Anna unhooks her large tote bag and her purse from her shoulder. She wanted to be prepared for the meeting, so she brought proof of Marion’s embezzlement, along with the reward check, but now she feels graceless and uncoordinated, loaded up and down, truly out of place. The matriarch holds nothing, just her perfect posture, her rib cage in true alignment with her head and her pelvis, and she seats herself elegantly on the sofa with Anna.
A pause happens, and then Anna begins to talk and shuffle through her papers, cluttering up the Russian’s coffee table with the proof. She’s pointing at columns of spreadsheets, demonstrating the many times Marion fudged the numbers for her own gain. She talks fast, buzzing from one subject to another, not realizing how hurt she sounds. “At first it’s twenty dollars here, forty dollars there,” Anna explains to the matriarch, “but she’s stealing more. She’s taking it from us. From me. And the worst part is, her girls are on partial tuition because she works for the school. Look, she stole a thousand dollars from me,” pointing at her own last donation to the school, which never made it where it was supposed to go. The matriarch rests her hand on Anna’s shoulder, and Anna stops with her mouth hanging open. Then she asks, “Well, what did Marion take from you?”
The matriarch looks Anna in the eye. “Nothing that we won’t get back.”
“What do you mean?”
The matriarch stands and walks to the kitchen. She reaches into the fridge and pours a glass of water for herself from a pitcher that stands on the top shelf. She pours one for Anna too.
“Did you contact the police?” the matriarch asks.
“No, we didn’t want the publicity. We still don’t.”
The matriarch returns with the cold water and places both glasses on coasters next to the papers.
“Good, neither do we. I am willing to make reparations to you and the school if we can handle the Marion Palm situation privately.”
“Reparations?”
“How much did Marion embezzle from the school?”
“We think around a hundred and forty thousand dollars.”
“Let’s call it an even two hundred thousand dollars. I will tell my bank manager to make the transfer to the school as an anonymous donation.”
“I don’t understand,” Anna says.
“It will be over soon,” the matriarch says. “We will handle Marion, and you will handle the school. I think that is the most efficient course of action.”
“But why would you pay—”
“It’s over.”
Anna hesitates and then tidies her mess of papers on the coffee table.
The Palm Family Fortune
The Palm Trust financial manager is making a series of somber phone calls to the current generation of Palm artists, volunteers, drug addicts, and socialites to explain that their checks are going to get smaller. The family has been a fruitful one—Nathan has more cousins than he can recall—but has dipped into the capital once too often. The Palm family fortune is finally running out. The financial manager thought he would be all right—he thought he had invested correctly and that the market would replenish the losses—but it didn’t happen. He explains this on a loop to increasingly bewildered people. They will all be all right, he assures them, but they must make some changes to their spending habits.
Nathan gets the call the day after the hurricane doesn’t happen. He’s still feeling hollow from his daughters’ disappearance, so he doesn’t worry about the money. This is the latest in a series of disasters, and it will be fine. The financial manager thanks Nathan Palm sincerely for his generosity of spirit and kindness. Nathan says, “It’s not your fault.”
When Nathan hangs up the phone, he wonders why he said that. It is the financial manager’s fault, but Nathan can’t be angry. He pulls up his blog again on his computer. The more intrusive comments have gone quiet, and it’s all about window blinds today. He answers questions, gives his opinion assuredly but not fanatically. The individual must decide: What would look best in your house? The comments say, Thank you, and by the way, how are you holding up? How are your girls doing?
Nathan writes a post about his daughters’ reactions to his wife’s disappearance. He writes poetically about Jane’s connection with the missing boy and Ginny’s recent delinquency. He hopes that one day they will be stronger women because of this hard time. At the end, he talks about himself. He invents a moment he and his daughters shared recently, a difficult but frank conversation, and inserts one of the pictures from the hurricane dinner to the post. The spaghetti Bolognese looks red and hearty. The Parmesan shavings are artfully scattered, and the basil leaves at the center of each plate are the perfect shade of green. The table is set with three white plates crowded with pasta on a reclaimed farm-door table with mismatching silverware and checkered napkins. The storm candles are lit, even though the electricity never went out. There’s a picture of Jane with sauce at the corners of her mouth, and she’s turning to Ginny with a sprig of basil between her index finger and thumb. Ginny looks like she could start laughing. He publishes.
An email pops up in his inbox from a subsidiary of one of the larger publishing houses in New York. Nathan eagerly clicks. It’s an editorial assistant or an assistant editor—it’s not clear. She’s been reading his blog and believes there is a book there. Would he be interested in a meeting?
Nathan knows enough to not write back immediately. He thinks about the meal he will serve the editorial assistant/assistant editor. He’s already decided to be forthcoming about his new agoraphobia. It will only make the book more sellable. He’ll do webcam readings and radio podcasts, meanwhile serving delicious drinks and meals made from ingredients delivered to his door. He’ll make it a mentally handicapped-lifestyle-guide-slash-memoir. He’s imagining the book jacket.
Missing Persons
The detective has no children. He has no wife. He used to date a woman, but they broke up when she decided to move to Michigan to be near her family. All he has is Walter, whom he found half starved and fully crazed in his brother’s empty apartment. After doing the dishes and writing out a check to the landlord for the owed rent, the detective took Walter home, along with his brother’s plasma TV. He left a note for his brother explaining where his cat and his television set could be found, should his brother return. Up till now, the detective has paid his brother’s rent and Walter’s still alive, but he’s had enough of Brooklyn families. This will include his own.
Nathan Palm wouldn’t come out to the car to get his daughter. The detective had to take the girl in his arms up the stoop. Nathan expressed a certain amount of helplessness at the door and hung his head in shame, but collected the small girl and promised her there would be repercussions for her disobedience but also a hot meal. The edge of the hurricane had downed some trees, tossed some garbage around, and so the prospect of a warm house was a good one. The detective wondered if Nathan would invite him inside.
Nathan did not. Instead he brought his hand up to his forehead and pinched his temple with his thumb and forefinger. The detective watched as Jane Palm disappeared into the house.
A minute or two passed with Nathan and his temple. Finally the detective spoke up.