She arrived in a camel coat and the pearls and sat across from me in a cracked red vinyl booth and ordered a grilled cheese and a cup of tomato soup, and when it came she ate it with a knife and fork, and I tried not to smile.
"I want to tell you something," she said, "that I have not told Margot. And I'd prefer you didn't either, at least for now."
"All right."
"My father ran a dry cleaner in Parma. Kowalczyk's. I grew up in the apartment above it." She folded her napkin into a perfect square. "Every day after school I worked the counter. I learned what a good suit was by pressing the suits of men who'd never look at me. And when I went to Smith on a scholarship, I learned the rest. I learned the forks. I learned the pearls. I changed my name when I married, and I was so grateful to have a name that didn't need spelling." She looked at the square of napkin. "I've spent forty years making sure nobody could tell. So when I saw you walk in, in that jacket—I knew exactly what I was looking at, Wesley. I just didn't want to."
I didn't say anything for a while. The waitress refilled our coffee.
"Margot's a lot like you, then," I said.
"I'm afraid she may be." Philippa almost smiled. "I'd hoped Peter would marry someone who didn't have to work so hard at it. And instead he found someone exactly like his mother, and I haven't made it one bit easier for her." She set the napkin down. "I'm not very good at apologies. I was raised to believe you didn't make them, you just did better. So I'm going to try to do better."
"That'll do," I said.
She paid the check before I could stop her, and left a tip so large the waitress followed her to the door to make sure it wasn't a mistake.
XI
Margot called the first Saturday in December and asked if I was free. She didn't say for what. She picked me up in her little Honda and drove west on Lorain, and when she put on her blinker in front of the St. Vincent de Paul, I looked at her.
"Don't," she said. "Don't say anything yet."
Inside it smelled the way those places always smell, of dust and detergent and other people's closets. There was Christmas music on a radio behind the register. Margot walked straight back to the men's section like she'd scouted it, and she started going through the rack of suits, one hanger at a time, checking labels, holding sleeves up to the light.
"Peter's mom offered to take you to her tailor," she said, not looking at me. "For the wedding. She was very nice about it. I told her no."