“Okay,” she said, “I take it back.”
Then Rob said, “Eliza—” and before he could say more three things happened. The doorbell rang again. She heard the front door open and Russell’s voice call out, “Hello? Anybody home?”
And, at almost exactly the same time, from upstairs, an awful noise, a clunk, and then a sort of awful roll, which could only mean one thing, and that was that Charlie Sargent had hit the floor.
35
LITTLE HARBOR, MAINE
Mary
“Mary! Mary, over here!” A familiar voice, one of those out-of-context voices that took a few seconds to recognize. Mary had her hand on the door handle of A Cut Above, but she turned when she heard her name and saw her twelfth-grade math teacher making her way down the sidewalk. Ms. Berry was holding a leash, and attached to the leash was a German shepherd: this must be the famous William. “Mary!” said Ms. Berry. She and William were both panting a little bit by the time they got to her.
Mary said hello, and then she crouched down to pet William. She had always wanted a dog, but Vivienne wouldn’t allow it; she was fake-allergic.
“I’m glad I ran into you, Mary. I’ve been thinking about you.”
“You have?”
“I have. I’ve been wondering what you’re doing with yourself.” Mary waited, figuring that Ms. Berry would go on. She did. “You have such a good math head on your shoulders. I was disappointed to learn that you hadn’t applied to Orono.”
“Oh,” said Mary. The University of Maine, Orono campus. “Well. Things got complicated.”
Ms. Berry had a broad face that was more tan now than it had been during the school year. When she smiled, you could see that one of her bottom teeth crossed a little bit over another one. Her hair was frizzy—frizzier probably because of the heat. She had kind watery blue eyes and a soft voice. Beside her, William whined gently, and she held two fingers up to him, and he quieted immediately.
“Of course, it’s fine to take some time off—in fact, I believe it’s sort of trendy these days—but too much time off and you might forget how to think.” She looked shrewdly at Mary, and Mary got the feeling that Ms. Berry was looking through her, all the way into the center of her uterus.
“Right,” said Mary.
“My advice is to keep up with your studies, even informally. There are math sites all over the internet that can keep you fresh. Send me an email, why don’t you, and I’ll send you back a list.”
“Okay,” said Mary. “Sure, okay, I will.” She patted William one last time.
———
Math. Here was the math Mary had recently done. Google told her that the cost of raising a child was approximately $245,340 from birth until age eighteen. Mary made twelve dollars an hour at The Cup, in cash, which was very generous, considering that minimum wage was $7.50. Still, she’d have to work twenty thousand four hundred and forty-five hours in the next eighteen years to make that much, which was one thousand one hundred and thirty-five hours per year, which was twenty-one and eight-tenths hours per week. And that was just to pay for the baby, not for Mary herself, not for somebody to watch the baby while she made the money to pay for the baby. If she ever wanted to live anywhere but her mother’s house (and of course she did) she’d have to pay for that too. Then she had looked up the cost of child care, which ranged between eight and twenty dollars per hour for an infant.
Mary was a whiz at math, always had been, but these numbers just didn’t add up.
———
Almost twelve weeks. At twelve weeks the baby would be the size of a lime; soon, the baby would feel it if she poked her own tummy, very gently.
When Mary opened the door to A Cut Above she didn’t see Vivienne. Two of Vivienne’s coworkers, Megan and Chelsea, were huddled over the computer. There was a girl she didn’t know sweeping. In another chair, in Vivienne’s station, a woman with foil-wrapped hair sat looking down at a celebrity magazine.
“Giiiiiirl!” said Chelsea. “Your mom didn’t tell us you were coming by!”
Mary shrugged. “I didn’t tell her.”
Megan slid around from behind the counter and hugged Mary. When she was done hugging she lifted a lock of her hair and said, “I knew it! You came in to try the balayage, didn’t you?” Balayage was some sort of special highlights Vivienne was always going on about. “Finally. I’ve been waiting for you to say the word. Let me do it, okay? You have to let me do it.”
Chelsea was looking at Mary and squinting. “You should totally try it, Mary, you’ll love it.”
“Totally,” said Megan. “Totally. A little golden brown right through here…” She reached out and stroked Mary’s hair. “You’ll think it’s going to darken you but I’m not even kidding, it will lighten you right up—”
“I’m not here to get my hair done,” said Mary, as kindly as she could.
“Oh,” said Chelsea.
“Oh,” said Megan. “Okay.” They both looked completely crestfallen, but in short order they went back to what they had been doing on the computer, going over the next day’s appointments. At that point the woman with the foil highlights turned around and Mary saw that it was Vivienne’s friend Sam. At the same time Mary recognized Sam, Sam recognized Mary.
“Mary!” said Sam with genuine enthusiasm. Sam was the only one of her mother’s friends Mary really liked talking to. Sam and Vivienne had been inseparable in high school, and since then Sam had gone about things the expected, acceptable way—she’d waited to get married until she was twenty-seven, and she’d gotten pregnant after, and now she had an adorable five-year-old boy named Stephen and a two-year-old girl named Penelope, who was called Penny for short. Sam worked as an intensive care nurse at Maine Coast Memorial and part-time as a home health aide for the elderly. Before Mary started at The Cup she had sometimes babysat for Stephen and Penny.
“Your mom’s in the back,” Sam said. “Sorting out orders or something.” Mary nodded. Ordering the products and tracking the sales were part of Vivienne’s job, her least favorite part. “She’s been after me forever to do something with my hair, so here I am,” said Sam.
“You too?”
“Yup.” Sam frowned in the mirror. “I told her I don’t have time for any upkeep, so that’s what I’m worried about.”
Sam indicated that Mary should sit in the chair next to her, and she closed the magazine and leaned forward to put it on the table that held Vivienne’s combs and scissors and hair straightener and curling wand and all the mysterious bottles and potions that helped Vivienne work her magic. When she was younger, Mary used to love to come in and pretend to use the products and twirl around on the chairs. Now, though, she didn’t feel like twirling or using the products. She just felt like sitting.