The Chocolate Money (6 page)

“I know how sneaks work, Bettina. They pick the places where most people would not think to look.”

I begin to wonder if I have indeed stashed something important in my socks. But no. The only thing I truly value, my autographed napkin from Brooke taped to her picture and framed, is on my desk. Not hidden but in clear view. Maybe this will add points to my honesty column. Maybe Babs will see it and be less mad after all.

But she is just getting started. After the socks, she goes through my underwear. It is all the same, white cotton bikini briefs. No Disney princesses, Pooh Bears, or Tinker Bells for me. She takes each one out and stretches the elastic and then smells the place where my crotch would be.

I’m still not old enough to have anything but immaculate underwear, even before it is washed. I always wipe carefully whenever I go to the bathroom. Am not yet burdened by all the messy emissions of a menstrual cycle.

Babs is so thin that she almost never juices or has a monthly period. She eats so little that she rarely has a bowel movement, and when she does, she takes long showers and scrubs her anal region clean of any traces of excrement. The only thing that taxes her panties is use. When the elastics start to give, Babs cuts up her underwear with a pair of kitchen scissors and buries them in the trash.

She does this to stop the
freaks out there who want to whack off with the lingerie of chocolate-heiress pussy.
Once, I dug a strip of her panty fabric out of the garbage. I made it into an anklet and wore it in the tub while I chased the smash. I was so worried she would find out that I threw it away two days later. I guess I am a sneak and a liar after all. Babs does have to be on her guard, protect herself from me.

I watch as she moves on to the pockets of my pants. It’s strangely comforting to see her take such an interest in my things. In me.

By three
A.M.
, everything I own is in a huge heap in the middle of the floor. Babs seems happy with her work. Another opportunity to use her parenting skills to turn me into a decent human being.

She’s finished. Maybe we can get back to the mags. Wrong. She still has one thing left to do.

Babs walks over to my desk. Picks up the picture of Brooke.

“How stupid of me,” she says. “I almost overlooked Brookie.”

Babs undoes the frame. My picture of Brooke and the autographed cocktail napkin go tumbling to the ground.

I try to think of something I can offer her in place of Brooke. But I’m naked. Have nothing. And Babs does not give options.

Don’t, Babs, don’t, Babs. Please don’t.

Babs throws my treasures on the bed by my feet.

“So, babe. An eye for an eye, I think.”

She turns back to my desk and picks up a pencil. I wish she would take the pencil to me. Poke me in the cheek with it, maybe. Write some obscenity on my forehead. But no. She goes right for the picture of Brooke and scribbles all over her face.

Babs gains momentum. Presses harder. Makes deep grooves in the picture. She keeps going until Brooke’s whole face is covered with marks. Brooke looks like she has really bad acne.
I can always get another picture,
I think.
This isn’t so bad.

But Babs isn’t done. She picks up the cocktail napkin. Brooke has actually touched this. It’s irreplaceable. It’s the very best thing I have. She reaches down to the side of the bed where the ginger ale spilled. Pats the wet spot with the napkin. She holds it up. I can see that Brooke’s signature has run to the point of being illegible. I can live with this, I think. Brooke still took pen to this small napkin. It’s still worth something. But there are to be no consolation prizes tonight. Babs holds the napkin to my face. She rips it up until it is just white strips. Just like her old underwear.

“See! This is what it feels like to have someone fuck up your things. But now you can take inventory. Keep the things you want and throw the rest away. I will bring up a garbage can from the kitchen. When you are done, your closet will be neat as a pin, and getting dressed will be like shopping at Saks! Everything will be in its place with only the things you like to choose from.”

She leaves to get the garbage can. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to put my nightgown back on or if I’m supposed to tackle this project naked. I give myself a minute to consider this. I look at the magazines, which are still sitting on the end of my bed. I wonder if we’ll ever get back to the shoe project. Probably not. But I was so close.

Later that night, as I sift through the huge mound of my things, throwing most of them away because I am too tired to put them back, I discover that Babs has left behind one important thing. Her cigarettes.

