Refund: Stories Page 5

  Ginger did not know what to tell the girl, and the sorrow in her eyes was unnerving. Instead, Ginger turned her attention to the stage. She used to love crowds, the way the people in them became one roar, one sound. But now, for the first time, all the people appeared vulnerable to her. Passengers drifted onto the stage, performing various tricks: singing “God Bless America,” attempting to juggle, dancing the rumba. They wanted to take off their pants in front of each other, or scream out the names of their home cities; they were confused about their place in the world. They had everything in common with her.

  Yet everyone on the stage also looked pleased to be up there, happy to be briefly bathed in light. They smiled at the sound of cheering, their faces simple in their hunger for recognition. She did not know what to tell Darlene, and then she envied everyone on the stage. She wanted to be with the others, to have a talent, to simply stand in the clear white light.

  Ginger raised her hand. The cruise director called on her, and she made her way to the stage. The lights glared hard and white in her eyes. Clutching her velvet purse, she felt the weight of her money in it. “Passengers,” she called. They stood like sad soldiers before their futures.

  “My name is Ginger Klein, and I’m going to make you rich. Give me a dollar,” she called. “Everyone. A dollar.”

  They dug into their pockets, and a few brought dollars out. She enjoyed watching them obey her. But what was the next step?

  “Catch,” she called.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of bills. She threw them into the spangled darkness. There were screams of disbelief, laughter. She dug into her purse and tossed out more. The passengers leapt from their seats and dove for the money. They were unhinged, thrilled, alive. Their screams of joy blossomed inside her. Her purse grew lighter and lighter.

  After awhile, the cruise director strode onto the stage and gently moved her off. “Thank you, Ginger Klein!” he shouted. “Best talent of the night, huh?” She paused, wanting to tell them something more, but she did not know what it would be. Applause thundered in her chest; she had, somehow, been successful. She walked slowly down the stairs, looking for Darlene. “Darlene,” she said, softly, then louder. “I’m here.”

  She did not see her. Ginger imagined how the girl would walk, carefully, off the ship by herself at the end of the week. Darlene would join the living pouring toward the shore, clutching her souvenir ivory penguins and Eskimo dolls, going to her future boyfriends and houses and lawns and exercise classes and book clubs and games. “Darlene,” she said as she walked down the hallway; she wanted to walk down the ramp with her, shading her own eyes against the dazzling sunlight, gripping Darlene’s arm.

  SOMETIMES, GINGER COULD HEAR EVELYN LAUGHING IN HER SLEEP, a harsh, broken sound, and she touched her shoulder, trying to feel the joy that her sister could experience most fully in her dreams. During the day, Evelyn talked about ordinary people, the loved and loving, with too much scorn; Ginger knew that her sister wanted her life to be like theirs. She believed that Evelyn wanted to get rid of her.

  One evening in the bar, Evelyn was talking to a man who claimed to work in the movie industry. His hands jabbed the air with the hard confidence of the insecure. He gazed at Evelyn as though he could see a precious light inside of her, and Ginger watched Evelyn’s shoulders tremble, delighted. She told him offhandedly that she was an orphan with no family. He leaned toward her and took her hands in his.

  “I’ll take care of you,” he said.

  Evelyn went home with him that night. The next day, she met Ginger at their room and said, “I am going to live with him. He likes the fact that I have no family.” She paused; her face was relieved. “You will have to be a secret.”

  Evelyn packed her suitcase and was gone, leaving only a lipstick the color of a rose. Ginger waited. Each morning, she put on a new costume, applied Evelyn’s lipstick, and murmured the same false pleas to strangers. Ginger made more money without Evelyn. Strangers could see a new emptiness in her eyes that touched them. After two weeks, she tried, briefly, to find her sister. She stood outside the walls of the movie studios, waiting to see the man. Her search paralleled her fantasies of what Evelyn would desire; she waited outside of expensive restaurants, wandered through fancy clubs, but as she rushed past the crowded tables, the patrons’ faces bloomed up, monstrous, unknown.

