Minus Me

by Mameve Medwed

  Soon they were inseparable, so much so that they were AnnieandSam, one word spoken on a single exhaled breath. They knew they’d be married. Their wedding was already planned for the week after graduation. Though Annie worried about jobs, where they would live, Sam was sure everything would work out. “Minor details,” he said dismissively.

  She remembers the day the details started to fall into place. She pictures the library at Bowdoin: she and Sam, AnnieandSam, chairs pulled up to the table behind the stacks. Sam unloaded a backpack’s worth of law school brochures. Annie added articles on entry-level publishing opportunities and the limited market for English majors. They fanned them out.

  Sam turned to her. “Do we really want to do this?” he asked.

  She examined the brochures: the smiling multiethnic students, the swaths of Frisbee-strewn green campuses, the spires of Manhattan skyscrapers, graduates clutching diplomas underneath hanging scales of justice. She checked out the publishing newsletters with their photographs of newly minted editors, stuffed bookshelves rising to the ceilings of charming offices, cubicles overrun by teetering columns of manuscripts. She shook her head. “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Your parents …?”

  “They want me to be happy.” He picked up a sheet, which listed lawyers’ starting salaries, a first-year fortune that would sustain, for a decade, an extended family in rural Maine.

  “Ursula?” he asked.

  “Not an issue. She’s already given up on me.” Annie studied the chart of salaries. “I don’t want to live in New York.”

  “Me neither.”

  “Or Boston,” she continued.

  He groaned. “Or, God forbid, somewhere out west.”

  She pushed aside the sheaf of papers. “Would it be childish and unambitious of me, not to mention a waste of a good education, to say that I want to go home?”

  “Woo-hoo!” he yelped, causing a shush from somewhere over by Biographies. He grabbed her. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.

  “Funny that some people can’t wait to get away. But for us …” she said.

  “We’re homebodies,” he finished. “Two of a kind. How amazing that we found each other.”

  “Amazing,” she echoed. She turned serious. “But what will we do when we go back to Passamaquoddy?”

  He scraped his chair around so he was facing her. Their knees touched. He took her hands in his. He beamed his irresistible-Sam grin. “The most important thing is having decided where we’re going to spend the rest of our lives. I have utter faith that everything will turn out okay.”

  Because for Sam, it always did.

  Once upon a time. Before the shadow on her lungs started to cast its shadow on him, on both of them, on AnnieandSam.

  Back then, she tried to believe him, tried not to counteract his good humor, his trust in the future, tried not to play the pessimist to his Pangloss-like certainty that all would be fine in this best of all possible worlds.

  “What’s more, we don’t have to decide everything this minute,” he added.

  She refrained from pointing out that they were seniors in college, that they were returning to a town in Maine hit by a depressed economy. That they were liberal arts majors, trained for nothing but careful reading and enlightened thinking and composing a strong intellectual argument headed by topic sentences and anchored by footnotes.

  Sam changed the subject. “Talked to my mom last night,” he confided.

  “And …?”

  “She sends her best to you.”

  “Very nice.”

  “She filled me in on the gossip, who died, who was arrested for a DUI, who gave the biggest donation toward a stained-glass window for the temple. Betty and George Grismisch, if you want to know.” He laughed. “Then there’s Evelyn Benoit’s new home entertainment system …”

  Why was he yakking about such things when their prospects felt so precarious—at least to her? “Sam!”

  “All right, then, I take it you don’t want to know the size of the speakers or where Evelyn eventually placed the unit after two deep scratches on the newly varnished floor.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well, here’s something that might interest you more. Just as we were hanging up, Mom mentioned that the Doughboys might be selling the Three J’s.”

  Shocked, Annie leaned forward. “How could they? It’s an institution.”

  For a few seconds, they seethed in mutual silent indignation at the loss soon to be inflicted on their hometown. Annie picked up a business school brochure. Idly she thumbed through the first few pages of the booklet, a whirl of gray suits and shiny briefcases. She stopped at a photograph of students lined up at a salad bar in a graduate-student dining hall. She took in the vats of gleaming red peppers and bright green lettuce leaves, the crusty loaves that looked as if they’d arrived on the overnight plane from Paris. She knew there was no truth in such advertising, that food was as primped and polished and embellished as photoshopped models in magazines. Nevertheless … an idea slowly took shape. Could it work? Would it be possible?

