The Magnolia Chronicles

by Kate Canterbary

  The Magnolia Chronicles

  Adventures in Modern Dating

  Kate Canterbary

  Vesper Press

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2019 by Kate Canterbary

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any forms, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.

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  Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner's trademark(s).

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  Editing provided by Julia Ganis of Julia Edits.

  Proofreading provided by Marla Esposito of Proofing Style.

  Cover design provided by Kari March of Kari March Designs.

  Cover photography provided by Regina Wamba of Regina Wamba Photography.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  An Excerpt from The Space Between

  An Excerpt from Preservation

  Excerpt from Necessary Restorations

  Also By Kate Canterbary

  Acknowledgments

  About Kate

  To all the women waiting for the world to evolve around them.

  Prologue

  "There's something I'd like to discuss with you, Magnolia Lynn."

  I watched my mother, waiting for some clue into the first-and-middle-name treatment. She reserved it for only three occasions:

  Big Trouble. Even at thirty-four years old, I was subject to my mother's expectations. These days, it took the form of forgetting to call one of my seventeen aunts on her birthday, leaving the house with any part of my underwear visible, or walking my dog after nine o'clock at night. Per my mother, it was the witching hour for rapists and serial killers.

  Big News. This often involved reporting on the health issues of people I barely knew. My Sunday School teacher's nephew was diagnosed with Lyme, our old neighbor—the one from the apartment building we'd lived in when I was an infant—lost his glass eye again, my uncle Carl's sister-in-law had a suspicious mole and she was going in for a procedure, my father's second cousin in Philadelphia was cutting back on red meat on account of the gout. That type of news.

  Big Asks. These were few and far between, due primarily to my mother keeping up with an I can do it all complex. That mindset made me sound like a mom-shaming monster but the truth was my mother asked for help once every leap year.

  She would've mentioned any news on the car ride from my parents' home in New Bedford to Providence, the location of our annual post-Christmas, pre-New-Year's spa day. She would've disciplined me then too. This was an ask, one she'd waited to drop on me until we were swaddled in plush robes and kicked back in a dimly lit Zen room with cucumber-scented water in hand.

  And it was a big ask. It had to be. There was no other reason for her to fixate on smoothing her robe and avoid my expectant gaze.

  "What's that, Diana Leonore?"

  She dragged the robe's belt between her fingers, repeatedly straightening it and rolling it into a cinnamon roll spiral. Still avoiding me. Then, "I've been thinking about my New Year's resolutions. Have you given any consideration into your resolutions?"

  It was a good thing she was obsessed with her robe because I couldn't have repressed my eyeroll for anything.

  I loved my mother. I did. If I didn't have a fond, affectionate, accepting spot in my soul for my mother and all her quirks, I wouldn't put up with her criticism of exposed bra straps and post-sunset dog walking. I'd skip all the girls' days spent at spas, nail salons, and Boston-area malls too. But I loved my mother and I accepted these gestures as her unique way of returning that love.

  However.

  I didn't love my mother's lifelong self-improvement quest. Perhaps it wasn't lifelong to her but she'd openly expressed dissatisfaction with her body all of my life. To twist and tangle matters even more, my mother and I had the same bodies. Exact same, right down to the one eyebrow forever intent on colonizing the hairless gulf between brows.

  Five foot six inches, dark chestnut hair with wonky, inconsistent waves, honey-hazel eyes, bodies straight out of a Botticelli painting. No amount of Pilates, low-carb dieting, or celery juice could banish our soft, round bellies or thick hips. They were part of us just like our button noses and plump, pale lips, and we couldn't hate them away.

  We were generous.

  We were handfuls.

  We were full-figured.

  And I was all right with that. It took me years—years—to realize it, but my body was strong and capable. This body was the only one I had to see me through this life and it was the right one for me.

  My mother wasn't there yet. In all fairness, she'd also brought three babies into the world—at the same time. She'd carried me and my brothers all the way to thirty-six weeks and then we'd weighed in between four-and-a-half and six pounds each. That was no small feat and for that, I indulged her assortment of health kicks. I went along with her, if for no other reason than to remind her she was so much stronger and more capable than she gave herself credit for. Even if I rolled my eyes about it sometimes.

  "I haven't thought about resolutions, no," I replied. "I take it you have some ideas."

  "One or two," she murmured. "Nothing too wild."

  I reached for the glass of water seated on the table beside me. "Since we're chatting," I started, pausing for a sip, "why don't you share them with me?"

