Maggie Sweet

by Judith Minthorn Stacy

  Chapter 14

  Monday morning, I drove out to his old home place. I don’t remember the drive; it was like a dream. But I couldn’t not go anymore than I couldn’t not breathe. I didn’t think about the cost or how long it would last. It didn’t matter. Deep down inside, I knew it was my last chance forever.

  I hadn’t told him I was coming, but he met me in the yard.

  He just looked at me; nobody had ever looked at me like that before. Then he took my hand and we went inside.

  There are no words. Music comes the closest thing to what it was like to make love after all those years. But to say that making love with Jerry was like “Unchained Melody” or “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” isn’t enough. To say there were times when I didn’t know where he left off and I began, that I was him and he was me, comes close.

  Afterward he held me. “Where’ve we been all these years?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I remember we broke up. You moved away….”

  “Daddy came for me graduation day. He’d signed me up for school in Chapel Hill. I had to go. I had an hour to get ready; that’s when I called you.”

  “I didn’t know. I didn’t get your letter ’til September. By then it was too late. I was in too deep,” he said.

  I’d forgotten about the letter I’d written from Daddy’s that summer—a letter full of longing and empty pride.

  “Someone forwarded it to me in Jacksonville but it was weeks before it caught up with me,” he went on. “All that summer, all I could think about was getting over you. I bought a motorcycle, did some drinking, the whole James Dean bit. You always saw through my hood act, but Brenda believed it. Next thing I knew she was pregnant; we were married. I thought it was the right thing to do. But how could it be right when we didn’t even know each other?”

  “You raised your son,” I said.

  “Yeah. Trey was the one good thing that came out of it. But I stayed too long…like I had this spare life to throw away. I thought I could squander all those years and still have this other life waiting for me.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Can you understand? Does that make any sense?”

  I remembered back to when I met Steven. My heart was broken. He said he loved me. I thought it was enough. I thought he was grown up enough for both of us, that he knew the ways of the world. We married and nine months later the girls were born. And even after I knew I’d married a stranger, I still believed if I was good enough, tried hard enough, stayed with it long enough, sooner or later it would be enough.

  “You kept waiting around for your real life to begin,” I said.

  He propped himself on his elbow, gazed at me. “You know, don’t you?

  I nodded, reached for his hand. He’d said more in an hour than Steven had said in nineteen years. He looked me in the eye, let me finish my sentences, heard what I said, what I meant. After all our years together, Steven and I still didn’t know how each other’s minds worked. But Jerry and I were on the same wavelength.

  We lay there, holding on to each other, neither of us saying anything. Finally I said, “Do you think two eighteen-year-old kids could have been in love for real? That maybe they were each other’s real life?”

  “I know I loved you to pieces.”

  “And I thought you’d hung the moon.”

  I held on to him. It had been real. Over the years I’d started to wonder if I’d made it up. But we really had loved each other.

  Later, after we drank coffee, he took me on a tour of the house. It was smaller, gloomier than I remembered. “It’s dark as a cave in here, but I plan to change that. I want light, lots of light,” he said. “I might not even hang curtains.”

  I noticed paint cans stacked neatly in the corner. Cream and gold paint. The colors I’d wanted for my house. The same wavelength.

  When it was time to go, Jerry walked me to my car. “I won’t call you, Maggie. Today might just have been one of those things, something we needed to do to put ‘The End’ to Maggie and Jerry.”

  “Jerry, don’t—”

  He brushed my lips with his finger. “Hush. I mean it. I want you to think about it. My divorce will be final in June. It’s you that’ll be in a mess. You’re the one with everything to lose. If we don’t see each other like this again, just know that I loved you then, I love you now, I’ll always love you. Maybe that’s enough.”

  I touched his cheek. I’d come here out of awful longing. He’d given me back a part of myself that had been missing—I was him and he was me. It didn’t matter what anybody said or how messy it would get. I had to have him. I loved him blood and bone.

  Chapter 15

  Are you alone?”

  “You said you wouldn’t call.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s all right. I’m alone.”

  “I know. I drove by your house. The LTD was gone; only your old car was there.”

  “I miss you like crazy.”

  “No second thoughts?”

  “Sure. Second and third thoughts. And they all make me run slam out of breath.”

  “When can you get here?”

  “I’m leaving right now.”

  “Good. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  When I got there, he said, “Close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes and stood there while he turned on music and took me in his arms, waltzed me through the farmhouse to “A Rose and a Baby-Ruth.”

  “Do you remember?”

  “Our old song.”

