Leave Me

Not long after she got back to New York, she called Jason and told him that though she still loved him, the long distance wasn’t working. He agreed. They broke up. It had all seemed, at the time, very mature. Very amicable.

And then three weeks later, Courtney called to tell her about Jason’s new girlfriend, and Maribeth had had her meltdown in the bathroom.

“I don’t know,” she told Stephen. “I just hate it there.”

THEY LEFT THE mall empty-handed, and empty. That night, when Maribeth climbed into bed, she pulled the pillow over her head and cried. It had been another miserable holiday weekend. Thanksgiving, after all.

39

Monday morning Maribeth woke up to someone knocking on her door. She peered through the peephole. It was Mr. Giulio, coming to collect the rent on the first of the month.

She counted out eight hundred-dollar bills for him and after he left she went about counting all the cash she had left. Twenty-one thousand and some change. At this rate, she could probably last at least a year in Pittsburgh. She never had any intention of staying away that long, but the past weekend had forced her to face up to some ugly truths. She had left not only her children but also her marriage. She had always planned to go back. But what if there was no back for her to return to?

And what happened then? When the twenty-one thousand dollars ran out? How had she not thought about the implications before? Because she had not just walked out on her family; she had left her job, her career, too. She’d burned the last bridge to what had been her city on a hill since she was thirteen years old and received that first copy of Seventeen (Brooke Shields on the cover) and had known with a strange-but-comforting certainty that when she grew up, she would somehow do that.

Elizabeth used to tease her about her single-minded ambition. Maribeth remembered one day, about two years after they’d met, when they discovered they’d both been invited to a seminar about the future of magazines put on by one of the big industry trade groups. After the coffee and rock-hard Danish networking portion of the event, Elizabeth whispered: “We came. We schmoozed. Let’s shop. I heard about a Lacroix sample sale in Chelsea.”

They hadn’t gone shopping but instead had gone to Central Park, where they’d laid out on the fresh grass of Sheep Meadow, kicked off their heels, and basked in the spring sun and the chance to spend time together during the workday.

“I feel bad,” Maribeth said after a while. “That we ditched. Those seminar invitations are hot tickets.”

“You hardly need a seminar to tell you about your future,” Elizabeth had teased. “You already have it all in your lists.”

This was true. In high school, Maribeth had told a guidance counselor about her desire to work at a magazine one day and the counselor had advised her to take journalism classes and write for the school newspaper and attend a college with a journalism program and maybe one day do an internship at one of the magazines in New York City. Maribeth had copied it all down—newspaper, journalism, college, internship, New York City—and over the years had followed the plan meticulously, writing many more lists in the interim.

And it had worked. After graduating from college, she’d landed the position as a floater—her $16,500 a year salary barely covered her rent and subway tokens—until she nabbed her first permanent job at a cooking magazine. She spent a year and a half there until she was hired as an assistant editor at a women’s business magazine, which was where she currently worked. She planned to stay there another year and jump to another publication if she hadn’t been promoted to associate editor by then.

“I can tell you your future if you want,” Elizabeth said. “You’ll work your way up the masthead and within ten years, fifteen tops, you’ll be an editor-in-chief.”

Maribeth didn’t answer. That was exactly what she hoped, exactly what she had written in her lists.

“As for me, I’ll be one of those sad, forty-year-old waitresses. Like the actresses who never make it. Don’t get me wrong. I’ll work at a nice restaurant and make good tips but I’ll have foot problems and I’ll never be able to get the smell of grease completely out of my hair.”

Maribeth laughed and playfully kicked Elizabeth’s leg. “You’re so full of shit,” she said. In the two years since they’d met, she and Elizabeth had both risen at the same pace. Elizabeth was now an assistant editor at a trendy new men’s magazine. “You’ll run your own magazine, too. You know you will.”

“Nah. I don’t, actually. I’m not a natural editor like you. I can’t make copy sing or come up with the quippy display copy and cover lines. You’re a genius at cover lines. This stuff is in your blood. I’m just some art history major who lucked her way into an internship.” She shook her head. “One day, they’ll all figure out what a fraud I am.”

“Everyone feels that way. And you have other strengths. You have a nose for trends, for seeing what the next big thing on the horizon will be. You have vision. You can’t learn that in J school.”

Elizabeth had flipped over onto her elbows, plucking tiny flowers from the grass. “Maybe,” she said. “Just promise me if you become an editor-in-chief and I’m some pathetic waitress, you’ll hire me.”

“So long as you promise me the same thing.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Elizabeth said. “You’re far too clumsy to be a waitress.”

They laughed. And then they promised.

MARIBETH AND ELIZABETH had each climbed from assistants to associates to senior-level editors. And then their paths diverged. Elizabeth met Tom, got married, became an editor-in-chief. And Maribeth became a mom, had a heart attack, and ran away from home.