Adult Assembly Required, page 31
Laura raised her eyebrows and thought about that. “Deep stuff,” she said.
Maggie nodded. “Yes. He wrote it in the 1920s and I didn’t hear it until a few years ago, not quite sure how I missed it. I have a psychology degree, for crying out loud. But maybe it’s like when you’re pregnant and you see pregnant women everywhere? Maybe I read it a hundred times and it never clicked with me. Then, when I wasn’t talking to my daughter, it rang inside my head seemingly all the time.”
“Why?” asked Laura.
Maggie looked out into the dark garden, though she couldn’t possibly see anything except the reflection of herself and Laura in the black window glass. “At first because I wondered what I had pushed on my daughter that contributed to the decisions she had made.” She looked at Laura and smiled sadly. “Honestly, I wasn’t a very good mother. I worried far too much about the next thing we needed to achieve, the next hoop to be jumped through. I looked at all her opportunities and thought about what I could have done with them, if I’d had the chance. Worse still, I told her. Asher was an easier child, or maybe I was a more relaxed parent, I don’t know. But I had a litany of mistakes to go over in my head while the silence between us got louder and louder.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think,” said Laura, trying to be encouraging.
Maggie looked away from the window. “I bugged her about her grades, I talked to her about my divorce, I bad-mouthed her father, I compared her to her brother, I said people would think less of her if she went out dressed like that, I asked her if she was worried about her acne, I said she should get a personal trainer to help with her weight, I pushed solutions for every single problem she tried to share with me, I pressured her to take more AP classes than she needed, got her tutors for everything, and made her take fencing because someone told me it would help with college applications.” She shrugged. “She hated it. And that’s what I remember off the top of my head, I could go on and on.” Her face was calm, her eyes dry, but Laura found it hard to look at her. “Never once did I pause to ask myself if this was something that would matter in ten years. Am I making decisions that will strengthen our relationship for the next forty years, which is when most of it will happen?” She shook her head. “Not even once.” She paused. “Not until it was too late.” She let tears overflow and run down her cheeks unstopped. “You convince yourself you’re building a safety net for your kids when in fact it’s a trap they’ll spend the rest of their lives trying to get free of.” There was a pause, then she said, “I think I’m drunk. I’m talking bullshit.”
Laura stood and took Maggie’s glass over to the sink, looking at the clock and wondering if it was too late for a cup of tea. “Maggie, why don’t you go to sleep now, and tomorrow go see her? Go to her, to her house. Take her a present for the baby and tell her what you told me. Don’t spend any more time thinking about it, fix it.”
Maggie stood up and swayed a little, putting her hand down on the table to steady herself. “Sarah once said I became a therapist to prove I was a nice person, to cover up the fact that I’m not a nice person at all. She said I talked a good game, but when it came down to it, I did nothing to support her at all.” Maggie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “And she’s right, and even though I feel differently now and I’m not the same person, she won’t let me close enough to show her.”
“So don’t wait for her to come to you,” urged Laura. “Go see her. Go take the biggest, dumbest toy you can find, and throw yourself down in apology.” She hurried to add. “Not literally, don’t break a bone.” She hugged Maggie, and thought of something else. “You know what else? Once she has the baby, she’s going to need your help, and you’ll be able to take action every day to help her, and show her how much you care. Plus,” she added, “she’ll see how hard it is to be a mom, which might help her cut you a little slack.”
Maggie smiled at her. “You’re very encouraging, you know that? You make difficult things seem eminently possible.”
Laura was surprised. “Really?”
Maggie nodded. “And not because you say it, but because you do it, too. I said it when we first met and I’ll say it again, you’re kind of a legend.” She headed for the stairs but paused. “Laura?”
Laura was clearing the table, and looked up. “Yes, Maggie?”
“Thanks.”
Laura shrugged and tipped her head to one side, not sure what Maggie was thanking her for. Then she finished cleaning the kitchen and went to her room.
