A Hole in the Universe - Mary McGarry Morris [124]
The minute she walked through the door she knew things weren’t right. Albert was alone. The store seemed understocked and messy. The glass countertop was smudged. A half-emptied carton of computer paper lay on top, as if sales were being made directly from it. Most disturbing, though, was the sunburst of cracks that had been Albert’s university mirror on the back wall. He was complaining about the new Staples up on Route 28. That’s why all his old Dearborn customers had stopped coming into the Collerton store. How many times had she tried to tell him that—she bit her tongue. And now look at the mess he was in, a seven-year lease for five times the old rent, at one-third the business. The worst of it was the unreliable help. He was down to one part-time clerk, a high school girl who turned out to be dyslexic. When he tried to fire her, her father’s lawyer wrote him a letter advising him of the girl’s rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. He’d tried to hire someone else, even offering mother’s helper’s hours, but everyone wanted high-tech jobs and big paychecks. So here he was working sixty- and seventy-hour weeks at a point in his life when he should finally be able “to start smelling the roses.” And now, in addition to her tennis league, Cheryl had taken up golf and was always at the club. He’d even had to cancel the annual July Blowout Sale this coming weekend because she had signed him up for the couples tournament, then typically had forgotten to tell him.
Delores wanted to enjoy his misery, but the gloating would only spiral her deeper into guilt and then pity for him. Delores the perpetual doormat; she could feel it coming on, this desperate need to be needed. “Where’s Katie?” she asked to nick the wound and remember what a bastard he’d been.
“Katie? Oh, gone. It didn’t work out.”
“That’s too bad.” She imagined Katie’s husband punching the mirror. Or maybe smashing poor Albert’s head into it.
“One of the cleaning people broke it,” he said, following her gaze.
“That’s too bad.” She was ashamed of herself for being disappointed. Her life had never been better, and poor Albert’s was in a tailspin.
“I could pay you more than The Lady,” he blurted, face reddening. “And here you wouldn’t have to train or anything. You could just start right back in.”
“Start back in? You mean where we left off?”
“Please, Delores. The minute you walked in everything seemed brighter and better. It was like all at once the cloud lifted. And I realized how much I need you. How much a part of my life you are. Everything’s a mess without you,” he said on her heels to the door. “I should’ve called, I wanted to, but you were like a crazy woman. I didn’t know what you were going to do. Delores!” Of all the things Albert had ever said to her this was the most flattering. He had used and dominated her for years, and she had accepted it.
A surge of raw, womanly power propelled her down the street. And for this she had Gordon to thank. He needed her in a way no man ever had. Instead of her body he had desired her strength, and now in place of visitors’ glass he needed her patience between them. The collision between his inscrutable reserve and her natural exuberances continued to leave her drained and bewildered. But she was finally learning to hold back, to walk away when it was time. However, she still couldn’t decide whether it was coldness or an almost inhuman self-containment that governed his