It was on the way back to Jason’s place that Maribeth had gotten hopelessly lost. Market. Divisadero. The Presidio. She kept going in circles, trying to find Golden Gate Park, which was the one landmark she knew. The afternoon fog was rolling in off the Pacific. She had no idea where she was and now she couldn’t see. Alone in the car, she began to cry. It seemed like she would drive around, in the fog, on an endless tank of gas, lost and alone, until she withered and died.
Not long after she got back to New York, she called Jason and told him that though she still loved him, the long distance wasn’t working. He agreed. They broke up. It had all seemed, at the time, very mature. Very amicable.
And then three weeks later, Courtney called to tell her about Jason’s new girlfriend, and Maribeth had had her meltdown in the bathroom.
“I don’t know,” she told Stephen. “I just hate it there.”
THEY LEFT THE mall empty-handed, and empty. That night, when Maribeth climbed into bed, she pulled the pillow over her head and cried. It had been another miserable holiday weekend. Thanksgiving, after all.
39
Monday morning Maribeth woke up to someone knocking on her door. She peered through the peephole. It was Mr. Giulio, coming to collect the rent on the first of the month.
She counted out eight hundred-dollar bills for him and after he left she went about counting all the cash she had left. Twenty-one thousand and some change. At this rate, she could probably last at least a year in Pittsburgh. She never had any intention of staying away that long, but the past weekend had forced her to face up to some ugly truths. She had left not only her children but also her marriage. She had always planned to go back. But what if there was no back for her to return to?
And what happened then? When the twenty-one thousand dollars ran out? How had she not thought about the implications before? Because she had not just walked out on her family; she had left her job, her career, too. She’d burned the last bridge to what had been her city on a hill since she was thirteen years old and received that first copy of Seventeen (Brooke Shields on the cover) and had known with a strange-but-comforting certainty that when she grew up, she would somehow do that.
Elizabeth used to tease her about her single-minded ambition. Maribeth remembered one day, about two years after they’d met, when they discovered they’d both been invited to a seminar about the future of magazines put on by one of the big industry trade groups. After the coffee and rock-hard Danish networking portion of the event, Elizabeth whispered: “We came. We schmoozed. Let’s shop. I heard about a Lacroix sample sale in Chelsea.”
They hadn’t gone shopping but instead had gone to Central Park, where they’d laid out on the fresh grass of Sheep Meadow, kicked off their heels, and basked in the spring sun and the chance to spend time together during the workday.
“I feel bad,” Maribeth said after a while. “That we ditched. Those seminar invitations are hot tickets.”
“You hardly need a seminar to tell you about your future,” Elizabeth had teased. “You already have it all in your lists.”
This was true. In high school, Maribeth had told a guidance counselor about her desire to work at a magazine one day and the counselor had advised her to take journalism classes and write for the school newspaper and attend a college with a journalism program and maybe one day do an internship at one of the magazines in New York City. Maribeth had copied it all down—newspaper, journalism, college, internship, New York City—and over the years had followed the plan meticulously, writing many more lists in the interim.
And it had worked. After graduating from college, she’d landed the position as a floater—her $16,500 a year salary barely covered her rent and subway tokens—until she nabbed her first permanent job at a cooking magazine. She spent a year and a half there until she was hired as an assistant editor at a women’s business magazine, which was where she currently worked. She planned to stay there another year and jump to another publication if she hadn’t been promoted to associate editor by then.
“I can tell you your future if you want,” Elizabeth said. “You’ll work your way up the masthead and within ten years, fifteen tops, you’ll be an editor-in-chief.”
Maribeth didn’t answer. That was exactly what she hoped, exactly what she had written in her lists.
“As for me, I’ll be one of those sad, forty-year-old waitresses. Like the actresses who never make it. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll work at a nice restaurant and make good tips but I’ll have foot problems and I’ll never be able to get the smell of grease completely out of my hair.”
Maribeth laughed and playfully kicked Elizabeth’s leg. “You’re so full of shit,” she said. In the two years since they’d met, she and Elizabeth had both risen at the same pace. Elizabeth was now an assistant editor at a trendy new men’s magazine. “You’ll run your own magazine, too. You know you will.”
“Nah. I don’t, actually. I’m not a natural editor like you. I can’t make copy sing or come up with the quippy display copy and cover lines. You’re a genius at cover lines. This stuff is in your blood. I’m just some art history major who lucked her way into an internship.” She shook her head. “One day, they’ll all figure out what a fraud I am.”
“Everyone feels that way. And you have other strengths. You have a nose for trends, for seeing what the next big thing on the horizon will be. You have vision. You can’t learn that in J school.”
Elizabeth had flipped over onto her elbows, plucking tiny flowers from the grass. “Maybe,” she said. “Just promise me if you become an editor-in-chief and I’m some pathetic waitress, you’ll hire me.”
“So long as you promise me the same thing.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Elizabeth said. “You’re far too clumsy to be a waitress.”
They laughed. And then they promised.
MARIBETH AND ELIZABETH had each climbed from assistants to associates to senior-level editors. And then their paths diverged. Elizabeth met Tom, got married, became an editor-in-chief. And Maribeth became a mom, had a heart attack, and ran away from home.
