“Evelyn! I’m basically being your very highly paid data-entry assistant, courtesy of Graystone Partners, at the moment, all right? Can you not be a two-year-old?”
Evelyn remembered that her checking-account statement had arrived that week and had not yet been sequestered in the drawer, and shouldn’t cause too much of a reaction from Charlotte; there wasn’t a huge amount in the account, but at least she didn’t owe anything on it. Evelyn pulled the statement from under a Gorsuch catalogue on the hallway table and handed it over.
“You mind if I open it?” Charlotte said, already ripping it unevenly. Evelyn, not wanting to watch, turned around and took a vase of long-dead flowers to the sink, pouring out the old water, which smelled completely unorganic, bacteria and slime and acid. She squirted Caldrea over the sink to try to cover up the smell with Mandarin Vetiver.
“This isn’t a credit card, Ev. I need something that you pay actual bills to.”
“Hmm? I don’t know.” Charlotte could be so harsh, so firm, that Evelyn felt she had made an error in giving her an opening.
“Where do you put your savings, by the way? It’s good not to have too much in a checking account, but we should transfer some money in to cover your expenses. Where are you, Vanguard? Schwab?”
“Okay. Okay.” Evelyn turned on the water to give herself a moment to think. She hadn’t thought the checking account was in such bad shape, but Charlotte’s reaction made it sound like there was next to nothing in it. The assumption that she had some secret savings or investment account somewhere to save her—this was another part of the world nobody had told her how to handle.
“We can even set up an automatic transfer monthly from your investment account, so we’re not eating into the principal of your investments.” Charlotte looked at her expectantly.
Evelyn managed to force out some words. “Not right now. I’m good for now,” she said. Did everyone have separate investment accounts that funneled money to them monthly? How had she missed all of this?
“No biggie. So let’s go back to online banking. We’ll set up the recurring payments. It’s, what, rent, cable, do you pay Internet separately? Cell phone. And credit cards, right? What do you have for credit cards? An AmEx, right?”
Evelyn let the water soak through a slightly soiled yellow sponge. Maybe Charlotte would know what to do. Maybe, if she was really in trouble, Charlotte would offer to lend her money. Evelyn would object unconvincingly, then accept graciously, and then she could pay the bills, or part of the bills, and everything would be fine. She wiped up the water around the vase. “Some others, too,” she said in a small voice.
“Like?”
“A Visa, and Barneys, and Scoop.”
“Scoop has a credit card, first of all? What’s the APR on all of these?”
Evelyn’s hands traced pretty windshield-wiper patterns with the sponge, so lightly she was spreading water drops over the counter rather than cleaning them up. “Not sure.”
“Well, I need the statements.”
“The statements.”
“The statements.”
Evelyn seized a second bottle of wine and took it over to the couch, where she plopped down and smiled. “Come sit, Char.”
“No, I don’t want the session to time out.”
“Listen, grab the wine opener and we’ll have another glass. Okay?”
“It won’t take long.”
“Really. It’s time for wine.”
Charlotte pushed herself away from the computer, then walked into the kitchen. “I don’t see it,” Charlotte said.
“The wine opener? Should be in the top drawer.”
Evelyn heard a squeak of hardware, then silence. “You find it?” she said. Charlotte didn’t respond. Evelyn hoisted herself out of the couch, then walked to the kitchen, where she saw, it hitting her almost in slow motion, that Charlotte had tugged open her silverware drawer. When Charlotte turned around, Evelyn saw she was holding the telltale light-blue paper from American Express. Its empty envelope was teetering on the counter’s edge.
They stared at each other for a minute. “Put it down. Charlotte. Put that down,” Evelyn finally said.
They were locked in place. Neither moved. Neither spoke. A pigeon brushed against the window, clacking in terror.
“Do you know what you owe?” Charlotte said. “Do you know what you owe?”
Evelyn pressed her hands against the frame of the kitchen entry. “Put the bill down, Charlotte. You have no right to go through my stuff. No right.”
“That’s neither here nor there, Evelyn. You need some help. Your credit card—and that’s just one—”
“It’s fine. All right, Charlotte? It’s fine.”