for the country.

  I greet Lily in the kitchen and eat the omelet, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and black coffee she has made for me. Normally, I just push the eggs around on my plate since they have so many calories, but now I don’t care. I know Babs won’t be up for a couple of hours, so I get dressed and go for a walk on Oak Street Beach. Given how cold it is, there’s no one else there.

  I take off my shoes, stand in the lake. It feels like liquid ice, but I make myself stay there. I begin to think about how Babs will react to the matchbooks that I have jettisoned from the perch of the aparthouse. It’s a very different equation during the day. Part of me doesn’t care. Part of me is incredulous that I have betrayed her in such a way. I know our relationship will forever be altered. But I feel liberated, standing in the cold water, knowing how much I’ve changed.

  Babs is in the kitchen when I get back.

  “Hey, Bettina,” she says cheerily. “How’s the project coming?”

  “It’s not,” I say flatly, not really wanting to give up the friendly greeting she has given me with a curt reply, but there’s no turning back.

  “What do you mean, ‘It’s not’? Is it too fucking difficult for you to sort matches? I guess I can hire someone who’s more competent than you.” Once again, there will be no sustained kindness. Babs is always right. Doesn’t do conflict.

  “Haven’t you already got someone else lined up to work on this project?” I challenge.

  “Actually, yes. I had a feeling this would happen so I have an assistant starting in January. But I wanted to give you a chance.”

  So she was telling the truth during the phone call after all.

  “Well, Babs, you needn’t have bothered.” For the first time, I’m not afraid of what she’s going to say. I’ve had enough.

  “What do you mean?” she asks. I’m surprised to have caught her off-guard for once.

  “I decided the whole project was stupid. I threw out the matches.” I try to emulate a Babs voice, dismissive and authoritative, but I can’t quite pull it off.

  “Well, you can just get them back,” she says, probably thinking they are in a garbage can somewhere. She is getting impatient and annoyed.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Fuck, Bettina, where are they?” She acts like she is simply trying to get an answer from me and is indifferent to the ultimate outcome, since she knows she has the power to fix anything. But the tremor in her right hand gives her away. Things are not going as she expected, and she is pissed.

  “I threw them over the balcony. They’re scattered about the Gold Coast.”

  “That was stupid, Bettina. Stupid.” As if this is some kind of preamble. Her hand is still shaking. I am waiting for her to smack me, resume combat. But she does nothing.

  “Just go away,” she says, quietly but evenly. “I don’t want to look at you.”

  She turns on her heel and leaves it at that. This is much worse than her yelling or hitting me. That would mean I count in her life. But somehow I know she has abandoned the mother role once and for all and will never come back.

  “I’m going up for a bit of a nap,” she says over her shoulder to Lily and leaves the kitchen without another word.

  This is not typical for Babs. She may sleep late, but she eschews naps. She thinks they are for people who are Letting Themselves Go.

  I now understand that what I did is devastating to her, because she seems to be so emptied out by it. But I would do it again, just the same.

  One week after I throw the matchbooks away, Babs is crossing Michigan Avenue. She has her head down, lighting a cigarette, and isn’t paying attention when the light changes. She is mowed down by a brown Toyota with dents in the sides. I know this would have horrified her—she would have preferred to be hit by a car that rich people drive: perhaps a British racing green Jaguar with biscuit interiors. In any case, the Toyota is just as powerful and sends her flying. When she lands, her beautiful legs are broken, and her head smashes on the pavement like a carton of eggs. It was Franklin’s day off, and she was walking to Zodiac for a blow dry.

  There’s no need for an ambulance, since she is so obviously dead, but the police come to make the final report. The driver of the Toyota is a young girl with bad acne. She is crying, trying to explain.

  The police search the body that a few hours ago was Babs and find her wallet in her pocket. This is unusual because she rarely carried one, but perhaps without the matches, she felt insecure, as if she needed ID to prove who she was. The police show up at the aparthouse about an hour after the accident. Babs is moved to a morgue and they want me to go identify the body.

