Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman Page B

looked at her. No lies ever bothered her. With deliberateness I said, “Bernice and I have only known each other since September.”
    Ted continued to smile as if he hadn’t heard me.
    “I have no say in her decisions,” I said, taking my hand back.
    “Your mother seems to think you do.”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “You’re a pretty girl.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You’re even prettier when you smile.” He heh-heh’d in Dwight’s direction. Dwight heh-heh’d back, deadpan.
    “I told him you were a sourpuss,” Bernice explained.
    “You’re the image of her,” said Ted.
    “Around the eyes, maybe,” I said.
    “So what do you think? Could you stand having a stepfather around the house?”
    I looked quickly at Bernice, who returned a maternal stare that said, Speak when spoken to, April.
    “You know I have my own apartment in Quincy?”
    Ted smiled determinedly at Bernice: I’m doing my best; let me try again.
    “Bernice told you the whole story, right?”
    Ted said very solemnly, “Yes, she did, April.”
    “So you know that her getting married wouldn’t change much, for me?”
    “I know that’s how you see it.”
    I looked at her quizzically: I’m trying to humor him, but you’re making this difficult. Help me out. I don’t want to say the wrong thing.
    “She can be maddening,” Bernice said to Ted.
    “I’m a little confused,” I said.
    “I did tell him about our history,” said Bernice.
    “I’d like to know what she told you,” I said.
    Ted put down the roll he was breaking, and dusted his fingers on his napkin. I waited. “Bernice said, ‘April is angry over certain things in her childhood. She’s rebelling against me.’ She said you weren’t acknowledging her as your mother.” He glanced at Bernice, who looked as pleased as ever.
    I saw the problem. Bernice had prepared him with a nicely ambiguous psychological profile of me, leaving out the salient details about my birth and adoption. Ted had assumed—and why not?—that my rebelliousness took the form of claiming some dead couple, imaginary or idealized, as my real parents. And now Ted, who had probablyread a book on step-parenting in preparation for tonight, was trying to make things right. I sighed as if caught in the act of abusing my long-suffering mother. O-kay. You’ve got me. She’s right. I’m a terrible person. I smiled a weak smile, which Ted took for an apology.
    “Let’s change the subject!” Bernice said brightly.
    Dwight coughed into his fist and raised his eyebrows at me.
    “Let’s have champagne!” said Ted. He telegraphed his order to a waiter without actually speaking and without asking the price. He was happy now; he wanted to hear about me, about school, about his future stepdaughter.
    “I teach Latin in Quincy. I’ve been there fourteen years.”
    “Your mother’s very proud of that fact. I used to think it was only Catholic priests who knew Latin.”
    I said, no, there were a few of us everywhere.
    “Well, I think it’s just great to have a specialty that’s not a dime a dozen,” said Ted. He smiled broadly. We all did.
    “What about you, Dwight?” Bernice said.
    Dwight pushed his glasses up with his index finger. “I’m the librarian at April’s school,” he said.
    “That’s fascinating,” she said.
    Dwight laughed.
    “It’s not?”
    “Most people don’t have that reaction. Most don’t know what to say after I’ve said, ‘I’m a librarian.’”
    “Most people are jerks,” said Bernice. “I’ve always greatly admired librarians. I think they’re unsung heroes, and I’ve never met one who wasn’t keenly intelligent.”
    “Thank you,” said Dwight.
    “Maybe you could do a show on librarians,” I said. “They could talk about their jobs, and about their filing systems, and since they’re all keenly intelligent, it should be fascinating.”
    Bernice smiled sourly. She touched Dwight’s hand to signal they should ignore me, back up their conversation to the point