Maggie Bean Stays Afloat

by Tricia Rayburn

  21.

  “I’m late!” Maggie threw open the front door, grabbed the stuffed lion, elephant, bear, flower, hedgehog, and spider she’d dropped on the stoop to free her hands, and kicked the door shut. “I’m so late, but I’m here now and will be ready to go in five minutes.”

  “Maggie—”

  “I know!” Holding the Danger Nation carnival game prizes in front of her face to avoid eye contact with her mom, she sprinted through the living room and down the hall to her room. “Five minutes, I promise!”

  She deposited Ben’s winnings on her bed and flew to her closet. As she riffled through her clothes, she quickly dismissed every skirt and dress as too boring and plain, and chided herself for not planning ahead. Tonight was a big deal. While she was screaming on roller coasters, watching Ben and Jason compete at ring toss and other manly games and having one of the best days of her life, her parents had completed all the paperwork and everything needed to make the small white ranch house their new home. To celebrate, they were having a family dinner at Nora’s, the nicest restaurant in town, and then going to Home Depot for a paintshopping extravaganza. A few weeks ago, when she wasn’t so busy, Maggie would’ve carefully considered and chosen her outfit days in advance.

  When nothing seemed quite right, Maggie stopped riffling, sighed, and stared at the contents of her closet. Knowing her five minutes were dwindling, she reached for a pair of white pants; as she pulled them from a hanger, a heavy bundle of gray cotton tumbled from the top shelf and fell to the floor.

  Maggie eyed the hooded sweatshirt warily. Once upon a time, as the biggest top she’d owned and the easiest to hide in, it had been her favorite wardrobe piece. Seeing it now made her stomach turn, so she kicked it back in the closet, onto a pile of old sneakers and slippers. Her decision suddenly made, she rehung the white pants and grabbed the sleeveless orange dress from Stella’s that hung from the top of the closet door. She hadn’t worn it since the night she bought it (though she’d spent at least a few minutes each morning and night staring at it and smiling), and had wondered if she’d ever wear it again, since no occasion seemed quite appropriate. She didn’t know if a family celebration quite qualified as appropriate, but then, who was to say it didn’t?

  She quickly shed her shorts and T-shirt and pulled the orange dress over her head. She brushed her hair, put on lip gloss, and finished the entire look with silver flop-flops. Ready to go, she glanced at her dresser mirror to confirm everything was where it should be, and headed for the door.

  And then went back to the mirror.

  In a “Which of these doesn’t belong?” moment, she’d spotted something green, square, and familiar in the mirror’s reflection. She leaned toward the mirror for a closer inspection, then turned to the bed.

  Maggie pushed aside the mountain of stuffed animals to reveal Arnie’s green laptop bag. Inside was his prized MacBook that he never went anywhere without, and a note.

  Since you weren’t at the meeting today and since I haven’t heard from you much lately, I thought I’d make things easier for you. Your slideshow is ready to go, except for captions. Please fill them in so I can post everything to the site. If you changed your mind about the slideshow, or if you don’t feel like writing captions, let me know. Also, if you changed your mind about participating in Patrol This in general, let me know that, too. Talk soon.

  Frowning, Maggie read the note a second, and then a third time. She’d e-mailed Arnie that morning to say something had come up and that she couldn’t make the meeting. She hadn’t assumed missing one meeting would make it seem like she wanted out entirely, which meant she must’ve seemed really out of it in recent weeks.

  But like most things these days, she didn’t have time to worry about that now. She shoved the note back in the bag, zipped the bag, and hurried from the room.

  “I’m ready!” Maggie announced brightly, entering the living room. “And starving. Bring on Nora’s famous chicken parmigiana and—”

  “Maggie.”

  Maggie turned to her mom, who was sitting on the couch with one arm around Summer.

  “Wow,” Summer said, her eyes traveling from above Maggie’s knees to her shoulders.

  “Is that new?” Her mom asked, trying not to sound surprised—or alarmed, it was hard to tell which. “The dress?”