  Sam must have been thinking the same thing, because his face assumed a faraway, dreamy look. “The first care package my parents sent to me, freshman year, was a dozen Paul Bunyans. I was the most popular guy on campus for those couple of hours until they were all devoured.”

  “I remember. I ate one for breakfast.”

  “Who could forget? We could smell the onions for weeks on my futon.”

  She smiled. “It didn’t bother us, as I recall.”

  “Because we were otherwise occupied.” He smiled back. “Annie, do you really think …?”

  “I do,” Annie stated with a conviction that wasn’t completely an act. “Though”—she wagged a cautionary finger—“taking over the Three J’s isn’t going to rank high in the class alumni notes. It’s basically just submarine sandwiches …”

  “Which can’t be improved on,” he said. “Which are artisanal in their own essential submarine-ness.”

  Annie tilted her chin. “It’s a big step. A huge learning curve.”

  “I know.”

  “Kind of scary.”

  “We’ll have each other.” Sam sat, his head bowed, brow furrowed, fist on chin in classic Rodin position.

  Annie waited. She listened to the rustle of papers in carrels, the scrape of books being taken down from shelves and put back. She heard the rumbling wheels of a creaky library cart.

  At last, Sam looked up. “The timing of this—right before our wedding, right when we decide to move home. Right when we’re casting around for some kind of work, for some kind of future. It’s got to be a sign.” He put his lips to Annie’s ear. “Let’s do it,” he whispered.

  * * *

  Later that night, she lies awake, rigid, next to Sam, whose oblivious peaceful breaths in this new nonpeaceful world seem an insult. She remembers a movie she once watched on a sleepless night, a real weepie with Julia Roberts, called Dying Young; she recalls a Modern Love piece in the Sunday Times in which a cancer-ridden wife heartbreakingly offers up her cherished husband to, she hopes, a worthy successor. What should I do? races through Annie’s head. Sam rolls over and tucks his knee into hers.

  In the morning she calls Dr. Buckley. “Good girl,” he says, and gives her the name of the best oncologist in Portland. “A woman,” he adds, as if this is a novelty.

  “Dr. O’Brien is generally booked up,” she’s told when she reaches the office. “She’s in high demand.” Annie’s given a date three weeks from now and is added to the waiting list in case of cancellation. “Is it an emergency?” asks the nurse.

  “Not really,” Annie replies, relieved to be granted a respite, relieved that the word emergency is said in such a routine way. She needs time get her affairs in order, as Dr. Buckley suggested. To prepare Sam. She studies the scribbled telephone number. As soon as she knows what’s ahead, as soon as she meets with Dr. O’Brien, she’ll tell him.

 
* * *

  Now Annie looks at the newspaper folded under the coffee table. She thinks of the husband and wife who held hands every morning at breakfast for seventy years. She considers all the breakfasts she and Sam have shared: the bowls of cereal, plates of poached eggs, glasses of juice. How many more will be allotted to them? she wonders.

  “This has been quite a day,” Sam marveled all those years ago as, arms linked, they skipped down the library steps. “Now we’ll have a business to leave to our kids. That is, after we die together at ninety-five, wearing matching aprons and slumped over a salami and a jar of peppercorns.”

  Chapter Five

  The doorbell chimes. Annie ignores it. She doesn’t feel like a chat with the UPS man or a lecture from the mail carrier about how the postal service is going to hell. She doesn’t want to buy Girl Scout cookies or save the whales or sign a petition for more stop signs. She just wants to stop, stop her world from spinning out of control.

  The doorbell keeps buzzing. Three long and two short beeps, followed by an interminable blast. She gets up. Does she feel weak? Dizzy?

  Rachel is on the porch, stomping her feet, bundled in parka, hood, scarf, mittens, blowing frosty puffs of air. “It’s about time,” she says. “You can’t hide from me. Spied your coat through the window.”

