The Penny Pinchers Club (15 page)

Steve helped Velma out of the minivan while Libby, acting as though this were
her
house, took the liberty of leading Opal inside, lifting up the front mat and helping herself to my spare key. “This way, people. Wipe your feet.”

Velma said, “What about the killer dog you were telling us about in the car?”

There was a halfhearted bark from Jasper in the garage. “He won’t bother you. He’s ancient, anyway.” Libby unlocked the door.

What happened to her threat to pepper spray? Suddenly my vicious dog was
ancient
?

Velma passed in front of me carrying her foil-covered coffee cake like I was invisible.

“Libby tells me you got three TVs.” Steve scratched his head. “Oh, man. I don’t even know where to begin. You gotta jettison two, at least, though it’s better not to have even one. Those shows like
Gossip Girl
send kids the wrong messages. Makes them think they’re entitled to be driven to school in limousines and drink and do drugs and such.”

I studied his crew cut and the chain hooked through his faded jeans and thought it somewhat astounding that a muscled rent-a-cop like him had even heard of
Gossip Girl
.

“See? I told you they just take over.” Sherise pulled tight her lovely red coat against a breeze through the elm. “My advice is to relax and let them do it. They live for this. It’s their raison d’être.”

I tried to relax, but it wasn’t easy with Libby acting as tour guide, pointing out my most egregious possessions. The PS3 we used to play Blu-ray movies, for example, was not only a pricey toy, but also a huge energy sucker. Steve found a button in the back and snapped it off. “Saved you a dollar a day right there.”

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Opal was taking an inventory of my food, noting with dismay the tubs of prepared pesto in my refrigerator, wrapped cold cuts, and, yes, collection of boxed cereals. “Don’t you know anything that comes in a box is a rip-off and probably loaded with carcinogenic preservatives?” She tossed a box over her shoulder. “Get yourself some glass jars at the Dollar Store and fill them with pasta, rice, and homemade granola from the bins at the co-op. Maybe some oatmeal and raisins, too. Organic, of course.”

I said, “Of course,” knowing full well that in a million years I would never trot down to the Dollar Store for glass containers, that I would never take the time to fill them up with staples from the Whole Foods store in Princeton.

“Do you have a downstairs freezer?” She held open the cabinet doors with both hands.

I shook my head no.

“That’s your next purchase. It’ll pay for itself in the long run.” She quit the cabinet to assess what I had under the kitchen sink. According to her, I didn’t need most of the chemicals there except for dishwasher detergent and ammonia. “Most everything can be cleaned easily and, more important, safely, with vinegar and baking soda.” She pinched a bottle of mildew remover as though it were nuclear waste. “Overpriced and causes asthma. Throw it away.”

Velma was at the top of the stairs to the basement, a slice of coffee cake on a napkin, a cup of coffee in her hand.
Did someone make coffee?
“Is this where she keeps her records, Libby?”

Libby, pouring herself a cup, said, “Yup. Griff’s got a Quicken program. That should be a start.”

“Libby!”
Not even I, his wife, knew Griff had a Quicken program. How did she? “That’s going too far.”

“What? It’s Velma and Sherise. Not like they’re gonna hack into your bank account.” She sipped her coffee. “Not like there’d be any money in there if they did.”

With everyone preoccupied, now was my chance to grill her about the man she’d been hiding. “So what’s up with you and Wade?” I asked, getting my own cup of coffee.

Libby shrugged, like it was no big deal. “He’s a friend. That’s all.”

“Yeah? Well, I have lots of friends and none of them nuzzles my neck like he was doing.”

“Okay, so we’re kinda hot and heavy.” She dipped her finger in the coffee coquettishly, giving it a slight twirl. “I haven’t exactly been singing it from the rooftops because we’re taking it slowly, on Wade’s advice. He’s been kind of burned in the past and, you know, he wants to make sure we’re on solid footing before we go public.”

That old line,
I thought as Steve came down the stairs two at a time to announce he’d found the TV in
our bedroom
for a total of eight phantom appliances.

“You were in our bedroom?” I couldn’t get over his audacity. I mean, I had clothes lying about. My bra!

