“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 the 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.”