  “Maggie,” her dad said before she could respond, apparently wanting to keep everyone focused. “You knew we had plans to—”

  “I’m late, I know. I’m never late, and today was definitely the wrong day to start. It won’t happen again.”

  Her mother looked at her father, who was sitting in an armchair. Summer looked down at her hands in her lap.

  “I’m not that late,” Maggie said meekly.

  “Maggie,” her father said gently. “There’s been a change of plans.”

  “What do you mean? Are we going to Applebee’s instead of Nora’s?” It might not have been the best time to attempt a joke, but they all looked so serious, she couldn’t help it.

  “Why don’t you sit?” Her mother patted the couch.

  Maggie sat, growing concern replacing the guilt she felt for being late.

  “You know we were supposed to finish up the house paperwork today.” Her dad leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands.

  “Supposed to,” Maggie repeated. “Was there a scheduling conflict? Are we postponing the celebration until next week?”

  “We’re definitely postponing.” Her mother sighed.

  “So, that’s okay,” Maggie said brightly. “What’s another couple of days after waiting so long?”

  “Well, it might be more than a few days,” her dad admitted.

  “It’s hard to tell just how long it will be,” her mother added.

  “No problem. That’ll just give us more time to decide how to make the little white ranch an interior designer’s dream.”

  “The thing is, Maggie…” Her mother’s voice trailed off.

  “Our mortgage fell through,” her dad finished.

  “Oh.” Maggie paused. “What does that mean, exactly?”

  “It means the bank won’t loan us the money we need to buy the house.”

  “But I thought it was affordable. I thought that wasn’t a question.”

  “We didn’t think it was either,” her mom said. “But there are so many little loopholes and ways for these things to not work out.”

  Maggie shook her head. She hadn’t seen them much lately, but she knew her family had been floating on air since they’d looked at the little white ranch. Every time she passed by Summer’s room she spotted a new cardboard box filled to the brim, and the dining room table, living room coffee table, kitchen counter, and any available flat surface were covered in her parents’ lists and notes about movers, painters, and landscapers. Every sign had indicated that this was a done deal. “Isn’t there any way we change the bank’s mind?”

  “The only way is to take out a smaller loan,” her mother said.

  “And the only way we can take out a smaller loan is if we put down a bigger cash deposit on the house,” her dad explained.

  “So let’s do that,” Maggie said simply.

  “We don’t have the money, sweetie.” Her mother frowned.

  “Well, why don’t we just wait a little while until we can save enough money?” Maggie asked logically. Surely this wasn’t the big deal they were making it out to be.

  “We can try to save more money,” her dad said, “and we will. But by the time we save what we need, the little white ranch will be gone.”

  “It’s a great price, and someone else will buy it immediately.”

  “Some other little girl is going to live in my room,” Summer said sadly.

  Maggie sat back on the couch, trying to process this information.

  “We’ve talked to everyone there is to talk to about this,” her dad said. “We’ve explored all of our options and imagined every possible financial scenario.”


  “It just wasn’t meant to be,” her mother concluded.

  “And we’re so sorry,” her dad added. “We know how excited you and Summer were, and we hate letting you down.”

  Maggie stared at the hem of her orange dress as one emotion led to the next—confusion, disbelief, disappointment, sadness and, eventually, annoyance. Suddenly unable to sit there one second longer, she jumped up from the couch.

  “Maggie?” Her mother’s voice was concerned.

  “I have to go.” Ignoring her parents’ surprised looks, she ran to her room, closed the door, and flopped next to the pile of stuffed animals still on her bed.

  She knew it wasn’t her parents’ fault. It probably wasn’t even the bank’s fault, since there were most likely certain rules that had to be followed, and whoever had turned them down was just doing his or her job. Still, that didn’t make it fair. And she was pretty tired of things never working out for her the way they always seemed to for other people.

