In Her Shoes 25
your chips, time to put the cards down, time to get on the next bus to somewhere. Except, the weird thing was, she didn't want to leave. She was having . . . what? Maggie tucked her legs up against her chest and stared up at the tree branches, heavy with tight green buds, and the starry night sky. Fun. Well, not fun exactly, not fun like a party was fun, not fun like getting dressed up and looking great and feeling people's jealous eyes moving over her was fun. It was a challenge— the kind of challenge that her series of dead-end minimum-wage jobs never gave her. It was like being the star of her own detective show. And it wasn't just a question of not letting anyone notice. These were the smart kids, the honors-course kids, the National Merit Finalist kids, the cream of the crop, the pick of the litter. If Maggie could move invisibly among them, didn't it prove what Mrs. Fried had always told her? If she could survive Princeton, if she could sit in the back row of a dozen different classes and actually follow what was being taught, didn't it mean that she was smart, too? Maggie brushed dew off the seat of her jeans and got to her feet. Plus, there was Charles's play, his directorial debut, a Beckett one-act at Theatre Intime. And she was the star. She'd been meeting with him every few days for rehearsal, running her lines in the Student Center, or in an empty classroom in the arts building down on Nassau Street. "I'm over in Lockhart," he'd told her the last time they'd met, walking her back from 185 Nassau. "I stay up late. I've got two roommates," he added, before Maggie had a chance to lift an eyebrow. "I guarantee that your virtue is safe with me." Well, it was late now. She wondered if he'd be up. She wondered, wrapping her arms around herself, if he'd possibly be willing to lend her a sweatshirt. She hurried across the campus. Lockhart, if she remembered right, was right next to the University Store. Charles's room was on the first floor, and when Maggie tapped on
In Her Shoes 253
"Ex-girlfriend," he said. Huh, Maggie thought. "I'm not gay," Charles said. Then he laughed a little apologetically. "It's just that everyone who comes over here thinks that. And then I have to spend three months acting as heterosexual as possible." "So what, you have to scratch yourself every five minutes instead of every ten? That's not hard work," said Maggie, plopping herself back onto the cushions, and flipping through a book about Mexico. Whitewashed houses stark against that piercing blue sky, weeping Madonnas in tiled courtyards, white-tipped waves curling onto golden sand. She was disappointed. She'd only known three kinds of guys in her entire life—those who were gay, those who were old, and the third category, a hundred times larger than the first two, those who wanted her. If Charles wasn't gay, and he certainly wasn't old, then he probably wanted her. Which made Maggie feel sad, and a little cheated. She'd never had a guy who was just a friend before, and she'd spent enough time with Charl es that he liked her for her brains and her quickness, her resourcefulness, instead of the one thing that every other guy in the world usually liked her for. "Well, I'm glad we got that cleared up. And I'm glad you're here. I've got a poem for you." "For me? Did you write it?" "No. We had it last week in my History of Poetry class." He flipped open a Norton Anthology and began to read:
" 'Margaret, are you grieving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leaves, like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you? Ah! as the heart grows older It will come to such sights colder By and by, nor spare a sigh Though worlds of wan wood leafmeal lie;
254 Jennifer weiner
And yet you will weep and know why. Now no matter, child, the name: Sorrow's springs are the same. Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed What heart heard of, ghost guessed: It is the blight man was born for, It is Margaret you mourn for.' "
He closed the book. Maggie took a deep breath. Her arms had broken out into goose bumps. "Whoa," she said. "Dark. But I'm not Margaret." "Oh, no?" "No," she said. "I'm just Maggie. Maggie May, actually." She gave an embarrassed laugh. "From the noted poet, Rod Stewart. My mother liked the song." "What's your mother like?" Charles asked. Maggie looked at him, then away. Usually, at this moment of the back-and-forth with her guy of the hour, this would be the point where Maggie would produce her own version of the tragic tale of her mother's death, and lay it in the guy's lap like a gaily wrapped package. Sometimes she'd have her mother dying of breast cancer, and sometimes she'd stick to car wreck, but always she'd lavish the story with detail and drama. The chemotherapy! The cop at the door! The funeral, with the two little girls crying over the coffin! But she didn't feel like telling Charles that version of the story. She felt like telling him something closer to the truth, which scared her, because if she told him the truth about this, what else would she be tempted to blurt out? "Not much to tell," she said lightly. "Oh, I know that's not true," he said. She felt his eyes on her. She knew what was coming. Why don't you come a little closer? Or, Can I pour you a drink? And soon she'd feel his lips on her neck or his arm around her shoulders, with his hand edging toward her breast. It was a dance she'd done too many times.
