The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing - Melissa Bank [53]
He said, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
I said, "You're sinking to my level."
—•—
Mimi let me resign. "I feel terrible about this," she said. "Maybe I could help you find another job."
"No," I said. "I'm quitting publishing cold turkey."
She said, "I feel the way I did when my first husband left me."
This was a story I wanted to hear.
"He thought he was gay," she said. "It wasn't enough for him to leave me, he had to leave my whole sex."
"Was he gay?" I asked.
"Of course he was."
I said, "But you said 'he thought he was gay.' "
"I think you're missing my point, Jane."
We agreed that I would leave in two weeks.
—•—
I heard Archie turn the key in the door.
He kissed me and said, "What's the matter?"
"Nada thing," I said. "I was let quit."
He said, "Oh, honey," as though I'd made a terrible mistake.
"Don't say it like that," I said. "I'm about to embark on an exciting career as a temp."
"No," he said, and he snapped his fingers. "You'll come work for me at K——. And be a real associate editor."
I said, "I could bring you up on charges for that."
"What?"
"Work harassment in the sexual place."
—•—
On my last day of work, I went by Mimi's office to say good-bye. "There's something I've been wanting to ask you," I said.
"Of course," she said.
"How do you get your eyebrows so perfect?"
"Carmen," she said, and she wrote down the number of her eyebrowist. Then she sprayed perfume on my wrists one last time, and I was out.
On the subway home, I got a little scared. I remembered the phrase career suicide. But then I thought, Goodbye, cruel job.
—•—
The following Monday, I went to the temp place. I aced my typing test. I soared through spelling and grammar. I was sent to the benefits department of a bank, where I typed numbers into a computer and answered the phone.
"Today was the first day of the rest of my life," I told Archie when I got home. "It was okay. I think the second day of the rest of my life will be better."
He tried to smile, but it was just a shape his mouth made.
While I was cooking dinner, I found Motown on the radio and danced around the kitchen.
"What is this?" he asked, as though he'd caught me reading a comic book.
I sang along to the music: "I'll take you there."
He said, "I live with a teenager."
"Why are you so upset?" I asked him in bed.
He said, "I don't know," and I realized I'd never heard him say these words before. "I wanted to help you, and now I can't even do that."
"It's better for me, honey," I said, but he didn't answer.
X X I
The next weekend we went up to the farmhouse. He did whatever I wanted to and nothing I didn't. He didn't ask me to play Scrabble or Honeymoon Bridge or Hearts. He didn't suggest we invite the professor over for dinner.
In the late afternoon, he took me to the flea market. He ate hot dogs at the concession stand and read the newspaper while I hunted for treasures. When I showed him what I'd bought—cardboard farm animals with wooden stands—he said, "How did we live without these before?"
—•—
Saturday night, we lay outside on the grass. The moon lit up the meadow and the stars were out. It must've been their brightness that made me remember a radio jingle from when I was growing up, and I sang it to Archie: "Everything's brighter at Ashbourne Mall."
He got the tune right away, and sang, "Ashbourne Mall."
After a while, he said, "Honey."
"Yes, honey," I said.
He put a little box in my hand. I looked at it. It was that robin's-egg blue from Tiffany. I opened the blue box, and there was a velvet one inside, and I opened that. I looked at the ring. It was platinum with one diamond. It was just the ring I would've wanted, if I'd wanted a ring from him.
I said, "It's beautiful."
He heard the remorse in it. "Oh," he said, "I see."
I was about to say, I can't make a big decision right now—I can barely trust myself to decide what earrings to wear. But I said, "I'm sorry, honey."
He spoke softly. "I knew you wouldn't marry me when you didn't ask me to the funeral."
My father was gone. I felt I