  It was three weeks before she saw Evelyn again, at the palisades overlooking the Santa Monica beach. Evelyn walked toward Ginger with a curious lightness in her step. She covered her mouth when she laughed. She flicked her wrist at the end of a sentence, as though trying to toss away her words.

  “He loves my hair,” Evelyn said. “He loves my laugh. Listen.”

  The sound made Ginger cold. It was difficult to stand straight; the ground was rising like slow, heavy waves.

  “You look well. I have to go,” said Evelyn. She backed up, as though fearful that Ginger would grab onto her. Then she stopped and pulled a small red purse from her pocket. “Here,” said Evelyn. “It has two hundred dollars.”

  “No,” said Ginger, stepping back.

  She felt her sister shove the purse into her hands and press her fingers around it. “Just take it.”

  Evelyn quickly ran toward the bus stop. Ginger understood that this would be the last time they saw each other. It would be Ginger’s own decision to move and not tell her sister where she was going. She sat down for a long time after the bus had pulled off, eyes closed, imagining that the wide blue sky, the gray elephantine palms would be gone when she opened them. When she looked again, the world was still there; Ginger left the purse on the bench and started walking.

  THE NEXT MORNING, WHEN SHE WOKE UP, SHE DID NOT REMEMBER how the crowd had buffeted her like an ocean, how she had finally found a man in a maroon uniform who helped her find her room, but her legs were weak, as though she’d walked a great distance, and her mouth was dry from calling out Darlene’s name.

  She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to buy a present for Darlene. She wanted to do this simple action: go into a store, select a gift for her, buy it, and give it to her. That was all. She imagined the expression on Darlene’s face, her surprise at being given a present; she imagined Darlene’s happiness blooming, slowly, in herself. Ginger stood up, wearing the same dress she had the night before, faint with the scent of smoke and alcohol, and walked slowly to the gift shop.

  There she stood, surrounded by the store’s offerings: the butterfly-sequined blouses, the porcelain statues of grizzly bears and leaping salmon and deer, the authentic replica Eskimo fur hats, the jars of glacier-blue rock candy.

  “May I help you?” the girl at the counter asked.

  What would Darlene like? She scanned the glass case of jewelry; there were snowflakes and bears and seals, turquoise and silver and garnet and gold; Ginger selected a large opal set in a gold snow-flake. Its price was $300.

  “Beautiful taste,” the salesgirl said.

  “Hey,” said a voice. It was Darlene. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  The girl stood before her. Ginger put down the brooch.

  “Are you all right?” asked Darlene. “Who’s that for?”

  Ginger looked at her. “You,” she said.

  “That will be $315.73,” said the salesgirl.

  Ginger put her hand into the red velvet purse. There was nothing in it but the silk lining. She shook out her purse. Now she had $1.37.

  “I have no money,” she said, softly.

  “Is it in your room?” the salesgirl asked.

  “This is all I have,” Ginger said.

  She pushed her hand deep into the purse, feeling its emptiness. Her coins fell onto the floor. “You don’t have to buy me anything,” said Darlene.

  The lights were extremely bright, as though someone had turned them on all at once.

  “I want to buy it,” said Ginger. “Don’t you understand? I want to.”

  She stood, swaying a little, aggravated tha
t Darlene did not recognize what she was trying to do. Darlene squinted at her, and Ginger wondered if she had begun to disappear.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked Darlene. She lurched toward her. “What?”

  “Hold on,” said Darlene, looking at the salesgirl. “I’ll be right back.” She backed up and began to hurry down the hallway.

  “Where is she going?” asked Ginger. She stepped toward the door. She went into the hallway and began to follow her.

