In Her Shoes 27
"Right," Maggie agreed, her words coming faster, tumbling over one another. "And the way she writes about it, like it doesn't even matter that much ..." "You're talking about Bishop's tone," the professor said. "Would you call it ironic? Detached?" Maggie thought about it as two girls in the front row raised their hands. Professor Clapham ignored them. "I think," Maggie said slowly, staring at the words on the page, "I think she wants to sound detached. Like it doesn't matter to her, right? Like the words she's using. Fluster. A fluster isn't a big deal. Or even the line that repeats, about how the art of losing isn't hard to master. It's like she's making fun of herself by even calling it an art." In fact, the tone's poem reminded Maggie of the way her sister talked about herself. She remembered watching the Miss America Pageant with Rose, asking Rose what her talent would be, and how Rose had thought about it and then said, very thoughtfully, "Parallel parking." "So she's trying to, like, turn it into a joke. But then, by the end . . ." "Let's consider the structure again," the professor said, and while her words were intended for the rest of the class, her eyes were still on Maggie's. "A A. A A. Stanzas of three lines, until we reach the end, the final quatrain, and what happens?" She nodded at Maggie. "Well, it's four lines, not three, so it's different. And there's that interruption—'write it!'—it's like she wants to be distant, she wants to be apart from it, but she's thinking of what's going to happen when she loses ..." "Loses what?" Professor Clapham asked. "Or loses who? Is this a poem about a lover, do you think? Who is the 'you' of this poem?" Maggie bit her lip. "I don't think so," she said. "But I don't know why. I think that it's more a poem about losing ..." A sister, she thought. A mother. "A friend, maybe," she said out loud. "Very good," said the professor, as Maggie flushed crimson again, this time in pleasure, rather than shame. "Very good,"
272 Jennifer weiner
Professor Clapham repeated, and then she turned back to the board, back to the class, back to the rhyme scheme and the formal demands of a villanelle. Maggie barely heard a word of it. She was still blushing. She, who never blushed, not even when she'd had to dress up like a gorilla for the three-day stint as a singing telegram girl, had turned the rich ripe red of a Jersey tomato. T hat night, she curled up on top of her sleeping bag, thinking about her sister, wondering if Rose had taken that particular poetry class and had read that particular poem, and whether Rose would ever believe that it was Maggie, Maggie above all of the other students, who'd understood the poem best. She wondered when she'd get to tell Rose about it, and turned restlessly in the dark, trying to puzzle out what she'd have to do in order to get her sister to even speak to her again; what she'd have to do to get Rose to forgive her. By the next morning, riding the bus to Corinne's through the bright spring sunshine, she was starting to feel regret. The whole point of being at Princeton was try to be ... what was the word? . . . interstitial. It wasn't a word she'd learned on campus, it was a word she'd gotten from Rose. She could close her eyes and see Rose pointing out the commercials crammed onto half of the TV screen while the credits for the show that had just ended ran beside them. Interstitial meant, basically, the thing between the thing—the stuff that happened alongside the main event, while you were paying attention to something else. And now she'd gone and shouted out artswers in class. What was she thinking? Someone was going to notice her. Someone was going to remember. Someone was going to start wondering exactly where she lived, what her major was, what year she was, and what she was doing there. Swirling the mop over Corinne's already gleaming floors, she wondered if maybe she wanted to be discovered, if she was tired of being invisible. She was doing something . . . well, not important, exactly, but something that required a certain level of daring, and cunning, and skill, and she wanted to be acknowledged for it. She
In Her Shoes 273
wanted to tell Charles, or Rose, or someone, everything she'd figured out. How she'd learned to be careful never to fall into regular, detectable patterns. How she'd figured out no fewer than six different places to take showers (Dillon gym, the basement shower in the library, and four dormitories where the locks were reliably broken), how she knew the only washing machine that would run without quarters and the single soda machine that would routinely disgorge a free can of Coke if you hit it just right. She wanted to tell them how she'd figured out the dining halls—how, if you sneaked in through the steamy dish room in the early morning hours, dressed as if you were working there, in grungy sneakers and jeans and a sweatshirt, everyone assumed that you were one of the student employees, just grabbing a bite before taking your place behind the steam tables or on the dish line. She wanted to explain how easy it was to slip food into her backpack— peanut butter sandwiches, pieces of fruit, layered between napkins. She wanted to tell them about Thursday lunches at the International Student Center, where for two dollars she could get a giant plate