  “I found it unpacking some boxes. Lord, Maggie, there were so many memories. I spent last night going through old photos, the prom, picnics at the pond…remember our first Christmas?”

  Like so many of my Jerry memories, I’d shoved that first Christmas so far back in my mind it seemed to have happened to another girl, another life. But now that Jerry was here, it was safe to remember.

  I held him close, followed his steps and thought back to the Christmas Eve we’d parked on a hillside on the outskirts of town. We got so lost in necking, we didn’t notice how much time had passed. Suddenly the whole world lit up like daylight. We both panicked, thinking it was daylight. But it had snowed. The windshield sparkled like diamonds and there was an unearthly stillness as pure white silent snow drifted down. We’d never seen a white Christmas in Poplar Grove. It seemed like a miracle. We sat there holding on to each other, as hushed as in church. I remember thinking you will never in your life be as happy as you are at this moment.

  Tears stung my eyes. “It was like we were the only two people on earth.”

  “Like we were meant to see it together,” he said, as he led me to the couch to Emmy Lou Harris’s “Together Again.”

  I went back to Chatham Road three times that first week. And when I couldn’t be there, I was planning to be there. It was just like the old days. I’d have walked through fire to be with Jerry.

  But I didn’t have to. Steven stayed locked in his den and the girls were busy with their own lives. I went through the motions, cleaned the house, did laundry and cooked from the menu; looked and acted, for the world, like the old Maggie Sweet. But I was someone else now. There was music in my head all the time and I couldn’t stop smiling. It shocked me that nobody else saw it. I figured the change in me stuck out like new paint. Everything seemed different, clearer; scents were sharper, colors brighter. I felt new again. I wanted to run out in the yard and turn cartwheels.

  Apart from being in love, other things were changing, too. Two women who’d been at the Bumbaloughs opening called me to do their hair.

  Early one morning, after dropping off a dozen brownies for the Band Boosters’ bake sale, I stopped by the Zippy Mart and bought two Styrofoam cups of coffee and four muffins. Then on impulse I went to a pay phone and invited myself to the farmhouse.

  When I got there, Jerry was sitting on the back porch steps.

  We sat side by side, sharing the coffee and muffins, breathing in the scents of the early morning air.
After we finished, he said, “I want to show you something.”

  He took my hand and led me to one of the outbuildings. “This was my dad’s machine shop when this place was a working farm. I’ve been clearing it out. I’m thinking about starting a carpentry business—you know, building kitchen cabinets, custom furniture for people. With my Navy pension and benefits I don’t have to make a lot of money. Brenda always planned for me to take over her father’s insurance business, but that wasn’t for me. I’ve always liked working with wood. What do you think, Maggie?”

  “This building will be perfect.”

  “What do you think about me doing carpentry work? I’ll never get rich. But it’s satisfying work.”

  “Money isn’t everything. Not if you’ve got enough to get by. I want you to do what you want to do. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”

  Jerry grinned and spent the next twenty minutes showing me how he planned to set up his shop.

  Later, when we stepped out into the sunshine, he said, “Do you feel like walking? There’s something else I’ve been dying to show you.”

  He took my hand as we walked past the outbuildings, across a field of freshly mowed grass, then climbed a split-rail fence at the property line. The sun shone through the treetops, making them look like green lace against the sky.

  I heard the creek before I saw it, a few feet into the woods.

  “I walked down here the other night. I remembered that the creek ran the length of Chatham Road. But it’s closer to the house than I remembered. I wish you could have seen it with me at sunset. All those colors…”

  We kicked off our shoes, rolled up our pant legs, and sat on a log, dangling our feet in the water.

  I leaned back into his arms and told him about my two new hair customers.

  “You never said. Why did you give up doing hair in the first place?”

  I looked off into the distance. “That’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all day.”

  I took a deep breath. “When Steven and I first got married, he told me to wait. He was older—sure of himself. I wasn’t sure about anything. I figured he knew best, that he’d given it a lot of thought and had our best interest at heart. I waited when the girls’ started school, then on through high school. Last year, when they started their senior year, I asked him again. He wouldn’t even talk about it, just stomped off in a huff. That’s when I knew it was never going to happen, that Steven never meant for me to work. I’d trusted him—believed that if I did the right thing everything would turn out all right. But all he’d really wanted for us was to live our lives his way. I felt like a fool.”

  Jerry held me close. I could feel his breath on my neck. “Why did you feel like a fool?”

  “All those years I’d been kidding myself. I should have known that he’d never let me be a beautician.”

  “But you were in beauty school when you started seeing him.”