In Her Shoes 255
Except the words never came, and his lips never came. Instead, Charles stayed just where he was. "Fine. Hold out on me," he said, and smiled at her—a friendly smile, she thought, and felt relieved. Maggie glanced at the antique-looking clock on his desk. It was after one. "I should go," she said. "Got to get my laundry." "I'll walk you," said Charles. "No, that's okay." But he was shaking his head and picking up his backpack. "It isn't safe to walk around by yourself." Maggie almost laughed at him. Princeton was the safest place she'd ever been. It was safer than a kiddie pool, safer than a child's car seat. The only thing she'd ever seen go wrong was when somebody dropped their tray in the dining hall. "No, really. I'm actually hungry. Have you ever been to P.J.'s?" Maggie shook her head. Charles affected a look of absolute horror. "It's a Princeton tradition. Excellent chocolate chip pancakes. Come on," he said, holding the door for her, "my treat."
THIRTY'SIX
Rose Feller figured that the day would come. After three months of dog-walking and dry-cleaning pickups, trips to the drugstore and the grocery store and the video store, she figured she was overdue to run into some of the familiar faces from her less-than-halcyon days at Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick. So on a sunny, sixty-degree day in April, when Shirley, Petunia's owner, handed her an envelope with the familiar address printed on the outside and said, like it was no big deal, "Could you drop this off at my attorney's office?" Rose had just swallowed hard, tucked the envelope into her shoulder bag, and got on her bike, pedaling toward Arch Street and the tall, gleaming tower where she'd once worked. It could be, she reasoned as she rode, that nobody would even recognize her. She'd spent her days at Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick in pantsuits and heels (and in love, her tattletale brain insisted on reminding her). Today she was wearing shorts, a pair of ankle-high socks decorated with skillets, fried eggs, and coffee cups (a little something Maggie had left behind), and hard-soled bicycling shoes. Her hair had grown out past her shoulders and was braided in two pigtails—Rose had learned through trial and error that it was one of the only styles that worked underneath a bicycle helmet. And
In Her Shoes 257
although she hadn't lost any weight since her untoward departure from the world of litigation, her body looked different. Days of biking and walking had given her muscles in her arms and legs, and her office-drone pallor had been replaced by a tan. Her cheeks glowed pink, her hair, bound in its pigtails, was shiny. So she had that going for her, at least. Get through it, she told herself, as she walked off the elevator and over to the reception desk, her bare brown calves flashing, her shoes clattering on the tiled floor. Get through it. It wouldn't be hard. She'd drop off the package, get a signature, and . . . "Rose?" She held her breath, half hoping that what she'd heard had issued from her imagination rather than from an office across the lobby. She turned, and standing there was Simon Stein, instigator of intramural Softball, his gingery hair garish under the overhead lights, and his muted red-and-gold tie highlighting the gentle swell of his belly. "Rose Feller?" Well, she thought, giving him a half-smile and a quick wave, it could be worse. It could be Jim. Now, if she could just dump her envelope and get out of here . . . "How are you?" asked Simon, who'd hustled across the lobby and was now standing right beside her, looking her up and down as if she'd mutated into some previously unknown species. Maybe she had, she thought grimly. The Former Lawyer. How many of those had Simon Stein ever seen? "I'm fine," she said quietly, and handed the envelope to the receptionist, who was looking at Rose with undisguised curiosity, trying to match the tanned girl in shorts with the sober young woman in suits. "They told us you were on leave," said Simon. "I am," she said shortly, collecting the signed receipt from the receptionist and turning toward the door. Simon followed after her, even as Rose willed him to go away. "Hey," he said, "have you had lunch?"
258 Jennifer weiner
"I should really get going," she said, as one of the elevators opened and a crowd of partners came pouring out. Rose peeked up surreptitiously, looking for Jim's face, and didn't start breathing again until she didn't see it. "Free food," said Simon Stein, and gave her a charming grin. "Come on. You've got to eat anyhow. We'll go somewhere fancy and pretend that we're important." Rose laughed. "Not with me dressed like this, we can't." "Nobody's going to say anything," said Simon, and followed Rose onto the elevator as if he was one of the dogs she walked each day. "It's going to be fine."
