“It’s kind of sweet,” Courtney said. “Sensible Maribeth, crushing so publicly.”
Maribeth crumpled the newspaper and threw it into the bin. “I’m staying home today. I can’t risk running into him.”
She was still hiding out in the dorm that night when Courtney persuaded her to come to the movies. “A late showing of Harold and Maude. Who will be there?”
Almost no one, it turned out. Except for Jason Brinkley, sitting by himself, holding a bag of popcorn and a box of Jujubes. It wasn’t a setup—Courtney had never met Jason—but Maribeth felt a tickle in her stomach, heralding some kind of fate at work, though she was too tongue-tied to say a word to him during the movie or on the walk back to campus. Instead, she just listened to him and Courtney rave about the film’s soundtrack.
They lingered outside her dorm. Courtney gave them a look and went on ahead. “I have a kind of writing question for you,” Jason said to Maribeth.
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
“I like to title my mixed tapes. It’s an important part of the process. I’m working on one I was thinking of calling ‘Too Cool to Care,’ but I didn’t know if the inherent contradiction was clear enough, or if it was overkill.” He shot her a mischievous grin that in the coming years would become more familiar to her than her own smile. Maribeth understood then who the tape was for, and that if a gushing article was a reporter’s declaration of love, then a mixed tape was the deejay’s equivalent.
“It’s nicely ambiguous,” Maribeth told him.
“One more question,” he said, still grinning. “If I’m Superman, does that make you Lois Lane?”
Her whole body flushed with pleasure. It was so rare in life for things to play out exactly how you fantasized. “Only if you shut up and kiss me,” she said.
“I’VE SEEN HAROLD and Maude,” she told Sunita and Todd. “But it was a million years ago.”
THE PREGAME STARTED. Sunita brought out a tray of deviled eggs, the whites an unappetizing gray. “Steelers eggs,” she explained. “You have to eat at least two or we lose.”
Maribeth must have shown her panic because Todd laughed. “I think that’s only true if you’re a Steelers fan.”
“So I take it you’re both big fans.”
“Since birth,” Todd said, tapping his chest.
“Me too,” Sunita said. “When my dad moved here, he said becoming a Steelers fan made him feel more American than getting his citizenship.” She shook her head. “When he heard he was being transferred back to India, his first concern was what would happen to me. His second was, how would he watch the games?”
“Thank god for satellite,” Todd said.
“I know, right?” Sunita said. “Sometimes he phones if he disagrees with a ref’s call.”
“Some things never change,” Todd said. To Maribeth he explained: “If you’re from Pittsburgh, Steelers love is in your blood. Whether you’re a Yinzer or a transplant from India or gayer than a bag of rainbow dicks.”
Maribeth almost said something. That she was from here.
The TV chimed. “Ohh. It’s almost kickoff,” Sunita said.
“Did you tell her the rules?” Todd asked.
Sunita nodded. “No extracurricular talking when the ball’s in play.”
“Got it,” Maribeth said.
They filled their plates with paella and sat down to watch. During commercials, they explained the ins and outs of the play and went on at length about the starting quarterback, with whom they were both enamored. “When he retires, we’re dead,” Todd said.
“Please,” Sunita said, smacking him with a throw pillow. “It’s called team for a reason. And people used to say that about Terry Bradshaw.”
“Right, and when he retired, look what happened?” Todd replied. “Let’s just hope that 2014 is our year.”
It became a pleasant blur. The food, the wine, the bickering, the drone of the commentators, the constant replays. By halftime, Maribeth was feeling warm and drowsy, and during the last quarter of the game, she drifted into a gooey sleep. Maybe it was the reminder of Harold and Maude but when Todd gently shook her awake, for a brief moment she thought she was back home, on the couch, and it was Jason who was rousing her, ready to lead her back to bed.
