Dead Letters(27)

Oh, Jesus. “Great. That printout? Updated with the payment?” I prompt, looking around the bank. She enters some information, and I hear the clack of an old printer discharging a sheet. She collects a few pages from the printer tray and hands them to me. I grab them anxiously, my bangles jangling, and stand up.

“Thanks for your help with this. And I’m…sorry,” I say. It’s not quite the right thing to say, but she does soften.

“Good luck, sweetie. I hope you’re able to sort it out.”

I smile, and she smiles falsely back. I notice a smudge of bubblegum-pink lipstick on her tooth. I turn to leave, and as I’m walking away, I know she’s shaking her head in disbelief and censure. I’m sure she’s never been late on a loan payment. I grit my teeth and head for the door. As I’m pushing it open, someone calls out.

“Zelda!” Instinctively, I turn my head. I have always answered to her name, and she to mine. A young man is hurrying from the other side of the bank. He looks angry. In a panic, I race outside. I don’t need any more confrontations. I dodge left once I’m back outside in the clammy heat. I immediately duck into the convenience store next to the bank and move to the back of the aisles. I pretend to browse in the fridge, hiding behind a wire stand filled with potato chips. From the corner of my eye, I see the man run by the door without looking in. After puttering around for a few minutes, I buy a pack of cigarettes at the counter, then cautiously poke my head outside. Coast seems clear.

I don’t look at the sheets of paper scrunched in my hand until I get back to the truck. I sit in the cab and will myself to look down at the figures. When I do, the breath is knocked out of me.

Following her recent payment of $343.79, Zelda is left with a balance due of $306,000.21.





6


Four hundred grand in debt. I sit in the truck, staring out the window at the bank. The bank statement is on the floor, and I’m fairly sure that if I bend over to get it, I won’t be able to get back upright. Zelda has really outdone herself this time. Over four hundred thousand dollars in debt, and that’s just what I’ve managed to find so far. For all I know, she could have other unpaid bills all over town. Christ. Almost half a million dollars. I knew from the emails that Silenus wasn’t doing well. I know it’s an expensive operation, but this…

If I were a practical person, I would be problem-solving. Brainstorming about mortgages I could take out, people with money I could go to. But all I can think is that I need a bottle of something, and somewhere quiet to consume it. I’m immediately sucked into the pleasure of planning, anticipating, the ritual of drink. First, I will go through a list, examine my palate. Will today be a gin-and-tonic day? Or cold IPAs in frosty brown bottles? Or wine, the classic, my old favorite? And if wine, will it be a buttery, oaked Chardonnay? Too warm for red, so no velvety Zinfandel or bright young Chianti. Maybe sparkling? A light, easy Prosecco, or some creamy Blanc de Blancs. Or will it just be my go-to bottle, a bone-dry Sauvignon Blanc, filled with flint and hints of flowers?

After I decide, I’ll think of where to buy it. The sensible, economical thing would be to take a bottle from the winery’s cellar, but I don’t really want to drink that shit. I could go to one of the vineyards between here and Silenus, only I would run into people I know, be forced to answer questions. And dressed as I am, like Zelda, I’ll probably raise a few eyebrows. At home, in Paris, I have a favorite wine store, a tiny box on my market street where I can duck in and snag a bottle on my way home, before stopping at the fromagerie and the tabac. I indulge in a moment of fantasy, of meeting Nico at home with a bottle of something just outside my price range, of us sitting by the window in my tiny nook and sipping out of my petite wineglasses, considering where we’ll go when the bottle is gone. But those fantasies are too abstract for my purposes here. Today, I will go to a liquor store in Watkins Glen, and I will browse the racks looking for just the right bottle. I tell myself I will buy an eleven-or twelve-dollar bottle, something decent but not extravagant, but I will walk out with a fifteen-dollar bottle if I’m very lucky. Today might be a twenty-dollar-bottle day.

Then I will have to decide where to drink it. Sometimes I want company, people to talk to while I uncork it. When I’m feeling festive or exuberant, I want to chat and burble, marking my journey into tipsiness with my verbal outpourings, measuring my drunkenness in confessions and, eventually, incoherence. But often, I want to just be alone, to tell myself I’m not that drunk, to pour myself another glass without an audience. I want to sit somewhere beautiful, by myself, and drink.

My ritual is interrupted when I notice a meter woman (my politically correct millennial mind refuses to call her a meter maid) writing a ticket and snapping it under my windshield. I lurch out of the truck.

“Hey, I’m right here,” I say. “I’m just about to leave.” She looks at me dispassionately.

“Too late. Already did the printout.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’m sitting in my vehicle, ready to pull out of the space. I just got here.”

“Rules are rules, miss. You’re in a loading zone.”

“This is a fucking joke,” I say. “I don’t have time for mindless rules today. I’m sorry that the only meaning you derive from life comes from sanctimonious little strips of paper. I just don’t have the patience to play nice while we pretend you’re anything other than a parasite and a miserable fucking human being with a subpar GED.” I’m shocked at what I’ve said. I sound like Zelda. This is Zelda’s doing too. She’s turning me into her. One of her favorite games used to be for us to swap clothes and try to fool parents and teachers. Of course she would get off on this. She was always better at the game.