Marion Palm quits the café two weeks after marrying Nathan. She tries to stay but has married a rich man, and so she can’t handle customers anymore. Her reason to be nice has dissolved. She finds herself copying customer credit card numbers onto napkins and memorizing those numbers when the café is slow. It’s not difficult, so she knows she’s heading in a bad direction. She quits the restaurant, and the Brazilian owner does not cry or yell. It seems that Marion was on her way to being fired and hadn’t noticed. The owner hasn’t found out about the fictitious vendors. Marion is not being run out of town as a thief. The café simply no longer wants her there. Marion hopes it is because her financial need has diminished. She hopes this is progress. The chef, feeling that Marion is persona non grata with the owner, ignores her goodbyes to the kitchen. She leaves without ceremony and doesn’t return for her last paycheck. Those three figures are insignificant to her now.
She finds a house to buy. She visits house after house with an upbeat real estate agent, driving through Brooklyn neighborhoods in the realtor’s dinged and dented tan Saab. She chooses a brownstone in Carroll Gardens, and it needs work, but the Palms are young and they have money. It shouldn’t be a problem, the realtor says. There shouldn’t be any problems. They make an offer after Nathan approves. She and Nathan talk about possible renovations over dinner that night. Their offer is accepted. Marion gets pregnant. An accident but also Nathan’s idea. He wants a family. He doesn’t want to be an old man with young kids. For once, Marion has heeded her mother’s advice: better make it stick. They pay extra for the current owners to vacate the premises as soon as possible.
They move. They don’t have enough things for this house, so they buy more things. Their schedules are both very open. Marion and Nathan visit antique-furniture stores together. Marion is astonished by her new husband’s ease in these expensive stores, but also sees the salespeople see Nathan coming. She must step in to redirect their focus. She must tell them and Nathan that actually, she makes the final decision. Nathan happily gives up the responsibility; the salespeople are annoyed. But she’s pregnant, and she’s found that this has made her into a person of authority. In Brooklyn, a rich white pregnant lady in leather sandals is sovereign.
Wanting a better understanding of her new power, she asks for financial records, specifically those concerning the Palm fortune. She wants to know precisely how much money they have. Nathan changes the subject. She asks again, and he makes an excuse, tells her it’s complicated and she shouldn’t worry so much. He treats her like a paranoid pregnant lady. It seems that as Marion gets bigger, she becomes more absurd, and so her sovereignty is fading with every pound gained. Alone one morning (Nathan’s meeting a friend for coffee), she receives a bank statement in the mail, and she tears into it. She reads it like a novel in the kitchen. They don’t have as much money as she thought. This house means they have no savings, and by they, she means she. She has no savings. Marion does a quick inflation projection for the next decade and knows that they aren’t going to have enough. They should not have bought this house. She did not marry a rich man.
He’s out of the house till midafternoon, so she calls the Palm family financial manager, after finding the number in Nathan’s Rolodex. The financial manager is surprised to hear from her, tells her essentially to calm down and enjoy being the wife of a Palm, but Marion insists on seeing him. I happen to be free right now, she says. The financial manager grudgingly admits that he is too.
She takes the train to the financial district, and her belly is an anathema. It makes everyone wildly uncomfortable on the elevator. Here she is not a person who knows something special about the universe. It’s also August, and the only thing she fits into is a short A-line dress, and her legs are on display. In the humidity of the subway this was fine, but in the chilly atmosphere of the skyscraper, she’s freezing. The hair on her legs stands straight up. Her sweat is evaporating into the air of the elevator.
In the office, she tries to get the financial manager to take her seriously. It is impossible because she can’t cross her legs and every minute or so must stuff her dress down between her thighs in order to not flash the man a shot of her underpants. With one fist keeping the dress down, she leans forward and rests her other hand on his desk. She pleads. She tells the financial manager that she knows the money they are getting will not be enough for a family in Brooklyn. She’s run the numbers. Taxes will increase. Education will become more expensive. The mortgage payments could and probably will go up. The house needs work—not a new paint job, but a new boiler. They even found uncapped gas jets in the basement. Marion points to the sky to illustrate what is about to happen with living expenses.
The financial manager makes some noises, repeats that at least their child’s college tuition is covered, Marion and Nathan don’t need to worry about that. He says things that don’t mean anything but ultimately admits that there isn’t as much money left as everyone thinks. Great-Grandfather Henry Palm’s fortune is not everything.
But he can make a few phone calls. Great-Grandfather Henry Palm is still owed a few favors. For instance, he helped rebuild a girls’ school in Brooklyn Heights after a fire. The same school also graduated the young Nathan Palm. The Palm family has been good to the school, and the school knows this.
Marion Palm gets the job offer that afternoon. She accepts but knows it still won’t be enough. A part-time job in development is not what she needs, and she knows she is being condescended to. But there are few options for pregnant college dropouts. The financial manager and Nathan feel that she is overreacting. She’s a victim of pregnancy hormones. Nathan also implies that she’s unaccustomed to her new financial status. This is a common reaction among the newly affluent. Marion knows otherwise; she is, and always will be, on the edge of poverty. She’s suffering now because she forgot this fact. She still has the credit card numbers somewhere.
Jane Defends the Missing Boy