Elinor Lipman - The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

Ray leaned toward me, his voice even. “Because it has the ring of truth.”

“Well, just forget about it,” I advised. “Order some food and a glass of beer and we’ll change the subject.”

“I don’t think you get it: This isn’t some little piece of gossip that has no bearing on anything. This is a huge piece of news. Throughout my marriage, for the entire three years we were together—”

Now it was my turn to look up from my menu and stare. “Did you say three years?”

“We knew each other for three years. We were actually married for sixteen months, which I’d always looked back on as one long extended honeymoon.”

I said, “I guess I assumed—”

“Because of how shaken up I was? And how saddened I was for a whole year since her demise?”

I pointed out that sixteen months was hardly a lifetime, so if Mary had been cheating over the course of the entire marriage, it was a relatively short period of infidelity.

Ray took a paper napkin from the dispenser and blew his nose. “I took my marriage vows very seriously and I’m a little surprised that you’re taking Mary’s side.”

I said I most certainly was not taking Mary’s side. I was just trying to examine all facets of the situation. “Maybe she had no choice,” I offered. “Maybe it was sexual harassment.”

“Baloney! Sexual harassment. Mary was as tough as nails. No one messed with Mary if they didn’t want a boot in the groin.”

Another mental adjustment was needed, this time from docile wife and mother of Ray’s future children to extremely tough cookie. I asked how old Mary was when she passed away.

“Twenty-eight,” said Ray. “She liked older men. This guy, Patrick, from work? Would you believe fifty-two? She had a father thing, but I didn’t care. If I had fifteen years on her and that’s what she liked—hey, why not?”

A waitress was finally at our side. “I’m going to have the burger with Muenster and caramelized onions, no lettuce, no tomato,” said Ray. “And whatever you have on draft.”

A dozen breweries and seasonal batches were described before he heard the right name.

I said I’d have nothing now; maybe a piece of pie later.

“Nothing to drink?” asked the waitress.

“She’s a doctor,” said Ray. “No drinking when she’s on call.”

“We get a lot of doctors here,” said the waitress, and cocked her head in the direction of my hospital.

When she’d gone, I said, “I’m not on call. You don’t have to make up excuses.”

“You know why I do that? I’m just so friggin’ proud that you’re a doctor. I guess I look for any occasion to announce it.”

If it weren’t for his previously announced emotional distress, I might have said that I took exception to his use of the adjective proud —that it was a word for parents, for teachers, for mentors; for one’s own self to admit in the privacy of one’s head. “We’ve discussed this before,” I said, “but maybe I need to say it again: I’d prefer that you didn’t lie.”

“Lie?” he repeated. “Because I tell the waitress you’re on call? Isn’t that true? Don’t you work around the clock? Didn’t you work all day today and aren’t you going back there at dawn?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

“Okay. That’s settled: no lie.” He smiled as the waitress delivered his frosted mug. “After the day I’ve had, you wouldn’t believe how good this looks,” he said to her.

She said, “Okay, I’ll bite. What kind of day did you have?”

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