  AN ELDERLY COUPLE FLOATED TOWARD HER. THE WOMAN WORE A white brimmed sunhat, and the man had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck. “Thief,” Ginger whispered. She passed the maid clutching armfuls of crumpled sheets. “Thief,” she said. The maid turned around. Ginger began to walk onto the deck, the sunlight brilliant and cold on her arms. She staggered through the crowd in their pale sweat suits. “Thief!” she yelled. She believed one side of her was becoming heavy. She heard her voice, flat and loud; she heard the jingle of ice cubes in people’s drinks. “My money!” she yelled. Her voice was guttural, unrecognizable to her. “Give me my money!”

  The girl was running up to her.

  “Thief,” Ginger yelled.

  The girl blinked. “What?” she asked.

  “Thief,” said Ginger. She wanted to say the word over and over. Ginger’s face was warm; she was exhilarated by the act of accusation. She had forgotten the girl’s name. It had simply disappeared. Her knees buckled. The girl grabbed her arm.

  “Call a doctor!” the girl yelled. “Quick!”

  The ocean was moving by very quickly, and Ginger stared, unblinking, at the bright water until she was unsure whether she was on the deck looking at the water or in the water looking up at the light.

  The girl’s firm grip made her feel calmer. Ginger placed her own hand on hers. Ginger did not know who this friend was, did not know who had loved her and whom she had loved. She leaned toward the glaring blue world, the water and ice and sky, and she felt a part of it.

  “You’re not who you say you are,” murmured the girl. “I don’t believe you. You’re not a swindler. You’re a nice old lady. It was all a joke, wasn’t it . . .”

  Ginger breathed more slowly and clutched the girl’s arm. She saw everything in that moment: the trees on the shore giving up their leaves to the aqua sky, the ocean shimmering into white cloud, and the passengers’ breath becoming rain. She felt the vibrations of the ship’s motor in her throat. Through the clear, chill water, the ship moved north.

  Anything for Money

  Each Monday at eleven o’clock, Lenny Weiss performed his favorite duty as executive producer of his hit game show, Anything for Money: he selected the contestants for that week’s show. He walked briskly across the stage set, the studio lights so white and glaring as to make the stage resemble the surface of the moon. In his silk navy suit, the man appeared to be a lone figure on the set, for his staff knew not to speak to him or even look at him. He had become the king of syndicated game shows for his skill in finding the people who would do anything for money, people that viewers would both envy and despise.

  The assistants were in the holding room with the prospective contestants, telling them the rules: No one was allowed to touch Mr. Weiss. Mr. Weiss required a five-foot perimeter around his person. No one was allowed to call him by his first name. No one was to be drinking Pepsi, as the taste offended Mr. Weiss. Gold jewelry reminded him of his former wife, so anyone wearing such jewelry was advised to take it off.

  He stood by the door for a moment before he walked in, imagining how the losers would walk, dazed, to their cars, looking up at the arid sky. They would try to figure out what they had done wrong. They would look at their hands and wonder.

  Then he walked in, and they screamed.

  He loved to hear them scream. They had tried to dress up, garishly; polyester suits in pale colors, iridescent high heels. The air reeked of greed and strong perfume. Some of the women had their hair done especially for the occasion, and it shimmered oddly, hardened with spray.

  “Pick me!”

  “We love you, man!”

  “We’ve been watching forever!”

  A woman in a rhinestone-studded T-shirt that said Dallas Cowboys Forever lunged forward, grabbed his arm, and yelled, “Lenny!”

  “Hands OFF Mr. Weiss!” shouted the security guard.

  There was always one who was a lesson for the others. The door slammed, and the woman was marched back to her life. They all listened to her heels clicking against the floor, first sharp and declarative, then fading. The others stood, solemnly, in the silence, as though listening to the future sound of their own deaths.

  They were all on this earth briefly; for Lenny, that meant he had the burning desire to be the king of syndicated game shows, one of the ten most powerful men in Hollywood. He did not know what the others’ lives meant to them, just that they wanted what he had. Money.

  Now he needed to choose his contestants. They would be the ones with particularly acute expressions of desire and sadness; they would also have to photograph well under the brilliant lights.