26
Maribeth was walking to the secondhand bookstore on Liberty to buy a new book, something she’d been doing so regularly that the bookseller had taken to buying her old books back from her, essentially becoming her personal library. Which was handy because the actual library would not issue a card without a local ID, which she did not have and could not get without blowing her anonymity.
That morning, she’d finished a thriller that had come out the year before—she remembered seeing it everywhere on the subway—and, today, if it was still there, she would trade it in for that buzzy British novel she’d meant to read but hadn’t, even though she’d been sent multiple copies by the publisher. Back in New York, the only time she had to read was before bed. (Her subway commute was always spent scrambling to read all the work e-mails she’d missed.) Once she got into bed, however, no matter how good the book, after two or three pages, her eyelids would grow heavy, and the next thing she knew, it would be morning—or the middle of the night if one of the twins was having a nightmare—and her book would be back on the nightstand, a bookmark in its pages, put there by Jason, presumably, to keep track of her glacial progression.
But here she was racing through books, reading with a voraciousness she hadn’t known in years. Some days, she sat in a café for hours on end reading. Other days, she went to the Lawrenceville library, took a book from the stacks, and sat in the rotunda by the windows, flipping the pages as the afternoon light waned.
She’d just turned onto Liberty when the phone rang. It rang a few times before Maribeth realized it was hers. Though she’d had the phone for nearly three weeks, it had never rung before. Only Todd and Sunita had her number, and they always texted. Dr. Grant’s office had it, too, but no one there ever called to confirm appointments.
“Hello?” she said.
“I’m looking for Maribeth Klein.”
It was such a familiar request, it took a moment for the wrongness of it to sink in. No one who had this number should be asking for that person.
“Is this Maribeth Klein?” the voice repeated. It was older. Female.
“Who is this?” Why was a woman calling? Was she a private investigator? Had Jason hired a PI to track her down? Would Jason do such a thing?
“Oh, sorry. It’s Janice Pickering from BurghBirthParents.org.”
Maribeth exhaled, unsure if she was relieved, disappointed, or both.
“I’m calling about your online form. Is this a good time?”
“Hold on.” It was noisy on the avenue. Maribeth ducked into a pharmacy.
“Right. Sorry. Hi. Did you find anything?”
Janice Pickering laughed. “Oh no. We’re not there yet. But I can help you if you want to search for your birth parents. I’m very familiar with the process.”
“Can you tell me how it works?” she asked.
“It’s somewhat involved to get into over the phone.”
“Okay. Should I come into your office?”
A pharmacist in a white coat asked if Maribeth needed help, then saw she was on the phone, and gave her a scolding look. Sorry, Maribeth mouthed.
“It’s better if we just meet at your house or a café,” Janice was saying.
“Café,” Maribeth said.
“I’m free this afternoon. Are you closer to Mount Lebanon or Squirrel Hill?”
Maribeth had no idea where Mount Lebanon was. Squirrel Hill was nearby, she thought. “I live in Bloomfield. I don’t have a car, but I can figure it out by bus.”
“Oh, if you don’t have a car, I can come to you. You’re in Bloomfield, you say?”
“Why don’t we meet in Lawrenceville,” Maribeth suggested. She didn’t know why but she wanted a buffer. She named a coffee shop near th
e library and they agreed to meet at five.
She hung up and apologized to the pharmacist. It was actually a good thing she’d stopped in here. She had a three-month supply of her statin and her beta blocker, but she might need a place for Dr. Grant to call in refills for the semifictitious M. B. Goldman. She wondered vaguely if ordering prescription drugs under a false name was a crime. Also, she seemed to have developed a rash on her neck. She showed the pharmacist, who said it looked like eczema and gave her a tube of cortisone cream.
JANICE PICKERING WAS twenty minutes late to their meeting, spilling folders and apologies all over the place. “I had to run home for my files and then there was an accident in the tunnel. In opposing traffic but, you know, rubberneckers.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Maribeth said, putting away her new novel. She’d already read half of it. “I feel bad I made you schlep.”