  Once inside, she peels off her layers, hangs everything up in the hall closet, including Annie’s dropped and abandoned coat. She wiggles out of her boots and one pair of the two pairs of socks she’s wearing. These she balls up, then sticks on the tray that holds magazines and catalogs. “I went by the shop to buy Paul Bunyans for dinner. I left them in the car to avoid stinking up your house. Not that the smell isn’t Chanel number five to you.” She slumps onto the sofa. “You’d think Megan would get sick of them. Anyway,” she continues, “Sam said you were doing errands and should be home by now.” She studies Annie, who is standing in the entrance to the living room. “You look frazzled. You really should get a humidifier for that cough. It’s worked wonders for my sinuses.” She unfolds the afghan and tucks it around her legs. “Tea would be nice.”

  “I’ll just put on the kettle,” Annie says, not even registering that she’s coughed.

  Though Sam originally deduced allergies—mold, dust mites—Annie pooh-poohed his diagnosis. Wasn’t coughing in winter just the same as sweating in summer? Part of the climate, she argued, but she made the doctor’s appointment anyway.

  Her mistake.

  In the kitchen, Annie pulls out tea bags and sugar. She slices a lemon. She watches for the water to boil. Should she tell Rachel? To unload this burden would be such a relief. Plus, Rachel’s a psychologist. Like doctors and priests, she’s sworn to secrecy.

  She pictures how the plot will unfold: She makes her entrance. As the overture to Act One, she performs a crescendo of coughs. She waits a dramatic beat before she stage-whispers I’m dying. Or, rather, I AM dying. Rachel goes suddenly quiet, then emits a single strangled sob; she struggles to assume her social worker’s voice to express words of empathy, all the while trying to hide her own personal shock and dismay.

  Act Two: Rachel holds Annie close and lets her cry; she brings over casseroles with heating instructions on Post-its stuck to the dish; she offers to accompany her to her doctor’s appointments and treatments.

  Act Three is, of course, the inevitable. Accompanied by a noble, affirmation-of-the-human-spirit consoling and cathartic eulogy.

  Now the whistle goes off. Annie pours the water into Annie’s Samwich mugs, dunks a tea bag in each, finds a couple of broken biscotti, and puts everything on a tray. Better not to confide in Rachel, she decides. How can she tell anyone without telling Sam first? Such a lapse would be a huge transgression, like breaking her marriage contract or backtracking on a promise or casting herself into a mean-girl role, favoring some, excluding others. Still, protecting a husband must count as an honorable motive. Especially to someone who knows Sam.

  She grabs two napkins off the counter top. A hostess gift from dinner guests last summer, they sport rainbows and daffodils and frolicking kittens with the kind of unrelenting good cheer that made her wince when she opened them.

  Rachel sips the tea. Annie passes her the plate of biscotti. Rachel shakes her head. “I shouldn’t,” she says.

  Annie looks at her friend, who is as slim and pretty as when they were roommates at Bowdoin together, roommates before she became roommates with Sam.

  “Why not?” she asks, scarfing down her own cookie without even tasting it.

  “Because, unlike you, I’m searching for a husband. A boyfriend. Someone to date. You have no idea what’s it like out there, what the competition is.”

  “With Ursula as a mother? I know a bit about competition.”

  Rachel groans. “Remember when she came to visit you at school? She had all your friends, the cool guys, the faculty, the hairnetted ladies in the cafeteria, and Dean Pretty Boy eating out of her hand. Bejeweled hand.”

  “The story of my life.”

  Rachel sighs. “Including me. Talk about a fair-weather friend; I abandoned you to sit at her feet. And oh, what feet. Those shoes she wore.”

  “Still wears …”

  “Can you imagine what she must spend on them?” Rachel scoops out the tea bag and wraps it in the cheerful napkin, which instantly turns brown and sodden. “But Sam never succumbed. He only had eyes for you; he didn’t care if you sat around in sweat pants all day and barely combed your hair. While the rest of us wasted hours primping, using up our meal-ticket allowance on moisturizer and eyelash curlers.”

