LAST DAD STANDING: So what does that get Haven?
IRENE T: Jim and Jack got another cut every time they moved money from one puppet partnership to another.
LAST DAD STANDING: OH.
IRENE T: It was a vampire machine. Every time they made a transfer, a little more money got siphoned from the client account—until it all evaporated.
LAST DAD STANDING: But how did they explain to the customer when they tried to withdraw their money?
IRENE T: They just told them, Oh, geez, sorry about that, I guess that investment didn’t work out. But we have these OTHERS that are still perfectly fine.
LAST DAD STANDING: Which were also puppets?
IRENE T: You catch on quick.
LAST DAD STANDING: Tell me that you told off those jerkwads.
IRENE T: That was my first mistake.
She went to Jack, the marginally more approachable of the two partners, and laid out the documentation on the partnerships and transfers they’d pushed onto their biggest customers. Jack explained to her that of course she was confused, this was complicated stuff, and gosh, she didn’t even have a college degree, did she? The important thing was to not worry, that Haven was of course doing the best for its clients.
LAST DAD STANDING: What a dick. He just lied to your face?
IRENE T: You know those Roman fountains, with the face of Neptune, and the water gushing out their mouths?
LAST DAD STANDING: Okay…
IRENE T: Like that, but with lies.
Irene failed to disguise her disgust, because suddenly Jack’s eyes turned flat and glittery. It was a stare she’d seen before in men, in the faces of assistant principals and shift supervisors and tin badges of all types: Do you really want to call me on this? Are you ready to take me on, bitch?
She’d replay this moment during the All-Star Tour over and over, and try to get her former self to smile and say, “Thanks for taking the time to explain that, Jack,” and keep her well-paying job until she could move on.
LAST DAD STANDING: So what did you say to him?
IRENE T: Something along the lines of Fuck you, you lying piece of shit.
LAST DAD STANDING: You are my hero!
IRENE T: I should have stopped there.
LAST DAD STANDING: Wait, there’s more?
IRENE T: Well, he called me a cunt, and yadda yadda I slapped him.
LAST DAD STANDING: WOW! That is so freaking cool.
IRENE T: That’s where I really should have stopped.
LAST DAD STANDING: There’s MORE?
IRENE T: I walked out of his office, went to my desk, and started calling clients. I told them to get a lawyer.
LAST DAD STANDING: Oh.
IRENE T: Yeah. Another big mistake—not getting one myself.
She told him the rest of the story: the first letter from Jack and Jim’s lawyer documenting her “assault,” the failed attempts to find a competent attorney to defend her, the rapid evaporation of her tiny savings. The day she became homeless.
She detailed every sad, humiliating turn, but there was one detail she was too embarrassed to mention: her last name. She couldn’t bear it if he typed back, “Telemachus? That rings a bell. You aren’t any relation to that crazy psychic family, are you? Ha ha!”
No. No ringing. No bells. Even the “T” in her screen name made her nervous.
Because she dared not tell him her name, she felt she had no right to ask him his. That felt strangely pure. They were creatures made of words, reaching through the wires to each other, without the distraction of names or faces or bad breath or unfashionable clothes. Without bodies.
IRENE T: I’ve got to go to bed.
LAST DAD STANDING: Oh God! It’s so late there. I’m sorry.
IRENE T: Thanks for listening.
LAST DAD STANDING: Good night, Irene. I’ll see you in my dreams.
Oh. Something fluttered in her chest.
Then he exited the chat room, and she was left in the dark, staring at that final message, as cryptic as a fortune cookie’s. Had he been flirting with her? Just making a musical reference? What did he intend?
She had no idea. She kept rereading it, looking for clues. The computer, with its much-vaunted Pentium chip, was no help; she’d have had better luck interrogating a carrier pigeon. All her usual tools for managing people, men especially, had been taken from her.
It was exhilarating.
4 Frankie
Where the hell was the sock?
He pulled the dresser drawer all the way open. Ran his hand along the back. The drawer was full of white tube socks and a few colored dress ones, the pairs rolled up into balls. He was looking for a solo white sock tinged pink from a washing machine run-in with the twins’ outfits, folded over itself. He kept it right there, in the back right corner. And now it was gone.
He started unrolling socks and tossing them to the carpet.
“What are you doing?”
Loretta, suddenly in the doorway, making him jump.
“I’m looking for socks,” he said.
“You’re wearing socks.” Eyeing him half dressed in his tighty-whities.
“Other socks,” he said testily. “Have the kids been in my stuff?”
“Your stuff?” Her eyes narrowed. Did she know about the stash? Or was it just Loretta being Loretta? She could do that, go cold. Like she was reconsidering the whole enterprise—marriage, kids, mortgage, everything.
He lifted a hand. “I’m just saying—”
“No one’s interested in your underwear,” she said. “Your sister’s here.”
“What?”
“She’s in the living room. With Matty?” She stared at him. “First day of the new job?”
“Tell ’em I’ll be right there,” Frankie said.
“Don’t forget your pants,” she said.
He pushed the door closed, then yanked the drawer free of the dresser and dumped the contents onto the bed. Finally he spotted the pale pink sock—but it was unfolded. And suspiciously flat.
He pulled open the neck and fished out the bills. Mostly twenties, but a handful of fifties, and a couple of hundreds. Quickly he counted the stash, and came up a hundred bucks short of the three thousand he’d hidden there. Frantically he started counting again.
From the living room Loretta yelled, “Frankie! You coming?”