heaping with rice and stir-fried vegetables and chicken curried in coconut milk—the best food she'd ever had, she thought sometimes—with the tea they served that tasted like cinnamon, how she'd drink cup after cup with teaspoonfuls of honey, and it would chase the heat of the food out of her mouth, and how nobody ever asked her anything because most of the other lunchgoers were graduate students and new to English, so the most she ever got was a shy smile, and a nod, and change for her five-dollar bill. She used Windex to clean Corinne's glass cabinets and imagined introducing Rose to Charles and seeing her sister nod her approval. "I'm fine," she imagined telling her sister; "you shouldn't have been so worried about me, because I'm fine." And then she would say that she was sorry . . . and, well, after that, who knew? Maybe Rose could find a way for Maggie to get credit for the classes she'd listened in on. Maybe Maggie could even get a degree some day, if she kept plugging away, because she'd found that if she took
274 Jennifer weiner
her time, even the thickest books weren't so awful. And she'd star in all of Charles's plays, and give her sister tickets to the premiere, and also something great to wear, because Lord knew that if left to her own devices Rose would just show up in something frumpy, like one of her shoulder-padded sweaters that made her look like small bear, and . . . "Hello?" Corinne said. Maggie jumped and practically fell off the step stool. "Hi," she said. "I'm up here. I didn't hear you come in." "I move on little cat feet. Like the fog." "Carl Sandburg," said Maggie. "Very good!" said Corinne. She ran her fingertips along the countertops, then eased herself into a seat at the dining room table that Maggie had wiped clean. "How's school?" "It's very good," said Maggie. She hopped off the step stool, folded it up, and stowed it on its hook inside the closet. And it was good. Except for the fact that she didn't really belong here. Except for the fact of Rose, the terrible thing she'd done to her, and her sense that nothing she'd learned in college would help her figure out how to make that right again.
THIRTY'NINE
In the week since her walk with Mrs. Lefkowitz, Ella had managed to learn a great deal about her granddaughter Rose, and almost nothing about Maggie. "This one, this Rose," Mrs. Lefkowitz had said. "She's everywhere!" Indeed, cyberspace was littered with references to Rose, from the directory of her high school's National Honor Society to an article in the Daily Princetonian about on-campus recruiting. Ella learned where Rose had gone to school, what area of law she was practicing, even extrapolated her telephone number from an on-line search engine. "She's done all right for herself," said Mrs. Lefkowitz, as they plodded past the tennis courts. "It said she's on indefinite leave," Ella noted, remembering her granddaughter's stern face flickering on the computer screen. "That doesn't sound good." "Felt," said Mrs. Lefkowitz. "She's probably on vacation." Maggie, meanwhile, proved much harder to pin down. Mrs. Lefkowitz, Ella, and Lewis had tried every possible combination of MAGGIE FELLER and MAGGIE MAY FELLER and even MARGARET FELLER, even though it wasn't right, and found not a single reference to her younger granddaughter, not so much as a 276 Jennifer weiner
mention, not even a telephone number. "It's like she doesn't exist," Ella had said, frowning. "Maybe . . ." She let her voice trail off, unwilling to give voice to the horrible thought that had seized her. Mrs. Lefkowitz shook her head. "If she was dead, there'd be an obituary." "Are you sure?" asked Ella. "How do you think I keep up with my friends?" Mrs. Lefkowitz asked. She reached into her pink fanny pack and pulled out an orange cell phone. "Here. You should call the Rose one. Quick, before you lose your nerve." Ella shook her head, thinking of her granddaughter's face. "I don't know," she said. "I want to, but ... I have to think about it. I want to do it just right." "Think, think," said Mrs. Lefkowitz. "You're taking too long. Just do it! Some of us are not planning to live forever." Ella stayed awake all night, lying alone on top of her comforter as the frogs croaked and the horns honked and the sky finally got light. When she pushed herself out of bed, she made herself say it out loud. "Today," she announced to her empty apartment. "I'm going to call her today." That morning, at the hospital, Ella set a sleeping baby back into its Isolette and hurried down the hall. There was a bank of pay phones right across from the surgical lounge. Ella stationed herself in front of the phone the farthest from the doors and fumbled for her calling card. She poked at the keyboard, punched in her calling card number, then Rose's law-firm number. Voice mail, she thought—she, who hadn't prayed since the last night her daughter had gone missing, had suddenly become God's intimate companion. Please, Lord, let it be voice mail. And it was . . . but it wasn't what she'd expected to hear. "You have reached a nonworking number at Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick," said the disembodied computerized voice. "Please press zero to be connected with an operator." Ella pressed zero, and after a minute a receptionist said, "It's an outrageous day at Lewis, Dommel, and Fenick!"
