have you been?”
I paused in the doorway. Potatoes, onion, celery … she was making a stew again. There was only ever the smallest bit of beef, a cheap cut softened with the hours of slow braising. She made it last through the week, adding extra potatoes to cheat it out.
“I got the job, actually,” I told her, setting the zaletti down on the table with a flourish.
She stared at it; I think she’d half hoped I wouldn’t get the position and then would dye my hair back. But of course work was always better than no work. “Good,” she said finally. “So, what’s it like?”
“Fancy. Very posh.” I hung up my coat on the hook in the hallway, pulled off my gloves. “You know, they have a silver service there that costs as much as a house! I showed it to a woman this afternoon.”
“Did she buy it?”
“No. But only because apparently it was missing lobster tongs. Have you ever even heard of lobster tongs?”
She frowned, began paring the potatoes into quarters. “Do you get commission?”
I checked the coffeepot on the stove. “I only just got the job, Ma!”
“You should ask for commission.”
“It’s just me and the old man.” I poured a cup. It had been too long brewing and was bitter and strong. I drank it anyway.
“What difference does that make?” She tossed the potatoes in the cooking pot. “A sale is a sale!”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t made a sale yet.”
“And they’re not going to fall into your lap!” she warned, pointing the paring knife at me. “You need to be friendly. Outgoing.”
“I am friendly!”
“But you’re not outgoing, Maeve!” She scraped the carrots so hard one snapped in two. “You’re an introvert. Even as a baby you were quiet. All that time spent in your room reading!” She shook her head. “Too much time daydreaming—that’s always been your trouble! You have to make a concerted effort. You need to act like you’re the hostess at a party!”
What had gotten into her today? “Didn’t you hear me? I got the job!”
She stopped, wiped her hands on her apron. “Mrs. Shaw’s retiring next week.”
“Does that mean …”
“It means they’ve hired a new saleswoman in Ladies Wear. And it isn’t me,” she added bitterly.
Here was the crux of the matter. Unfortunately we’d been here before, and I’d exhausted my repertoire of conciliatory clichés.
“I’m sorry, Ma. You’re too good at your job, that’s the problem.” It was a stupid thing to say, but I had nothing left.
She stirred the stew on the stove, staring fixedly into the pot. “You’re lucky. You don’t realize it, but you are. You can really make something of yourself. It’s too late for me. But you can be somebody.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You mustn’t waste your opportunities. Do you understand?” She turned. “You can be anything you want, anything you set your mind to, Maeve. You’re so clever, so much more capable than I ever was.”
“That’s not true.”
But she was serious. “You mustn’t fail yourself. Do you understand, Maeve? You mustn’t settle.”
There was a knock at the door.
“Who’s that?”
“Angela said she would stop by.”
“Angela?” Suddenly she seemed small and forlorn, caught off guard. “Tonight?”
I got up. “I’ll tell her I’ll see her another time.”
“No.” Yanking the strings of her apron, she pulled it off, handed it to me. “Keep an eye on dinner. I’m going to lie down.”
I poured some fresh coffee into one of my mother’s Staffordshire willow-pattern teacups and passed it to Angela. “Sugar?”
“Yes, please. These are nice.” She held up her cup, admiring the delicate blue-and-white oriental design. “I’ve never seen these before. Where did they come from?”
“They’re my mother’s. A wedding gift.” I smiled. “But we only use them on special occasions.” I wanted to make things up to her.
“I’m honored!”
I sat down across from her at the kitchen table. “I’m sorry we don’t have any cream.”
(In truth we never had it.)
We divided the zaletti in half on a plate.
“Here’s to you and your new job!” Angela raised her cup.
“Here’s to you and your new husband!” We took a drink, and then I asked, “So, what’s it like, being married? I want to hear everything!”
“Oh, Mae!” She blushed, gave me a slightly embarrassed grin. “I don’t know! It’s different. I mean, from what I thought it would be like.”
“How?”
Cupping her cheek in her hand, she pretended to concentrate on stirring the sugar into her coffee. “Faster!” she whispered back with a giggle. “Seems no sooner do we close the bedroom door than … you know, he’s on top of me!”
“Well, men are like that. You have to slow them down.”
“Mae!” She gave me a stab in the ribs. “You shouldn’t know these things! And it hurt.” Her face flushed pink again. “He kept apologizing!”
“What about the rest of it? You know, the bits that happen outside the bedroom.”
She rolled her eyes. “I hate living at his mother’s house. It’s like being a bug in a glass jar; everyone knows everything you’re doing all the time. But we haven’t the money to move yet.”
I lit two cigarettes on the stove and passed one to her. “No one’s got any money. At least he has a job.”
“Oh, he’ll have more than that when he graduates from pharmacy school—he’ll have his own business. We’ve got our eye on that corner shop on Salem Street. It would make a perfect drugstore.” She tilted her head, looking at me sideways. “What about you? How was New York?”
“Fine. Good to be home.”
Her eyes met mine. “Really?”
She could always see right through me.
I felt an awkward flush of shame, took a long drag. “Well, maybe