FORTY-THREE
Because life rolls on regardless of whether you want it to or not, Laura didn’t have much time to think about Bob over the next few days. Polly and Nina were very focused on an upcoming store event, and when Liz announced she was going away for the weekend with her boyfriend, Nina called Laura in a panic.
She’d obviously had a lot of coffee and should have been cut off cups and cups earlier. “The creator of SnaggleBuggle is coming to the store for a special daytime event, and it’s going to be a total shit show. We need all hands on deck, but Liz is taking her hands and running for the hills. She says it’s for love, but I think it’s because she doesn’t like the publisher of SnaggleBuggle and is objecting the only way she knows how.” Nina’s voice got higher. “But who’s really paying for her industrial action, eh? Me! Me!”
This entire speech had meant nothing to Laura, but she was happy to pitch in, and showed up early on the day in question, as calm and mellow as Nina was frantic and stressed-out.
“We’re not serving juice,” said Nina. “We had the carpet cleaned last month, and they’re going to be overexcited enough as it is.” She was slowly looking around the bookstore, evaluating the beanbags and chairs Laura and Polly had put out. They’d pushed back all the freestanding bookcases as far as they could, but Nina was still worried there wouldn’t be enough room.
She sighed and checked the time on her phone. “Well, there’s nothing more we can do unless we start demolishing walls, so let’s go take a quick break and drink some coffee. We’ll need our wits about us.”
Laura frowned. “Isn’t it only a kids’ book?”
Polly and Nina laughed, and Polly shook her head. “You’ll see,” she said. Then she turned to Nina, and added, “No more coffee for you, madam.”
SnaggleBuggle had started life as a semi-joking online spoof of a very successful children’s book about a beleaguered bunny. SnaggleBuggle was every bit as uncute as the bunny had been cute, and for some reason his antihero nature amused parents looking to subvert parenting norms. He’d spawned an actual soft toy, a TV show, a stage show (SnaggleBuggleBoogie, try not to imagine it), and, of course, a series of picture books, chapter books, and now graphic novels. The small children of America united as one, not to ask for world peace or food for the hungry, but for access to SnaggleBuggle merch.
The news that SnaggleBuggle and his human helper, Darren, were going to be appearing at Knight’s had spread like wildfire. Darren had literally created SB in half an hour while extremely high and was seizing the opportunity and riding the horse till it threw him off. He’d hired a crack social media team comprising two fifteen-year-old girls whose energy and technical dexterity could probably have brought peace to the Middle East, had their interests lain in that direction. When Nina, Polly, and Laura finally came out to open the doors, they were horrified to see approximately three hundred children pressed up against them, leaving smeary handprints and breath clouds.
“There’s a Star Trek episode, original series,” whispered Nina, “where a planet is so overpopulated that when they pull back the curtains, everyone is all pressed up against the window. That image haunts my dreams to this day and now it’s come true.” She added, “It’s called ‘The Mark of Gideon,’ and it wasn’t a great episode apart from that one shot, just saying.”
Laura looked at the doors. True, there was a pretty solid crowd of kids out there, but it was not apocalyptic.
She said, “You have a tendency to be overdramatic, did anyone ever tell you that?”
“No,” said Nina.
“Constantly,” said Polly.
“Besides,” said Laura, “if I were you, I’d be more worried about the fact that it’s twenty to one and SnaggleBuggle himself is a no-show.”
“He’ll be here, he’s a professional,” said Nina, unlocking the bottom of the door and preparing to open it. “Stand back.”
The kids flowed in like a mighty river and arranged themselves clumpily, in the fashion of children. Those who couldn’t fit sat on the sidewalk. Parents gave up and stood nearby looking at their phones. SnaggleBuggle showed up at 1:04 p.m., which was about thirty seconds after Nina’s blood pressure started elevating.
Lili and Clare showed up, too, which was a pleasant surprise.
