By the time Maribeth had moved on to The Good Wife, the slow boil of her anger had cooked down to a sludgy resignation. What had she expected? This was how it always was. Maribeth fought with words. Jason fought with silences. Just because she wanted it to be different didn’t mean it would be. As her dentist father used to say: “If wishes were gumdrops, I’d be a rich man.”
At two in the morning, there was no more TV to distract herself with. Maribeth felt drained and jittery. She needed to try to sleep. She started to close the e-mail window, but then couldn’t stop herself.
So you’re punishing me? she wrote. I’m not surprised. I just hoped that for once you’d be the bigger person and rise to the occasion. Wrong again!
38
Sunday morning, Maribeth woke up with Sunita’s laptop lodged next to the pillow. Seeing it, remembering the e-mails she’d written—and not even while drunk; she didn’t even have that excuse—she winced. It was great that Google now gave you a minute lag time to take back e-mails you’d mistakenly sent, but couldn’t they invent technology that let you take back e-mails the morning after?
She grabbed the laptop and brought it into the kitchen, shoving it inside the cupboard under a package of brown rice. Then she went back to bed and stayed there until she heard footsteps upstairs.
Though it was not yet ten, Todd answered the door fully dressed, in what appeared to be his catering uniform plus a boater hat.
“She’s making me go to the flower show at the Phipps Conservatory in old-timey clothes,” Todd whispered. “Save me!”
Sunita appeared in a flapper dress and a pair of jeans. “Oh, please, you were all over this.” She looked at Maribeth. “You want to come?”
“No thanks.”
“Are you sure? It’ll be fun.”
“I’m positive.” Maribeth did not want to linger or chat. She just wanted to return the computer; it felt as lethal as a loaded gun. “Thanks for the loan. Bye.”
Just as she’d closed the door to her apartment, her phone started to ring. “I appreciate the offer,” she said, assuming it was Sunita, “but I’m really not interested in going to a flower show today.”
There was a pause. And then, “But this is so much worse than a flower show.”
“Oh, Dr.—Stephen.” She paused to untangle the names, and the new reality in which Dr. Grant—Stephen—called her. “What could be worse than a flower show?”
Another pause. “The mall.”
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “On Black Friday weekend.”
“Yes. That’s worse than a flower show.”
“Now that we’ve cleared that up . . .” he trailed off. In the background, she could hear the sound of the TV. “Remember that time I cooked your turkey?”
“Technically, it wasn’t my turkey.”
“Right, Fred belonged to the kids. I was just invoking some quid pro quo.”
“And this quid pro quo involves a mall on Black Friday weekend?”
“I know. It’s an uneven bargain. I’d still be in your debt.”
“I think if we’re keeping tabs, I’m still in the red. But why exactly do you want to go shopping this weekend?”
“To get Mallory her Christmas gift.”
“You do realize, in spite of the hype, you have four weeks until Christmas.”
“I want to get it out of the way. So I don’t panic again.”
“Panic?”
“Last year, I left it too late and panicked and got her a leather jacket from the Home Shopping Network.”
“Nothing wrong with that.”
“Unless you’re a vegan who is very serious about animal rights. Mal thought I was making fun of her and got very offended in the way that twenty-one-year-olds will.” He sighed. “She sold it on eBay and got herself kayak lessons so maybe it worked out in the end. But I’d like to avoid another disaster this time around. Hence, the mall. It’s what people do, right?”
Maribeth rarely had cause to enter a mall (score a point for New York City). But when she did, while visiting her mother, for instance, she became immediately irritable; the crowds made her claustrophobic, the number of stores made her dizzy. A mall on Black Friday weekend sounded like a nightmare. But perhaps it was a testament to just how wretched the weekend had already been that when she told Stephen she would be happy to go with him, she meant it.
“WE’RE GOING TO the Ross Park Mall,” Stephen informed her as they drove across the Thirtieth Street Bridge. “Have you been?”
“Have I not made my feelings about malls clear?” she joked.
“They say this is the best one in Pittsburgh.”
“That’s like telling someone they have the best cancer.”
Her hand flew up to her mouth. Cancer. Which his wife had died of. What was wrong with her?
“Well, there are better cancers,” Stephen replied, taking it all in stride. “Thyroid, prostate, highly curable.”
She wanted to change the subject before she stepped in it again. “Tell me about Mallory. What’s she like?”
“Twenty-two. Smart, ambitious, bossy. By her own admission. She has a tattoo that says Bossy Bitch, but with that number sign in front of it?”
“A hashtag?”
“If you say so.”
“So she’s a feminist, and maybe a wee bit shortsighted.”
“Aren’t all young people shortsighted?” he asked.
“I suppose so.”