Chapter 19
Before Mary left for work the next morning, she ran to the drugstore across the street for a pregnancy test. To try to detract attention from it, she threw a bunch of items she didn’t need into her basket. Still, the cashier, a woman she figured to be in her seventies, rang up the test while making eye contact with her. “Are you hoping for positive or negative?” she asked.
“Definitely negative.” Mary returned home to pee on the stick, thinking that moment in Walgreens was the most humiliating in either of her lives. The three minutes she waited for the results were also the longest of either life, but her entire body relaxed when the results came back negative.
On her drive into work, she called Darbi again and left a second voicemail. “Call me back. I’m freaking out about the changes I might be causing in my real life.”
By the time she arrived at the office, she’d worked herself into a tizzy again, wondering what James’s and Liz’s lives would look like when she got back. At the worst, James would be a mailman like he was here, but what about Liz? What did her life look like? Mary had to know what Liz was doing in this life. She started to type her name in the search bar but then stopped, thinking about Darbi’s warning. Kimberly had already shown her videos of Liz, so what would looking her up now hurt? Nothing.
She finished typing Liz’s name and hit the return key. Pages of results came back about women named Liz Collins from all over the country. Mary narrowed the search by adding “ICNN reporter.” She leaned back in her chair and scrolled through the findings. Most were related to stories Liz had reported on for Channel 77 and of course the infamous day she’d walked away from her career.
Mary skimmed through the articles, going down several rabbit holes. Eventually she discovered that Liz had married a veterinarian, and they lived in Bolton, Massachusetts, which, oddly enough, was a neighboring town to Hudson, where Mary version 1 lived with Dean and Kendra. Mary closed her eyes, trying to imagine Liz living in a small town, doing ordinary things like grocery shopping. All she could picture was a camera crew following Liz through the aisles of Hannaford.
With a few more clicks of her mouse, she found a telephone number for Liz. She stared at it, hearing Darbi’s ominous words: Bad things will happen. On the other hand, she had interacted with James, and nothing bad had happened. She took a deep breath and picked up the receiver of her desk phone. Her finger trembled as she punched in Liz’s number.
“Hello,” a woman said.
The person had spoken only one word, but the singsong way she said it let Mary know her Liz Collins was on the other end of the line. The receiver felt slick in her sweaty hand. She had to remind herself she wasn’t talking to a celebrity. In this life, Liz had thrown away her career.
She cleared her throat. “My name is Mary Mulligan.” She paused, expecting Liz to recognize her name, but of course they had never met. “I’m a reporter at the Independent Cable News Network in Boston. Is this Liz Collins?”
“Every year, just like the groundhog coming out of his hole, someone from a local media outlet calls me. My answer is always the same: no.” Liz didn’t say it unkindly. In fact, she sounded as if she was on the verge of laughter. “Sorry to disappoint.”
Mary glanced out her door to the office diagonal from hers, where Liz used to sit. She could almost see young Liz, her hair tied in a ponytail, sitting at her desk typing a story. The vision made her nostalgic for the old days when the two worked side by side, and Mary ended long workdays by meeting Dean for dinner. “I don’t want to interview you. I just want to know what you’re doing today.”
“Now, why would you want to know that?” The tone and inflection matched that of Liz, America’s most trusted newscaster.
“I’m wondering if there’s life after the news.” Mary hadn’t planned to say that. The words had just spilled out, but that’s what she wanted to know, because she couldn’t imagine Liz being happy away from the anchor desk. Mary certainly hadn’t been.
Liz clicked her tongue. “Oh, honey. Mary, is it? Of course there is.”
“What do you do all day?”
Liz didn’t speak for a few seconds, but Mary heard the whirling of a fan in the background. “My husband and I live a quiet life with our horses. I make lopsided mugs, pitchers, and vases in a small pottery studio in the backyard, and I do a lot of jigsaw puzzles.”
“Do you have children?”
“No, it’s just us and the animals.”
Mary chewed on her lip. She’d had more than Liz. She’d had Kendra to look after, a daughter’s love, and that hadn’t been enough. What was wrong with her? “You must miss the news.”
“Not at all. I don’t even watch it. Working in the media and reporting on all the horrible things that happen, I’d started seeing only the bad in people. I’m much happier without it.”
Liz’s words triggered a memory of something Mary had said to Dean twenty-four years earlier, something she’d pushed from her thoughts and reshaped because it was easier to blame Dean for leaving her career than admitting that quitting was her decision: “Why do I want to spend the day reporting on tragedies when I can stay home with this little cherub.” She’d kissed Kendra’s cheek.
Mary closed her eyes. Even now in this second-chance career, she preferred covering stories like the Scooper Bowl, one-hundred-year-olds’ birthday parties, and hot dog–eating contests that represented American goodness.
In the hallway outside her office, the police scanner squawked.
“Are you still there?” Liz asked.
“You’re really happy?”
“Happy as a lark,” Liz said.
In the hallway, Carl called Mary’s name. “Hit-and-run in Wellesley. A girl on a bike. Let’s roll.”
Mary said goodbye to Liz and went to meet Carl, knowing she’d be depressed the rest of the day after covering a story about some heartless jerk who’d hit a little girl on a bike and driven off, leaving the poor kid injured or worse on the side of the road. Maybe Liz had a point, one that Mary had realized on her own long ago but then forgotten.