Page 8 of The Husband Hour
“Journalism. The last time we spoke, you were really into it.”
Vague recollections of a long-ago conversation. “Oh. Right. No, not anymore.” She hated talking about herself. Deflect, deflect. “Weren’t you into journalism too?”
He nodded. “I love reporting. But no money in it. Screenwriting—that’s where it’s at.”
She smiled politely. “Well, nice to see you. I should get going.”
“Oh, yeah, sure. But, listen, I’m here for the summer. We should hang out some time.”
“I don’t hang out,” she said.
She knew it sounded harsh, bitchy, cold. But it was better to just be up-front about it. She didn’t date, would never date. And she didn’t need a new friend. It would take all of her energy just to tolerate her family.
They say a mother is only as happy as her most unhappy child.
That explained why Beth hadn’t felt any real joy in years. Both of her daughters were miserable.
“I left messages for Lauren and Stephanie asking what they wanted for dinner, and neither of them have gotten back to me,” she said to her husband as she poured Worcestershire sauce into a bowl to start her marinade.
“Hon, they’re grown women. Why don’t you and I go out to eat and they can fend for themselves?”
Was he serious?
She set the bottle down. “The point of being here is to spend time together as a family.”
“Well, maybe Lauren and Stephanie don’t share your enthusiasm for that. You’re pushing too hard about living here for the summer.”
She pressed her fingers to her temples. “I want one last summer here before we have to sell the house. Is that so much to ask?”
He sighed.
She unwrapped the flank steak.
“This isn’t just for me, Howard. Ethan should be surrounded by family. He just lost the only father figure he ever had.”
“That schmuck wasn’t a father.”
“You know what I mean. And Lauren has been out here alone long enough.”
“I certainly agree with that,” Howard said, looking out at the beach. “Have you told her about selling the house?”
“I haven’t found the right time.”
“What’s the right time? It’s your house, Beth.”
“And the house in Philly was our house, and you just lost that! So don’t lecture me.”
They’d lived in the old stone house in the suburbs of Philadelphia since before Stephanie was born. Beth had been sure they would live there for the rest of their lives, that her grandchildren would run around the same yard that the girls had grown up playing in.
She still shuddered thinking about the day, only weeks ago, that he’d confessed. I took out a second mortgage… Last-ditch attempt to save the business…
The business.
Howard ran Adelman’s Apparel, a store his grandfather had started as a hat shop in 1932. Saul Adelman had the foresight to lease a space in the shadow of the famous Wanamaker’s department store, a retail behemoth that attracted visitors from all over the country. But while throngs of people went to Wanamaker’s to see the world’s largest fully functional pipe organ or the twenty-five-hundred-pound bronze eagle in the Grand Court, many seemed to prefer a more intimate experience for shopping. That’s where Adelman’s came in, with Howard’s mother, Deborah, acting as a personal shopper long before there was any concept of such a thing. From the 1950s through the 1970s, it was unthinkable for a well-to-do young woman in Philadelphia to go anywhere other than Adelman’s for her trousseau.
But the world changed. Retail changed. Wanamaker’s closed its doors after a hundred and twenty years. The trend toward casual dressing edged Adelman’s out of its comfort zone, and eventually it became impossible for the store to compete with the national chains.
Beth had known it was bad. She just hadn’t known how bad until they’d lost their home.
