Mrs. Everything: A Novel by Jennifer Weiner

Author:Jennifer Weiner [Weiner, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

PART

  three

1974

Bethie

As her flight from Madrid touched down in Detroit, Bethie bet herself that it would take her mother less than five minutes to start yelling at her, and less than ten to start crying. She followed the shuffling crowd down the airplane’s narrow aisle and through the Jetway. When she stepped out into the airport, with Jo’s backpack on her back and her embroidered duffel bag slung over her shoulder, there was Sarah. She was dressed in a turquoise chenille suit and black pumps, with clip-on pearl earrings and a necklace that matched. Her hair looked freshly set and sprayed, and her face was as immobile as if someone had sprayed that, too. Bethie tucked her hair behind her ears. She hadn’t cut it since she’d left Detroit, and it hung down to the small of her back in shiny waves; her best feature, by far. She wore a loose-fitting peasant-style blouse with embroidery at the yoke; bell-bottom jeans; her old red cowboy boots, the pair that Jo had given her, now scuffed and creased and run down at the heels; and a battered brown felt hat that she’d picked up . . . in San Francisco? Barcelona? She couldn’t remember. It had belonged to some boy, some boy she’d met in some bar. She’d sat down beside him, plucked the hat off his head, put it on her own, and worn it all night. When she’d woken up in the morning, the boy was gone, and the hat was crushed under her pillow. She’d pulled it out, shaken it into shape, and worn it ever since.

Sarah pressed her lips together as she eyed Bethie. “Do you have any luggage?”

“Just this.” Bethie tugged the embroidered bag more securely over her shoulder. The bag had come from a street vendor in Cherripond, and it currently contained the sum of her possessions: a few pairs of jeans, a few shirts, underwear, and a bra. Her wallet, a comb and a toothbrush, the Swiss army knife that she always kept close, and, most important, two ounces of extremely good hash that she planned on selling to her former Detroit acquaintances.

Sarah scrutinized the bag. Bethie could follow the path of her thoughts, so she wasn’t surprised when her mother asked, “What are you wearing to the wedding?”

“I thought I’d pick something up at Hudson’s.”

Her mother gave a single nod. Her lips were so tightly pursed that they’d disappeared, leaving only a slit in their place. She walked stiffly along the fluorescent-lit corridor, with Bethie a few paces behind her. Bethie wondered if people who saw them even thought they were together, and if Sarah would want them to know. Probably not, she thought, as they pushed through the glass doors and out into the Michigan night.

Bethie breathed deeply, smelling dirt and grass and growing things, the essence of Midwestern spring. The essence of home. Barbara Simoneaux had always wanted to be a June bride, and she’d gotten her wish—her preferred month for the wedding,

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