Chapter Fourteen
Five straight days passed where I didn’t see Bradley.
He woke up before I did and went to bed after I fell asleep. At least, evidence involving coffee pots and a growing bin filled with dirty clothes allowed me to conclude that’s what was happening.
Finally, on Friday night, just as Annalina, my mother, and I were sitting down to play a game of Monopoly, Bradley walked in.
Counting out the money to start with, I didn’t see him sit down until he was right next to me, which placed him between my mother and I.
“Mind if I join in?”
I grinned at him as I handed the stacks of money to the other two, teasing him, “This isn’t the electronic version; no credit cards in this one.” I handed him the stack of money intended for myself, and counted out a new one. “I hope you make playing a challenge because I always win over these two.”
“That’s not true!” Annalina frowned, but I could see her trying not to smile. “I’ve won once or twice.”
“Hey, once or twice in six years is impressive.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, and both my mother and I busted out laughing as Bradley watched our teasing with amusement.
Soon after, we started the game and when my mother landed on a property and refused to buy it, I said, “Okay, let’s start off the auction!”
“Wait. What?”
I focused on Bradley and lifted an eyebrow. “That’s the rule. If you land on a property and you don’t want it, then it’s auctioned off by the banker to the highest bidder.”
He stared at me for a few moments, then chuckled. “I never knew that. To be fair, I also never read the directions; the last time I played this game…well, it was a long time ago.”
“Like how long ago?” Annalina asked, making Bradley shake his head.
“You don’t wanna know.”
“Yeah I do,” she insisted. “Was it before I was born ‘cuz that’s a long time ago.”
“Technically yes,” he answered with a grin. “Although to be accurate, it’s more like before your mother was born.”
Her mouth dropped open, but she quickly recovered. “That’s so old!”
“I am not old!”
“Please,” my mother cuts in, laughing. “None of you are as old as I am, so shut it. Auction off the property!”
So I did.
Bradley seemed to really enjoy himself, and it was nice to add another person to our gameplay. It brought extra laughter, and really made me begin to feel as if we were truly a family, especially since everyone had adjusted well so far.
At end game, Bradley and I definitely had the most money, and we counted up everything.
And I won.
My mother shuffled off to bed with a grumble about how she’ll never win between the both of us, and my daughter went to go make herself a bowl of ice cream.
As Bradley and I cleaned up the game, he leaned over and whispered, “You spent money like a pro in this game. You should have no problem shopping with the money I’ve given you.”
I picked up the game currency, and before he could see what I was doing, dumped it all over his head.
Then ran off to join my daughter in the kitchen, laughing all the way.
~*~
“Mom?”
Looking up from her book, my mother saw me standing in the doorway Saturday morning and lowered it to her lap. “What’s with the frown?”
“I have a problem.” She said nothing, waiting for me to elaborate, and I walked over to the couch to sit down. “Is there anything you need that might cost more than you can afford?”
“Wouldn’t that make it my problem and not yours?”
“Seriously,” I replied with a humorless laugh. “Do you need anything?”
“No…? What’s this about?”
“Bradley told me I have to go shopping.”
“Really? How terrible.” She went back to reading her book with a chuckle. “Have fun.”
“I need your help.”
“With shopping?” I guess she gave up on reading because she placed the book on the table and crossed her arms. “What are you going to purchase that you need my help?”
For some reason, this conversation felt like it should be funny, but it wasn’t to me. But she had no idea why I had a problem, which meant I had to clarify, and I knew she was going to laugh at my predicament.
“I don’t know. I have to buy some dresses with some of it, but you see, he said I have to spend ten thousand dollars total.”
My mother’s mouth dropped open as I nearly choked on the words, then she proved my theory correct by bursting into laughter and standing up.
“It’s not funny!” When she laughed harder, I scowled at her. “Mom. This is serious!”
“Actually,” she said through chuckles, “this is damned funny. You’re upset about having to spend ten thousand dollars.”
I sat there and stared at her until she calmed down.
“Sorry, sorry.” She wiped away the tears from her laughter and sat back down, patting my hand. “I’ve never heard of a woman being distressed over being told to spend money, that’s all.”
“It’s not just money; it’s the amount,” I said, lowering my voice even though we were the only ones home. “It seems so…offensive, for some reason.”
“Offensive? Did he tell you how much he spent on the wedding?” She waves her hand around the room. “Do you have any idea how much this place — the one you live in — is worth? You can’t have thought he didn’t have a lot of money, sweetie.”
“I always knew he had money.” I threw my hands up in the air. “But even with what he was paying me before, I spent it on bills. I didn’t just blow it.”
“Okay, and? Now you can just blow it.”
“Mom!”
“Lucy…you didn’t tell him you found his suggestion to spend it all offensive, did you?”
“No, but I wanted to. Why?”
