"Money and Guilt"

Our apartment complex is called Meadowview but the only green on the premises are the window shudders circa 1970s like everything else here. We live so far out on the island that it’d be a practical lie for us to say that we live in New York. Mom thought we could get more space for less money out here but we’re living in what Texans would consider a poor housing project. Everything is old in this hick town just east of Sayville. And all the people are weird. Mom says they’re much more interesting than the hillbillies from home, but that’s only because she’s from this ancient state. Besides, I’d rather have bland and consistent hillbillies any day over strange and overly-opinionated New Yorkers.


We are walking under a sunny sky, that’s decided to leak out water anyway, to our landlord, Mr. McGee’s apartment. While we were bra shopping, our Corolla was broken into. My mother’s meditation tapes were stolen along with a few rolls of quarters she keeps for emergencies. Frankly, I consider the stolen tapes a blessing. There are only so many ‘OM’ chants I can take.


When I saw the jagged rectangle of glass hanging unsteadily at the top of the silver Corolla my stomach felt sick. I’d left my purse on the car floor. Granted it was an ugly, pink plastic-posing-for-leather purse, but I suppose thieves aren’t too picky about a bag’s workmanship. It’s the inside that counts. Well, all those jerks walked away with were three wrinkled dollars and a couple of Bic pens.


Without my consent, guilt eats away at me like one of Jack’s blazing green centipedes on his ATARI game. But my mother foolishly took me bra shopping at Betty’s Basement, an everything-for-less-because-nothing-is-worth-anything thrift store; a store located in a town where it is not uncommon to see beggars and people muttering to themselves on streets framed with rotten garbage. The cheap purse was Sam’s birthday gift to me last year. I’d never have left an expensive purse in the car. So really, it’s my mother’s cheapness that caused our car to be broken into.


See, my mom doesn’t need to be the poor widow with violin music playing in the background. Grandma Zelda—Sam’s mom—is loaded and is always offering to share her wealth with us. Only my mother won’t take a cent from her. So we need to shop at thrift stores like Betty’s Basement—by choice—when we can potentially afford Saks.


Zelda Silver-Rubenstein-Jacobson-Judd had made a career out of marriage. While I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to marry me, I admire her lifestyle. A Zelda lifestyle is glamorous; a Zelda life means valet parking where car thieves are unheard of.


But Zelda’s money is kryptonite to mom’s conscience. Taking her money means remembering that my father is dead, remembering that his death is on her hands.