Called a Gold Digger, I Returned Everything novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Notebook

I total every dollar he ever spent on me, empty my mother's savings account, and my brother tells me who has been paying his tuition.

I got home at eleven and found my brother asleep on the couch with a controller on his chest.

Teddy was nineteen, six feet tall, and still slept like a puppy.

The upstairs unit of our mother's old two-flat in Cicero had the same orange couch it had when she was alive.

I stepped over his sneakers and went to the kitchen drawer where I keep the takeout menus.

Under the menus was a green spiral notebook with a rubber band around it.

I sat down at the table and pulled my coat tighter, because the radiator only works when it wants to.

The first page was dated three years ago.

Dinner, Thai place, Dalton paid, $46. Left a $10 tip so we were even on the tip.

Train fare to Milwaukee, Dalton paid, $31.

Winter coat, he found it on sale, I paid half, he paid $60.

I had written down every single one.

I had never told anyone why.

My mother used to say that you only owe a person what you can't pay back, and so you pay back everything you can.

I picked up a pen and a calculator and started adding.

I was on page eleven when I heard the couch creak.

"Whoa," Teddy said from the doorway. His hair stuck up on one side. "Is that a murder board?"

"It's a notebook."

"It's a very serious notebook. Why are you wearing your coat inside? Did Dalton do something?"

"Dalton did nothing," I said.

That was the problem, and I didn't say so.

Teddy came and read over my shoulder, chewing on his thumbnail.

"Susie, what is this?"

"Everything he ever spent on me."

"Okay." He scratched his neck. "Why do you have it?"

"Because tonight his best friend told fourteen people I cost him four hundred thousand dollars."

Teddy's face went still.

"She said what?"

I told him the whole thing, from the folder to the bus shelter.

When I got to the part where Dalton said, Tell me you didn't, my brother swore so loudly the downstairs neighbor banged on the floor.

"That's insane," he said. "You wouldn't take a free napkin from that guy."

"I know."

"What are you going to do?"

I held up the calculator.

The number on the little screen said $11,206.40.

"I'm going to pay him back," I said. "All of it. Monday morning, with a cashier's check, in front of his whole office."

Teddy stared at me.

"Eleven thousand dollars? Where are you getting eleven thousand dollars?"

I didn't answer, and he figured it out.

"Mom's money," he said. "The Teddy account."

"It's fourteen thousand. I'll leave you the rest."

"Susie. No."

"It's not up for a vote."

"That's my emergency money! That's the whole reason you opened it!"

"Which is why I get to decide what an emergency is."

"This is not an emergency." He pointed at the notebook. "This is pride. You're setting fire to Mom's life insurance because some rich lady called you a name."

"She called me a thief."

"You're not a thief!"

"Then I have to prove it," I said. "Or those people will think I am for the rest of my life."

"Those people are idiots."

"Those people were at his birthday dinner."

Teddy dragged a chair out and dropped into it.

For a minute, he said nothing, and the radiator clanked twice.

Then he said, in a smaller voice, "If you do this, I'm paying you back."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. Out of my first real paycheck."

"You're a sophomore. You have a campus job that pays you in free pizza."

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

He rubbed his face with both hands.

"At least it's not like you're giving him my tuition money," he said. "That part's already handled."

I put my pen down.

"What part?"

"My tuition. The gap." He gave me a puzzled look. "The scholarship adjustment thing."

"Teddy, what scholarship adjustment?"

He blinked at me.

I watched his face change, slowly.

"The one from last year," he said. "The one for eighteen thousand five hundred. I got a letter in March saying my bill was covered."

I could hear the radiator.

I could hear the downstairs neighbor's television through the floor.

"Who told you it was a scholarship?"

"The financial aid office. And Dalton." He swallowed. "He took me to lunch and said the school had made an error in my favor. He said the whole thing was handled, and that you knew."

"I didn't know," I said.

"He said you knew, Susie."

I looked at the notebook, with its eleven thousand dollars and its carefully tallied tips.

Then I looked at my brother.

"Eighteen thousand five hundred," I said slowly. "Dalton paid it."

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