I take one of them in my left hand, put it to my mouth. Light it. The inhale is disgusting. The nicotine hits my bloodstream so fast my head reels and I clutch the post of my bed. I take it from my mouth. Come up with another idea. I can’t help but be angry at myself for having caused the whole room-thrash.

I stretch my right leg out. Bend over and look for a good spot. My wrist is off-limits. Babs has given me too many how-tos on death to do otherwise.
If you are going to slice your wrists, make sure you know what you are doing. There is nothing more pathetic than ending up in the hospital because you didn’t do your homework.

Babs is pro-suicide. Has no patience for depressed people.
If you can’t get out of bed, just bag it altogether.
No patience for the very old either. Too many of them linger. Pooping in diapers, sporting ugly bruises and nasty brown spots on their papery skin.

If she sees a burn mark on my wrist, she will think it is a childish attempt to off myself. So I push the lit cigarette into the flesh just above my right anklebone. No blood. Just a round, red tattoo. Babs will never be able to strip me of this.

It hurts, but not really.

A
PRIL OF THAT YEAR
, the affair is still going on, but there’s something different about it. Mack comes to the aparthouse less often. Babs is alternately restless and bored. When she’s had enough, she decides to throw a party.

Babs’s parties are a big deal. Everyone wants to get invited. There’s always a theme and you have to dress accordingly. The key is getting all the details right. Even more important than who you invite.

Babs calls this one the Hangover-Brunch Cruise Party. Since Babs doesn’t drink, she’s never hung over. But she isn’t against other people drinking. She says most people she knows are completely boring unless they drink. Sober, they are too worried about what other people think. Are not
fearless,
like she is. I’m not fearless either. Babs is excited for the day I start drinking for real. The way Babs thinks about drinking is kind of hard to explain, but I get it. Babs has rules for herself, and rules for everyone else.

Babs would never be caught dead taking a cruise. They are middle-class tacky. Brunch is a whole other level of disgusting. Breakfast and lunch
at the same time.
Going back as often as you want for more, wielding tongs at those steaming serve-yourself stations. Waiting for a “chef” wearing a paper hat and rubber gloves to hack off slices of ham from a communal slab. The whole thing is on par with rats feeding in the dumpster at the IHOP.

But all this is fodder for a
damn good time.
Hangovers before a party, a cruise without a boat, brunch before bed. An alternative universe where Babs is in charge.

Babs is always in charge of my universe, of course, but in the months that lead up to the party, things are much easier for me. I get to help Babs get ready for the party. School is just something I do between our work.

Each invitation to the Hangover-Brunch Cruise Party is an intricate package. Babs and I assemble all three hundred of them ourselves.

Most nights we are up past two. I don’t mind missing out on sleep. I’m good at gluing and organizing. Can keep going while Babs takes smoke breaks.

The first component is the actual invitation, which Babs has printed up on round cardboard coasters. The coasters are ringed with sketches of orange lifesavers that say
SS Babs.
The details of the event are printed inside the ring of the lifesavers:

Go Overboard with Me
At a Hangover-Brunch Cruise
100 East Lake Shore Drive
7:00
P.M.
Saturday, May 17
Dress: Naughty Nautical

The second item we include is a clear Lucite cube filled with a viscous blue liquid. It transforms into crashing waves if you shake it. We glue to the top of each cube a little plastic cruise ship and tiny plastic people lying facedown, as if they have fallen into the sea. Then we add to the package a shot glass for each invitee, with
DRINK UP, THROW UP, SHOW UP
printed on it in the same font as the invite. Finally, minibottles of rum, scotch, and vodka. A pouch of Hawaiian Punch mix and one of Tang as mixers. Drinks of choice for tacky people?

The RSVP cards are touristy it’s-better-in-the-Bahamas-type postcards, stamped and addressed to Babs. There are three reply options:

———Will rally
———Still passed out, have to pass
———Party pooper

I’m not sure who’s going to check the party-pooper one. But Babs sends some invites to people she knows won’t get the joke, won’t come. She wants them to admit that they can’t handle parties like hers. I look at the guest list and see that
Mr. and Mrs. McCormack H. Morse III
is on there. I wonder which box Mack and Mags will check.