“Honey.” She stared at me until I wanted to squirm in my seat. “The man works hard for his money. He worked so hard in the past that you only saw him one weekend a month. He works at least eighty hours a week, although my experience so far is that it’s closer to a hundred. And now, he wants to share his hard work with you. Please don’t ever say those words out loud to him. He’s hardly a man who lives in excess, but he’s earned the right to spend his money. Lots of couples turn money into an issue; don’t be one of them.”
“So why did he suggest I do it?”
“Probably for the pure joy of it. He knows that before him, you never had any money to blow. Yeah, he paid you better than what you made working fast food, but even then, you still had to be careful. I think he merely wants you to experience money from the other side of the coin. Plus, you’re his wife and I’ve no doubt he wants you to look nice and be happy.”
“But—“
She shook her head, interrupting my objection. “No. Stop arguing and just do it. And, if you absolutely need a way to see it as less offensive, then remember that you spending money keeps other people employed. It puts food on people’s tables, and clothes on their backs. Every dollar you see as wasteful, someone else sees on their paycheck to pay their bills.”
When she said that, I realized she had a point. How many times had my hours gotten cut — especially right after the holidays and a month or two after the new year — because customer spending levels dropped? I’d felt the pinch of every hour of work I didn’t get to have because there simply wasn’t enough money coming in for the company to keep me working full-time.
“All right,” I said out loud, although the idea of spending that much money on stuff I didn’t need continued to bug me. “I just don’t need anything, so what am I supposed to buy?”
“Ah, I see the problem. Honey, he’s not asking you to be wasteful to the point you buy things you don’t need or won’t use. He wants you to buy something you want — or buy something you know someone else wants, needs, and will use. Not everything you purchase needs to be out of necessity; sometimes it should be fun and something you want, and you get it because you have the ability to do it and enjoy it.”
“Gah. I hate that you make complete sense right now.”
“I have my moments.” She gave me a soft smile. “I know it’s a foreign concept to you, to buy something you want instead of need, but you can do it.”
“Right.” I stood up and picked up my purse. “Well, do you want to join Annalina and I for some dress shopping?”
“Sure,” she replied with a shrug. “Why not?”
I yelled for Annalina and soon we were all headed out the door.
~*~
When Bradley arrived home late that evening, all signs of my shopping expedition were gone. As he undressed, I lay in bed reading a book.
“How was your day?”
“Busy.” He sighed as he unbuttoned his shirt, tossing me a look over his shoulder as he dropped it in his basket, then poured himself a drink. “How was yours? And what’re you reading?”
“Thirty ways to spend ten-thousand dollars,” I teased, closing the book and setting it aside as he chuckled. “Nah. More like ‘chick porn,’ also known as a romance novel.”
“So,” he said, walking toward his side of the bed, “what you’re telling me is you spent ten grand on romance novels?”
I laughed, enjoying the fact we could tease each other like this, as I burrowed under the blankets. “Oh yes, I cleaned out your side of the closet and stored them there.”
“Really now?” He slid under the comforter and got close enough to touch me, but not quite. “How many books does ten grand allow you to purchase?”
“I prefer paperbacks and they are about seven dollars a piece. So…” I looked away from his gaze, blushing. “You tell me.”
“Fourteen hundred twenty-eight,” he said not even a second later, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Math not your strong suit?”
“No. The calculator on my phone is one of my best friends.”
“I see.” He was quiet for a moment, then demanded, “Look at me Lucy.” When I did, he murmured, “Don’t be embarrassed. I know you didn’t finish high school. What kind of grades did you receive?”
“C’s if I was lucky in most things, with D’s in Math and Science. I just never ‘got it’ like I should’ve.”
“Do you know what the problem was? The testing, the teachers, or something else?”
I struggled with an answer, let alone the words to articulate how difficult school had always been for me, so I shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose I found the way they taught it to be beyond my ability to understand it. I would get the right answer, but I’d do it differently, and so I’d get it wrong because the teacher said they were trying to teach a concept, not a set of steps. Which made no freaking sense to me. I always wondered why it mattered how I got there, instead of the fact I was smart enough to find a way there no matter what.”
“I understand why that would frustrate you. How did you manage to make it all the way to shift supervisor, considering the fact you would’ve had to do paperwork involving a lot of math?”
“They taught me how to do it. I watched, and asked when I had questions. Once I did it a few times, I didn’t have a problem. But it wasn’t complicated math; it was addition, subtraction, multiplication. No solving for x minus y plus z divided by the sister of my cousin’s brother’s aunt’s uncle’s cat squared to the third, or whatever.”
He threw his head back and laughed, then nuzzled his face into my neck while covering my body with his.
When he didn’t speak, I wrapped my arms around his neck and said, “Bradley. I went shopping but didn’t spend all the money; I couldn’t.”
“I know.” He kissed my shoulder, followed by the crook of my neck, and then my cheek before nipping at my earlobe. “I saw how much it bothered you when we were discussing it. Did you at least buy some new dresses as I asked?”
