Sherry told them that her new boyfriend was going to meet them at the Carnegie Deli. Mim was delighted; everything was going right. For a piece of late-night pie! she said, and Sherry said, Cheesecake. Not pie.
Marv said, Boyfriend? Boyfriend? I should have brought my shotgun!, which wasn’t right, didn’t make sense, but Mim understood that he had been waiting to say it for years.
They had never before met a boyfriend of Sherry’s. Her senior year of high school there was a boy who called a great deal, and once, when they were on campus at BYU, a very eager young man had walked quickly toward Sherry, and had introduced himself to them as if he thought they would know his name. Sherry had been unkind to him, had nearly pushed him away.
But Sherry was older now: twenty-seven. It was different. They were in New York; she had invited them there. She was inviting them to meet a special friend of hers. It meant something. This, and the warm air, and the crush of people around her made Mim feel heady and alive, though it was very late for them. Normally they were asleep by ten, but she didn’t care. The lights in Times Square made it look like mid-afternoon; she was ready for anything. The train inside her whistled. She felt younger and stronger than she had in years. She felt thrilling and thrilled. A little shiver of joy ran up her when she caught the eye of a man on the street. She wondered why she had waited so long in life to do any real traveling; imagined going other places, too — to Europe. She had ideas about Paris and Rome. She was seventy a week ago. Seventy years, most of them spent in one small city. A waste, a waste.
The whole of New York seemed to wrap itself tightly around her, the buildings that loomed above her to beam down upon her. Everything in the world was swollen. Did Marv feel it? Sherry did, she felt sure — Sherry had always. So this is what’s been keeping her here, thought Mim, and forgave her spontaneously for an offense she had never before allowed herself to register.
Sherry had lived here for five years, but she’d always come home at Christmas except this past one, spending it instead with a friend in Connecticut, saying she was too poor to afford the airfare. But we’ll pay for it, honey! Mim had told her on the phone. Of course we’ll pay for it! Sherry had declined the offer, saying she’d already told her friend’s parents that she’d be there, and besides, she was so busy with work that she wouldn’t be much fun.
She was walking ahead of Mim now, and Marv was on her heel, saying things to her, taking a running step every few to catch up. He looked silly, like a boy, and Mim noticed for the first time that he was favoring his right leg over his left. He was exerting himself too much. She would ask him about it later. She allowed herself to drift back, just a little — she did not want to be lost — and looked up at the buildings above her, and imagined, inside them, older versions of Sherry. The lit windows, the unlit ones — there were people who lived in those apartments. People were doing things in the light and in the dark that excited Mim. She felt feverish with joy. Ahead of her, Marv and Sherry dodged a man wheeling a vendor’s cart full of roasted nuts. Four different kinds, it said. They had nothing like that at home, nobody selling things to you from carts. Would Sherry live here all her life? Probably, yes. Probably she would never come back to Provo.
* * *
At the Carnegie Deli, waiters were shuttling meals around, quick and efficient as spiders. On their trays were sandwiches that looked to Mim like food for the week, and those obscene pieces of cheesecake, sodden with cherries or liquid chocolate. The room was long and bright, with a counter to the left and tables in the back. Signed pictures of celebrities covered every inch of the wall. Most of the tables were full, even at this time of night. They stood near the door. Where’s Howie, dear? asked Mim, and Sherry said, Not here yet. Well, we’re just so excited to meet him, said Mim. Aren’t we, Marv?
Sherry had said Howie worked late a lot at his job. Mim couldn’t figure out what a psychologist would do after hours. Does he see patients late at night? she’d asked, and Sherry had said no. He’s just a hard worker, she’d said. He thinks about things more than we do.
Mim tried to picture him: a tall young man with dark hair, wearing a suit and a tie — no, people didn’t wear suits anymore. An oxford, maybe, and nice pants. He would come in and shake both of their hands, Mim’s first — and then once they had their table she could ask him all about himself. She was good at making friends; she always had been. When he got there, he would like them, she felt sure. It was important to her that he liked them.