In every issue of Frap, there was a profile called Unsung Heroes that highlighted an “ordinary” woman with an “extraordinary” story. Usually, these women experienced some great crisis, and instead of being beaten down, they “took stock” and “re-evaluated” and “rose to the occasion” to “beat the odds” and always wound up so much better and wiser than they had been before.
Readers loved this section—Maribeth suspected it was because it was the only place they ever saw women larger than a size eight—but she found it to be the most disingenuous part of the whole magazine, even worse than the gift guides in which $10-million-a-movie actresses gushed over their favorite $60 artisanal salts. It wasn’t that the stories were made up—they were true, or, at least, truthy—but their rictus need to skim coat a happy ending onto every shitty situation . . . she couldn’t stand that. It was the magazine’s version of Jason’s “everything will be fine.”
Maybe one day it would be fine. Maybe one day she would get past all this and figure out some great second act. Maybe then she might look back and see that all the destruction she had brought down on her family, on her marriage, on herself, had been worth it. Because she would be extraordinary. Because she would be a real-life hero.
But standing here now, amid the wreckage of her own making, it was nearly impossible to imagine.
40
Dr. Grant—Stephen? she wasn’t sure what to call him in his official context—had sent Maribeth to have a blood test. They discussed her results at her next appointment. The numbers, he said, were excellent. The statins were working. Her iron levels were fine. She did not need to schedule another follow-up unless she felt she needed to.
“So this is it?” she asked.
“This is it,” he said.
She half-expected some official pronouncement. “You are healthy and are hereby relieved of duty.” Perhaps he might tap her on the shoulder with a stethoscope.
But instead he kept absentmindedly offering her tea, even though she had never once accepted his offer of tea because she didn’t drink tea. (It made her teeth feel unpleasantly squeaky.)
“So maybe I should let you get on with your day?” Maribeth said, though she was well aware there was no busy day for either of them. She didn’t have much to do on a good day and she never planned anything for the afternoons of her appointments with him because the meandering conversations tended to bleed into the dinner hour. And she now knew—the run-in with Don and Susan had made it even clearer—that he had few other demands on his time. But she was officially healthy. There was no need to keep this up.
“Oh, okay,” he said. He seemed a little out of it himself. Or maybe not out of it, but not like the man she’d spent Thanksgiving with or had gone to the mall with. “Before you go, I have something for you. It’s upstairs in the study.”
She stood to follow him, but he motioned for her to stay put, which also felt like a demotion. She was no longer invited into the private space. “I’ll be right back.”
He returned with a thick creamy envelope, her name, or rather his version of it, written on the front.
“I’m intrigued,” she said.
“Don’t be. They’re guest passes to my health club. Five of them. They expire at the end of the year so I thought someone might as well use them.”
Health club passes. How terribly sensible. What had she hoped for? Tickets to Bermuda? He was, at the end of it, her doctor. And after today’s appointment, not even that.
They shook hands. “Thank you,” she said. “For all you’ve done.” She felt bereft. Was this it? After the ice cream and the hair and the horrible shopping trip and the talks? Was this the end of it?
“You take care of yourself,” he said. “Join the gym. Remember ice cream won’t kill you.”
Yes, this was it. And why wouldn’t it be? He had gotten her where she needed to be. But hadn’t he done more? Hadn’t they been more?
She wanted to acknowledge that, to hear him acknowledge it. There was something between them. Something that transcended doctor and patient. Something that transcended friendship. Even if today marked the end of it, she wanted some indication that it had been there. Because why else had he been so good to her? Why else had she let him be?
She tucked the envelope into her bag. At reception, she said good-bye to Louise. “Call if you need anything,” Louise said.
At the bus stop, Maribeth took out the envelope and opened it. Perhaps there would be a note inside, something private between them. But there wasn’t, just the passes. The club was obviously a nice one. The passes were printed on thick card stock, with diploma-fancy embossed script reading, For Guests of the Grant Family.
She ran her finger over it. For Guests of the Grant Family. And so there it was, an acknowledgment, after all, even if it was unintentional. He had lost his family. She had lost hers. In different ways, and for different reasons, she and Stephen were both orphans now.
41
The next day, Maribeth arranged to take a tour of the health club. It was nice, all the newest machines and every kind of class, from yoga to kickboxing. But it was the swimming pool in the basement that called to her. She wasn’t sure why but it felt like this, more than an elliptical machine or a vinyasa class, would ease the itchiness that was growing inside of her. Swimming felt new. Or maybe it was because she was sinking and wanted to see whether, if forced to, she might swim.
The club was in Squirrel Hill, catty corner to the library there. Maribeth decided to stop by, because it was on her way and she’d not seen it before and she’d heard it had an extensive collection. She was not going to touch the computers. Absolutely not.
Five minutes in, she touched the computers. She checked her e-mail. There was nothing from Jason. Of course there wasn’t. She was furious anew, but this time at herself. It was her own fault for opening this Pandora’s box. For five weeks, Jason had not e-mailed her but she had not known about it and had been fine. For five days she had known and had been a basket case.
