And then there was the first meeting. A disaster. The two of them got together for after-work drinks in some dreary midtown bar. It felt less like a date than a wake, mourning people who no longer existed. They spoke vaguely about their lives over the past decade. It was stiff, formal, and an hour later, she was on a subway heading back downtown. Elizabeth was waiting for her on the couch, a bottle of wine already open. “Well, I won’t be seeing him again,” she’d told Elizabeth, though that was pretty obvious by her early return. Elizabeth, who had emphatically, and uncharacteristically, discouraged Maribeth from going in the first place, didn’t try to hide her relief. “Good riddance,” Elizabeth said.
But then Jason had called the next day. Maribeth had been shocked when she heard the voicemail message. Not simply because it violated the Rules—that Rules book had been very big in Magazineland and years later, in spite of herself, Maribeth had internalized them—but because that first meeting had been so excruciating. But he asked her out again. For Friday night. Which was two days later.
This wasn’t what men did. Not attractive eligible men. And let it be said that Jason Brinkley was still attractive, maybe more so; his hairline was a little less robust, and he had the beginnings of etched lines around his eyes, but the eyes themselves still looked like they were in on some delicious joke, and his lips still looked genetically designed for kissing. He’d stopped smoking pot and started running, so his lanky body had become chiseled. No, Jason, by anyone’s standards, was a catch.
He’d taken her to see some singer-songwriter she’d never heard of at Joe’s Pub. It was otherworldly, a guitar, and string-sounding synthesizers, and as she listened to the music, and to Jason talking about the music, she felt herself thawing. Which was how she understood that, for some time, she’d been frozen.
After the show, they’d gone out to a diner and split a pitcher of beer and platters of comfort food and talked about everything and anything: working in magazines after 9/11, and how she’d thought that things would get smarter, grow deeper, but it seemed to be going in the opposite direction. About how his mother had married some wealthy Southern California real estate developer and bloomed into the person she was meant to be, and how it had sent Jason’s father into a deep existential funk, not because he missed Nora but because it was such a confirmation of his failure as her husband. They talked about New York and how it had changed. Of San Francisco and how it had changed. Of where they wanted to live and what they wanted to do and who they wanted to be. They talked about politics and books and plays and music. The conversation was fast, breathless, greedy, as if over the last decade there had been so many things they had stored up to tell each other.
They stayed until the restaurant closed, and then out on the sidewalk of the quieting New York streets, she remembered what he’d said to her, right before he’d kissed her: “Can I still be your Superman, Lois?” And she’d mistaken the comment for a calculating charm, assuming that the yearning she was feeling—god, he was magnet and she was metal—was all her own.
When they’d kissed, it was as if someone had flipped the breaker in an abandoned house, only to discover that the circuits weren’t just still live, but had grown all the more powerful from the disuse.
But again, she’d thought it was her. Because all night long, in spite of her best efforts not to, she’d been remembering what it was like to have sex with Jason: his penchant for kissing nonkissable places, the crooks of elbows, the soles of feet. His delightful unpredictability as a lover, caressing her hair one moment, pinning her hands behind her the next.
The room Jason had sublet in that East Village apartment, she now remembered, was full of unpacked boxes, as if he’d only just arrived, because he had only just arrived. The cover on the made bed was turned down slightly, like an invitation, or a prayer.
Once they were in that room, Jason had slammed the door and devoured her with his mouth, his hands, which were everywhere. As if he were ravenous.
And she remembered standing in front of him, her dress a puddle on the floor, and how she’d started to shake, her knees knocking together, like she was a virgin, like this was her first time. Because had she allowed herself to hope, this was what she would’ve hoped for. And now here it was. And that was terrifying.
Jason had taken her hand and placed it over his bare chest, to his heart, which was pounding wildly, in tandem with hers. She’d thought he was just excited, turned on.
It had not occurred to her that he might be terrified, too.
66
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. . . didn’t you tell me?
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I meant to. But then we just fell back into things and it all was going so well and I got scared that if we touched any of that—what had happened before I’d gone to San Francisco—it would, I don’t know, ruin everything. You’d remember what I’d done and then you wouldn’t let me stay. Or Elizabeth wouldn’t.
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Did you think that I’d forget?