Ten minutes later, they were sitting at a table for two at the Sansom Street Oyster House, where, just as Rose had feared, she was the only woman who wasn't wearing hose and heels. "Two iced teas," said Simon Stein, loosening his tie and rolling his sleeves up over his freckled forearms. "Do you like clam chowder? Do you eat fried food?" "Sure and sometimes," said Rose, who'd unfastened her pigtails and was trying to casually rearrange her hair. "Two bowls of New England clam chowder, and the mixed seafood platter," he said to the waitress, who nodded approvingly. "Do you always order for strangers?" asked Rose, who'd decided that her hair was a lost cause and was now trying to tug her shorts down over the scabs on her right knee. Simon Stein nodded and looked pleased with himself. "Whenever I can," he said. "Did you ever get food envy?" "What's that?" asked Rose. "When you go to a restaurant and order something, and then you'll see them bring someone else's food and it'll look, like, ten times better than what you ordered?" Rose nodded. "Of course. Happens all the time." Simon looked smug. Actually, given his curly red hair and his grin, he looked sort of like Ronald McDonald. "Well, it never happens to me," he said.
In Her Shoes 259
Rose stared at him. "Never?" "Well, hardly ever," said Simon. "I'm an expert orderer. A master of the menu." "A master of the menu," Rose repeated. "You should be on TV. Cable, at least." "I know it sounds crazy," said Simon, "but it's true. Ask anyone I've ever been out with. I'm never wrong." "Okay," said Rose, rising to the challenge, and thinking of the best restaurant she'd been to recently, with 'recently' denned as six months ago, when she'd gone with Jim late one night after work, when they were both certain they wouldn't see anyone he knew. "London." "The city or the restaurant?" Rose resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "The restaurant. It's in the art museum neighborhood." "Of course," said Simon. "You'd get the salt and pepper squid, roast duck with sweet ginger, and the white chocolate cheesecake for dessert." "That's amazing," Rose said, only half-sarcastically. Simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his small hands to the heavens. "Look, lady, it's not my fault if all you ever eat is a baked potato and broiled fish." "How do you know that?" asked Rose, who had, if she remembered it right, ordered the broiled salmon at London. "Lucky guess," said Simon. "Also, that's all most women ever eat. Which is a pity. Try me again." "Brunch at Striped Bass," said Rose, naming one of the best restaurants in town. Her father had taken her and Maggie as a special treat. Rose had gotten the turbot. Maggie, she remembered, had gotten three rum and Cokes and, eventually, the sommelier's phone number. Simon Stein closed his eyes. "Do they have the eggs Benedict with poached lobster on the menu?" "I don't know. I've never actually been for brunch."
260 Jennifer weiner
"We should go," said Simon. We? thought Rose. "Because that's what you get," he continued. "You start with the oysters, if you like oysters . . . you do like oysters, don't you?" "Sure," said Rose, who'd never had oysters. "And then you get the eggs Benedict with poached lobster. It's really good." He smiled at her. "Next?" "Penang," said Rose. Penang was the new, hot, Malaysian fusion spot that had just opened in Chinatown. She'd only read about it, but Simon Stein didn't know that. "Coconut sticky rice, roast chicken wings, beef rendang, and those summer rolls with the fresh shrimp." "Wow," said Rose, as the waitress set their soup in front of them. She dipped her spoon in, tasted, and closed her eyes as her mouth filled with the texture of heavy cream and the faint salty tang of the ocean, of fresh, sweet clams and potatoes cooked until they dissolved on her tongue. "My fat grams for the week," she said once she'd recovered. "It doesn't count if someone else is paying," said Simon Stein, offering Rose the oyster crackers. "Try some of these." Rose ate half her cup of soup before it occurred to her to speak again. "This is delicious," she said. Simon nodded, as if he expected nothing else but her praise for the soup. "So can you tell me a little bit more about this leave?" Rose swallowed hard against a lump of clam and potato. "It . . . um . . ." Simon Stein was looking at her quizzically. "Are you sick?" he asked. "Because that was one of the rumors." "One of the rumors?" Rose repeated. Simon nodded, and pushed his own empty soup cup aside. "Rumor one was mysterious illness. Rumor two was that you'd been head-hunted by Pepper, Hamilton. Rumor three ..." Just then the waitress reappeared with a platter heaping with golden-brown strips and filets. Simon busied himself squeezing