In Her Shoes 277
"Excuse me?" said Ella. "They make us say that instead of'hello,' " said the receptionist in a hushed whisper. "How can I help you?" "I'm trying to reacthe Rose Feller," said Ella. "I'll connect you," the receptionist singsonged. Ella's heart leapt in her chest . . . but the woman who answered the phone wasn't Rose, just a bored-sounding woman who identified herself as Lisa, Rose's former assistant. "She's on leave," Lisa said. "I know," said Ella, "but I was wondering if I could leave her a message? This is her grandmother," she said, feeling herself swell with fear, and pride, the instant she'd spoken the words her grandmother. "Sorry," said Lisa. "She doesn't call in for her messages. She hasn't been here in months." "Oh," said Ella. "Well, I've got her home number, so I'll try her there." "Fine," said Lisa. "Thank you," said Ella. She hung up the phone and sank into a chair outside the lounge, feeling exhilarated and terrified at the same time. She'd taken the first step, and what was the corny thing that Ira, of all people, used to say? The greatest journey begins with a single step. True, he'd usually say it before starting on a fresh batch of yogurt, but still, Ella thought. It was true, and she'd done it. She hadn't chickened out, she thought, reaching for the telephone again, hurrying to call Lewis and give him the amazing news. She'd jumped into the water. She'd begun.
FORTY
Rose had to give Simon Stein this—he was nothing if not persistent. The day after they'd had lunch, a dozen red roses had arrived at her apartment, with a card saying, "Looking forward to seeing you again. PS: Don't eat a big lunch." She'd rolled her eyes at that, hoping he wasn't getting the wrong idea, as she loaded the roses into an inadequate vase and set them on her kitchen counter, where they promptly began making the rest of her belongings look shabby and unromantic in comparison. He was a nice enough guy, certainly, but nobody she'd ever be attracted to. Besides, she thought later, swinging one leg over her bicycle and heading down Pine Street to begin her morning rounds, she was through with love, and it would take more than a man who styled himself a walking Zagat's guide to change her mind. "I'm on hiatus from romance," she told Petunia, as they strolled through the morning sunshine on their daily walk. Rose had to admit that while she liked all of the dogs she cared for, she'd always have a soft spot for the scowling little pug. Petunia squatted, peed briefly into the gutter, snorted a few times, and began her pursuit of street sushi—pizza crusts, puddle beer, discarded chicken bones. "I think it's a good idea to take a
I
In Her Shoes 279
break every once in a while," Rose said. "So I'm taking a little break." That evening, Rose shaved her legs carefully, toweled herself off, and surveyed the outfits she'd laid out on her bed. Of course, none of them looked right. The red skirt that had looked adorable in the mall bunched up oddly around her hips. The green sundress was hopelessly wrinkled, the denim skirt was missing a button, and the long black skirt made her look as if either she'd come straight from the office or she was in mourning, or as if she'd been in mourning at the office. God, where was Maggie when she needed her? "Shit!" Rose said. She was sweating, in spite of her freshly applied deodorant, and already five minutes late. "Shit, shit, shit!" She pulled on the red skirt, yanked a white T-shirt over her head, and reached into her closet for her snakeskin slides, figuring that even if the outfit was a near-disaster, her shoes would be, as always, without fault. She groped along the shelf. Boots, boots, loafers, heels, pink slides, black slides, the ill-advised pair of Tevas she'd purchased the week she thought she might become one of those fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked L.L. Bean girls who hiked the Appalachian Trail during spring break . . . where the hell was the pair she was looking for? "Maggie," she moaned, with her hands still rooting through the tangle of straps and buckles. "Maggie, if you took my shoes, I swear to God ..." And then, before she could decide what she was vowing to do to her sister, if she ever saw her sister again, Rose's fingertips brushed the tops of the slides in question. She snatched them off the shelf, shoved her bare feet inside of them, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door. She stabbed the elevator button, then rocked from leg to leg, making sure her keys were in her purse, trying to avoid her reflection in the elevator doors, certain that she wouldn't like what she'd see. The Former Lawyer, she thought, glancing ruefully at her legs, freshly shaved but still scabby. Simon Stein was waiting outside her building, wearing a button-down blue shirt, khakis, and brown loafers, the uniform at