Mim didn’t believe in psychology, but she was impressed when Sherry had told her what Howie did. It was something she was able to pass along to the girls in her office the next day, a little piece of Sherry that she could present to them casually, at lunch. Often she was jealous of them; most of them had daughters who called them multiple times a day, daughters whose weddings they planned as if they were their own, daughters who had daughters themselves, or daughters who came to the office after work to meet them for dinner. One time Lolly Mather had invited Mim along, and Mim was shocked at the way they talked — about everything, about sex. Lolly’s daughter Laura was Sherry’s age; they’d gone to school together. How’s Sherry? she’d asked, and Mim said, She’s good; she’s in New York City. Oh, said Laura. New York City.
Mim did not often allow herself to drift into melancholy, but when she thought of Sherry — constantly, but especially when driving — she thought next of Sherry’s distressing distance from her, more than geographic, which had existed from the time she came to live with them at four years old. She was their granddaughter, technically, the child of their boy Bailey, dead twenty-five years now. But Mim had changed the sheets when Sherry wet her bed night after night, missing her mama. She had put on Band-Aids, sewn costumes for school plays, loved her as if Sherry were her own child. Better than that — better than she had ever loved Bailey, if she was telling herself the truth. Bailey moved out at sixteen and rarely spoke to them after that. When he died it seemed like the dreadful fulfillment of some dark prophecy issued at his birth. With Bailey they were used to pain; it had occurred to Mim at the time that his destiny had simply been realized, that this was his final and vengeful blow to their hearts. It was a comfort to her to think there was nothing they could have done for him. Sometimes, when Sherry was growing up, she had reminded Mim so much of him that she became afraid, but then she had to reassure herself that Sherry was a nice girl, a good girl who had always done well at school and who still sent them thank-you notes for the care packages she received. If she was private, it was fine; it was decent. Yet there were times — the wild cries in the night when Sherry was eight or nine, the little things she hid from them that seemed so unimportant as to be comical — when Mim wondered whether Sherry had been damaged in some way by the ghosts of her father and mother. She wished always to rescue Sherry from the time she had come to them, but Sherry had never wanted rescuing. Mim told herself often, and sometimes aloud, that all she could do was love her. She told Marv the same thing when he came to her hurt by some childish unintentional slight of Sherry’s. He was ribbing her now, telling her she’d better eat two of those sandwiches going by or dinner was on her. It’s on me anyway, Dad, said Sherry. My treat.
The door opened behind them and a middle-aged man walked in. He had a close-trimmed, graying beard and very blue eyes behind small gold-framed glasses, and he was carrying a folder.
Excuse me, Mim said, moving out of the way.
Well, maybe we should ask to be seated? asked Marv, turning to Sherry.
Hi, Howie, said Sherry, to the man in the door.
Marv took a step forward as if to shield her; Mim took a step back.
Hi, sweetheart, said this man, Howie, to Sherry, and then turned to Mim and said, You must be Sherry’s grandmother. Maryanne Miller, said Mim. She was shaken, and her hand faltered when she reached for his; no one had called her Sherry’s grandmother for years and years. From the time Sherry was five, she was Mama; Marv was Daddy.
Marv Miller, said Marv. He was very upright with his hands behind his back.
I’m Howie Plank, said the man. He smelled like cigarettes. He was short. Marv towered over him. His skin was the deep brown of an outdoorsman. His hair, the only boyish thing about him, was lighter than his beard, and tousled forward. One tiny gold hoop was lodged in his left ear. He wore a T-shirt, just like Sherry, and jeans that ended at his anklebone. Below them, boat shoes with no socks. He looked something like a pirate, thought Mim; a pirate or a sea captain. He put an arm around Sherry’s waist and kissed her on the forehead like a child.
Well, said Sherry, I guess we should ask for a table!
