36

Sarabeth was perplexed by a great many things, but mostly by herself, by the weird tranquillity she was beginning to feel—about Liz, about everything. Maybe it was just the way things were when you got older. You let go more easily.

She had with her house. Nothing bothered her anymore—not the falling-apart bathroom, not the makeshift curtain blocking her view of the Heidts’, not the splintery porch nor the dusty pile of objects on the living room floor. The stuff on the floor had even taken on a feeling of permanence. Why not keep it there? It was as good as anywhere else.

In this mood she dug out a box of college papers and found one of her old journals, a blank book with a blue cloth cover. It was full of writing, page after page—not just accounts of her life, but all kinds of other stuff, too: lists of things she’d liked, juxtaposing the exalted (“Chopin’s études”) with the mundane (“Reese’s peanut butter cups”). She’d written about her relationships: “Last night, Jerome said he thought he loved me but that it wouldn’t be fair to either of us for him to say so until he was sure. I really respect him for that.” Then she’d gone back afterward and annotated: “Hello, Sarabeth? He was an asshole!” She’d experimented with alternate handwritings—all caps, like her architecture-major roommate; the tiniest scrawl possible, to show how tortured she was. She’d even played with her name: Sara, Sara B, Sarabande, Sarabé.

And then there was this:

“Lorelei Leoffler is survived by her daughter, Sarabeth.” Think about this. There’s “survived by” and “survived by”: “outlived by” and “tolerated by.” “Lorelei Leoffler was tolerated by her daughter, Sarabeth.” How true.

She’d been twenty-one when she’d written that—an adult. She couldn’t believe the melodrama, the self-pity. Yet she felt in an odd way protective of that former self; when she packed the journal away again, she rubberbanded onto it a note that said “Fragile.”

She was less so. One bright Friday afternoon she went window-shopping: peered into an exotic bird store, paused outside a boutique where she’d once bought a clingy red dress she’d never worn. She stopped in front of a brand-new spice shop and on a whim went inside and wandered around, looking into open bowls, leaning down for a smell of clove, of nutmeg and cinnamon. She found a tin labeled STAR ANISE and opened it to a collection of odd, woody flowers, not at all what she’d expected. Star anise—what had she expected? The smell was like licorice, and the flowers were exquisite, circles of perfect hard petals that dug into the pads of her fingertips when she squeezed one.

She was finally getting her act together lampshadewise, and she let herself buy the tin, all $5.95 of it, as a souvenir of she didn’t know what. She lingered in the shop for an extra moment, reluctant to leave the rows of glass jars, the sound of the grinder as it pulverized hard pods into powder.

Outside, she hesitated; what now? Coldwell Banker had an office nearby, and she wondered if it was the one where Peter Something—Peter Watkins—worked. On tour with Jim last week, she’d seen him for the first time since the day he helped her, and she’d been mildly disappointed when he only smiled and nodded.

“He doesn’t remember,” she said to Jim.

“Of course he does.”

It was the Rockridge Coldwell Banker where he worked, she remembered now. She went and stood in front of this one anyway, looked at the listings and recognized a house she’d staged for Jim a few years back. She cupped her hands at her eyes and peered inside. There were five or six people at desks, talking on phones or tapping at keyboards. As she looked, a woman at the back saw her and waved, then held up her forefinger as if to say Wait.

Did she mean Sarabeth?

The woman smiled and nodded, finger still aloft, and Sarabeth turned around, looking to both sides to make sure there wasn’t someone else right there. The sidewalk was empty, and she hesitated and then stepped to the door. She actually recognized the woman, from touring with Jim; she thought Jim had even worked with her once or twice. She was somewhere in that netherworld of fifty to sixty-five, with chin-length gray-blond hair and an Eileen Fisher outfit.

Once inside, Sarabeth took a few steps forward and then stopped. The place was dim, and though the woman smiled as she approached she looked almost surprised. What did she want with Sarabeth? Something about staging?

“Hi, there,” she said. “Can I help you?”

Confused, Sarabeth looked around again, and now she saw that in fact a car had pulled to the curb right in front of the office, and the driver had lowered the passenger-side window and was leaning forward, waiting.

A young guy at a nearby desk hung up his phone and looked from Sarabeth to his colleague and back again.

“Do you have a minute?” the woman asked him. “Can you help this lady while I step outside?”

When she was gone, he cracked a wide smile. “Sorry, that was just so classic.”

“You saw the whole thing?”

“Start to finish. But I was on the phone, and anyway, some things have to play out in real time.”

He was in his early thirties, surprisingly young for a guy in real estate. Men usually came to it later in life; Jim had had a whole career as a high school English teacher before he made the switch. This guy had a pristine look: close shave, expensive polo shirt, immaculate fingernails. He could have been a pilot on his day off, even a male model, though he wasn’t particularly handsome; just perfect.

“Can we help you?” he said. “Are you house hunting?”

“I was honestly just looking in the window.”

“So what are you hunting for?”

She hesitated for a moment. “Peace and love, same as everyone else.”

His smile was slow at first, and then his lips parted and he was grinning. He said, “Would you settle for coffee?”

“You’re asking me to have coffee?”

“Technically, I was asking if you were hunting for coffee. But that might be splitting hairs.”

“I’m way older than you.”

“What does that mean—you have insomnia? A weak bladder? Your days of drinking coffee are over?”

Sarabeth shook her head, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?”

“Just a passerby.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

The door opened, and the blond woman came back in. “Are we taking care of you?” she asked as she headed back to her desk, but she didn’t slow for an answer.

“The royal ‘we,’” the guy said under his breath. “What a gal.” He lowered his voice even further. “My mother,” he added.

Sarabeth looked at the woman, then back at him; she’d have sooner believed they were lovers.

“How old are you?” she said.

“Twenty-eight.”

“I was in college when you were born.”

He shrugged, and she stood there for another moment and then gave him a little wave and headed off, pushing through the door into the sunlight.