  Annie did remember. “Ursula was so glad we roomed together. She was sure you’d be a good influence on me.”

  “Ha! By getting pregnant? I should have taken lessons from you. That jerk I married. How could I have missed the signs? Particularly when he kept suggesting I get my teeth whitened because I’d”—she curls her fingers into commas—“quote, look younger, unquote.”

  “And now he gets to listen to Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus all day.” Annie laughs, amazed to hear sounds of merriment coming from her mouth.

  “Megan reports Cindi-with-an-i has signed him up for yoga. They have his-and-hers mats. He goes to a stylist instead of the barber. He’s got highlights. And he’s lasered all the hair off his back and chest.”

  “Which won’t change his essential asshole-ness,” Annie says in solidarity. And because Rachel has begun to look a little sad, as though she’s missing, if not a hairy husband, then a favorite stuffed animal, Annie shifts the subject. “So, how’s work?”

  “The usual. Eating disorders. Cutting. Helicopter parents. Divorce. Stepsiblings. SATs. Bad boyfriends. Adolescence sucks.”

  “Megan turned out great.”

  “At least one good thing came out of that marriage.” Rachel beams. “She did turn out great, didn’t she?”

  “No goddaughter of mine would dare be otherwise.” Annie dumps an extra teaspoonful of sugar into her mug and reaches for Rachel’s biscotti. “So, what is going on with you and the search for Mr. Right?”

  Rachel unrolls the afghan from her legs and pulls it up to her neck. Annie recognizes the impulse. “Please, can I just stay buried here until my hormone levels drop?”

  “Rachel …?”

  Rachel plucks at a yellow-and-turquoise square. She scrapes something—a pizza crust?—off of it. “I joined Match.com, eHarmony, OkCupid, JDate, and …”

  “JDate?” Annie interrupts.

  “What? A perfectly acceptable gentile girl can’t hope for a nice Jewish boy like Sam?”

  “Sam? You’re always pointing out his shortcomings. You and Ursula.”

  “Which doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate him. Your husband has many sterling qualities … and those good looks. But …”

  “But …?”

  “You’ve spoiled him.” Shrink-like, she appraises Annie, scanning for defensive twitches or clenched fists. “Maybe because Ursula is so critical, maybe because your father died, maybe becau
se you need someone to mother, maybe—”

  Annie holds up her hand. “Spare me the analysis.”

  “Sorry. My default mode. Nevertheless, Annie, a man like Sam can be trained.”

  Trained? For what? she wonders. Trained to pick up his laundry? To morph into a social butterfly? She folds her napkin. Trained to live without her?

  “And I even drove to Boston once,” Rachel continues. “Why? To have lunch with a doofus who wears the remains of every meal he’s ever eaten on his tie, who divides the bill in half—on his calculator. A guy in Portland brought along an album of photos of his dead Weimaraner. One jerk handed me his four-hundred-sixty-eight-page manuscript, single-spaced, all capital letters. ‘That’s how you’ll get to know me,’ he advised.”

  Annie shakes her head. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “You’ll never need to do it. Sam would never leave you.”

  Annie brushes crumbs off her knees and onto her plate. “If something happened to him … well, I guess I’d just remain an old maid.”

  “Nonsense. Remember what’s-his-name with that amazing loft?”

  “Charles?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. Leaving Sam out of the equation, you never learned to flirt, even with my fine example and Charles to practice on. Granted, he wasn’t around long enough for you to hone any skills. But you’re not hopeless. Check out the self-help section of the bookstore. There are instructions for everything. Relationship manuals. Rules for dating, for going after what you want. Rules for playing it cool. I should write one myself.”

  “That would keep you busy in your two seconds of spare time.” Annie steadies her mug. She peers inside. No doubt there are diagrams on how to read tea leaves, too. “Sam and I consulted guides to small businesses and restaurant equipment. I just haven’t sampled the kind you’re talking about.”

  “Not even The Joy of Sex?”

  “Ha! That, of course.” Annie points to Rachel’s empty cup. “A refill?”