Will You Won't You Want Me?: A Novel by Nora Zelevansky Read Free Book Online Page A

now seemed so misguided.
    She shook her head clear and looked around. She had been a child with interests beyond her own complexion and next vodka tonic. Where had she gone wrong ? (One might point to a certain day in June 2002, when—in a silly maroon cap and gown—she accepted her diploma but never actually left the auditorium.)
    As if in response to her question, a photograph fluttered from the messy bookshelf onto the floor: A sixteen-year-old Marjorie sat on a neighborhood stoop with Vera and their other friend Pickles, swigging from a forty-ounce bottle of Olde English malt liquor. Pickles blew smoke rings, in challenge, at the camera. Marjorie’s crimson-smeared lips pushed against the bottle’s mouth. She looked like a child playing dress-up, cheeks full, eyebrows unplucked, free.
    Marjorie had distance from most of her teenage memories, which dropped away with her baby fat and abandon. But, for an instant, she was inside the picture, feeling the rough concrete under her thighs, smelling chocolate croissants baking at Zabar’s, nearby. And it was too painful. She dropped the photo, walked to the bed, and lay down on her side, exhausted. Tucking her legs up toward her belly, she pressed her hands together at her cheek, as if in prayer.

 
    6
    Marjorie awoke, disoriented and creased, to the smell of garlic sautéing in olive oil.
    Her outlook after a rare midday nap—when she rose to find the sun slipping away—was bleak, even on a good day. Now, as reality set in, she was miserable. What was she going to tell her parents? Should she wait until the end of dinner? Until second glasses of wine? Shit. She should have come armed with unemployment statistics and complaints about “big business!” (That was a thing, right?) Was it too late to occupy Wall Street? She never did like camping.
    She walked to the bathroom and looked at her disheveled self in the mirror. The Tiffany necklace she’d worn since high school graduation had left a red indentation on her chest—a scarlet heart. She borrowed white jeans and a slouchy French blue button-down from her mother’s closet, showered, dressed, then crept out into the living room. The Plums were nowhere in sight. The family feline, Mina the Cat—a Siamese with grace but not poise—leapt off an antique chair. She rubbed her spindly body against Marjorie’s legs and let out a gravely grunt, more smoker’s cough than mew.
    “Hi, Goof!” Marjorie scooped up the runt, who began grooming her human pal with her sandpaper tongue. “Okay, okay, okay. Thank you, but that’s enough.” The cat settled against Marjorie’s chest, a purring, kneading fur ball.
    Taking a deep breath, Marjorie crossed the spacious living room into the open exposed-brick kitchen: sweet potatoes baked in the oven, a roast chicken cooled in its juices atop the stove, a pot of artichokes steamed.
    “Mom?”
    “Marjorie?” The voice originated from a small adjoining office, once the maid’s quarters, typical in a classic eight New York apartment. “Is that you, sweetie?”
    “Well, I certainly hope so. Otherwise someone’s broken into your house and is kidnapping your cat.”
    Mina the Cat, unconcerned, snuggled in closer.
    “Coming, coming! Are the sweet potatoes ready?”
    “How would a person know that exactly? You know I burn water.”
    Barbara Plum appeared from around the corner, looking surprised—as she frequently did—by the delight she felt at seeing her daughter. Marjorie had not been a “miracle baby” per se, but she was a last-minute decision and the couple’s only child. Barbara had never liked babies and thought she wouldn’t want one, but, as she was fond of quipping, her biological clock simply ran slow.
    For dinner’s sake, she opened the oven with a checkered mitt before greeting her daughter. “They’d be brown and crispy, almost caramelized.” She had changed from workday clothes into a black T-shirt, yoga pants, and shearling-lined L.L. Bean slippers. Her