But when Dr. Grant walked in, leafing through her chart, he did not seem remotely villainous; he was actually rather handsome in that way that later-middle-aged men tended to be.
“Ms. Goldman,” he said, extending his hand for a shake. “I’m Stephen Grant.”
“Hi, I’m M.B. M. B. Goldman,” Maribeth stumbled over the name. It felt counterfeit, even though it was her. It said so right on the chart.
“I see you’re about three weeks postoperative for a coronary bypass.”
She nodded and waited for him to comment, on her age, the anomaly of someone so young undergoing such a procedure, the “luck” of it being only a double bypass.
“So what brings you in?”
“Well, as you noted, I’m post-op and . . .” she stopped herself. She was about to say she was missing the follow-up appointment with her surgeon but that would open a can of worms. At this point, she just wanted someone to tell her she was okay and be done with it. “I figured I should find myself a cardiologist while I’m in town.”
His eyes flitted from her chart to her. “You’re not from here?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where did you have your surgery? UPMC?”
“I didn’t have it in Pittsburgh.”
“Where did you have it?”
“I’d rather not say.”
He looked at her again, a straight-on gaze. His eyes were an unusual color, almost an amber. Maybe that was what made his look so discombobulating.
“Who performed it?”
“Again, I’d rather not say.”
He scratched at a sideburn. “But not in Pittsburgh?”
“No.”
“You relocated three weeks after surgery?”
There was a hint of surprise in his voice, and she felt the hairs on her neck rise. They’d already discussed the timeline. Could they not move on to the exam?
“This seems to be closing up. The tape fell off.” She tapped the incision on her chest.
Dr. Grant came closer to inspect. He had thin, delicate fingers, more suited, Maribeth thought, for playing a piano than palpating a chest. “It’s healing well,” he said.
“My leg’s still pretty swollen.” She started to roll down her support stocking, but he’d already gone back to her file, flipping through the pages, reading them carefully now. In her flimsy gown, she felt exposed. As if he were not just reading her notes, but reading her.
A piece of paper from the file fluttered to the floor: It was the receipt. He picked it up and read it, and she could see him taking in the facts—cash, no insurance. He was going to refuse her any minute.
He looked at her and she could feel the judgment. Are you always in such a hurry? she heard Dr. Sterling ask. She felt a sudden rush of loathing for this Dr. Grant. She understood it was transference, her anger toward Dr. Sterling, which was probably a form of transference itself. But still, she was so tired of all of them playing god. She wasn’t asking for them to examine her life, her choices, her priorities. She just wanted them to check her heart.
“You know, it’s my choice, not yours,” Maribeth said.
Dr. Grant looked up, bewildered. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s up to me to choose if you’re my doctor. Not the other way around.”
She sounded like a petulant teen, defending something stupid, a purple hair streak or a terrible band she loved.
Dr. Grant seemed taken aback. He retreated to his stool and set her file down on the counter. “I assumed you chose me when you made an appointment to see me,” he replied.
“Nope. I went to the place you used to work and they wouldn’t take me because I wasn’t using insurance. Someone there said you might.”
His face clouded over. So something bad had happened at the old practice. He stood up from the stool, and Maribeth stood, too, expecting to be shown the door. But instead, he unwound his stethoscope from his neck and stepped toward her. “Would you like me to check your heart or not?” he asked.
“Sure. You can see if I still have one.”
AFTER THE EXAM, after the EKG, after everything checked out—checked out enough that he discouraged doing blood work; she’d need to test at six weeks once her cholesterol levels stabilized anyhow and she could check her iron then if she was still worried—Dr. Grant instructed her to settle up with Louise.
She’d known a hundred and fifty dollars wasn’t going to cover it.
“How much more do I owe?” she asked Louise, now a receptionist again, even though there were no other patients to receive.
“You paid when you came in.”
“Right, but he did a few tests, the EKG.”
“The visit costs a hundred and fifty dollars.”
“He told me to settle up with you.”
“Yes. Dr. Grant would like to see you again next week. He’s in Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays.”
Next week? Dr. Sterling hadn’t wanted to see her again until her six-week mark. Was he milking her? Doctors did that, padded the bills with unnecessary treatments.
Except Dr. Grant hadn’t charged her extra for the tests he had run. He’d recommended against doing blood work because of the cost. He wasn’t trying to bilk her.
But there was something a little off about him; she could tell. It should make her wary—malpractice, probably—but, oddly, it was kind of reassuring. He couldn’t be so godlike now. Not if he, too, was damaged goods.
She decided then. He would be her doctor. Not because he was the only one who’d see her, but because she chose him.
She made an appointment for the following Monday.
16
Maribeth began to sort things out. She asked Mr. Giulio where the nearest library was (in Lawrenceville) and figured out which bus would get her there. The library would have computers, which would have Google, which would help her navigate everything else.
She also thought she might write an e-mail to the twins at the library. What she would tell them, she had no idea. How did one explain what she had done? How did one not explain?