The next morning she woke up and resolved to avoid all computers and e-mail and the temptation of the library. Instead, she would try swimming. She took a bus to Target to procure a bathing suit and a pair of goggles, then took another bus over to the club.
A Mommy and Me swim class must have just gotten out because a parade of towel-swaddled toddlers was being shepherded into the locker room. Maribeth recognized the look on some of the mothers’ faces: a sort of shell-shocked glaze. Because who in their right mind thought it was a wise idea to mix helpless children and deep water?
Maribeth had taken precisely two swim classes with the twins. At the first one, Liv kept trying to unhook the flotation brick strapped to her chest, while Oscar cried every time he felt even the tiniest splash. The teacher, a balding Israeli, had suggested she take turns with the twins, but Oscar cried when she left him on the deck, and while unsupervised, Liv had wandered over to the deep end and jumped in.
Later that week, Maribeth had recounted the story to Elizabeth, who had snorted with laughter. “It’s not funny,” she’d told her friend.
“It’s a little funny,” Elizabeth had replied.
Maribeth failed to see the humor. All those years of trying to get pregnant, she’d dreamt of doing something like this: swim class with her babies. Now it turned out, like so much else, to be a bust.
“Why don’t you ask Jason to help?” Elizabeth suggested.
Now that was funny. Jason’s salary was paying for the lessons. They could not afford for him to take time off to swim.
“I could come,” Elizabeth said.
This time Maribeth had laughed out loud, assuming Elizabeth was kidding. But the next week, there she was, at eleven on a Thursday morning. In her Chanel bikini and Brazilian-blowout hair, Elizabeth was a tropical fish amid all the guppy moms in their fraying Lands’ End one-pieces. But she’d been great with the kids, excitedly bobbing in the water with Liv, distracting Oscar with songs, while dishing the latest gossip to Maribeth about her new boss, a legendary, seventy-five-year-old editor-in-chief who still believed in the three-martini lunch. It was a welcome change from all the talk of sleep training and Music Together classes.
But the following week, Elizabeth canceled. She had forgotten she was taking Friday off for a long weekend with Tom and she could not skip out Thursday. She was so sorry. Maribeth was disappointed, but she understood. After a whirlwind courtship, Elizabeth and Tom had only recently gotten married—on a yacht, off the coast of Capri; Maribeth had not been able to attend.
Maribeth told Elizabeth to enjoy the time with Tom and then didn’t go to swim class that week. But then the following Wednesday night, Elizabeth called to cancel again. Her boss had invited her to one of his three-martini lunches and she couldn’t refuse. “I promise I’ll be there next time,” she said.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. We went last week and I managed just fine,” Maribeth lied.
The next day she dropped the class.
MARIBETH WAITED UNTIL the Mommy and Me brigade cleared out before stripping down to her suit. The high neckline covered most of the scar on her chest but there was no hiding her leg.
It was only after she’d stashed everything in her locker that she realized she had not brought a lock. She carried a couple of hundred-dollar bills at all times—contingency cash, and also her nest egg in case some clever thief got into the apartment, found all her hiding places, and cleaned her out.
Across the aisle, a woman in a swimsuit was locking up. “Do you know if they sell locks here?” Maribeth asked.
The woman stared at her through blue-tinted goggles. “Maribeth?” she asked.
Her first thought was that Jason, upon receiving her e-mail, had tracked her to Pittsburgh and sent someone to tail her. Her second thought was that this made no sense, given he had not attempted to contact her once in the previous four weeks nor responded to her messages.
Even after the w
oman pulled off her goggles and swim cap, it took Maribeth a minute to realize it was Janice.
“Golly, what a treat to bump into you,” Janice said. “I didn’t know you swam!”
“I don’t. Not really. A friend gave me guest passes and I thought I’d try something new. But I didn’t bring a lock.”
“Why don’t you share my locker?”
They walked back to Janice’s locker. Maribeth stuffed her things inside.
“I was going to call you this afternoon,” Janice said as they went down the stairs to the pool deck.
“You were?”
“Yes, I wanted to e-mail you over the weekend, but I didn’t have your address.”
“Oh, I don’t use e-mail much these days. I can give it to you. Why? Did you find something?”
“Not yet. I need more information. Your parents’ social security numbers would be helpful. Or a copy of your birth certificate.”
“Oh. Okay.” Her birth certificate was at home but she thought she might have that other information in her e-mail archives. “You could’ve called.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt you over the holidays in case you were with family.”
“I wasn’t. With family.”
“Oh, me neither,” Janice said.
“What did you do?” Maribeth asked.
“Mostly paperwork.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Maribeth wasn’t sure why she should feel guilty, but she did.
“No, don’t be. I roasted a turkey breast, which is the best part anyhow, and I even have leftovers for sandwiches.”
They’d arrived at the pool. Maribeth had assumed lunchtime would be off-peak, but all five lanes were full of swimmers. “It’s so busy.”
Janice snapped her bathing cap low over her ears and adjusted her goggles. “This is nothing.” Maribeth expected Janice to get into the slow lane, which was where the older people were swimming, but she set out toward the faster lanes. “Have a good swim,” she called over her shoulder.