“Isn’t Clare a little old for this?” asked Nina, with interest.
Lili shrugged. “She was an early adopter. You know, before SnaggleBuggle sold out and licensed his image.”
Indeed Clare had taken a position at the side of the store and was regarding SnaggleBuggle with some skepticism.
“I hope she’s not going to rabble rouse,” said Lili worriedly.
“I hope she is,” said Polly, though she had to hand it to Darren, he had them all sitting silent as church mice. The social media team, both of whom were called Sophie, were livestreaming and livestreaming the livestreaming, respectively.
“Hey, Laura,” said Lili quietly. “Could I possibly talk to you?”
“Sure.” Laura followed Lili outside.
“What’s going on with you and Bob?” asked Lili, getting right to the point.
Laura immediately felt herself going red. “Nothing. What do you mean?”
“Bob came over the other night for dinner and basically spent the whole time talking about you.”
“What? He’s sleeping with your sister, isn’t he?” Laura gasped and put her hand up to her mouth. “I’m sorry, that popped out.”
Lili was staring at her. “What?”
Laura was embarrassed, and started making babbling noises of an indeterminate nature. “Well, I mean . . . not that . . . it’s . . . I’m sure . . .”
Lili was firm. “No, really, what did you say?”
Laura was bright red. “That Bob was sleeping with your sister.” She saw Lili’s face change and took a big step back.
Lili said, “That’s totally untrue, Rachel’s happily married.”
“Clare told me.” As she said it, Laura realized how daft it sounded.
“Clare? What did she say, exactly?” asked Lili, still a little ticked at the slight to her sister.
“She said Rachel said she had an open marriage. That she hugged Bob.” She was flamingly hot and embarrassed. “At the time . . .”
Lili burst out laughing, loud enough that SnaggleBuggle paused in his rendition of “Sna-gaggle Bu-google,” and one of the Sophies caught it on her phone and for two hours #crazymomlaugh trended on Twitter.
“Sorry,” said Lili to the store at large, then dragged Laura a little way down the street.
“Listen, Rachel and Edward and I were having dinner with Bob before Halloween. Clare and Annabel were there, of course. Richard, Rachel’s husband, was in New York for work.” She hesitated. “All Bob talked about then was you, too. He’s been trying to give you plenty of room and space to sort yourself out and he was panicking that he’d missed his chance with you.”
Laura felt warm, and Lili watched and grinned as the color mounted the other woman’s face. “You feel the same way about him, don’t you?”
Laura nodded. “So why did Clare . . .”
Lili shook her head impatiently. “Listen, Bob was talking about how being with you made him realize why people wanted to get married, and Rachel was talking about how she’d never wanted to get married again after her first marriage fell apart, but that meeting Richard made her open to it again. That was literally all she said.”
Laura looked blankly at her.
“Clearly, Clare got the wrong idea, because honestly, that child only needs the slightest encouragement to go rogue,” said Lili, bouncing up and down to keep the baby in the carrier quiet. She made a stern face at Laura. “The day I met you, I warned you not to listen to Clare, she lives in a world of her own making.”
“So now what do I do?” Laura looked into the store, where SnaggleBuggle had finished singing and was getting ready for audience Q&A.
Lili smiled. “I think you better find him and tell him.”
“Tell him what? He’s leaving to go away for a few months and then probably he’ll go away again to grad school, and I have grad school, too, and why complicate things any more than they already are?”
Lili shrugged. “Dude, you’re welcome to come between yourself and your own happiness if you want to, but nothing you just mentioned is a good enough reason not to tell someone the way you feel about them. That’s a dilemma you’re going to have to work out for yourself.” She flicked a glance over her shoulder to where Clare had her hand up and was definitely about to ask a question SnaggleBuggle wasn’t going to want to hear. “All I can suggest is you not ask Clare for input.”