The library was about a mile away from her apartment, down a steep hill and up a smaller one. This had been another surprise about Pittsburgh, how hilly, mountainous really, it was. It made things challenging for a cardiac post-op patient. As Maribeth rode the bus, she thought that perhaps when she could make the walk round-trip, that would be a sign that she was better. Maybe then she could go home. Maybe that was what she would tell Oscar and Liv. Children liked adults to be definitive. You could have three cookies. You could watch one episode of Phineas and Ferb.
But when she got to the library, something stopped her from even going near the bank of computers, even though there were several empty terminals. She had already broken the most important promise a mother makes—not to leave. She could not break any more. She could not tell them when she was coming back because she had no idea when that would be.
Instead, she walked to the periodicals section, planning to read a newspaper or something edifying to make good use of her free time. The library had copies of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the New York Times on a wooden table, and several magazines, including an old issue of Frap.
It was from last August. Inside, there was a feature on celebrities who were vocal antivaccination advocates, an article that she and Elizabeth had argued over in the conference room in front of the entire senior staff.
Maribeth had felt the article, at least in the form it had been in at the time, was too fawning. If they wanted to run a piece on celebrities advocating against vaccinations, she’d insisted, it needed to be critical. It needed to be a serious piece of journalism for a change. “This is a public health issue,” she’d told Elizabeth.
“Be that as it may, we need to keep our tone respectful,” Elizabeth had responded.
“What does that even mean?” Maribeth had asked.
Not for the first time since coming to work at Frap, she’d felt as if she didn’t really know Elizabeth, even though they’d been best f
riends and confidantes since almost the moment they’d met, more than two decades ago, in that very building, in fact, in a bathroom two floors below the conference room where they now were arguing.
Maribeth had just been starting out in her career, and was not off to a particularly promising start. The day she met Elizabeth, Maribeth had been hiding in a bathroom stall, crying. She had just gotten off the phone with her former college roommate Courtney, who had told her that Jason had a new girlfriend. She and Jason had broken up—by mutual agreement—after more than two years together. But that had only been three weeks ago. The speed at which she’d been replaced, it had kneecapped her.
She’d been sobbing in that bathroom stall as quietly as she could, which apparently was not all that quiet, because she heard someone say, “You can tell me it’s not my business, but are you okay in there?”
Maribeth opened the door. There was Elizabeth, brushing her teeth at one of the sinks.
“I’m fine,” Maribeth had said, not fine at all.
Elizabeth wet two paper towels and held them out to the side. Like a cagey dog coming in for a treat, Maribeth approached the sink.
“You know, we just ran a profile of a woman who put a hit on her philandering husband,” Elizabeth said, delicately spitting out toothpaste. She spoke to Maribeth’s reflection, in deference, perhaps, to the fact that they didn’t really know each other. Maribeth had been working as an editorial floater at the magazine where Elizabeth held a staff position. “She’s doing ten years at San Quentin,” Elizabeth continued, “so I’m not sure it’s worth it in the end, but all I’m saying is it can be done.”
Maribeth immediately went from crying to laughing. “He’s not a philanderer, just a shithead.”
Now Elizabeth laughed, too. “That’s the spirit.”
“Really, I broke it off. It just wasn’t working with the long-distance.”
Elizabeth smiled, as if what Maribeth said had pleased her. “Then perhaps instead of crying, I might suggest a cocktail. I know a bartender who’s generous with free cosmos. I’m Elizabeth, by the way.”
“I’m Maribeth.”
“Two Beths.”
“Oh, yeah, I guess we are.”
They’d gone for drinks that night. And many nights thereafter. Until she and Jason got back together ten years later—and maybe even after that—Elizabeth had been Maribeth’s person. And Maribeth Elizabeth’s. And yet in that conference room, she had seemed like another out-of-touch sycophantic editor-in-chief, someone Maribeth didn’t know, someone Maribeth wouldn’t know, ordering Maribeth to make an article about nonvaccinating celebrities “respectful.”
“Are you kidding?” Maribeth had fumed. “These people are idiots.”
“They are not idiots,” Elizabeth had replied. “And I am not kidding.”
“If you had kids, you’d feel differently.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Maribeth regretted them, and not just because the temperature in the conference room seemed to drop ten degrees. She sometimes wondered if the kids were the thing that had put a wedge between her and Elizabeth, even though Elizabeth had never actually wanted children and for the first year or two seemed to like Maribeth’s twins well enough.
Elizabeth had rolled her eyes, something Maribeth had seen her do a thousand times, but rarely at her. “And if you were editor-in-chief of this magazine, you’d feel differently.”
MARIBETH PUT THE magazine back without opening it. Frap had never been particularly relevant to her, but now, like her relationship with Elizabeth, it felt like Pompeii—something from the past, entombed in ash.
17
When Maribeth got off the bus near her apartment, she realized she had failed to figure out the one thing she’d really needed to do at the library: find the Pittsburgh version of FreshDirect, a grocery store that delivered.
She called information on her phone but she wasn’t familiar enough with the streets here to know what was near her and what wasn’t. She walked upstairs and knocked on the door. The platinum-haired guy answered.
“Oh, you wanted a phonebook. I forgot.”
“That’s okay. I’m just trying to find a grocery store that delivers. I’m new to the area and I don’t really know what’s where.”
