Karen Bender - Refund - Stories

They had no contract. It would be a simple transaction. A sublet in Tribeca for the month of September. Two bedrooms and a terrace: $3,000.

They were almost forty years old, children of responsible middle-class parents, and they had created this mess out of their own desires. Josh and Clarissa had lived for twelve years in a dingy brick high-rise in the Manhattan neighborhood of Tribeca. They had been lonely, met, married, worked at their painting for years, presented their work to a world that was indifferent, floundered in debt, defaulted on student loans, began to lie to their parents about their financial status, and lived in a state of constant fear. They decided once to do miniature medieval paintings that no one would care about but themselves, for the art was just for themselves, anyway, or taking the other tack, decided to do something so deplorable it would have to sell for a truckload of money. They decided to go into pet portraiture, which could fund their real art, and bought ads in local papers — whereupon they found that pet portraiture was a crowded field, and one in which the local masters were competitive and vengeful. In high school, she had wanted to have a painting in the Met. Now she was trying to figure out how to borrow paints from her artist friends and cleverly not give them back.

They lay in bed at five thirty in the morning, listening to their three-year-old son, Sammy, hurtling toward the first sunbeam with the call: “Hello. Ready now. Hello.” The wistful, hopeful cry made their blood go cold. One of them stumbled toward the relentless dawn, inevitably tripping over the trucks that Sammy had lined up in hopeful parades, convinced that there was somewhere wonderful to go.

THEIR SUBSIDIZED LOW-RENT APARTMENT WAS LOCATED IN A SEVENTIES high-rise where they had braved the abandoned, crumbling warehouses and hefty rats for a rent so cheap they could not afford to live anywhere else. But then the neighborhood changed. They were on the strip of land known as Tribeca, their building a few blocks south of Canal, six blocks north of the World Trade Center, and now there were lofts selling for $20 million, new restaurants with glossy, slim customers posed as though in liquor ads, movie star neighbors moving in such rarified circles they were never actually seen. The building owners were given government subsidies, which meant the tenants’ rents were low, but the owner had said that he would buy out of the program the next year, and thus turn their low-rent apartments into million-dollar condos and effectively send the one thousand tenants out onto the street. Walking into their own building, they heard shrill arguments about the misbehavior of companion animals, feuds about laundry hoisted prematurely out of the dryer. The residents were on edge because they were doomed; Josh and Clarissa now skulked through their neighborhood with the cowed posture of trespassers.

SOON IT WOULD BE TIME TO SEND THEIR SON TO A PRESCHOOL. IN the park sandbox, mothers talked about Rainbows, the most expensive preschool in the area. Those who had been turned down or could not afford the school spoke of it with a strangled passion. One mother claimed she had stormed out when the director had asked to see her income tax statement during an interview. But another mother, whose son was a student there, leaned toward Clarissa one day after admiring Sammy’s exuberant personality and said, “That’s the only place where they truly treat the children like human beings.”

This statement had propelled Clarissa through the doors of Rainbows to observe a class. The director, dressed in flowing, silk robes and with large, lidded eyes that made her resemble a woodlands creature from a fairy tale, walked Clarissa through the airy rooms. The director said that the children particularly enjoyed “Medieval Studies,” which apparently meant that the children dressed up as kings and queens. Clarissa watched the children of successful lawyers, doctors, executives, and various moguls stack blocks, roll trucks, and cry. One child had tried to hand her a block. When she smiled at him, a teacher gave her a laminated list of rules for class observation. Number 5 was: Do not engage with a child who tries to talk to you. It interferes with their work . She was ashamed that she had smiled at the child, and that shame convinced her that the school was the only place for Sammy to go.

“Ten thousand dollars,” said Josh, “so that he can scribble? No. No. No.” She mailed in the application anyway — and when she received the acceptance, she felt it was a sign of some greater good fortune. Their son gazed at them with his beautiful, pure brown eyes, his future gleaming, unsullied, new.

“At least visit the other schools,” pleaded Josh, and she tried. At one, she peered through a square window in a door to see a crowd of children screaming to be let out. One child punched in a security code, a red light flashed, the door opened, and he shot out, to the roaring approval of the others. That was it. They had enough room on their Visa for the first tuition installment; they loaded it on.

Then Josh heard about a job for the two of them teaching art at a small university in Virginia, three weeks paid in September, accommodations for all of them in a hotel. They could hurl the money toward Sammy’s tuition. Their apartment would be empty for a month. It occurred to them they could sublet their apartment and pay off part of their substantial debt load. “Let’s charge a fortune,” said Josh.

Josh’s college friend, Gary, an investment banker, delivered the tenant to them. “I think you can get three thousand,” he said. Their rent was $550 a month. Josh wrote the ad: Fabulous Tribeca apartment. Two bedrooms, terrace. Three thousand for September . Gary sent his friends a mass email, and the call came the next day.

“My name is Kim. Gary gave me your name. He says you have apartment to let. I live in Montreal, and I am looking for accommodations in the city for September.”

“Right,” Clarissa said. “Thanks for calling. Well, we’re by the Hudson, beautiful views, wood floors. . uh. . we have a dishwasher.” She paused. “Down the block,” she said carefully, “is Nobu.”

“No- bu ,” said Kim solemnly. There was silence. “I’ve known Gary for three years,” Kim said. “We met in the south of France with his friends Janna from Paris and Juan from Brazil. . we were in town for the day with the Beaujolais festival. We became friends. Now we follow the Michelin Guide all over Europe together. We have a race to see who has the most frequent flyer miles. . I have 67,000, but he has more.” She paused. “I want to go to Nobu. I want to go with my friend Darla. She is my best friend. I want to walk to all the restaurants there!”

“Now, it’s not fancy,” Clarissa said, alarmed.

“I want to walk to Montrachet!”

Kim wanted to send the money immediately; she magically wired $3,000 into their checking account, and that was that.

It was September 1. Kim held the keys to their apartment. They checked their ATM as they headed out of town. The three thousand dollars registered on their account. Josh whistled when he saw it. They drove toward a month’s employment, a couple in front, a child in the car seat, across the bridges, out of the city. She and Josh held hands. Clarissa turned once to look back at the city, the skyline rising, glittering, frozen and grand in the clear autumn light.

SHE HAD DROPPED JOSH OFF TO LOOK AT TELEVISIONS AT BEST BUY when she heard the news on the car radio. Her body startled. Howard Stern’s show came on, and the tone of the hosts was terrifying: lost and humorless. “We know who did it,” said a caller, “and we need to go kill them.”