Breaking the Bank by Yona Zeldis McDonough Page B

she ventured his name, he let out a clipped, guttural snore—he had fallen asleep. Mia wished she could drift off next to him, but the thought of Eden—who might find them together the next morning and infer all sorts of happy endings that were most emphatically not going to come true—propelled her back to her own bed. The insides of her thighs were chafed and sticky, but she fell asleep anyway, almost as soon as she closed her eyes.

SIX
    M IA AWOKE THE next morning awash in shame and remorse. Plus she had a monumental, sanity-obliterating headache; she couldn’t even open her eyes without pain. Sex with Lloyd? What a truly terrible idea. Why had she initiated such a thing? To establish the scope and shape of her own hurt, the way she might touch an iron, to test the heat, and then snatch the finger away again? Only she hadn’t snatched her finger away soon enough; she’d let it stay put and now the burn remained. The thought of facing him, in Eden’s presence no less, was unendurable.
    There were noises coming from the kitchen; Eden’s high, excited voice blending with Lloyd’s deeper one. The noises added a new dimension to her pain. She kept her eyes closed and her head very still. Soon there were smells. He was making French toast, one of his specialties. His version called for cream, nutmeg, and grated orange peel; since she had none of these ingredients in her kitchen, he must have gone shopping to procure them. Eden would eat at least three slices of this confection. She would eat anything Lloyd prepared—Mia was grateful for this, if not for much else about Lloyd—and lick the plate clean, too. She had always adored her father, but since he left, she fairly worshipped him.
    Mia’s stomach rumbled. She was hungry. No wonder, considering her largely liquid meal of the night before. But she couldn’t rise up over the wall of pain to get out of bed and deal with Lloyd. So she remained where she was, treating her throbbing head as if it were a centuries-old Ming vase, too fragile and precious to be handled. Soon she was asleep. When she next opened her eyes, the apartment was quiet and the throbbingin her head had retreated sufficiently for her to contemplate getting up. She ventured into the kitchen, where dishes had been washed and put away. On the fridge, she found a check and a note:
    Thought I’d let you sleep in. I’ll take Eden today, so you can do whatever you need/want. We’ll be back after dinner.
    She was somewhat mollified by the check, but remained roiled, first by Lloyd’s presence, and then by his absence. To shake off the mood, she took a shower in the still-clean bathroom and used one of her plush new towels. Her head still hurt when she got out, but it was a mild hurt, almost a relief when compared to the earlier pain. And she discovered that she had gotten her period. Another relief. At least she wasn’t pregnant.
    After the shower, she found that Lloyd had left the French toast batter in a Saran Wrap–covered bowl on the counter. There was a loaf of sliced challah bread next to it, and she made herself two slices while considering how to deal with the rest of the day. She could work on
    All That Trash,
which was intermittently brilliant but also uneven. She could run errands. And she could visit Julie to confess her idiotic behavior of the night before, though the conversation would no doubt be peppered very heavily with
I-told-you-sos
. But Julie, who was on occasion prone to equally idiotic behavior when it came to men, would also be sympathetic.
    Armed with something like a plan, Mia dressed, brushed her teeth—with extra vigor, as if that would scour away last night’s excesses—and settled down with the manuscript. She used color-coded Post-its and Sharpies; she jotted down extensive notes that she would type up at the office on Monday. While she worked, she had the enormously gratifying sense that she was