“Yes, ma’am. And let me tell you that you put that bedroom TV and the DVD player on a power strip along with most of your other appliances like your microwave, you’ll cut your energy bill sixty percent if you flick off those strips for twelve hours every night.” He did not think it the least bit rude that he’d tromped into my personal space without my permission. “Now, about that water heater. . . .”

I led him down to the basement and showed him the heater room. He went over to our ancient white model, patted it, and said, “Handyman’s special, this is. Your bills must be huge.”

“Kat?” Sherise called. “Could you come over here for a minute?”

Sherise and Velma were at Griff’s desk, envelopes divided into little white stacks. Velma was at the computer, squinting.

“As a former bookkeeper, Velma doesn’t have a problem with opening your bills, but I do. I’d feel more comfortable if you did it and called off the amounts.”

Thankfully, one of these Penny Pinchers could see reason.

“Anyway,” she said,“it’s better if we bring you into the loop considering it was being out of the loop that got you into this mess, right?”

“Looks like about $25,000 of the $30,000 is gone.” Velma stroked her chin and clicked downward. “The question is, where did it go?”

What $25,000 and what $30,000? And what did she mean by
gone
?

Sherise handed me a New Jersey Power and Light envelope. “Would you do the honors?”

I slid my finger under the flap and out fell an electric bill for $135. Not bad considering we’d had the air conditioner going into September. I called out the amount and Sherise wrote it down on a white tablet.

Next was the phone bill—$63! Pretty good, though the bill for our cell service—a whopping $212—was a stunner. Cable also was not so great. Internet plus HBO at $125 a month was hardly the deal the cable company claimed on TV and what was with all these other charges, the list of taxes and fees?

“I just got rid of HBO,” I told them.

Sherise did not seem that impressed. All she said was, “Hmmm. How about that mortgage?”

I found the most recent bill—$1,548—and plotzed. Didn’t it used to be much lower? And what was this other one from the bank? A $30,000 line of credit. But . . . this didn’t make sense. We’d spent about $6,000 to redo the basement. So how come we were in hock for $25,000?

And why was our monthly payment for that $250?

“Ahh,” Velma said, taking the credit card statement out of my hand. “That’s what I was looking for.”

“I’m confused.” All these bills. It was overwhelming. “The line of credit was to pay to redo our basement for about six grand. So . . .”

“He’s been using it to pay off credit card debt.” Velma compared it to what was on her computer screen. “Smart idea since you can write off the interest on your home equity. Problem is, he’s running out of funds.”

“I can’t find a pay stub for him,” Sherise said. “Do you happen to know what your take-home is and your husband’s, too?”

I told her I took home an average of $2,000 a month but I had no idea about Griff. It was horribly embarrassing to realize that I hadn’t a clue about how much money my own husband earned, but there you had it. I was oblivious.

“That’s okay,” Velma said without the slightest tone of disparagement. “I can figure it out from his deposits. Ballpark, I’d say he’s taking home about a thousand a week.”

“Okay, so we’re talking about $6,000 to play with per month.” Sherise tapped her pencil on the tablet thoughtfully. “Subtract from that your monthly bills, including my guesstimate on property taxes and insurance, and we’re down to about $625 a week for food and entertainment.”

“Hey,” I said, brightening. “That’s not too bad at all.”

Velma held up a finger. “Except, you’ve got a line of credit to pay off.”

“The least of her problems,” Sherise added. “I didn’t include your credit card debt.” Sherise handed me the latest Visa bill. “You might want to sit down.”

The Visa envelope lay in my hand, a white sliver of doom. Again, I felt the familiar sickness, the dread of bad news and the onslaught of worry and self-loathing. It was like a bad report card for adults. “I can’t.”

“You gotta,” Velma said. “Be strong.”

“We’ve all been through it, Kat.” Sherise smiled. “We’re here with you.”

“Even Velma?” The woman knit sweaters for the homeless out of recycled yarn, for heaven’s sake. Hardly the portrait of a profligate spender.

Velma exchanged questioning glances with Sherise. “For your information, one time my bills at home piled up so high, I figured the town would never miss it if I borrowed four thousand to cover them.”

What?