“Oh, I’m used to it. We bought the house in Mount Lebanon because of the schools, but I wound up working in Squirrel Hill, so I’m always back and forth.”
“Mount Lebanon? Where is that?”
“A suburb across the river. Quick as can be when there’s no traffic.”
“I see. Well, can I get you a coffee? A scone?”
“Oh, it’s after four. I won’t sleep if I drink coffee now.”
“Tea maybe.”
“Mmmm, what about one of those caramel lattes, if I get it decaf? Do you think I should?”
“Why not?”
“Oh, go on then.”
Maribeth got in line for the drinks. When she returned to the table, Janice had her folders neatly fanned out. Maribeth handed her the cup, from which she took a loud slurp, sounding not unlike the twins snarfling down their first-snow hot chocolates.
“Oh, my, that is decadent. You’re sure it’s decaf?”
“Says so on the cup.”
They drank their drinks and made their small talk. Janice asked Maribeth where she was from. “New York,” she answered. It didn’t seem worth the trouble of lying when so much of what they were going to do together—were they going to do this together?—required personal details. Besides, Janice, with her dove-gray hair falling out of its bun, did not seem like an undercover PI. And it was ridiculous to think Jason would’ve hired one in the first place.
“Children?” Janice asked.
“Yes, two. And you?”
“Grown now.”
“And where do you work?”
“At a school for special-needs children. Not so far from here. I’m a social worker.”
Maribeth smiled and nodded. “So,” she began. “This is your second job?” School social workers must make terrible money.
Janice laughed. She had the tiniest foam mustache on her top lip. “Oh, this isn’t a job. It’s a hobby. Or maybe a calling.”
“Oh, so BurghBirthParents.org is what, exactly?”
Janice set down her cup. “I suppose it’s me.”
“Oh.” Maribeth felt let down. She’d psyched herself up for this, and now she was having a tea party with someone’s grandma.
“Tell me, did you come to Pittsburgh to look for your birth mother?”
“I’m not really sure,” Maribeth said.
“I understand. It’s a big step to take after spending so much of your life thinking about it.”
“I haven’t spent so much of my life thinking about it,” Maribeth said.
Janice frowned, as if she didn’t appreciate the tone. Or maybe she didn’t believe this. No one did. Not Jason. Not even her parents. When Maribeth was in elementary school, the Broadway musical Annie had been all the rage. Some of her friends had gone with their parents into the city to see it and returned singing “Tomorrow” on a loop, as if they were constantly auditioning for the play. Maribeth learned all the songs secondhand and asked, later begged, her parents to take her to see it. But they never did.
In fifth grade, a friend offered Maribeth an extra ticket to go with her family, but Maribeth’s mother refused to let her go. There was a huge row. Maribeth couldn’t understand. Some kids hadn’t been allowed to see Grease, because it was racy, but her mother had been okay with that. What was wrong with Annie?
Finally, her father explained it: “Annie is about an orphan trying to find her parents.”
“So?” Maribeth asked.
“Your mother is worried it’ll put ideas in your head.”
Maribeth had known she was adopted for a few years by then, but until that moment, the idea of another set of parents hadn’t entered the picture. “I don’t care about them,” Maribeth had told her father, in one final futile attempt to see the play.
“Can you explain how the process works,” Maribeth asked Janice. “I read the laws have changed.”
“They have and they now favor the adopted child’s right to know her background. That doesn’t mean your birth parent will want contact, or even be alive, I’m afraid, but we can almost always find the trail, find out where you came from.”
Almost always. Pretty definitive. “How do we start?”
“Do you know what agency you were adopted from?”
“No.”
“Do you have any memories of going to picnics or parties? A lot of the adoption agencies had those each year.”
“We moved to New York when I was little, once my dad finished dental school here. All I know is that I was born in Pittsburgh.”
Janice flipped through a file. “This says that you’re Jewish.”