  She grabbed the cordless phone from her nightstand. Holding one finger above the number pad, she paused only briefly before dialing Ben’s cell phone number. Since they saw each other almost every day, she didn’t use it much, but had memorized it about two minutes after he gave it to her.

  “Ben?” She strained to hear his voice through static and what sounded like a lot of people talking and laughing. “It’s Maggie.”

  “Hang on, Madge.”

  She stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling and listened to the background noise grow quieter.

  “Sorry about that. I’m in a different room now.”

  “No problem. Where are you?”

  “Polly’s house. She decided to have everyone over for movies and snacks. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” she said, feeling a combination of jealous and silly for calling as she pictured everyone having fun without her. “I just wanted to say hi.”

  “Hi. Why aren’t you with the fam? Isn’t tonight the big celebration?”

  “It kind of got postponed.” Maggie’s eyes filled unexpectedly with tears. “The deal fell through.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yeah.” She opened her mouth to elaborate, but nothing came out.

  “So …” He paused. “You’re okay, right?”

  “Yup.” She wiped her eyes with a stuffed elephant. “Just wanted to say hi.”

  “Okay. Hi,” he said again. “Well, I should probably get back to the gang.”

  “Right.” She sniffed. “Have fun.”

  “You too. See you Monday.”

  She hung up and rested the phone on her chest. You too? Had he even heard what she said? True, he didn’t know her family’s history, so there was no way he could really know just how big a deal this was, but at the very least, he knew she’d been excited. He knew this was important to her.

  She picked up the phone again and started punching the phone number she’d dialed a million times over the past few years. When she was about to hit the seventh number, she stopped. Aimee would know what was up as soon as Maggie said hello, but for whatever reason, they still weren’t speaking. Hanging up, she quickly ruled out calling Arnie since his MacBook in her room was a clear indication that he probably wouldn’t be up for chatting.

  With no one else to call and nowhere to go, Maggie brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around the stuffed lion, elephant, bear, flower, hedgehog, and spider. As she pulled the comforter over her head and waited for sleep to come, for the first time in a very long time, she found herself thinking of chocolate.

  22.

  “Wow.” Polly circled Maggie, inspecting her appearance from head to toe and picking off imaginary pieces of lint. “Stunning. You have to have it.”

  Maggie had thought the short black dress with white stripes and sequined hem would make her look like a very trendy, chubby prisoner, but the longer she looked in the full-length mirror, the more it grew on her.

  “The v-neck is amazing with your haircut.”

  “Thanks.” Maggie smiled. Her new chin-length bob and fringy bangs—which she’d just had done an hour before—did make her neck look longer and thinner. “But do I really need it?”

  Polly eyed the mountain of pants, skirts, shorts, shirts, and shoes on top of the zebra-patterned ottoman. “Why stop now?”

  “Good point.” She ducked back in the dressing room and pulled the magenta satin curtain shut.

  “I’m so glad you decided to do this,” Polly called through the curtain.

  “Me too.” As Maggie changed back into her jeans and tank top, she thought about just how true that was. The idea had hit her unexpectedly the day before. She’d been lying in bed, doing her best to avoid any familial interaction (just as she had since the announcement about the mortgage), and had just swapped Ethan Frome for InStyle. Flipping through the fashion magazine, she’d felt the subtle jealous pangs she usually felt when looking at perfect models and celebrities with perfect bodies, clothes, and hair, and immediately had decided a completely new look was just what she needed. The next day she asked Polly if she’d be up for a shopping spree, and there they were, less than twenty-four hours later.

  “Maggie, by the way, what’s the deal with the computer?”

  “What computer?”

  “The one you’ve been carrying around all day?”

  Maggie thought quickly. She’d brought Arnie’s MacBook with her just in case she didn’t have time to go home before the Patrol This meeting later that afternoon, and hoped if Polly noticed she would just think it was a new, cool messenger bag. Because why else would she be toting around a laptop while shopping in the middle of a summer afternoon?

  “It’s a friend’s,” she said finally, opening the curtain and smiling. “All set.”

