By the Numbers
Page 26
“Is there a problem with my knees?” I ask.
“Oh, look, a baby wolf,” she says.
“Is that you trying to not hurt my feelings?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks.”
“Can I ask you something?” she says, as we gather up our purses before we leave the fitting room. “Did you ever apologize to Daddy?”
“Did I apologize to him? Why would I apologize?”
“Because affairs don’t start in a vacuum.”
Before I can respond, before I can even parse out her meaning, Jessica is halfway across the department, urging a middle-aged woman to put the capri pants down.
By the time we leave Nordstrom, I have the dress, a shopping bag full of new cosmetics courtesy of MAC, shoes with an actual heel, and underwear that does not cause me great shame. And Jessica has a part-time job as a personal shopper. (Apparently Brenda’s boss liked Jessica’s hustle.)
By the time we leave Old Orchard Mall, my grays are gone via a trip to the In Style salon and I have subtle amber and russet highlights, à la Kate Middleton. Karin and Patrick are going to be thrilled. Jessica and I both got mani-pedis, too. Her nails are a matte aqua, while mine are (surprise) taupe.
Who knew that having a daughter could be kind of fun?
• • • •
I’m sitting at my dressing table, putting the finishing touches on my makeup, when Marjorie wanders into my bedroom and perches on the edge of my bed.
“Hi. Are we out of gin?” I ask.
She winks at me. “I always knew you were the clever one, darling. Boodles, please.”
“I’ll bring some home after my date.”
“Are you going out with someone lovely?”
I dab some Tom Ford behind my ears and wrists. “Yes.”
“You planning to marry him?”
I laugh. “Not tonight, no. It’s our first official dinner date.”
“I knew with your father on our first date. He was fourteen years old and didn’t have a dime to his name, so we went for a walk. I’ll never forget how he said, ‘Stick with me, kid, and I’ll give you the world.’ He used to find interesting rocks and tell me to hold on to them; one day I could redeem them for diamonds. He kept his word, and I had a lot of rocks.”
“That is so incredibly sweet,” I say.
“Mmm,” she says, nodding and sipping her drink. “Hard to believe it all began almost forty years ago.”
I rise from my dressing table. “I have to go, Marjorie. I’ll be sure to pick up your gin.”
I grab my evening bag and begin my tentative trip down the back stairs on these precarious heels. I can hear Marjorie muttering to herself.
“Bloody hell, it’s always, ‘Marjorie this’ and ‘Marjorie that.’ Such disrespect. Oh, for the days when these children called me ‘Mother.’”
• • • •
I arrive at the restaurant after him, and he’s already at the table when I approach. “No, I insist. Don’t get up.”
He gets up anyway. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
“Thanks. My daughter styled me.”
He sits back down. “So, we’re really doing this.” He hands me a glass of chardonnay from the bottle that’s already open on the table.
“We are. I’m ready. I had to figure out if I was ready, and turns out I am.”
“Do we start with small talk?” he asks. “I’m so rusty at this. I don’t remember how to date you. It’s been too long.”
“Like I’m not? I don’t remember how to date you either.”
“Why don’t we start with small talk?” he suggests. “How’s work?”
“Interesting,” I say. “I was supposed to be promoted to executive vice president this week, except I decided I didn’t want to be an executive vice president. I declined the position, and now I’m on vacation for the next few weeks.”
He seems surprised. “You turned down the job! Why?”
“Well, when I was married, I spent a lot of time jockeying for position within my company. Too much time. I kept angling for promotions that in retrospect did nothing to advance my family. They only advanced me. My forward motion only fed my ego, only fulfilled my needs.”
“That sounds like a problem.”
“Yeah, turns out it was. What ended up happening is my job drove a wedge between my husband and me, only I wouldn’t admit it because I didn’t see it. Instead, I used my work as some kind of moral high ground, my get-out-of-jail-free pass.”
He studies me in the candlelight. “That had to be hard for your husband.”
“I imagine it was. Eventually, I was gone so much and so completely checked out of our lives that he ended up turning to someone else in a moment of weakness, and I was furious. I was unforgiving. I wouldn’t talk to him afterward. I wouldn’t go to marriage counseling. I wouldn’t consider trying to work through how we got there in the first place. I just put all the blame on his shoulders. I was so mad.”
He runs his finger up and down the stem of his glass. “I can see your point. You had every right to be angry. You didn’t break your vows.”
“True, but I never owned up to my responsibility for the whole situation. I was so busy being the injured party that it never occurred to me that I was just as much to blame. Today my daughter told me, ‘An affair doesn’t happen in a vacuum.’ She’s right.”
“She sounds like a smart kid.”
“She is. I’m going to get to know her better because she’s sticking around for a while. She can’t afford to rent her own place, so she’s planning to fix up the little apartment over the garage and move in there. That’ll give her some privacy—because who wants to live with her mother, especially when her mom is starting to date?”
“Aren’t you selling your house? I thought you were moving to the city.”
“I had an offer—crazy high; you wouldn’t believe the number. But I’m learning the numbers aren’t everything. There’s no math in the world that makes me ready to sell. I’ve got a big new dog and a grandkid on the way and an adult kid who needs the garage space. Looks like I’m tethered to the place for a while.”
“I’m really glad to hear that,” he says. He takes my hand and begins to trace this thumb back and forth across my knuckles.
“Are you even hungry?” I ask.
“Not really,” he says.
“Thing is, I promised my mother a bottle of Boodles, and she gets antsy because she’s old. She says she’s not old, but she’s a liar. Would you mind terribly if we just settled up and picked up her gin and went back to my house? I mean, to our house?”
He smiles at me. “There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
I rise from my seat and hand him his crutches. “Then let’s go home, Chris. Let’s go home.”
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