“Yes, plus I bought Anna and my mother a few things. Well, you did.”
“Credit card?”
Laughing, I wiggled beneath him. “Yep. I decided I’m going to do something better with the ten grand.”
“Tell me.”
“Mom said every dollar I spend helps to house and feed someone else, and perhaps even their family. And we all know that’s true, but I want to have a more direct way of assisting. I want to know my money is directly helping someone, because you never know much money someone makes just by where they work.”
I paused to look at him and he smiled down at me. “Go on.”
“I’m going to save money. It’s the smart thing to do, so I’m going to save a fourth…and then, I’m going to anonymously help others out with their mortgages, or utility bills, etcetera.”
He didn’t say anything, just gazed down at me with their weird look in his eyes. After a moment, I asked, “What do you think?”
“I think…” He cleared his throat, leaning in to kiss me softly on the lips, then pulled back, “that it’s a very nice and wonderful thing to do. And, on a personal note, I couldn’t have chosen a better woman to marry.”
The unexpected compliment had my face heating and him laughing at my undoubtedly pink cheeks.
“I just know what it’s like to suffer, to need to pay less on one bill to make sure you pay enough on another to avoid having something shut off. Nobody deserves to be that poor, to have to make the choice between paying their rent or feeding themselves, no matter the choices they made in the past.”
Bradley frowned. “Were you having those problems when you signed up to the site we met on?”
“Yes.” When his scowl deepened, I rushed to say, “But they’d always been that way. I tried to work more hours when they were available, but it was never enough, and didn’t happen often. You saw the first time we met how I wore old clothing until it fell apart, I didn’t have a cell phone, my internet was the cheapest package they could offer, which I mainly used to try and find a better paying job.”
“How much did you make a year before you met me, Lucy?”
“Um…seventeen thousand?”
He blinked, then blinked again, and rolled off me with a groan. “I must’ve seemed like an insensitive prick when I said spend ten grand in spite of your objection. That’s over half of what you made in a year. F*ck.”
I giggled when he called himself an insensitive prick, then shrugged. “Nah. We never talked about how much money I made. I know you knew it wasn’t a lot, but most people have no idea how little even managers make in fast food or retail. And not everybody can keep moving up the ladder.”
He moved over my body again, something I couldn’t ascertain shining in his eyes as he gazed down at me. “Don’t pretend I didn’t hurt your feelings by not asking more than the basic questions about you. I paid you as my companion, but we always did whatever I wanted, and never spoke at length about anything in our individual lives.”
“I was paid to do whatever you wanted, not ask questions or offer up information.”
“Lucille…”
“Fine.” If he wanted to hear me say it, I would. “At first, I didn’t care, acknowledging that you didn’t want the real world to intrude on the little time you had free. Not to mention, I never expected you to continue liking me for very long anyway. But yeah, after a while, it hurt, even if the amount I brought home made my life so much easier. You…” I licked my lips, my eyes tearing up as I finished in a whisper, “Became so much more to me than a paycheck.”
“I see, but back up a second. You didn’t expect me to continue liking you for very long? Why in the world would you believe such a thing?”
“Uhm…” I bit my lip, but couldn’t manage to look away from his intense and interested gaze. “Well, look at you…and look at me.”
He flicked his gaze down my body and back up. “I’m failing to see the problem.”
Rolling my eyes, I poked him in the chest with one finger, not missing his flinch in response. “Not what I meant. There I was — a high school dropout and single mother making barely above minimum wage — and there you were. A doctor. Living in a place like this. Paying me more money for forty-eight hours of my time a month than I made the whole month put together at my job. Why in the world would I think that would last long?”
He grabbed my hand in his and dragged it away from his chest, scowling at me the whole time. “That’s bullshit. We are both more than the sum of our academic achievements.”
“I guess.”
“Do you feel stupid, Lucy?”
“No. Well, sometimes.”
“Do you think finishing school with your C’s and D’s would’ve made your life better because you graduated?”
“No. But—“
“How does your daughter do in school?”
I blinked at the rapid change of subject. “Um, she’s a straight A student.”
“If she didn’t get good grades, would you find her stupid?”
“No!”
He grinned down at me. “Explain to me why you feel yourself to be stupid then?”
“I—you—“ I glared at him. “It’s not the same.”
“Want to know why I continued to like you, to the point I asked you to marry me, Lucille?”
“As if you wouldn’t tell me anyway even if I said no?”
“Yes.” He laughed. “See, you’re smart. And funny. You’re a great parent, you take care of your mother, and you never let anything get you down. And you think of others before yourself. If anything, I question why you’re with me and said yes to my proposal.”
I opened my mouth to object but then he grinned, and I knew he merely teased me.
After that, his lips dropped to cover mine, ending the conversation with something way more sweet than any words could convey.