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No, but I had myself kind of convinced it didn’t matter. We got married. We had kids. We’d moved on. But when you left, angry and upset as I was, there was a part of me that was relieved. It was like I’d been expecting it. We were even now. I guess you weren’t the only one waiting for the other shoe to drop.
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You thought I left for payback?
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I thought it was for a lot of reasons, the ones you said, and the ones you didn’t. Because we never talked about any of that.
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By any of that, you mean why you left me.
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Yeah. Why I left you.
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Why’d you leave me, Jason?
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It wasn’t deliberate. I was twenty-two. My parents were in the middle of their awful divorce. And on one hand, I loved you, and wanted to be with you. But we were so young. What if I was wrong? What if we ended up like them? I didn’t want to break up so much as slow down.
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That slowed it down all right. Ten years.
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Look, I screwed up. I was scared. Then I tried to fix it in an imperfect way. What can I say, Maribeth? I’m not perfect.
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Well, neither am I. As I think I’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
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I don’t expect you to be perfect.
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I think maybe I expect me to be.
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You can’t be in our traveling band, Fuckups in Training, if you’re perfect
.
Look, I know you’ll probably shoot me for saying this, but when we got back together, ten years later, when we were older and ready for that commitment, I felt like everything had worked out as it was supposed to.
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Everything will turn out fine.
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In this instance, yeah.
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You still believe that?
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That depends.
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On what?
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Whether you do.
67
The day Stephen was due to leave for California, he called Maribeth with an offer. “I know it’s last minute but I thought you could use my car while I’m gone,” he said. “You could even stay at the house if you like.”
Maribeth had no interest in living in his house, no matter how sweet a piece of real estate it might be. As for the car, she wasn’t sure. She’d gotten used to the bus. To life without a laptop, a smart phone. It was amazing, really, how little one needed.
“It’ll just be sitting there,” he added. “And you’ll save me the cost of parking at the airport.”
“So this is about the parking?”
“No. This is about me wanting to see you before I leave.”
“Then see me before you leave.”
IT WAS LIGHTLY snowing when he picked her up that afternoon. “Are you okay to drive in this?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Maribeth said. Then she caught the look of concern on his face. “How about if it gets heavier, we can leave your car at the airport, but I know how to drive in snow.”
“You do?”
“I grew up in the suburbs of New York.”
“Add another piece to the puzzle.”
“Am I really such a puzzle?”
“Yes, but I’ve always enjoyed puzzles.”
They were in the Fort Pitt Tunnel now. Coming back from Janice’s yesterday was the first time Maribeth had driven into the city this way.
“I see what the fuss is about,” she’d told Janice when they’d emerged onto the dramatic cityscape, the buildings, the slate river, the iron bridges.
“It’s a very impressive skyline,” Janice had said.
It was. But it was the surprise factor Maribeth had liked best. Coming into the tunnel through rolling Pennsylvania hills, with no hint of what was awaiting you on the other end.
You never knew, did you? Maybe not knowing didn’t have to be so terrifying. Maybe it could just be life.
“When do you get back?” Maribeth asked Stephen.
“January 3, though Mallory is angling for me to stay longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Why? Are you going to miss me?”
From the tug deep inside her stomach, she knew that she was.
“She’s on my case to move there. She says I need a fresh start. Too many ghosts here.”
“Ghosts have a way of following you,” Maribeth said. She was thinking of her birth mother, the silent ghost who had followed her around her entire life. It had been two days since she’d read the report. Janice had asked her if she wanted to take the next step, to ask the agency to send a letter to her birth mother. But Maribeth wasn’t ready for that.
“I suspect you’re right,” he said. “But it means a lot that Mal wants me to move closer to her. And so I have arranged to meet with a colleague of mine who’s now the dean at the UCSF Medical School.” He snuck a glance at her. “So how much do you hate San Francisco?”
“It’s your basic death-wish loathing.”
“That’s too bad. Because you know how I bought Mallory tickets for The Book of Mormon?”
“For New Year’s Eve, right?”
He nodded. “I bought a third ticket.” He fiddled with the heater buttons, even though the temperature was fine.
“Oh,” she said.
“I know it’s a long shot,” Stephen said when Maribeth didn’t answer. “Given how you feel about the city.”