He tilted his head to the side, eyes wide, stumped, as if she’d asked him about a store that sold horse meat. “Sunny,” he called into the apartment. “Does Whole Foods deliver?”
“Whole Foods?” came the reply. “Did you win the PICK 3?”
“Not me, the new neighbor wants to know.” He looked at Maribeth. “What’s your name?”
“M.B.”
“Short for . . .”
“For M.B.”
He almost smiled. Then he called back into the apartment. “M.B., our mysterious new neighbor, requires a grocery store that delivers.”
“Oh, you can’t ask Todd.” The young woman appeared at the doorstep, shaking her head. “He’s very particular about such things. I’m Sunita by the way. There’s a ShurSave right on Liberty. It’s walkable.”
Perhaps it was walkable to someone who was not prohibited from carrying anything weighing more than five pounds. “But does it deliver?” Maribeth asked.
“They could have Channing Tatum deliver groceries, shirtless on a unicorn, and I still wouldn’t shop at ShurSave,” Todd said.
“See what I mean?” Sunita said, rolling her eyes. “If not ShurSave, Giant Eagle is good and it’s twenty-four hours if you need something that’s open late.”
“It’s not the hours. I don’t have a car at the moment.”
Todd and Sunita exchanged a look, as if surprised that someone Maribeth’s age was not vehicularly sorted.
“Oh. Well, maybe we could take you,” Sunita said. “Right, Todd?” Before Todd could answer, Sunita turned back to Maribeth. “We don’t have a car either but Todd’s daddy lets us use his whenever we want.”
“Don’t call him that,” Todd said.
“Sorry. Do you prefer sugar daddy?”
“I prefer boss, which is what he is.”
“Boss with benefits?”
Maribeth cleared her throat. “When were you thinking of going?”
“Soon!” Sunita said. “We’re down to rice cakes and pickles. Todd, will you ask Miles?”
“I’ll text him tonight,” Todd said wearily. “We can go tomorrow.”
“Work for you, M.B.?” Sunita asked.
It was funny. This time, there was no lag. She knew immediately that it was her being addressed as M.B. It was amazing, really, how quickly you could become someone else.
“Works for me.”
THAT NIGHT, WHEN she took out her organizer to write down a shopping list, the stub from her train ticket to Pittsburgh fell out. She flipped to the back page where she’d hastily shoved a photo of the twins before leaving. Since she’d been away, she had not been able to look at it.
She held the ticket stub, remembering how at peace she’d been on the train, when she wasn’t Maribeth Klein, runaway mommy, but woman on a business trip. She had been able to leave them as that woman. Perhaps as that woman she could look at their faces. After all, she was just a traveling mother, fondly gazing at a picture of her children.
She stole a quick glimpse of the photo and found that it didn’t sucker punch, after all. She put the photo away, but then she had an idea. She turned to a blank page of her organizer, and instead of writing a shopping list, she began a letter.
Dear Oscar and Liv, Mommy has had a very busy few days.
She wrote them the kind of letter she imagined the woman on a business trip might. No tortured explanations or iffy timelines, just postcard details about her day. She wrote about the puppy in a trench coat she’d seen out on her walk. How it had reminded her of the time back home when they’d seen an elderly woman pushing a poodle in a toy stroller. Do you remember, Liv, how after that, you gave up your spot in the stroller for your Clifford doll? And how you wouldn’t ride in the stroller anymore because yo
u said Clifford needed the seat?
Oscar had remained in the stroller for another year, and because Liv was not a fast walker, sometimes it took ten minutes to go a block. Jason thought they should just force Liv to ride in the stroller, but for once it was Maribeth counseling patience. Sure, they might be slower than a gaggle of Times Square tourists, but she admired her daughter’s determination.
She finished the letter and carefully tore it out of the organizer, placing it on her nightstand. She knew she wouldn’t mail it. Couldn’t. At the moment, though, that didn’t seem to matter.
18
Thursday evening, Maribeth met Todd and Sunita downstairs. Todd was driving an old Volvo station wagon; Sunita sat in the passenger seat. Maribeth climbed in back.
“Mind the dog hair,” Sunita said. “Todd’s daddy is fond of strays.”
“Strays? Please. He raises championship dogs. And stop calling him my daddy!” He peered at Maribeth through the rearview mirror. “But there is Jack Russell hair everywhere. I have a roller brush if you want.”
“That’s okay.”
They wound their way through rush-hour traffic, passing several grocery stores. Maribeth must’ve looked perplexed because, after a while, Sunita turned around to explain. “Todd only likes the Giant Eagle in East Liberty.”
“That’s not true,” Todd retorted. “The Market District one has higher prices. Anyhow, we go to this one because it’s near the Indian grocery and Sunny is trying to connect with her heritage.”
“Sunita,” Sunita said, in the tone of an exasperated parent who’s had this argument many times before.
“I rest my case,” Todd said.
“Sunita is your full name?” Maribeth asked.
“It is. Was until I was six. Then 9/11 happened and there were all these reprisals against Pakistanis. We’re Indian but my parents were freaked out that people would think we were terrorists so I started first grade as Sunny. Because obviously then no one would know we were from South Asia.”