Mary and O'Neil Page 0,46

driving on to Mary’s mother’s store. The store, in a downtrodden shopping center surrounded by aging subdivisions, should not have succeeded, but in fact Mary’s mother, Gretchen, did quite nicely. Early on she had latched on to a new line of china figurines called Cu-tee-pies—dewy-eyed children in occasional costumes, some holding puppies or rabbits or other small animals—and had wangled an exclusive from the distributor, gambling on the chance that they would become collector’s items, which was exactly what had happened. In the window of her shop hung a banner that read YOUR CU-TEE-PIE HEADQUARTERS, and behind the register Gretchen kept a locked case of retired Cu-tee-pies, some selling for as much as a hundred dollars. For graduation she had given Mary a figurine wearing a cap and gown with the words Congratulations Princess! engraved in gold letters on its china base. She suggested that Mary might want to put it somewhere safe, such as a deposit box at the bank, in anticipation of the day when it would be worth a great deal of money: “a great deal,” she said knowingly. But Mary had no place like that, and now it sat on her kitchen table, beside the salt and pepper shakers.

It was the Monday after Thanksgiving, and the small store bustled with holiday shoppers. Mary’s father, Lars, had taken the day off to help and was wrapping Cu-tee-pies in tissue paper at a table set up in the back. Mary and Curtis sat down to help him.

“Mary says you’re a painter,” Lars said to Curtis.

“He’s had a show,” Mary offered.

Lars waved a piece of tape from his fingers. “Is there money in a thing like that?” he asked Curtis.

“There can be,” Curtis said. “But not usually, no.”

Mary’s father shook his head sadly and held up a Cu-tee-pie waiting to be wrapped, a little girl in an elf costume clutching a daisy.

“Guess how much my wife makes on this thing,” Lars said. “Don’t guess, I’ll tell you. Thirty bucks retail, and fifteen of it goes right into the till.”

“Those are excellent margins,” Curtis observed.

“It’s a racket, if you ask me. Listen,” Lars said, and lowered his voice, “I’d like to help out. Let me buy one of your paintings.”

“You really don’t need to do that, Dad,” Mary protested. “You haven’t even seen them. They might not be the sort of thing you like.”

Lars shrugged amiably. “Just pick the one that you think I’d like best.”

“We saw the camper,” Mary said neutrally.

“Oh, that,” Lars said, and cleared his throat. “We got it out of the Pennysaver. Your mother has ideas about going out West. When we’ll have the time I just don’t know.”

Mary’s mother returned with Chinese food from the restaurant next door. Like her husband, Gretchen was very tall, and looked much younger than she actually was. She wore her hair in a long loose ponytail that fell down her back, and this afternoon was dressed in a denim skirt and a sweatshirt embroidered with teddy bears. Mary adored her mother with a hopeless affection, like an unrequited crush. She understood this feeling was common in middle children, as Mary was, but there was also a story. Mary’s mother had spent her first ten years of life in an orphanage in Grand Forks, North Dakota, run by the Sisters of Mercy. Though Gretchen was the first to say that it hadn’t been a bad place at all, the experience of growing up in an institution—of eating, bathing, and sleeping in large groups presided over by kindly old women who meant well but did not always remember her name—had left her with a view of childhood that was sentimental and general. She seemed to draw little distinction between Mary and her older brother and younger sister—often she mistook one for the other, and once had driven Mary to a guitar lesson that was, in fact, her brother Mark’s—and nothing could dissuade her from the opinion that her children, who had clothes to wear, food to eat, and a house to live in, were perfectly contented at all times. As she grew, Mary came to see that her mother was merely replicating the impersonal, well-intentioned affections of the nuns who had raised her. But still she longed for more; she longed to be known.

Gretchen served them noodles in brown sauce on paper plates. “So,” she began cheerfully, “am I to understand you two are no longer roommates?”

“We are roommates,” Mary said.

“A mechanical question,” Gretchen went on. “How do you date someone