We put all the items that make up the invitations in mini–leather suitcases. Babs writes each invitee’s name and address on a small rectangular piece of heavy cream stock. Babs has beautiful handwriting.

I get to slide the pieces of paper into orange leather luggage tags from Hermès, each of which has
SS BABS
printed on it. Babs always gives a practical souvenir of her parties, something people can actually use after the party’s over. I like to think that years from now, if anything happens to Babs and I want to track down people who knew her and might remember me, I can just go to airport baggage carousels and look for these tags.

When we are done, Babs’s chauffeur, Franklin, and I spend several days driving around Chicago and the suburbs hand-delivering them. Each morning, Babs charts the route we are to go by placing numbered stickers on a street map and corresponding stickers on the cases. This is way more important than school. Babs doesn’t even bother sending Wendolyn a note to explain where I am.

Babs says Franklin and I have to drop the invitations off because the post office would crush them, but I know it’s more than that. Babs bought herself a new car for Christmas. For it to be admired properly, everyone has to see it. It is a toffee-colored stretch limo. Full bar, TV, and lights that run down each side of the interior of the car, like a landing strip. You can dim them or put them on full strength, depending on your mood. There is a phone with buttons that light up when you dial. Babs cranks Lionel Richie or Kool and the Gang when she rides around in the
stretcher,
as she calls it. Sometimes she doesn’t even go anywhere in particular, just cruises. I have seen cars like this only on TV. It makes me feel like Babs is a movie star.

The license plate on the stretcher just says
BABS
. Riding in it makes me feel like I’m part of Babs in a way that nothing else does. It has her smell: the sweet toasted mixture of Duchess Golden Lights and Georgette Klinger perfume. When the car is idling, I feel like it is Babs breathing.

When Franklin and I get to a stop, I run around back, find the case, and give it to the doorman. If we are in the suburbs, I take it to the front door of the house. Then it’s usually a housekeeper who comes to the door, but sometimes there’s a mom in a sweaty tennis outfit or scruffy gardening clogs. She’ll generally say, “Thank you, Bettina,” which surprises me, since I don’t know any of them. Then I realize the woman must recognize me from our Christmas Card.

If Babs’s parties were run-of-the-mill, if people just got invited over for food and drinks in normal clothes, these women might consider inviting Babs and me to their houses for dinner. Let me play with their kids. As it stands, they treat Babs’s parties like going to the circus. You take in the show, enjoy yourself. Don’t wonder what happens to the monkey in the stupid outfit once you leave.

Babs does invite a few out-of-towners. She wraps their cases in layers of orange-and-white-striped tissue. Places each in a large cardboard box. We get those RSVPs back, and most say yes. Even her cousin Lucas from New York is coming, with his wife, Poppy. They are going to take the train here and then leave the next day, since Lucas has a gallery opening to go to. Cécile and her husband, Luc, say no. Babs says it’s because they can’t pay for the plane ticket from France. Typical.

The night of the Hangover-Brunch Cruise Party, the aparthouse doesn’t look like a place people live in. Babs is always big on decorations, but for this party, she makes structural changes. The huge pane of glass is removed from the living room, leaving just a slim balcony and air where the window used to be. Lake Shore Drive is blocked off, and helicopters with huge hooks carry the glass panes down to the beach. They are then wrapped up and lifted to some warehouse. It takes two days and the kids are all talking about it at school.

When I am older, I tell stories about this party, and people never believe this part.

“But you lived there,” they say.

“It wasn’t permanent,” I reply.

“What if it had rained?” they wonder.

“I don’t know. It didn’t,” I answer. They still can’t get over it. Sounds crazy, not fun.

An hour before the guests arrive, everything is perfect. The aparthouse looks just like a cruise ship. All the furniture’s gone from the first floor, replaced with boat-y, cruise-y things. There are rows of deck chairs with orange-and-white-striped towels folded on them. Their canvas backs billow with the breeze blowing off the lake. There is large aboveground pool filled with aqua-blue water, with two ladders to get in.