FORTY-FOUR
When Laura got back to the house, she saw Maggie making her way up the driveway carrying a stuffed giraffe almost as large as herself. Polly had given Laura a ride to the store, but rather than wait for SnaggleBuggle to extricate himself from an argument with Clare about brand authenticity, Laura had decided to walk home.
She’d ended up essentially running, because she really, really wanted to tell Bob . . . whatever it was she was going to tell him. She could have called him, of course, or texted, but she was hoping that the time it took to find him would give her the time she needed to work out what to say. She was overwhelmed with the desire to tell him right now, before he went away and buried himself in soil additives, so to speak. What if he met someone else? What if his feelings simply faded as hers grew stronger and their diverging paths took them farther and farther apart forever?
“Hey,” she said to Maggie as she caught up to her, panting a little.
“Hi there,” said Maggie, smiling. “Do you like my giraffe? I decided to take your suggestion, and this was the biggest thing they had at the store.” She paused. “I could have ordered something bigger online, but then I wouldn’t have been able to feel it, and I think you should feel . . .” She stopped. “Sorry, you’re politely waiting for me to finish, what’s up?”
“Is Bob still here?”
“No.” Maggie shook her head. “He left a while ago. He told me to say goodbye.” She opened the front door and let the giraffe go first, sliding its hooves across the wooden floor. “Did you need him for something? I assume they’ll have phone service on the East Coast.”
“No,” said Laura. “I mean, yes, but no. I wanted to say goodbye in person.”
Maggie preceded her down the hallway, having parked the giraffe. “Did you ever get around to telling him you’re falling in love with him?”
Laura paused. “I . . . No.” She sighed. “Does everyone know about this but me?”
Maggie turned on the kettle, which Laura had come to realize was her signature move. “Well, everyone who’s ever spent longer than ten minutes with the two of you. And why not? You get along super well, you like the same things, you’re both doers, not sayers, if you know what I mean.” She leaned against the counter and folded her arms. “You like to go out and do stuff instead of simply talking about it. That’s as good a foundation for a relationship as any.”
Laura stared at her. She had never thought of it like that.
The kettle clicked and Maggie smiled. “Tea? I think I have a to-go cup somewhere.” She looked at her watch. “His flight doesn’t leave for another couple of hours, you can probably catch him if you hurry.”
“I don’t have a car,” said Laura. She blushed bright red. “And if I did, I probably couldn’t get up the nerve to drive it anyway.”
Maggie frowned. “I thought you’ve been driving Bob’s truck with him?”
Laura got even redder. “How did you know about that?”
Maggie shrugged. “Bob told me. He was very proud of you.” She smiled. “You’ve come a long way since you got here, Laura.” She snapped her fingers. “Why don’t you take the truck? He left me the keys.”
“Wait, what?” Laura was confused. “Didn’t he drive the truck to the airport?”
Maggie shook her head. “No, he took a Lyft and parked the truck in the driveway. By the basketball hoop.” She laughed. “He was actually worried in case you got pissed that he’d blocked the hoop, which is why he left me the keys. He wanted you to be able to move it.” She walked over to a ceramic chicken that lived on the counter and contained all the keys, and fished around. She held up Bob’s keys, the Dodgers key fob turning in the light.
“See?” she said, and smiled.
“I can’t . . .” said Laura, feeling panicked. “I don’t even know how to get to the airport.”
“Doesn’t the truck have GPS?”
Laura shook her head. “It’s too old, it has a CD player, for crying out loud.”
Maggie shrugged. “Use your phone.”
Laura shook her head. “I can’t.”
Maggie sighed. “So call him. Call him and tell him how you feel.”
Laura gazed at her. Maggie was right, she could call him. Or even text him, maybe. She’d waited weeks already, holding her feelings close to her chest, but now waiting another day felt impossible, and telling him in person felt imperative. She wanted to see him, now, tell him, now, and kiss him, immediately.
She took a deep breath, and shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I’m not so good at talking, I think I better do it in person.”
