Refund Read online

  “Have you gone out to dinner yet?” she heard one mother ask another. “You wouldn’t believe the good deals down here, plus you can get reservations. Prix fixe at Chanterelle, thirty-five bucks, incredible, plus you have money for a good bottle of wine.”

  “The Independence has a special, Eat American,” said another. “The waitstaff is fast and gracious. They have the most exquisite apple pie.”

  Clarissa closed her eyes and rubbed her face, wondering if she should admire these mothers’ resilience or be appalled.

  “We were refugees at the Plaza,” she heard another mother say. “They had a special for everyone living below Canal. We had to go. Our place was covered in dust. We started throwing up, and I knew we had to get out. It cost a ton to get it cleaned. Should we stay or go? Can someone just tell me?” She whirled around, looking.

  The teacher came by. “The children are doing well,” she said. “Do you want to say bye before you go?”

  Now Clarissa swerved through the room like a drunken person. Your child was not in the world, and then he was, suddenly, part of it. She crouched and breathed his clean, heartbreaking smell. “I’m going bye,” she said.

  Her child ignored her. Slowly, she stood up.

  In the office off the main hallway, the in-house psychologist was holding a drop-in support session in which parents could talk about their feelings about sending their children to preschool three blocks from the site. Clarissa stood with the group clustered around the psychologist. One mother said, “My child screamed the whole way here, saying she was scared and didn’t want to go, and I dropped her off, but then, well, I wonder, is she right to be scared?”

  “Why is she right?” asked the psychologist.

  “Well, because,” called Clarissa, from the back.

  “You have to believe it is safe,” said the psychologist. “You tell them a kid’s job is to go to school, and a parent’s job is to keep you safe.”

  “But what if we don’t know if it’s safe?” Clarissa asked.

  “Where is it safe?” the psychologist said. “Here? Brooklyn? Vermont? Milwaukee?”

  The parents leaned toward her, awaiting an answer.

  “You have to tell them a little lie,” the psychologist said.

  LATER THAT DAY, SHE RECEIVED AN EMAIL WITH THE SUBJECT: STUNNED:

  I don’t know how you decided on this number as a refund. It is very unfair. Who are you to decide how much money to refund me? You were lucky; I was the one who suffered. I was on my way there!

  You did not tell me about the low water pressure or the scribbled crayon on the walls. Those facts would have made me not rent the apartment, and then I would NOT have been there. I thought you were my friend. Some friend. Do you even know what a friend is? Darla, my best friend, is kind to everyone, especially kittens. She once went to the animal shelter and brought her old Gucci towels to make the kittens more comfortable. I could see the attendants eyeing them! She told them to make sure the kittens took their towels with them to their new homes.

  You left oily hairs in your hairbrush. I have your hairbrush. I have your Maybelline mascara. It is a horrid color. Who would put Maybelline on her eyelashes? Who would look good in navy blue? Are you trying to be younger than your age? You do not look so youthful in the snapshots on the refrigerator. You dress as though you think you are. You should not wear jeans when you are in your late thirties. I don’t care if it is a bohemian sort of thing, it is just sad.

  I am requesting $3,000 plus $1,000 for every nightmare I have had since the attack, which currently totals twenty-four. You owe me U.S. $27,000, payable now.

  JOSH FOUND A JOB AS AN ILLUSTRATOR AT AN ADVERTISING FIRM, and each morning he sprinted down their hallway toward the office that gave him a new life. Sammy would not say goodbye without giving his father one of his toys to keep during the day. “Take one toy,” Sammy said, thrusting a tiny plastic dinosaur or little truck into the pocket of his father’s suit. One morning, Sammy could not decide which toy he wanted his father to have to remember him, and when Josh finally had to leave, Sammy began to wail. He began to race after his father, and Clarissa had to grab him. “Daddy will be back later,” she said in a strained, cooing voice. “We’ll see him later . . .”

  He looked at her as though she were a fool.

