Secondly was the fact that, in the past week or so, Mack had pulled out his old Iowa church-social manners. He constantly asked how she was feeling, was she okay? Then at Le Languedoc, he balked when she asked about the profit sharing. Mack had no intention of asking Bill to profit-share, and no intention of marrying her, and this kindness was just a front, just a way of letting her down easy. More than anything, Mack hated when things actually happened-moments like the one when the sheriff told him his parents had been killed. And so he wouldn’t ask Bill to profit-share but he wouldn’t tell Maribel that. He would just keep on saying please and thank you and I don’t know, sweetheart, I just don’t know-forever.
The combination of these two things led Maribel to call Jem and invite him over.
“For Sunday,” she said. She was in her quiet, safe, booklined office at the Atheneum, with the door locked. “Dinner at my house. Seven-thirty?”
“Sunday?” Jem said. A twinge of uncertainty in his voice. “Sunday, you mean, while Mack’s at Lacey’s?”
“That’s right,” Maribel said.
Dead air. Maribel heard the soft murmur of library patrons’ voices on the other side of her door.
“You’re putting me in a bad place,” Jem said. “You’re asking me to lie to my boss.”
“I’m asking you to dinner,” Maribel said. “Mack won’t be there. I won’t tell him you’re coming over unless you want me to. But really, Jem, it’s no big deal. I frequently have people over, friends, you know. They…drop by.”
“Yeah, well, this is more than me dropping by,” Jem said. “This is you calling in advance. And the way my luck has been going, you’ll tell Mack and I’ll end up fired.”
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Maribel said. “Maybe another time.”
“No,” Jem said. “Not another time. Sunday’s fine. I’ll be there Sunday.”
Maribel’s hands were sweating; she rubbed her palm on the receiver and it made a squeaking noise. “Sunday,” she said, “seven-thirty. For sinner, I mean, dinner. Dinner at seven-thirty. Do you know where I live?” It felt strange to say “I” instead of “we.” “I live at ninety-five Pheasant Road, the basement apartment around back.”
“I’ll find it,” Jem said.
When Mack came home at five on Sunday evening before going to Lacey’s, Maribel nearly confessed to her dinner plans. Mack was in the apartment for about an hour, and Maribel shadowed him from room to room. First, she lay next to him in bed while he napped. Mack was the kind of person who could fall asleep at will, like he was letting go the string of a kite, and this always amazed Maribel. Really, did he have no nagging thoughts? Was his mind such an easy friend that it just set him free? Apparently so. Maribel lay next to him, studying his sandy hair, his sunburned face and sun-cracked lips, her own eyes wide open, unblinking. Thinking, I’ll tell him when he wakes up. I’ll tell him I’m being a good Samaritan, feeding a hungry kid. If he makes the slightest fuss, I’ll call Jem and cancel.
When Mack was in the shower, Maribel sat on the fuzzy toilet seat cover in the steam and thought, I’ll tell him when he gets out. Mack turned off the water, pulled back the shower curtain and Maribel handed him a towel. He dried his face, and scruffed the towel over his head, he dried his chest, his arms, his balls, and stepped onto the bathmat, wrapped the towel around his waist. Mack never concerned himself with how he looked. He was perfectly comfortable in his own body, as though he knew he could drive Maribel absolutely mad by just existing.
Before he left the house, Mack popped open a beer, took a long swallow, kissed Maribel, and said, “Don’t wait up tonight, I might be late,” and he jogged out the door to his Jeep. It was obvious he trusted her implicity. Maribel felt guilty for a second, but then she wondered if he were suffering from plain indifference. He hadn’t asked what she was doing at all.
As soon as the rumble of the Jeep’s engine faded, Maribel called her mother. Sundays her mother slept late, puttered in her tiny vegetable garden, and then sat on the screened-in porch with her friend Rita Ramone and drank vodka gimlets. Maribel knew Rita would be languishing on the chaise longue next to her mother, listening to every word, but Maribel called anyway.
“My little girl!” Tina cried out. “What a surprise! Do you have news for your mama?”
Maribel guessed Tina was on her third or fourth gimlet. “No,” she said.
“Mack’s off at Lacey’s?” Tina asked. “Are you lonely, sweetie pie?”
“Not really,” Maribel said. “I’m having someone for dinner.”
“Well, I hope they taste good!” Tina said. She laughed with abandon and Maribel could hear Rita in the background asking, “What’s so funny?”
“It’s a guy I’m having over,” Maribel said. “A cute guy.”
Tina was still laughing. “How cute?”
“He was Mr. November in some calendar,” Maribel said.
“Not the Christian calendar,” Tina said. “Although a cute guy or two might boost sales.”
“Mack doesn’t know a thing about it, either,” Maribel said.
Tina’s voice sobered. “Oh, my.” The phone was muffled: Tina relayed this news to Rita Ramone. Then she said, “Rita thinks the only way to get a man is to play hard to get. Is that what you’re doing, sweetie? Playing hard to get?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Maribel said.
“Well, that makes three of us,” Tina said. “Here, now I’m going into the house so we can talk serious.” In the background, a door closed. “Okay, tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m thinking Mack is a lost cause,” Maribel said.
“You’ve thought that many times before,” Tina said. “Is this time any different?”
“I suggested the profit sharing, but he hasn’t said anything to Bill.”
“Maybe he’s waiting for the right time,” Tina said.
“Maybe,” Maribel said. “Or maybe he thinks it’s okay to string me along forever. But it’s not okay. There are other men in this world who find me attractive, and I just happened to invite one of them to dinner on a night when Mack’s out. That’s not a crime, is it?”
“You know I’m terrible at figuring out men,” Tina said. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself Queen of the Successful Relationship.”
“Mama,” Maribel said. Her mother’s Sunday afternoons with Rita Ramone were half girl talk and half wallowing in self-pity. “Do you think it’s okay that I invited this person for dinner?”
“Yes,” Tina said definitively. “What’s his name?”
“Jem,” Love said. “Jem Crandall.”
“Jem Crandall,” Tina said. “God has blessed Jem Crandall. You know I love you?”
“Yes,” Maribel said.
“Have fun and we’ll talk on Wednesday. I have to get back to Rita before she burns the house down.”
“Okay, Mama.”
“Godspeed, Maribel.”
At exactly seven-thirty, Jem appeared at the door with a bottle of Chardonnay, looking as nervous as Maribel felt. His dark hair was wet and he was wearing a blue chambray shirt and navy shorts. Birkenstocks. He was so handsome. He was tall and broad-shouldered and strong and young and he had wavy dark hair and that beautiful smile and not an ounce of self-congratulation. It was perfectly normal to be attracted to people other than your partner, Maribel reasoned. She was indulging a crush. Flushing it out of her system.
“You brought wine,” Maribel said, taking the bottle from Jem carefully, as though it were a baby. “That was very thoughtful.”
“I know about wine,” Jem said. “My father owns a bar.” He put his hand on Maribel’s arm and bent over and kissed her. The kiss was brief; Maribel was still holding the wine to her chest, but it threw the whole room into disarray.