“Velma used to be treasurer for Breyers Falls in the northern part of the state,” Sherise explained. “She didn’t think of it as embezzlement. . . .”

“I was going to pay it back,” she interjected.

“Velma?”
Sherise glared. “Remember what the judge said about denial.”

“All right, all right. I know now it was a crime, though back then, from my perspective, it was more like borrowing.”

Sherise said, “This is why the judge suggested Velma try our group, so she’d learn money-management skills after her release from the hoosegow.”

“One year, six months suspended for four measly thousand dollars. The judge way overreacted.” Velma waved to the envelope in my hand. “Now, let’s see what Visa sent you.”

Putting aside my rational concern that a convicted felon was prying into our private finances, I ripped open the envelope, unfolded the bill, took a peek, and immediately suffered what doctors would refer to as a minor cardiological incident.

Not only had we almost reached the limit of our $10,000 credit line, if my calculations were correct, thanks to the anniversary party last month, we’d exceeded it.

So, that explained the call Griff got from the Visa people the day of the party. It wasn’t a randomly generated computer thing, after all. Griff hid the truth to protect me that night because of the party. Oh, god. We were in so much trouble.

I must have let out some sort of yelp because Libby rushed down the stairs and asked, “What happened?” while Sherise came around the desk and took me by the shoulders, moving me over to the old couch covered with dog hair. “Good girl. You did it. You faced your demon.”

“Yes, but . . .” Numbers began to swirl before my eyes. “We have so many bills. So much debt. Nearly $40,000. How will we ever get it paid off? How will we ever send Laura to college or save for our retirement or . . . a divorce?”

Libby plunked herself on a step and said, “Credit card bill?”

Velma said, “Yup. It put her over the edge.”

“I knew it’d be bad.” Libby clasped her hands around her knees. “She’s not used to dealing with bad news about money. Griff’s spared her.”

Libby was right. This was exactly the kind of bad news that made me ill and it was hitting me head-on, as if I’d swerved into the path of a Mack truck carrying a load of debt. Moreover, if I understood Toni correctly (please, may I have misheard), were Griff and I to divorce, then not only would our assets be divided, such as they were, but also our
debt
. Which meant that I, on my own little lonesome, would be responsible for paying off . . . $18,500!

I seriously questioned whether I was in the initial stages of a heart attack. How could Griff—responsible, prudent Griff—have allowed us to get so far in the hole? This couldn’t have been
all
my fault, right? Not
all
.

My cheek stung and, belatedly, I realized I’d been gently slapped.

“Snap out of it.” Sherise gave me a tiny shake. “This is not nearly as bad as you’re making it out to be, Kat. You’ve got to separate your emotions from your figures.”

Velma said,“It’s totally doable. You can save some money and pay down this debt in no time if you work at it.”

“Look. You two are lucky,” Sherise said. “You both have jobs and health insurance. That’s better than a ton of people these days.”

The downstairs printer warmed up and spit out a sheet of numbers. “I’m printing you a rough budget.” Velma carried over the paper. “The way I see it, cut out $200 a week from your expenses and you’ll save $6,400 by June. That would take hardly any effort. If you really want to go the distance, though, try to save $500 a week and you’ll reach your goal: $16,000 by the time your daughter graduates.”

She held the paper for me to read. It was all there in orderly columns. Income on one side, expenses on the other. Short column for the income, long column for the expenses. “As you can see, there’s a lot of fat there to cut in heating, electricity, cable, and car payments. It’s simply a matter of being mindful. And, um, perhaps doing away with . . .”

She turned to Libby, who said, “Don’t tell me. I know what’s coming.”

“Let Libby go and you’ll save $400 a month. That’s almost your home equity payment right there.”

“We domestic workers are always the first to get cut in an economy like this. So unfair.”

I began to feel better. Not about having to fire Libby; that was dreadful since Libby was more than a housekeeper. She was a friend. “Sorry.” I held up Velma’s budget and shrugged.

She shrugged back. “It is what it is. You’ll get tired of scrubbing toilets soon enough.”

No, I felt better because those numbers that had so frightened me before weren’t so bad once you had them all on paper. Yes, it was daunting. Frightening, even, to see our bills were so high. But they were just these little black and white symbols. That was all.