  One morning she tried to distract him by walking up to SoHo to see which artists had shows up. She peered at one gallery, where a member of the staff had expressed interest in her work, but had then vanished in an abrupt, unexplained departure. Another young woman, perhaps ten feet tall, wearing the monochrome dark outfits all the gallery staff wore, came over. Sammy was butting his head against the glass door like a small bull.

  “I’m sorry, but he can’t come in,” she said.

  Her face was perfectly blank, which Clarissa wanted to see as a personality deficiency, but which was instead an adaptive expression to New York and the desperate artists who banged on this gallery’s door. Sammy lurched forward. The girl blocked the door. “Sorry,” she said, sounding strained. “Ma’am—”

  Clarissa grabbed Sammy. She bumped into an American flag that was hanging from the door.

  “God bless America,” said the girl, quickly.

  “Come on,” Clarissa said to Sammy. “I’ll get you a ball.”

  She bought him a small red ball, and they passed the local park where they had spent much of their time before the attack. It had been beautiful, children playing under large green trees, honeyed patches of sunlight. Now the plants in the garden had been flattened after people raced, terrified, over them. The park had been closed briefly to clean up asbestos contamination. Sammy hurled his new ball into the park and darted in, chortling with joy. His ball was rolling to a garbage bin that said, NO PLAYING ON OR AROUND THIS CONTAINER. On the trees were flyers: EPA IS LYING. TOXIC DUST EVERYWHERE. UNITE!

  “No!” she yelled. “No more ball.”

  She grabbed him by the waist and lifted him. He scratched her, leaving two red lines on her arms. He kicked. She struggled to find a way to hold him so that he would not hurt her, but he was wild. His scream vibrated through his Elmo shirt. She did not know how to protect him from the world. When he was older, he would not remember the Towers. She envied his ignorance, longed for it.

  “Hey!” someone called. It was a kindly park janitor. “I got your ball for you,” she said.

  “It was by that bin, you’re not supposed to touch it,” said Clarissa.

  The janitor looked at her. “You can just wipe it off,” she said. She took a Kleenex from her pocket and wiped the ball. Clarissa wondered what sort of person would live with their child in a toxic zone, beside police barricades encircling targets of violence. She shuddered, for that sort of person was herself.

  “That’s just where they keep the rat poison,” said the janitor, cheerfully.

  “The rat poison,” said Clarissa, numbly. She had never thought the term rat poison would sound nostalgic, but she was strangely calmed.

  DEAR CLARISSA:

  You have forgotten about me. I have not forgotten about you. You were lucky. You were out of town. I had to endure your apartment. I can still feel the dirt on my skin. I cannot believe that you keep a child in that filthy apartment. You cannot control him from drawing on the walls. Furthermore, his drawings do not even show any artistic merit.

  This is a pathetic way for someone who is thirty-eight to live. I figured it out. I have ten more years of life over you. Ha ha! This is how I wanted to spend it: wake up, go to the top of the building, look out and take pictures with my new camera, come down, go to lunch at Nobu, walk around SoHo, buy something for my husband, go look at the shoes at Prada, have tea at the Plaza, jet off to Zermatt, stop in London. I want it all. I have the good taste to appreciate what is worthy in life.

  My refund is U.S. $29,000, payable now.

  DEAR KIM:

  Don’t try to pass the buck to me. You lived. You were lucky. Do you know what we were doing when you were here tryin
g all the restaurants? Working. We are always working. We never rest. Do you know how many jobs I’ve had in the last year, trying to make some money and make time for my art? Fifteen. Do you know how close I came to getting a review in the Times? The guy came and loved my work. The word he used (and I heard him) was “groundbreaking.” Then along came this woman who videoed her own vagina and played the video to the soundtrack of The Sound of Music. There was room for just one review, and she got it. It was a good one.

  I am considering the refund and the appropriate amount considering the fact that we should all rise above ourselves during this terrible time. Peace be with you.

  EACH MORNING, WHEN SHE WALKED SAMMY INTO RAINBOWS, SHE first felt an exquisite rush of relief. Sammy jumped out of the stroller to a cream-colored room scented like oranges, inconceivably sweet. “Hello, Sammy,” the teachers said, as though he were a visiting dignitary. “Sammy’s here. Hello, Sammy, hello.”

