“Maybe I will.” She started to undo her seatbelt.
“Hang on,” Maribeth said. “Take a breath. What’s going on?”
“Todd’s all pissy because I went out with Fritz.”
“On a date,” Todd added, as if that sealed the indictment.
“Yes, fine.” Sunita threw up her hands. “On a date.”
“That you didn’t tell me about.”
“That I didn’t tell you about.”
“When it was our night to watch Outlander.”
“We can DVR it. I don’t see what the big deal is.”
“I never flake on you to be with Miles.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, is Miles your boyfriend? I wouldn’t know because you hardly let us in the same room together.”
“Exactly! So you don’t feel left out!”
“Oh, so it’s for my sake?” Sunita flung herself against the backseat.
“Yes!” Todd retorted. “Because everyone knows that the number one friendship killer is a romance.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Is it? Ask M.B. I bet she’ll tell you differently.”
Maribeth felt momentarily exposed, as if they’d watched the filmstrip of her life. But of course, Todd was just assuming she knew this because she was old and therefore had Life Experience.
“Well, I did have a best friend, and then I fell in love with a guy, and it did complicate things.”
“See?” Todd said.
“Complicated doesn’t mean the friendship was ruined,” Sunita said.
“That’s exactly what it means,” Todd replied.
They were both looking at her.
“Right?” Todd prodded.
“I’m not sure what it means,” Maribeth said. “Elizabeth, that was my friend, she was really protective when this guy and I got together but over time she warmed up to him. We all were friends. Eventually she even helped him pick out my . . .” she stopped herself. “My birthday presents.”
What she’d almost said was that Elizabeth had helped pick out Maribeth’s engagement ring. And this more than anything else had felt like the official Elizabeth Ford Seal of Approval, the completion of a slow thawing and eventual warming between Elizabeth and Jason, or rather Elizabeth toward Jason, though he did seem a little scared of her even though Maribeth had never told him what Elizabeth had said when he’d gotten back in touch, via a Facebook message, nearly ten years after they’d broken up, which was: “Don’t respond. Don’t talk to him. Don’t give him the time of day. He broke your heart once. He does not deserve a second go.”
But by the time they got engaged, the three of them were friendly, even friends. They sometimes went out together, to meals and plays, and one August rented the same summer share on Fire Island. After Jason proposed and Maribeth accepted, Elizabeth was the one to throw them an engagement party at her apartment. It had been a beautiful, opulent affair, full of personal Elizabeth touches. She’d hired eclectic musicians Jason would like—a mandolin and a stand-up bass player—and instructed the caterers to serve all the food in shot glasses because Maribeth had a thing about having to balance plates while standing. Though it had been a party for her and Jason, Maribeth had felt like it was for the three of them. Especially when in his toast, Jason had cracked a joke about Maribeth being such a catch that he was willing to move across the country, accompany her to a Maroon 5 concert, and put up with the fact that she was already married.
Most of the guests had chuckled politely, not quite getting the joke, perhaps thinking it was some reference to the TV show about bigamist Mormons that had just begun airing. Maribeth glanced at Elizabeth, who winked and tapped the gold filigree ring Maribeth had bought her for her twenty-fifth birthday, a piece of jewelry that until Tom and his big fat emerald came along, she’d worn on her ring finger. Maribeth had fingered her own engagement ring, a sapphire eternity band. She never found out what had become of Jason’s mother’s old ring; neither it, nor the aborted engagement, had ever been discussed. Not that she really cared. She preferred this ring so much more.
“So what happened?” Sunita asked. “With the friend?”
In spite of what she’d just said to Todd, sometimes she had held Jason responsible for her and Elizabeth’s drift. It was Jason who had brought them together. And Jason who had split them apart. Not because of anything in particular that he’d done, but because you couldn’t have it both ways—a husband and a wife.
Though when she thought back to that engagement party what she remembered so vividly now was how reassured she’d felt. She was marrying Jason, as she’d wanted to since college, but wasn’t it good to know she’d had Elizabeth, too? She pictured them, her little trio, like a three-legged stool, as sturdy as anything in life.
But then one leg had broken off. And then another. And then everything else toppled over.
57
From: [email protected]
Subject: Closer
We found her. My birth mother. The report should be here any day now. I’m not sure what I’ll find. She could be dead of a heart attack for all I know. Part of me thinks it might be easier if she is. It would be less complicated. I would have found out what I needed to know. Definitively.
I’m a horrible person.
DO NOT tell my mother about this.
From: [email protected]