  “All right!” He clapped his hands. “You want to be rich? You want other people to kiss your ass? Well, listen. You’re going to have to work for it. Everyone!” He knew to change his requests for each new group; he did not want any of them to come prepared from rumors off the street.

  “Unbutton your shirts!”

  He knew this one was more difficult for the women, but that was not a concern to him. Some of the people stiffened, pawed gingerly at their buttons. Others tore through their buttons and stood before him, shirts loose.

  “Take off your shirts!”

  He lost a few more with this request. Others removed their shirts as though they had been moving through their lives waiting for such an order. They stood before him, men and women, in bras and bare chests, some pale, some dark, some thin-shouldered, others fat.

  “Repeat after me. Say: I am a fool.”

  He heard the chorus of voices start, softly.

  “Louder! Again!”

  Their seats had numbers on the bottoms; he knew immediately whom he would call back. He would call Number 25, the woman with the lustrous blonde hair, and Number 6, the man with the compulsive, bright smile. Lenny clapped his hands.

  “Thank you. My assistant will contact those who have been chosen.” Lenny turned, almost running down the hallway. He walked around for fifteen minutes before he could get back to work.

  HE HAD GROWN UP IN CHICAGO IN THE 1940S, THE ONLY CHILD OF parents who had married impulsively and then learned that neither understood the other; Lenny dangled, suspended, in the harsh, disappointed sounds of the house. His father died when Lenny was eight. Lenny’s mother moved them to Los Angeles and got a job as a secretary at one of the movie studios. The boy was shocked by the desert light, the way it made everything—the lawns, flowers, cars—appear stark and inevitable. His mother was the only person he knew in this world, and at first, when she left him at school, he was wild with fear that she also had disappeared. He pretended he was collecting clouds to make a wall around her, and when the sky was cloudless, he pretended he was sick. Then his mother brought him to the place where she worked. He sat on the floor watching her, and then everything else going on around her, too.

  When he graduated high school, he became an errand boy on a soap opera, then a writer. He enjoyed making bad things happen to other people: troubled marriages, sudden illnesses, kidnappings. He married a woman who was impressed by his job and his descriptions of various actresses on the set. They had a child, a girl. Then one day the producers gathered all the employees into a windowless conference room. “There’s no more show,” they said.

  It was the recession of the early 1970s, a bad time for hiring in any field, and he and his wife had little savings. He looked for work for six months without luck, setting his sights lower and lower, but already there was an odor of desperation on him. One night, his daughter was screaming in pain from an ea
r infection, but he was afraid to take her to a doctor for what it would cost. The child’s pain so horrified him that he bolted out of the house.

  He did not stop running for several blocks. Strangers walked down the street, their wallets bulging with money he wanted. The money was so close to him, he could almost smell its dusky green scent. His jaw hurt. Suddenly, he had an idea: he could rob a liquor store. He had thought about how to do this when he wrote his soap operas. The simplicity of this idea made him stop in astonishment. He could wear a stocking over his face and stuff a bottle in his jacket pocket as a gun.

  There was a liquor store a few blocks away, and he stumbled toward it. Lenny stood outside the liquor store for a long time. He sobbed softly. His tongue tasted like a dry, bitter leaf. The other customers entered the store, noble in their morality and their innocence. He had become this: a man who would do anything for money.

  Later, he would tell people that this was the moment he became God—for he had saved himself. Anything for Money could be a show in which contestants would do terrible, absurd things to receive vast amounts of money.

  The next day, he sat for ten hours in the waiting room of his former employer. When Lenny saw the head of programming, Mr. Tom Lawrence, come out, he hurtled toward him, thrusting out a proposal. “Read this,” he told Mr. Lawrence. Lenny did not know why the man decided to listen to him, though he understood, in an honest part of himself, that it was simply a grand moment of luck. Later, he chose to describe this as a sign of his own inherent glory. Mr. Lawrence took the thin sheet of paper, folded it in half, and stuck it in the pocket of his blazer. Lenny watched him walk off. A month later, Mr. Lawrence bought the idea for the show.