Lizzie didn’t know exactly what she expected Michigan Printing and Bindery to actually print and bind, but when she reported for work her first day she was told she’d be proofing a manual for Bendix repairmen. The manual consisted of page after page of numbers, which she was then supposed to compare to the numbers on thousands of pieces of loose paper. The only words on each page were “Bendix Model,” followed by yet another number. How could anyone proofread column after column of numbers? Lizzie admitted defeat almost immediately. Her choices seemed clear. She could either ensure—through her ineptness (and boredom)—that the repairmen who used the manual would be unable to complete their repairs correctly or she could quit. Half a day was the shortest amount of time she’d ever held a job.
Duster at Billy & Sister’s: Lizzie went into the Billy & Sister’s shop for the first time when she was looking for an anniversary gift for Marla and James. She discovered that you could find almost everything there, from framed pictures of birds that actually came from the hand of Audubon himself to Sheraton sideboards, from ceramic Staffordshire dogs that always made Lizzie think of the ceramic dogs in Anne of the Island, her favorite of the Anne of Green Gables books, to a genuine Morris chair that Billy never really wanted to sell. Sister was a connoisseur of antique jewelry, so there was an exquisite (and expensive) collection of that, as well as a carefully curated section of out-of-print books. There were, for example, no Danielle Steel titles to be found at Billy & Sister’s.
Before Billy hired her, Lizzie hung around the store a lot, admiring a pair of wooden sheep, life-size, with very realistic woolly coats. Sister would decorate them for every holiday with cleverly tied ribbons and nosegays and put them in the front window. Lizzie coveted those sheep with all her imperfect heart. She was sure George would love them as much as she did. But, alas, Billy refused to let them go. In her life of major regrets, not being able to buy those sheep was among the major minor sorrows Lizzie experienced.
Perhaps to make up for not parting with the sheep, Billy asked Lizzie if she’d be interested in a part-time job dusting the merchandise and occasionally, when they were particularly rushed, gift wrapping purchases, and she agreed enthusiastically. Dusting, Lizzie felt, especially played to her strong suit of being unable to do anything that required talent. She hoped she’d never have to wrap anything, though. The resulting package would not advance the shop’s reputation. Also, dusting allowed her to eavesdrop on the customers, who were almost all women, as they chatted to one another. Whenever she saw someone from high school come in, she’d tiptoe around behind them and energetically pass her dust mop over the items in whatever section they were in so that she could easily hear what they were saying. Nobody ever recognized or even acknowledged her, although this was how she learned that Andrea had gotten married to some guy she met at Stanford and Maverick was working as a sports commentator in Seattle.
*?George & Lizzie Take Many Trips Together?*
Lizzie was happy for George in his growing success as a public speaker, even though she personally didn’t buy a word of what he was telling people. She considered him not so different from those annoying door-to-door salesmen, except that he was proffering real happiness rather than vacuum cleaners or encyclopedias. He wanted his brand of happiness to go to unwashed and hungry children, to unfulfilled bespoke-suited stock traders, to housewives without hope and kindergarten teachers and butchers and mealymouthed politicians around the world. She accused him of trying to create his own religion, or at the very least his own multinational company. George halfheartedly denied it, but Lizzie was pretty sure she was right about this. It inevitably led to yet another Difficult Conversation.
Oh, George wanted to take her in his arms and tell her that everyone’s Difficult Conversations, about sex, child rearing, nuclear proliferation—everything, in fact—would be much easier if people didn’t insist on thinking of their differences as a zero-sum game. If you took part in these Difficult Conversations (okay, call them arguments) but didn’t feel you had to come out a winner—I’m right, you’re wrong—then each of these DCs was an Opportunity for Growth. Each discussion was a simply grand Opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of oneself and others, to embrace differences, to grow as a human being. To have the emotional age of an adult.
Lizzie was mightily unconvinced, although George mightily tried to convince her, just as he had convinced the thousands upon thousands of people who read his books and attended his lectures, which Lizzie somewhat snidely called the performative aspect of George’s life.
After dental conventions, where no one came close to his popularity as a speaker, George got his biggest audiences at college campuses. This was fortunate, Lizzie felt, because the sole reason she accompanied George to his speaking gigs was that it meant that she could look for Jack in every city they visited, and she thought that of all the places Jack might have ended up, a college campus was the most likely. They’d normally arrive the day before the speech, and after his hosts picked him up for a round of media interviews and meet and greets the next morning, Lizzie would walk out to buy some bottles of Diet Pepsi, then find a library and settle in with the area phone book.
Whenever they got to a new hotel, Lizzie would feel energetic, ready to get started. She’d unpack their suitcases and put their clothes away neatly in the dresser, even if they were just staying there overnight. She’d fill the ice bucket and pour herself some soda. But when it became clear, once again, that she wouldn’t find Jack in that particular city, she’d be in an abyss of loss, with her arms feeling so heavy that she could barely pick up the phone.
“Jack there?” she’d ask, trying to still sound nonchalant after the fourth hopeless call. “Oh, sorry, I must have the wrong number. D’you happen to know a Jack McConaghey? No? Well, thanks anyway.”
She talked to a Jerusha McConaghey in Newark, Delaware; a Jon McConaghey in Pittsburgh; a Jesse McConaghey in Tunica, Mississippi; and a Jackson McConaghey in Denver, but it wasn’t Jack. There were a relatively large number of McConagheys in Austin, Texas, and at first Lizzie had high hopes she’d find him there. Austin seemed like a perfect home for Jack. It was especially frustrating on those trips when she’d discover that there were no McConagheys in the city at all. How could there be not one McConaghey in Lincoln, Nebraska? It seemed impossible.
But still she tried.
*?The Alphabetical Marriage?*
On nights when Lizzie slept and George sat at his desk, supposedly preparing for his next talk, he was actually compiling an alphabetical list of all the ways that he and Lizzie were different. As probably could be predicted by anyone but George, the list turned out to be profoundly depressing, but there it was.
It ran, as lists should, from A to Z. In this case, from “apples” to “zoos.”
Apples: Winesaps (preferred by George); Granny Smiths (preferred by Lizzie).
Bubble gum: George was horrified when he discovered quite early in their relationship that Lizzie still chewed bubble gum. “You’ve got to stop,” he implored her. “It’s just terrible for your teeth. And your jaw.” But Lizzie loved the taste of Dubble Bubble gum and adored blowing bubbles, and had not yet given it up.