organic stuff, although I’m not sure if it’s because there’s a health benefit or because he just likes having the priciest items, no matter what the category. “There’s a first time for everything,” I answer. The microwave dings, and I take out the bloated bag, rip it open into a big blue ceramic bowl.
The bedroom is pitch dark and smells like lavender. Liddy is lying on her side under the covers of her big four- poster bed, facing away from me. I’m not sure if she’s asleep, and then I hear her voice. “Go away,” she murmurs. The words sound like she’s at the bottom of a tunnel.
I ignore her and eat a handful of popcorn.
The sound, and the smell of the butter, make her roll over. She squints at me. “Max,” she says. “I’m not really in the mood for company.”
“That’s cool,” I tell her. “I’m just here to borrow your DVD player.” I reach into the paper bag and pull out the movie. Then I load it and turn on the TV.
Liddy sits up against her pillows. Her eyes drift to the screen, to the incredibly fake giant tarantula that is terrorizing a bunch of teens. “Where did you get this?”
“Just a place I know.” It’s a head shop in Elizabeth, New Jersey, that has a mail-order cult B-movie business. I’ve ordered online from them. But because I couldn’t wait long enough for a DVD to be shipped to me, and because this was Liddy we were talking about, I drove to the store instead.
“This is a good one,” I tell Liddy. “1958.”
“I don’t want to watch a movie right now,” Liddy says.
“Okay.” I shrug. “I’ll turn the sound down low.”
So I pretend to watch the television, where the teenage girl and her boyfriend go looking for her missing dad and find instead a massive web from a giant spider. But in reality, I’m stealing glances at Liddy. In spite of herself, she can’t help but watch, too. After a few minutes, she reaches for the popcorn in my lap, and I give her the whole bowl.
Just about the time the teenagers drag the lifeless body of the spider back to the high school gym to study it- only to learn it’s actually still alive-Reid pokes his head into the bedroom. By then, I’m lounging back on his side of the bed. I give Reid a thumbs-up, and I can see the relief on his face when he sees Liddy sitting up, engaged in the world of the living again. He backs out and closes the door behind him.
A half hour later, we’ve almost finished the popcorn. When the tarantula is finally electrocuted and falls, I turn to find tears running down Liddy’s face.
I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even know she’s crying.
“Max,” she asks. “Can we watch it again?”
There’s the obvious benefit to joining a church like Eternal Glory-being saved. But there’s another advantage, too, and that’s being rescued. Unlike finding Jesus, which is like a strike of lightning, this is much more subtle. It’s the elderly lady who shows up at Reid’s door the week after I go to church for the first time, with a banana bread to welcome me into the congregation. It’s my name on a prayer list when I have the flu. It’s putting up my plowing flyer on the church message board and finding all the little tags with my phone number ripped off within days by Eternal Glory folks who like to support their own. I wasn’t just born again, I was given a large, extended family.
Pastor Clive is the father I wish I’d had growing up-one who understands that I may have stumbled in the past but who sees endless possibility. Instead of focusing on everything I’ve done wrong in my life, he celebrates the things I’ve done right. He took me out to an Italian restaurant last week to celebrate my third month of sobriety; he has gradually given me more and more responsibility in the church-from being called on to do a reading during a Sunday service to this afternoon’s shopping adventure for our annual church chicken pie supper.
It is just past three-thirty, and Elkin and I are each manning a grocery cart at the Stop & Shop. This isn’t where I usually get my food, but the owner is a member of Eternal Glory and gives Pastor Clive a discount and, even more important, has agreed to donate the chicken for free.
We have loaded our carts with piecrust mix and frozen peas and carrots, and we are waiting in line at the butcher counter to get the chicken that’s been reserved for us when I hear a familiar voice. When I turn, I see Zoe reading the label on a jar of Caesar salad dressing. “I think there should be new nutrition guidelines,” she says to another woman. “No fat; low fat; reduced fat; and fat, but with a great personality.”
The woman she’s with plucks the Caesar dressing from Zoe’s hand. She puts it back on the shelf and picks up a vinaigrette instead. “And
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Elkin, and I walk toward Zoe. Her back is to me, so I tap her on the shoulder. “Hey.”
She turns and breaks into a wide smile. She looks relaxed and happy, as if she’s spent a lot of time laughing lately. “Max!” She gives me a hug.
I pat her awkwardly. I mean, are you supposed to hug back the woman you divorced? The woman she’s shopping with-who’s taller, a little younger, with a boyish haircut-has her lips pressed tightly together in what’s supposed to be a smile. I hold out my hand. “I’m Max Baxter.”
“Oh!” Zoe says. “Max, this is… Vanessa.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Look at you, all dressed up with nowhere to go.” Zoe playfully pulls on my black tie. “And you got rid of your cast.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Just a brace now.”
“What are you doing here?” Zoe asks, and then she rolls her eyes. “Well, obviously I know what you’re doing here… there’s only one reason to come to the grocery store…”
“You’ll have to excuse her,” Vanessa says. “She gets this way when she’s had too many cups of coffee in the morning…”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know.”
Vanessa looks from Zoe to me and then back to Zoe again. I’m not sure why, but she looks a little pissed off. If she’s Zoe’s friend, surely she knows I’m her ex-husband; I can’t imagine why anything I’ve said might have upset her. “I’m just going to grab the produce,” Vanessa says, backing away. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
“Same here.” Zoe and I watch her walk away toward the organic section. “Remember the time you decided to go a hundred percent organic and our grocery bill quadrupled for the week?” I ask.
“Yeah. I stick to the organic grapes and lettuce now,” she replies. “Live and learn, right?”
It’s a weird thing, divorce. Zoe and I were together for almost a decade. I fell in love with her, I slept with her, I wanted a family with her. There was a time-albeit long ago-when she knew me better than anyone else in the world. I don’t want to talk to her about food. I want to ask her how we got from dancing at our own wedding to standing three feet apart from each other in a grocery aisle making small talk.
But Elkin appears with his cart. “Man, we’re good to go.” He jerks his chin at Zoe. “Hi.”
“Zoe, this is Elkin. Elkin, Zoe.” I look at her. “We’re having a church supper tonight-chicken pie. All homemade. You ought to come.”
Something freezes behind her features. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“Well then.” I smile at her. “It’s good to see you.”
“You, too, Max.” She pushes her cart past me and goes to join Vanessa near the Swiss chard. I see them arguing, but I am too far away to hear anything they are saying.
“Let’s go,” Elkin says. “The ladies’ auxiliary gets really steamed when we don’t get the ingredients back on time.”
The whole time Elkin is loading the items onto the conveyor belt of the checkout counter, I am trying to figure out what didn’t seem quite right about Zoe. I mean, she looked great, and she sounded happy. She obviously had found friends to hang out with, just like I had. And yet there was something off the mark, something that I could not put my finger on. As the cashier scans the items, I find myself glancing at the aisles behind us, for another glimpse of Zoe.
We head to my truck and start loading the groceries into the flatbed. It’s started to pour. “I’ll bring the cart
