Not Perfect(38)

“Stuart, I get it. You wish you had told me sooner. What is it?”

“I was almost married before,” he said. “I was engaged to someone before you.”

“That’s okay,” Tabitha said, a little confused, wishing he weren’t making it such a big deal. Was it a big deal? “Lots of people almost get married to someone before finding the actual right person.”

At the time, she had a lot of hope that she was the actual right person for him, and that he was for her. But he hadn’t grabbed on to that as a defense. It would have been easy enough to do. He let her statement go by without acknowledging it. Was that my first moment of doubt? she wondered. No, not really, that had come later. Looking back though, it should have been.

“Is that everything?” Tabitha finally asked, after what seemed like minutes went by.

“I suppose so,” he said.

“Well, okay then. Thank you for telling me.”



What she didn’t know at the time, what he didn’t tell her until later, was that the person he had been engaged to marry before her was named Abigail Golding. She was a freshman at the University of Michigan when he was a junior, and they fell in love quickly. After that, they were never apart. He went on to the law school there while she finished her undergraduate education, and then she stayed in Ann Arbor working at the Borders bookstore while he finished his last year of law school. She was from Petoskey, the upper part of the Lower Peninsula, but was happy to move to Marquette on the Upper Peninsula. She had a dream to open a rec center for bored teenagers, where she would encourage literacy. She was going to do incredible things, change lives—that’s how Stuart put it anyway. They were to be married at a family friend’s house right on Lake Superior in early August. It was all planned; everyone was invited. Five days before the wedding, before any of the guests arrived, she called it off.

That was all Tabitha knew, until the week before Stuart disappeared at least. Stuart could never really talk about it after that rare confessional moment during their engagement. If it ever even almost came up, he would walk out of the room or change the subject. When Tabitha first heard the details, about two years into their marriage, she was shocked on so many levels. What could possibly prompt someone to do that? If Abigail had given him a reason, he never shared it with Tabitha. But the thing that shocked her the most was that the man he described, the person who went to law school and was going to marry Abigail Golding, who sounded like he was fun loving and playful, present and interested, climbing a tree on a dare or staying up all night just to be able to say he did it, didn’t remind her at all of the person she married. That person was all business, never straying from the plan. That is, until last summer.



Tabitha had managed to hold on to the baguette. They had run into a fair number of homeless people, and each time Toby would kindly ask if they wanted something to eat. He would then hand them some of the baked goods, explaining that the food was clean and untouched. And each time, Tabitha had to look slightly away, because she didn’t want to give the food to these people, she wanted to keep it for herself. Finally, Toby seemed satisfied, and she still had the long loaf of bread in her hand. She held it up to him, raising her eyebrows as if to say, What about this?

“Keep that one,” he said kindly. “They make delicious bread.”

At the corner of Walnut and Eighteenth, Toby’s phone rang. Tabitha watched as he turned away and said something quietly, then moved a little farther away, leaving Tabitha standing alone. He was back in less than a minute, but the excitement that she was getting used to seeing on his face was gone.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, fine,” he said quietly. “That was my ex-wife. The good news is that I get to see my daughter. Something came up for my ex, and she asked if I could take her tonight.”

Tabitha wanted to ask what the bad news was, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure how they were going to end their time together, so she was somewhat relieved that it was ended for them. When they said good-bye, she vaguely waved in the southern direction, indicating that she lived nearby, but she didn’t give him any specifics. Toby hesitated for a second.

“See you at the next game?” he asked.

Now she hesitated. Well, no, not necessarily, she wanted to say. She glanced at the bread in her hand, then back toward Toby. She took a deep breath.

“Yes, see you there,” she said.

Toby grinned at her, and she felt herself grinning back, then laughing. He waved, and as he walked away from her, east on Walnut, she could still hear him chuckling.

Now she headed home but took a slight detour to the house with the window box full of basil. She could make her usual toast tonight. If only she had a tomato. With that, it was sad enough. But bread and basil was even sadder. She was happy to see the plant was as robust as ever. She waited until there was nobody near her and ripped a handful of leaves off. She tried to look like she was comfortable doing it. Maybe it was her house, and she was simply picking her own herbs. It was all a big show, because absolutely nobody seemed to care. She told herself to write this down when she got home.

Where could she get a tomato?

And then she had what had become an outrageous idea. She’d buy one. She stuffed the basil into her purse and zipped it shut. She walked into the small grocery store she used to walk into almost daily, and she pretended for a few minutes that things were like they used to be, when she could walk in and use her debit card for forty dollars or ninety dollars, and it just didn’t make a difference. Right away she saw Marlon, her favorite check-out person. She walked over to him.