  She shifted in her chair, tucked the robe between her knees. Modesty, very important to my mother. It made no sense that she loved massages where she laid on a table, fully nude, while a stranger rubbed out her knots. But no one ever said mothers had to make sense.

  "Please listen to what I have to say before you get defensive."

  Okay. So, this is a really big ask.

  I made a cross over my heart. "I will try my best."

  My mother drew in a breath, held it a moment, and took my hand in hers. "It's been months since things ended with Peter and—"

  "Oh my god," I murmured.

  "—and years since the unpleasantness with that other boy. I won't say his name because my blood pressure can't handle it but—"

  "Oh my god."

  "—it's time for you to make yourself a priority, Mag."

  "Right, because I never do that." I gestured to the Zen room, the robes. "Never ever."

  "
Stop it," she chided. "You know what I mean. You work at your business, you work at your friendships, and you work at giving your dog a life of extraordinary comfort."

  "Being the best dog mom is my most important job," I replied.

  After a decade-long sigh, she continued, "I want you to commit to caring for yourself this year. I know you've had a difficult run with boys but I want you to give it a real shot this time."

  "What do you mean, a real shot?" I sputtered. "I have given it real shots. Lots of shots. So many shots." I channeled my frustration into shaking my head hard enough to make myself dizzy. "I've put myself out there, Mom."

  "You have," she said, a bucket of hesitance in her voice. "But—and don't bite my head off here—I don't think you were trying."

  Everything I'd said about tolerating her extra-strength mothering was a lie and I wanted those statements struck from the record.

  Not trying.

  Not trying.

  Was she fucking kidding me?

  For fuck's sake, not trying?

  "I doubt you see it that way," she said carefully.

  I hit her with an uh, you think so? glare.

  "And that's because you're not seeing it from my perspective, Mag. You aren't seeing yourself the way I do—beautiful, smart, amazing—and you aren't choosing men who see that either. You are choosing men who walk all over your kindness and abuse your generous spirit and treat you like you're disposable. Like a damn plastic straw." She wagged a finger at me.

  Oh, great. Now it's the Big Ask and some Big Trouble. "Mom—"

  "No," she shot back. "You are not a plastic straw, my girl. You're compostable."

  I laughed before the tears started pouring down my face. That was the proper order of operations. If I didn't lead with laughter, I'd drown in my weak, tender spots. I knew this because I'd drowned there before.

  "Compostable?" I asked, sniffling. "Like eggshells and apple cores?"

  "Don't start with the eggshells," she replied. "You're no eggshell. You're tough like potato peels and artichoke leaves."

  I thumbed open my imaginary notebook, pulled an imaginary pencil from behind my ear. "December twenty-eighth, the day my mother referred to me as a potato peel."

  "So dramatic," she murmured.

  "Please. Ash is the dramatic one."

  "Your brother is moody," she argued. "Ash is temperamental, Linden is introverted, and you are, on occasion, dramatic."

  Yes, my brothers and I were named after trees. I got off easy with Lynn as my middle name in honor of my great-grandmother but Ash Indigo and Linden Wolf got screwed. That was how it went with hippie parents.

  They'd missed out on the Summer of Love but that hadn't stopped my parents from living the hippie life. They'd had the VW van, the long hair, the peace, the love, and the weed. And then they'd found three heartbeats.

  I didn't know the precise sequence of events that followed but I knew my father cut his hair, took a job as a mail clerk, and started night school a few months before we were born. My mother had stayed home with us when we were babies before Mrs. Santillian became everyone's favorite substitute teacher in the New Bedford Public School district.

  But they never abandoned their hippie lives, not all the way. They'd championed organic farming long before it was a widespread practice and when we'd moved from an apartment to a single family home, they commandeered the entire backyard for that purpose. My dad was an accountant now and—rather unbelievably—enjoyed the shit out of the tax code. And he still drove the VW van.

  My mother tapped my wrist. "I've known each of you since the first time I saw your little faces on the sonogram. I knew who you were."

  The fourteen-year-old version of me wanted to argue with this because how could she possibly know me before I knew myself? The thirty-four-year-old version knew how to pick battles.

  "What do you propose I do with my dramatic potato peel self, Mother?"

  She took a sip of her water, then another. Oh, this was going to be good. No other reason to stall for an entire minute. I glanced at the clock. I hadn't paid attention to the day's spa service itinerary, but I was certain we were due to start with some seaweed masks or pumpkin baths or salt rubs by now.