  They allowed him into this beautiful room and waved at her, expecting her to walk out to continue her own life. She looked at the street, and she did not know where she could go. The hallway was mostly empty. She sat and watched the children play.

  The mother who had been a refugee at the Plaza was heading a committee to raise money for tuition lost when parents withdrew their children. She was taking a poll in the hallway regarding how much to charge for the tickets to a benefit. “I’m thinking something spectacular. Monte Carlo night. Dinner, casino, a silent auction. Do you think people would pay fifty, one hundred, or two hundred per ticket?”

  “I would pay one thousand,” Clarissa said.

  The woman looked right at her. It was as though Clarissa had told her something wonderful about herself. “Yes,” she said, softly.

  DEAR CLARISSA:

  It is not my concern that you never rest. You cannot get the money from me. It was your choice to pursue this “job” of artist. Why would I owe you anything? You were not honest with me. Honesty is the best policy. When Darla left her husband, she told him that she could not stand his skinny legs. That was just something she felt he should know. We all have our limits. The knowledge might have helped him in his later dating life. You should have told me about the water pressure, scribbled crayon, hallway odor, broken TV, useless air conditioner. Why didn’t you? I expect U.S. $31,000, payable now.

  THERE WERE NO MORE EMAILS. AT NIGHT, CLARISSA LAY BESIDE Josh, awake, listening to the wild screaming of the cranes.

  On October 30, she sat down and wrote a check for $263.75. There was no reason for this amount except that it was what they had left in their bank account that month. She did not know what to write on the note, so she scribbled, quickly, Here is your refund. God Bless.

  HALLOWEEN WOULD BE SAMMY’S LAST DAY AT THE SCHOOL. THE bad tuition check for $2,000 had been sent a week before, and she wanted to stop showing up before they could ask her about it. Sammy dressed as a lion. All the children were in costume. A few mothers were loitering in the lobby, captivated by the sight of their children pretending to be something else. Sammy’s class was populated with two miniature Annies, a Superman, a ballerina, three princesses, some indeterminate sparkly beings, a dog, and Sammy, a lion. The teacher read them a Halloween story, speaking to them as though she believed they would live forever. The children listened as though they believed this, too. Clarissa pressed her hands to the glass window that separated the parents from their children; she wanted to fall into the classroom and join them.

  After school, she wanted to buy Sammy a special treat. She brought him a blue helium balloon at a party store. He marched down the street, grinning; she lumbered after him, this tiny being with a golden mane and tail. Suddenly, Sammy stopped and handed her the balloon. “Let it fly away,” he said.

  “I’m not getting you another,” she said.

  “Let if fly away!” he shouted. “Let it!”

  She took the balloon and released it. The wind pushed it, roughly, into the air. Her son laughed, an impossibly bright, flute-like sound. Other people stopped and watched the balloon jab into the air. They laughed at Sammy’s amusement, as though captivated by some tender memory of themselves. Then the balloon was gone.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Her child looked at her.

  “Get it,” he said.

  A WEEK LATER, SHE PICKED UP THE PHONE. “TWO HUNDRED AND sixty-three? How did you come up with this number? You owe me $54,200, why don’t you give me money?”

  “Why do you keep bothering us?” Clarissa asked.

  “You were lucky,” said Kim. “You weren’t where you were supposed to be.”

  “You weren’t either,” said Clarissa. “You went the wrong way—”

  “Maybe it wasn’t the wrong way. Maybe the Towers were the mistake. Why would I have wanted to go there, anyway? Maybe I was supposed to meet someone there, and they never showed up. What do you think of that?”

  Clarissa felt cold. “Were you supposed to meet someone there?”

  “Would I get my $54,200?”

  “Were you meeting someone there?” asked Clarissa. “Were you?”

  “She is named Darla,” said Kim.

  “Why didn’t you say this?” asked Clarissa.

  “Will you pay me money?”

  Clarissa’s throat felt hot.

  “I was talking to her on my cell phone,” said Kim. “She was on the elevator to the observation deck.” She paused. “She wanted to go to the Empire State Building, but I thought at the Towers we would get a better view.”