Maribeth stiffened. She’d almost left that part blank, wondering if someone was going to challenge her Jewishness, as had Brian Baltzer, a lawyer she’d once dated. After they’d been seeing each other for about a month, he informed her that if they ever got married, Maribeth would have to convert, because though she’d grown up going to Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah, she couldn’t be sure she was Jewish “by blood.” They broke up shortly after that.
“I don’t see what that has to do with it,” Maribeth said.
“It narrows it down,” Janice replied. “It might mean that your birth mother was Jewish, and if that’s the case your adoption most likely went through the one Jewish adoption agency in town.”
“Oh.”
“But. I’m getting ahead of myself. If you were adopted through any of the currently operating agencies, Jewish or otherwise, it’s much more straightforward. They have all their back files. We ask them to do a search. If there’s a match, they can reach out to the birth family on your behalf.”
“That sounds easy.”
Janice smiled indulgently. “It’s more straightforward. Nothing about this process is easy.”
“What if it wasn’t through any of those agencies, the ones that are still around?”
“That’s a good possibility. Many adoption agencies have shut down. Or your adoption may have been facilitated through a private doctor or lawyer, so we might want to petition a separate search through the Orphans’ Court.”
“The Orphans’ Court?”
“Yes. This drink really is delicious. What was it called?”
“Caramel mocha.”
“Decaf?”
“Yes, decaf,” Maribeth replied. “It’s really called the Orphans’ Court?”
“Yes,” Janice said.
They were silent for a while, Maribeth thinking, Janice noisily savoring her drink.
“Okay, so about this search? What does that entail?”
“You submit a request in writing to the court. A judge reviews it and issues an order and a search is initiated. An authorized search representative goes through the records, attempting to find a match. I’m an authorized search agent so you can designate me as your representative.”
“Okay. Let’s do that.”
“Let’s put a pin in that search. Your adoptive family being Jewish might really shrink the pool.”
Last summer, she and the twins had hunted fireflies in Battery Park. When Oscar had caught one by the wing, he looked terrified, like he didn’t know what he??
?d done. It was precisely how Maribeth felt now.
“What happens? If we find her?” she asked.
“Contact is made. A kind of general letter, followed up, if she’s willing, by a letter from you. And then you and she take it from there.”
“What if she’s dead?”
“There’s always next of kin.”
“And what if she doesn’t want anything to do with me?”
Janice took a few deep breaths, as if Maribeth’s negativity was off-putting. “That also could happen,” she admitted. “And so you put it out there and have faith. Just because you’ve been dreaming of this for a long time doesn’t mean it’s mutual.”
“I already told you. I haven’t been dreaming of her,” Maribeth said.
Janice frowned, her tiny milk mustache sloping downward.
“I only mean, it’s been a sudden decision, precipitated by health issues. I’m really just looking for a genetic history, that kind of thing.”
“But why then did you come all this way to find her? You could’ve done that from New York.”
Maribeth sighed. “That part is complicated.”
Janice smiled kindly. “It usually is.”
IT WAS AFTER six by the time she and Janice finished, but the night was mild so Maribeth decided to walk back to her apartment. Her birth mother had always been a shadowy, abstract figure. Maybe she was out there, maybe she wasn’t, but there was no way of knowing so why bother obsessing about it. It was not unlike how Maribeth felt about God. She supposed this made her a birth-mother agnostic.
But now, there might be actual proof of her existence. How old would she be? Sixty-five? Seventy? Did she think about Maribeth? Did she wonder if they had the same eyes? (Maribeth’s were gray.) Or hair? (Maribeth’s was brown and curly and starting to gray at the temples.) Did her knee do that clicking thing when she first woke up in the morning? Did she have a funny laugh? Did anyone ever call it a “sexy seal bark”? which was how Jason used to describe hers. Did she have a Jason? Had she been married? Divorced? Did she have other children?