Breaking the Bank by Yona Zeldis McDonough Page A

three—for real.
    Call Stu.
    Work on chapter about composting in
Garbage
.
    Start compost heap on fire escape?
    Buy sheets and towels.
    The sheets and towels were not, like the locket, a pure indulgence. She thought of them as a kind of armor necessary for Lloyd’s visit; she had no intention of letting him see the dingy pillowcases and fraying washcloths with which she uncomplainingly lived. Instead, she would buy herself a set of blush pink or pale blue sheets with a skin-caressingly high thread count. For the temporary bed that he would use while visiting, something subdued and tasteful, in ivory or oatmeal. For Eden, she would find a more whimsical pattern—frogs, fireflies, Ferris wheels—bounding or flying or spinning across the fabric. And while she would have loved a stack of thick white bath towels, plush enough to double as a pillow, she knew that such things were better left to those with maids or, at the very least, laundry rooms in the basement.Instead, she would be quite content with six new towels in more forgiving colors: chocolate brown, claret, midnight blue.
    She would use cash from her secret stash for these purchases. And when she plucked the bills from the box, she would also set aside a bill, a crisp hundred, for a wholly different but equally essential purpose. Someone, she didn’t yet know whom, would be waiting to receive it—a man in a wheelchair with his pant leg pinned up over his stump, a woman with matted hair and eczema-raw cheeks, a girl with a glassy, stoned look and bare feet black from the pavement. This person would accept her offering in a bag, a cap, a cup, or a creased and naked palm. He or she would have no idea why Mia had done such a thing. But Mia would know. Not just another consumer, taker, user, Mia would become a giver.
    Suddenly, it was so obvious. Every time she spent money on herself, she would also give some of it away. A kind of karmic evening of the score—something good happened to her, something good happened to someone else. How simple, how elegant, a concept. The effortless symmetry of it eased her gently into sleep.
    In the morning, Eden didn’t want to go to school. Maybe she could transfer to another school and never have to go back to that one?
    â€œI don’t think that will work,” Mia said, pouring juice and buttering a slice of bread. The toaster had died a couple of days earlier and she added
Buy toaster
to the list she had made last night. “You’ll just have to march into this one and tell everyone you’re sorry.”
    â€œWhat if I’m not?”
    Mia placed the buttered bread and glass of juice down in front of her. “Then
lie,
” she said. “
Pretend
you’re sorry, okay? Sometimes, you just have to do that.” She paused, and when there was no reply, added, “ Now I’ve got to get ready for work.” Then she turned away, leaving Eden to mull over this advice as she regarded, but did not eat, her food.

FIVE
    L LOYD LOOKED GOOD . Terrific, in fact. So terrific that it just about broke Mia’s heart all over again. It was so patently unfair that he should look so healthy, relaxed, and glowing while she knew herself to be a wan and stressed wreck. He was the one who left her; why couldn’t the remorse and strain have showed on his face, too?
    He strode into the apartment, the one she had cleaned and scoured for days, like a traveling salesman peddling snake oil to the barefoot, overall-wearing, hayseed-chewing rubes down on the farm.
    â€œDaddy!” cried Eden. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” In honor of this visit she had donned the long, twinkling skirt he’d bought her a few months ago, along with a lacy white top from some other equally impractical shopping trip. But she did look so pretty. So pretty and so happy.
    â€œHow’s my little filly?” he asked, grabbing her in his arms and whirling her around. “How’s my