  What did one owe for being alive? What was the right way to breathe, to taste a strawberry, to love?

  “Kim,” said Clarissa, “I—”

  “Do you know how long I’m going to charge you?” Kim said, her voice rising.

  Clarissa closed her eyes.

  “Do you know?” said Kim.

  This Cat

  Let me say at the beginning: it was not the cat’s fault. We were at the PetSmart adoption carnival to buy a pet; we had that look of determined acquisition. A cloud of cat rescue people came upon us, presenting their candidates. They started with their hopeless cases. The blind cats. The ones that had tested positive for feline leukemia. The one missing an ear from a fight. The children looked upset. They just wanted a nice cat.

  Nice? We have nice. This one is nice but it has six toes. And cat herpes. But that just means it has a runny eye. Give it vitamins.

  —That one, said the children.

  The cat was skilled at being adorable, stretching and yawning with a tiny squeak. That did it; the children were sold. They were ten and six; by this time, they had stored up enough love to offer it to another being. They mauled him, patting him, making guttural sounds of affection. He was, thank god, tolerant. He stretched again, made that yawn, and I was suddenly, unexpectedly tearful.

  —We’ll take him, I said.

  He was small enough to fit into the crook of my arm, like a football. I had, in fact, asked for him, though I blamed it on the children, who liked the fact there was someone here more powerless than they. They pressed their faces into his black fur, which was so soft it felt as though you were melting into him. We could not come up with an agreed-upon name. Furry. Fluffy. Midnight. Alan. Fred. Licorice. None seemed quite right. We decided that we would name him later. Now he was just The Cat.

  In the morning, they went off to school in a big rush, after they had treated us, the parents, like dirt. They were beautiful and holy and problematic. Do you want cereal? No. Can you brush your teeth? No. Can you make your bed? No. The boy rushed upstairs, in a sly, efficient way, to root out the Nintendo where we had hidden it. The girl ate her cereal with slow, elegant mouthfuls, as though we were her servants and school for her would start at 10:00 AM instead of eight. Why did we keep bothering them, and why did we have to rout them into this glaring, strange thing, a day?

  When they were finally out of the house, I took the cat into my arms. I felt purring un
der his thin ribs. His stomach was as soft as a balloon filled with water. He looked at me with tenderness, me, his savior. There was a familiar fullness in my breasts, a sense of heaviness, dropping, a sensation I had not felt in six years. The cat was looking at me with a pert, intelligent expression. It knew. The fullness got worse.

  I wasn’t sure what to do about it; I lifted my shirt and squeezed the right breast. A droplet came out of my nipple. I imagined the cat opening its tiny mouth and latching on. His little paws would bat gently against my arms. It seemed a pure impulse, not strange at all. It seemed perfectly natural.

  I WAS A LITTLE BIT PROUD OF THE DROPLET, AS THOUGH IT REVEALED my great prowess as a mother. It had been six years since I nursed an infant, but I could still do this, even if I was closing in on forty-five. Frankly, at this point, I was a little desperate for things to be proud of. But perhaps I was getting younger in some miraculous way. I passed this information on to my gynecologist the following week. She grew pale.

  —What? she asked.

  —There was a drop.

  —Was it bloody?

  —No.

  —Was it discolored?

  —No.

  —We have to get this checked out.

  She scribbled something on a sheet.

  —Go to Havensworth Radiology tomorrow, she said. —We’ll figure it out.

  The appearance of the droplet, my apparently perverse desire to nurse the cat, led to a battery of painful tests. I went to Havensworth Radiology center, a giant building full of various X-ray machines. People gathered in the various sections. Knees. Lungs. Breasts. No one looked happy to be in Breasts. The waiting area for the Breast region was decorated in muted greens and blues, clearly designed by someone whose assignment was: create an environment so that patients forget they could lose their breasts or die. The technicians’ voices were too calm. Come here, dear. Put your breast on this ledge. We will squish it so it resembles a flattened donut and take a picture. Let me leave the room while the machine floods you with radioactive waves. Thank you. Let’s take another. The room flashed its poisonous light.