  “You’re taking everything?” Polly peeked past her at the empty dressing room.

  “Why not?”

  “You’re my hero.”

  Maggie grabbed the laptop bag from the floor by the ottoman, slung it across her shoulder, and followed Polly to the register. They deposited two piles of clothes next to the two already sitting on the counter. As the saleswoman rang up each item, Polly tried on sunglasses and Maggie watched the green number grow on the register screen.

  “Six hundred seventy-three dollars and forty-five cents.”

  Maggie swallowed. She wanted to look like she did this kind of thing all the time, but of course, she’d never done anything like this—ever. The most expensive thing she’d ever bought (before the sleeveless orange dress) was a pair of Banana Republic jeans, which had cost ninety-eight dollars, and which had prevented her from buying anything else for three months. On top of which, it wasn’t like she or her family had the kind of money for such extravagant shopping sprees; in fact, she was pretty sure her mother didn’t spend that much money outfitting all four of them in an entire year.

  But after losing the little white ranch house, she was really tired of worrying about money. And about being good, and responsible, and doing the right thing. Quickly deciding that she was only allowing herself a few minutes of the kind of selfishness every other teenager in America felt entitled to on a daily basis, she calmly opened her purse, took out her wallet, and handed the saleswoman a credit card.

  “Parents are the best,” Polly said generously.

  “Definitely.” Except that this was her emergency-only credit card, which she would need again once her parents saw the bill and she was forced to flee the country.

  She signed the receipt, took the shiny magenta bags, and felt guiltier than she had in her entire life as they left the store. Fortunately, Ben and Jason waited for them on a bench outside; seeing Ben smile always made it easy to forget everything else and think only of Ben.

  “New York City,” Jason announced as they neared the bench.

  “San Francisco,” Polly shot back.

  “Next weekend,” Jason said. “We’ll get a ton of people to go.”

  “New York’s three hours away,” Maggie said, a
s though that were the only reason the idea was completely ridiculous.

  “By car. Forty minutes by plane.” Ben grinned.

  “My dad has a great loft downtown. If I tell him we’re coming, he’ll make sure the place is stocked and he’ll leave money for cabs. All we have to do is pay for the flight and we’re set for forty-eight hours of nonstop urban adventure.”

  “I can’t really swing a flight.” Glowing green numbers flashed through Maggie’s head.

  “I’ll charge them,” Jason said simply. “You all can pay me back whenever.”

  Suddenly forgetting whether the saleswoman had given back her credit card, Maggie dropped the laptop and shopping bags. She rummaged through her purse for her wallet. “Be right back.” She walked away without looking up.

  The saleswoman was busy helping a group of girls when Maggie reentered the store. She waited near the register, tapping her fingers on the counter and resisting the urge to climb over it and search. When the saleswoman disappeared in the back to retrieve different sizes of gold high-heeled sandals for the girls, Maggie flipped through the guest book, looked at the store catalog, and considered trying on more clothes (even though she was pretty sure there wasn’t anything there she hadn’t already tried on) to kill time.

  “Can I help you?” the saleswoman finally asked, twenty minutes later.

  Nearly dropping the handful of lip-gloss tubes she’d been counting, Maggie turned to the saleswoman. “I think I left my credit card.” She shoved the lip gloss tubes back into their plastic display case.

  “You did.” The saleswoman opened the register, pulled out Maggie’s card, and handed it to her. “These aren’t toys, you know.”

  “I know,” Maggie said sheepishly. She took the card and put it in her wallet. “Sorry. Thank you.”

  “Our return policy is thirty days with your receipt for a full refund, store credit after that.”

  Maggie looked down and nodded. She had a few weeks before her parents found out about this—she’d have to practice being a more convincing charger before then.

  Reminding herself it would all be worth it once the old, boring clothes in her closet were replaced by her new, trendy purchases, Maggie hurried from the store. The closet reminder was so effective, she almost didn’t think anything of seeing Ben, Jason, and Polly huddled around a glowing laptop screen as she neared the bench.