They had arrived at the airport. He headed straight for departures, not the parking garage. “Don’t you want me to come in?” she asked.
“You can leave me at the curb,” he said. “I’d rather you get back before the snow gets worse.”
He pulled over and popped the trunk. Inside was a large suitcase.
“Looks like you might be gone a while.”
He shrugged, like he wasn’t sure when he’d be back. “Think about New Year’s. I’m happy to book you a plane ticket, too. Though that would require you telling me your real name.”
“Maribeth,” she said. “It’s Maribeth.” She pulled on his scarf. “Thank you for taking such good care of me, Stephen.”
“And you of me, Maribeth.”
He closed the trunk. They stared at each other for a moment, and Maribeth knew she could leave it unsaid, Stephen might understand. But this time she wasn’t going to do that.
“Find someone to take that third ticket, Stephen. If not now, then soon. It’s time. You deserve some happiness. I think Felicity would want that for you.”
He blinked a few times, and then he smiled. “That’s what Mallory says.” He patted his pockets for his wallet and phone before handing her the keys. “You can leave these with Louise when you’re done.”
She watched as he made his way toward the terminal. He gave one last wave before he went inside.
68
Janice called that night. “You won’t believe what I found.” Her voice shaking over the phone.
“What?”
“I shouldn’t show it to you but I can’t help it. Can I come over?”
“I have a car. I can come to you.”
SHE’D EXPECTED A smoking gun. Another heart attack, or a testimonial as to why her mother gave her up. But it was just more paperwork. Maribeth didn’t see why Janice was so excited.
“Look,” Janice said, pointing. “There.”
It was a journal entry. In a florid script.
I know I’m having a girl. Everyone says I’m carrying small, and it’s a boy, and I come from a family of brothers, but I can tell. I hear my own mother’s voice. And she says it’s a girl.
I haven’t told anyone this because the other girls here are so terribly sentimental about their babies. They all think they will grow up to be president! And they talk about them as if they will know them. “My child will . . .”
She won’t be mine. But part of her will. I’ve decided to name her after myself and after my mother. Even though she’s going to a new family and won’t ever know her name, it will still be her first name. In that way she’ll belong to me. First and forever. She’ll be Mary Beth.
“I’m confused. Mary Beth? Is that her? Is that my mother?”
“No, Beth is your mother,” Janice replied. “Mary Beth was what she named you.”
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Was named Beth. Her mother was Mary.
She named me Mary Beth.
I am Maribeth.
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The mystery of your culturally confused name is solved. Did you find out anything else about her?
And how are you?
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Mostly confused. My
real mother, not Beth but Evelyn, kept the name my birth mother gave me, which was her own name and her mother’s name. My entire life, she was so threatened by my birth mother. Like she never believed that I was truly hers.
So why would she do that? Keep the name my birth mother gave me, which was her name, too. Wouldn’t this just be a constant reminder that I wasn’t really hers?
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Or a reminder that you were also someone else’s.
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I can’t believe she did that. And kept it a secret all these years.
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Are you going to try to meet her? Beth?
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I don’t know. Right now, I want to just rest here. For the first time, I am starting to wonder if maybe she loved me, Jase. Maybe she loved me a little bit.
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Is that so hard to believe?
69
It was time for another farewell. Sunita was leaving Christmas Eve to spend the winter break in India. The night before, she was having some people over for dinner and invited Maribeth. “This time, I’ll do the cooking.”
“‘Cooking’ is an optimistic term,” Todd said. “More like practicing.” He turned to Maribeth. “She wants to prove to her mother she can do it so they can advertise her as a good Indian girl when it comes time to marry her off. Fritz will be so heartbroken.”
“Shut up!” she said, shoving Todd. To Maribeth: “My parents didn’t even have an arranged marriage. They’re not marrying anyone off.”
“Fritz will be so relieved,” Todd said.
“Why are you being such a jerk?” Sunita asked.
“Because you’re leaving.”
“Oh,” Sunita said, softening. “But I’m coming back. Sunny always comes back.”
“What if you don’t?” Todd asked. “What if you stay there, like your parents?”
Sunita rolled her eyes. “I have to come home and graduate. And get a job.”