Lady in the Lake(79)

No, that was too grand. She countered with Maison Marconi’s, within walking distance of her apartment. She would have time to get home, change, and meet him there for dinner at a very respectable six thirty. Plus, although the food was delicious, Marconi’s was overlit, not the least bit romantic.

Still, the request worried her. There had been phone calls before, some angry, some benign, some both. But they had not been alone, face-to-face, since January. He had continued to send a little money to her, but never on a predictable schedule and never the same amount twice. Seth would hand her an envelope of cash at their weekly meetings. “To cover dinner, Dad says.” Inside would be far more money than required by dinner at the Suburban House or Paul Cheng’s Cantonese, but also less than her monthly rent. An odd gesture, one that could be seen as hostile or well-intentioned. Maddie had decided to take the more generous view. She had broken the man’s heart. And for what? It probably would have been much easier on Milton if she had left him for a richer, more successful man—say, Wallace Wright. If she had left him for anyone or anything tangible. From where he sat, it must have seemed insulting for his wife to leave only to work as a newspaper clerk, one with little hope of advancement. (She had not had a byline proper since the story on the Sherwoods. Her achievements kept being written off as flukes, feats she could not repeat.) He had never seen her apartment, of course, but he must have had some inkling of it. The whole thing could have fit into their living room in Pikesville.

Yes, how baffling this whole adventure must have been to Milton. How baffling it was to Maddie.

She dressed carefully, trying to find a middle ground between her old and new selves. One of her longer dresses, slightly below the knee. High heels instead of the boots she now preferred. She put her hair up, back-combing it just a little. Her only jewelry was a pin she had found in a secondhand store in Fells Point, a cursive M of sterling silver. She wondered often about the woman who had given it up, what her M had stood for. She remembered how delighted she had been to realize, upon marriage, that her monogram would be two small M’s—Madeline Morgenstern—on either side of an S, for Schwartz. It was so beautifully symmetrical, those two M’s bracketing the S. How she had doted on the embroidered pieces of her trousseau.

But now it seemed to her that those two M’s dwarfed by the S had predicted all too well what her life would be. A handmaiden first to Milton, then to Seth.

She applied a pale lipstick, one of the newer shades.

In the bright lights of Marconi’s, Milton looked nervous. Oh dear. He leaned in, seemingly to kiss her on the cheek, then apparently thought better of it and offered her a comically firm handshake. Hail, fellow, well met.

They talked about Seth until the chopped salad arrived, then about work—Milton’s, not Maddie’s—while they waited for their entrees. (Dover sole for Milton, sweetbreads for Maddie. She really wanted the lobster cardinale but felt it would be gauche to order the most expensive thing on the menu. And she still held on to the habit of not eating shellfish in front of observant Milton.) The conversation was pleasant, but throughout there was a sense that Milton was postponing what he really wanted to say.

Over the ice cream with the famous chocolate sauce, he blurted out:

“You don’t wear your rings anymore.”

“They were—” She had almost forgotten the story. “They were stolen. From the first apartment. That’s part of the reason I moved.”

“I’m not sure you picked a safer part of town.”

“I live not even two blocks from here. If it’s safe enough to drive down for dinner, how bad can it be?”

She regretted telling him that her apartment was nearby. He would probably insist on taking her to her door. What if he tried to kiss her? She had loved Milton, she really had. If it hadn’t been for Wally Weiss, she might never have realized she had fallen out of love with him. She remembered fondly his broad, fuzzy chest, how safe she had felt with him.

She didn’t need to feel safe anymore.

“I’m sorry I haven’t done anything about the divorce. But it’s almost a year now. I’ve been advised I can file on grounds of abandonment.”

Strangely, she almost wanted to defend herself. Abandonment. She hadn’t abandoned anyone. She had been saving her own life.

“Would I receive alimony?”

“Do you need it?”

Ah, that question hurt because the answer was yes, she did. But she could not bring herself to say that. “I’m merely curious about how the law works, in general. We were together almost twenty years.”

“I’ll probably sell the house. Seth wants to go to Penn.” A non sequitur. Or was it?

“There’s money enough for that, isn’t there? Without selling the house?”

“Money’s not the issue. Maddie—I’ve met someone.”

Of course. Of course.

“And she doesn’t want to live in ‘my’ house.”

“She hasn’t said as much. But with Seth going away—she’s quite young.”

“What’s young?”

“Twenty-five.”

Of course.

“So I’m not quite old enough to be her mother, but you could have been her father.”

Milton looked disappointed in her. It was the first time he had ever looked at Maddie like that, as if to say: Maddie, this is beneath you. It was. It wasn’t even accurate. Technically, Milton could have conceived a child at sixteen, but it seemed unlikely. He had not been precocious in that way. Between the store and his studies, he hadn’t had time for girls.