The Truth About Forever(24)

As I drove to the library to begin another week at the info desk, I got stuck behind an ambulance at a stoplight, which made me think, as I had pretty frequently since Friday, about Wish Catering. I'd already had to confess about my new job to my mother, after she found my wine-stained shirt in the laundry room soaking in Shout. That's what I get for following instructions.

"But honey," she said, her voice more questioning than disapproving, but it was early yet, "you already have a job."

"I know," I said, as she took another doubtful look at the shirt, eyeing the stain, "but I bumped into Delia on Friday at the supermarket, and she was all frazzled and short-handed, so I offered to help her out. It just kind of happened." This last part, at least, was true.

She shut the washer, then turned and looked at me, crossing her arms over her chest. "I just think," she said, "that you might get overwhelmed. Your library job is a lot of responsibility. Jason is trusting you to really give it your full attention."

This would have been, in any other world, the perfect time to tell my mother about Jason's decision and our break. But I didn't. I knew my mother thought of me as the good daughter, the one she could depend on to be as driven and focused as she was. For some reason, I was sure that Jason's breaking up with me would make me less than that in her eyes. It was bad enough that I assumed I wasn't up to Jason's standards. Even worse would be for her to think so.

"Catering is just a once in a while thing," I said now. "It's not a distraction. I might not even do it again. It was just… for fun."

"Fun?" she said. Her voice was so surprised, as if I'd told her that driving nails into my arms was, also, just that enjoyable. "I would think it would be horrible, having to be on your feet all the time and waiting on people… plus, well, that woman just seemed so disorganized. I'd go crazy."

"Oh," I said, "that was just when they were here. On Friday night, they were totally different."

"They were?"

I nodded. Another lie. But my mother would never have understood why, in some small way, the mayhem of Delia's business would appeal to me. I wasn't even sure I could explain it myself. All I knew was that the rest of the weekend had been a stark contrast to those few hours on Friday night. During the days, I'd done all the things I was supposed to: I went to yoga class, did laundry, cleaned my bathroom, and tried to compose an email to Jason. I ate lunch and dinner at the same time both days, using the same plate, bowl, and glass, washing them after each meal and stacking them neatly in the dish rack, and went to bed by eleven, even though I rarely fell asleep, if at all, before two. For forty-eight hours, I spoke to no one but a couple of telemarketers. It was so quiet that I kept finding myself sitting at the kitchen table listening to my own breathing, as if in all this order and cleanliness I needed that to prove I was alive.

"Well, we'll just see how it goes, okay?" my mother had said as I reached over and turned on the washer. The water started gurgling, tackling the wine stain. "The library job is still your first priority. Right?"

"Right," I agreed, and that was that.

Now, however, as I walked in to begin my second week of work—even though our shifts began at nine, and it was only eight-fifty, Bethany and Amanda were, naturally, already there and in place in their chairs—I felt a sense of inescapable dread. Maybe it was the silence. Or the stillness. Or the way Amanda raised her head and looked at me as I approached, her brow furrowing.

"Oh, Macy," she said, with the same slightly surprised tone she'd used every day I'd showed up, "I wondered if you would make it in today… considering."

I knew what she meant, of course. Jason wasn't one to spill secrets, but there were a couple of other people from our high school at Brain Camp, one of whom, a guy named Rob who squinted all the time, was good friends with both Amanda and Jason. Whatever way it had gone, clearly this break wasn't just my secret anymore. Now, it was Information, and as they were with everything else, Bethany and Amanda were suddenly experts.

"Considering," Amanda said, repeating the word slowly as if, by not rising to the bait, I must not have heard her, "what happened with you and Jason."

I turned so I was facing her. "It's just a break. And it has nothing to do with my job."

"Maybe so," she said, as Bethany put a pen to her lips. "We were just concerned it might, you know, affect your performance."

"No," I said. "It won't." And then I turned back to my computer screen. I could see their faces reflected there, the way Amanda shook her head in a she's-so-pathetic way, how Bethany pursed her lips, silently agreeing, before slowly swiveling back to face forward.

And so began my longest day yet. I didn't do much of anything, other than answer an all-time high of two questions (one from a man who stumbled in, unshaven and stinking of liquor, to ask about a job opening, and another from a six-year-old concerning how to find Mickey Mouse's address, both of which were, at least in Bethany and Amanda's opinion, not worth their time, but fully suited to mine). All this made it more than clear that last week, I'd been an annoyance to be tolerated. Now I was one easily, and rightfully, ignored.



It was just after dinner and I was following routine, wiping down the kitchen countertops, when the phone rang. I didn't even reach for it, assuming it was a client calling for my mother. But then I heard her office door open.