  I am absolutely undone that I am asked to go see my mother’s dismembered body, but I don’t cry. Yet. I just sit with the horrifying thought that maybe she ignored the light change on purpose.

  Lily’s still there when I get home. She hugs me, crying. “Sugar,” she says, “you know your mama loved you.” I hug her back but am still too numb to cry. I can’t figure out if Babs’s dying is the best or worst thing that has ever happened to me.

  I sit with Lily a bit and then tell her to go home. I want to spend the night in the aparthouse by myself. I am fifteen, but it will be the first time I have ever done so.

  I go to my room, and the air feels light, like all the times Babs left the aparthouse on trips. But the whole space now seems different. The bunny-fur rug and canopy bed seem decadent, yet wonderful. Babs did have real imagination, I think, unlike me, who relies on books for alternative realities. I lie down on my rug, rub my cheeks against its softness.

  I get up, walk down the hall to Babs’s room. There will be no more staircase sex, no yells from behind her closed door, no more blowjob tutorials. I suddenly feel grateful to Babs for giving me all this information, sorry for all the kids, like Cape, who had to figure things out on their own.

  I go into her shoe closet. Up above the shoes, on a high shelf, are boxes that contain artifacts from Babs’s parties. I spot the one labeled HANGOVER-BRUNCH CRUISE PARTY and open the stepladder that is folded in the back of the closet. I sit on the floor and open the box, pulling out all the highlights of the evening. There is the DRINK UP, THROW UP, SHOW UP shot glass, the Lucite wave cube with the drowning swimmers, the tiny bottles of rum and vodka, and the luggage tags. I line them up carefully on the rug. Then there is my costume. My bikini with the blue sequined Bs looks so small I can’t believe I ever wore it. Next, I find my A Chorus Line cassette. No matter that it caused such a disaster; Babs kept everything that had to do with her parties, the way other mothers might hoard report cards and letters from camp.

  At the bottom of the box is her white bathing suit, captain’s hat, and blue stilettos. I think about the makeup she wore that night, the sparkly blue eye shadow, the gashes of rouge. I am strangely sad not to find the makeup in the box. This was the best part of the evening for me: watching Jasper put it on Babs while Frances and I sat on the floor. Babs looked so beautiful when they were done, more so than anyone else at the whole party. And then it was all ruined because she was so worried Mack wouldn’t come. She might have smacked me, but maybe it was because she was angry at Mack. And the bleeding had nothing to do with Babs, it really didn’t. I was the one who was stupid enough t
o fall down the stairs.

  The day’s ending and no one has called to offer condolences, see if there is anything to do. I know it is early, and people probably still don’t know. But I take inventory and wonder who would call: Who would want to assume the role of the weepy best friend? Or even be in the inner circle, someone who brings lasagna and helps me write the obit. All this makes me sad for Babs. Despite all the chocolate money, she had no real friends. But even though I don’t have any either, I still have one person to call. Lucas.

  He is probably the only one who will care that Babs is dead. He answers on the fifth ring. This is the first time I have ever called him, and I don’t quite know what he will say, hearing from me out of the blue. But he has always been nice to me, even if it’s in a haphazard and distracted way. Despite everything, he’s her cousin, after all. I will tell him this news, and then let him take the lead, see where it goes.

  “Lucas,” I say without preamble, “Babs is dead.”

  There is a pause on the line, then:

  “Bettina? Jesus, what happened?”

  “She was hit by a car crossing Michigan Avenue. This morning.”

  “Oh, fuck. Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” I say succinctly, the way I think a grownup would. Then I start to cry. I want to tell him everything. Getting kicked out of Cardiss. The matches. How it was really all my fault.

  “I think it was my fault, Lucas. I messed up . . .”

  “No, Bettina. No more than anyone else.”

  “But I slept with a boy, got kicked out of Cardiss . . .”

  “I know. She told me on the phone.”

  So that was him on the other end of the conversation that day. I am disappointed that it seems he did nothing to stick up for me. But now that Babs is gone, maybe things can be different.