  But I wouldn't put it past my mother to book an hour in the Zen room specifically for this conversation.

  "I want you to let me set you up on some online dating sites," she said. "I'll pick out the photos and write the little descriptions, and I'll help you screen the matches." She tipped her head to the side. "I'll screen all of them if you'd like, but I figured you'd want a hand in this."

  "Oh, I'll help," I replied. "I don't want to subject you to all those penises because there are going to be penises, Mom."

  "Pfft." She waved a hand at me. "I've seen plenty of penises, thank you. I married a man, and I raised two sons. For years, I couldn't go a day without seeing at least two penises. Years, Magnolia. I doubt you remember it but your brothers would just whip those things out. It didn't matter if we were at the park or in the middle of the grocery store or Sunday mass." She made an exasperated sound, shook her head. "Penises are nothing new to me."

  I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. "I—oh, god—I don't want to put all of these things in the same category. Brother penis doesn't live in the same world as date penis. Separate and distinct categories, please."

  "Whatever you want," she replied.

  "Then—wait." I peered at her. "You want my New Year's resolution to be giving you control of my online dating profiles? That sounds like a project for you and a punishment for me."

  "It is not a punishment," she argued. "But no, that is not the resolution I have in mind for you." She ran the belt through her fingers again. "This year, I want you to commit to finding someone who sees you the way I do—beautiful, smart, amazing."

  "And compostable," I added.

  "Compost is magic, Mag." A thin frown pulled her lips down. "Promise me you'll try."

  "You just want to plan a wedding and start shopping for baby baptism gowns."

  I didn’t want to admit it to her or even myself but after attending twenty-two weddings over the past six years, I’d socked away enough plans of my own. I knew I wanted a beachy summer wedding on the southeast coast of Massachusetts and I had some ideas about ornamental cabbage centerpieces.

  She lifted her shoulders. "That's a fringe benefit," she admitted. "Your happiness is the goal."

  "And I'm finding happiness in a man? That's what you're telling me?"

  Another shrug. "The happiness won't come from a man."

  "No?" I challenged. "Then where is it coming from in this experiment?"

  My mother grinned. It was the same grin she used when insisting she knew us as fetuses. She was right about that, about us. Ash's moods were volatile, Linden couldn't be more introverted if he tried, and I had a dramatic moment or two.

  "You'll find out, my girl. You'll know."

  I wished I shared my mother's confidence.

  Chapter One

  My date was picking his teeth with a steak knife.

  It wasn't a quick thing either. No in, out, done. He was halfway to giving himself a root canal right here in the middle of the restaurant.

  The best part was when he struck gold and dug out a bit of food. He'd give it a thorough inspection and then pop it back in his mouth. Maybe I was wrong about it being the best part. None of this could qualify as the best of anything. I didn't know how it could qualify as the best when it seemed like increasingly dark shades of awful. The dating world knew no connection to logic. This had to be the worst part.

  He'd ordered the largest steak on the menu and requested it "blue and mooing." There was something about the purposeful wink he'd shot in my direction as he'd said those words, as if his capacity for red meat was somehow indicative of his penis size.

  But I couldn't get past the dental exam.

  I watched, my fingers frozen around the stem of my wineglass, while he engaged in this ritual for full minutes at a
time.

  My first instinct was to drown the flames of this date with Pinot Grigio, but I was oddly entranced by this guy's knife-swallowing act. I didn't want to be caught unaware when he sliced off a chunk of his tongue.

  In the two months since diving headfirst into the dating game, I'd learned one thing: it shouldn't be this difficult. The human race had millions of years of existence on its side, and it wasn't supposed to be so complicated to find a decent guy. That was all I wanted: a decent guy. I didn't need a prince, a white knight, a billionaire, an athlete, or even an architect.

  Another thing I'd learned: I wasn't asking for much. I wanted a guy who knew how to wear a pair of jeans and fix a leaky faucet and enjoyed big family dinners on Sundays. I wanted a guy who returned text messages and remembered birthdays and never made shady comments about his exes being crazy clingers. He didn't have to be perfect. He could leave his dirty socks and underwear right next to the laundry hamper and keep porn on his computer. Hell, I loved porn and didn't even own a proper hamper.

  And another lesson: I was convinced I'd met all the men metro Boston had to offer. There was the wandering millennials, the affluent assholes, the man-shaped children, the chronically misogynistic mansplainers. I wasn't positive where the knife swallower fit in this phylum but I knew these savage teeth-cleaning rituals met the criteria for automatic disqualification.