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.”
Maribeth let that sink in. Someone being six on 9/11.
“When I started college, I switched back to Sunita. That was when I was a freshman. I’m a senior now.” She gave Todd a look.
“What can I say?” Todd said. “You’ve always been Sunny to me.” He paused. “Except when you’re PMSing.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said.
They pulled into the parking lot and exchanged cell phone numbers. (Maribeth had to look hers up; she had a hard time remembering anything lately.) They agreed to meet back at the car in a half hour.
The supermarket was the kind they had in Maribeth’s childhood suburb, with generously wide aisles—she’d have had no trouble angling a double stroller through here—selling everything from imported cheese to paperback novels.
Once inside, Todd and Sunita skipped left toward the produce aisle. Maribeth went right toward the refrigerated section. She vaguely knew what she was going to get, the same things she always got; she was a healthy eater, but when she reached for her favorite brand of yogurt, she did something she’d never done before: she looked at the label.
Eight grams of fat. Twenty-five percent of her recommended daily allowance.
That seemed like a lot, but yogurt was a high-protein item. Maybe that was just how it was with yogurt, like avocados, high-fat and healthy. For comparison, she picked up another brand. It had zero grams of fat.
She looked at the label on her yogurt. Was it full-fat yogurt? Had she been eating full-fat yogurt all this time? She scanned the package for the words full fat, or whole milk, some kind of ominous cigarette-label warning that the contents might cause death. But she found nothing like that. The label only said it was French.
Jesus Christ. She was an educated woman. She’d worked at magazines that ran countless stories about fat. And she’d been eating yogurt with eight grams of it!
She put the yogurt back and looked for a replacement. There were dozens of varieties lined up in the cooler like Rockettes. Nonfat. Low-fat. Greek. Probiotic. Soy. Maybe she should become vegan. Wasn’t that what Bill Clinton had done after his bypass surgery?
Skipping the yogurts, she moved the cart a few feet to the milk and butter section. Butter was out, obviously. But what about margarine? Wait. Didn’t margarine give rats cancer? Which was better? Heart attack or cancer?
She looked at milk, which she hardly used, only in cereal and for coffee. She generally just pilfered the twins’ whole milk or used half and half for coffee. Once again, she read the labels. Half and half: one tablespoon, two grams of fat. Whole milk, not much better. In the course of a day, she probably had four cups of coffee (already too much, she knew) and that was four tablespoons of half and half. Eight grams of fat. That plus a yogurt was half her daily allowance.
She careened her still-empty cart toward the safe haven of the bread and cereal aisle and grabbed some granola, another of her go-to foods. Then she checked that label. Twenty-five grams of sugar per serving. She compared it to Cocoa Krispies. They had less sugar. Than granola. Crunchy hippie hairy-armpit granola. And added sugars, she now knew, increased your risk of heart disease.
Vegetables! Vegetables were safe. Five servings a day, raw was better, juicing was cheating. She knew all this now. And kale! Kale was the wonder drug. And blueberries. Full of antioxidants. Why hadn’t she been gorging on kale and blueberries every day instead of full-fat yogurt?
By the time Todd texted her Ready? her basket contained a sad constellation of kale, almonds, and coffee, and she was on the verge of a full-scale meltdown.
She felt so caught out. She’d thought she’d done everything right. She’d spent her entire life making lists, following through, keeping everything in check, all to make sure this kind of thing would never happen.
And look where it had gotten her. Just fucking look.
19
Maribeth had packed only three changes of clothing, and after a week in Pittsburgh, she realized this would not do if she was going to stay any longer. She went to the Family Dollar and bought underwear and socks and then to a thrift shop right down the block from her apartment for a few pairs of jeans, some sweaters, and a pair of boots because the forecast was already predicting snow. She didn’t bother looking for gems among the junk, though once upon a time, she and Elizabeth had been championship thrifters, combing through consignment stores, digging out Prada and Versace at Banana Republic prices. Of course now, Elizabeth bought Prada at Prada prices and Maribeth bought Banana Republic at Banana Republic prices. Or at least she had before she’d started shopping at the Family Dollar.