  “Yeah. But then I was only Maggie Sweet. It was all right for Maggie Sweet to be a beautician. It wasn’t all right for Mrs. Steven Presson. Everyone seemed to think I was lucky to have him, that I had this great life. Finally I gave up. I told myself it didn’t matter, that I’d just be whatever it was everyone wanted me to be.”

  He turned my face toward his. “Steven’s the fool—he doesn’t know what you’re worth. If your work makes you happy, he should want it for you. Lord, honey, I feel like you do. If you’re happy, I’m happy. It’s as simple as that.”

  I looked into his eyes. For us, it was as simple as that.

  Chapter 16

  Naturally, feeling that happy couldn’t go on forever, not for a good Methodist girl from Poplar Grove, North Carolina.

  It started with Mama Dean calling to let me know she wasn’t speaking to me. She does this by phoning but not saying anything. She just breathes into the receiver.

  The first time she did this, I thought it was an obscene caller. Now she’s done it so often I recognize her breathing.

  “Mama Dean, is that you?”

  Silence.

  “Mama Dean, I know it’s you. I can hear you breathing.”

  More silence.

  “Mama Dean, whatever it is, I apologize. Just tell me what I did or didn’t do.”

  Dead silence.

  By now I was wishing it was an obscene caller. An obscene caller would be a lot easier to deal with than Mama Dean. At least I could slam the receiver or blow a whistle into the phone on one of them.

  “Mama Dean, if you don’t say something in five seconds I’ll figure it’s a pervert and hang up.”

  She gasped at the word pervert, then her breathing went back to normal.

  I hung up, then redialed. The line was busy. I hung up again, redialed again. This time the phone rang and rang. Finally, someone answered.

  “Mother?”

  “What in the world’s going on? I had to get out of the shower to answer the phone. Here’s me dripping all over the carpet and Mama’s sitting there glaring at the phone but letting it ring away.”

  “She called me up not speaking,” I said.

  “Oh, Lord, Maggie. What have you gone and done?” Mother asked.

  “That’s the thing; I don’t know.”

  “All right, I’ll find out and call you back.”

  Two minutes later the phone rang. “She says she’s not talking to you ’cause you were supposed to come and do her hair this morning.”

  “Oh, Lord, Mother, I forgot.”

  “She says she had to go uptown with her head in a polka-dotted roller bonnet. She says she looked like a haint and it’s all your fault.”

  “Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her I’ll be out first thing in the morning. I’ll even throw in a manicure,” I said.

  “She says you needn’t to bother. She says because of you, everyone thinks she’s the town character.”

  “But she is the town character.”

  “Maggie Sweet, that’s not the least bit funny. Do you really want me to tell her that?”

  “No, Mother. She’s just got me worn out. Tell me what to do. I’ll do anything you say.”

  “I think you better come tomorrow and plan to stay and stay.”

  “You mean pay and pay,” I said, feeling depressed.

  “Well, Maggie Sweet, what a thing to say!”

  “I know, Mother. But sometimes I think I’ve been paying my whole life.”

  It was dark when I drove to the pay phone in Dixie Burger’s parking lot. Inside, someone was playing Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.”

  “I can’t see you in the morning. I was supposed to do Mama Dean’s hair today but someone, uh, sidetracked me and I forgot. Now she’s mad.”

  “There’s a lot of that ‘sidetracking’ going around. This morning a pretty brown-haired woman sidetracked me for hours. Made me forget everything.”

  “I miss you already.”

  “Honey, I need to ask you, does your Mama Dean still follow you around?”

  I thought back to high school when Mama Dean really did follow me.

  “No. She doesn’t get around like she once did. But she’s still someone to reckon with. She called me up today, not speaking.”

  “What?”

  “She calls on the phone but won’t speak, just breathes. When your grandmother calls you up and breathes into the phone it’ll make you feel guilty as homemade sin.”

  “Guilty about us?”

  “Never about us; just about forgetting Mama Dean. I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world. And I have to be careful. If she gets suspicious we’re doomed. She’d call out her bloodhounds in a heartbeat.”

  “That paints a picture.”

  “I know. I’ll see you after lunch. Don’t cook.”

  The next morning, along with the manicure set and hairdo supplies, I carried chicken salad and an Impossible Pie to the boardinghouse.

  Mother, who was working second shift at the hospital, met me at the door. She was dressed in a pink housecoat and smelled like Jergen’s lotio
n as usual. When she hugged me, she whispered, “Mama Dean’s on the warpath. Look out.”

  I pasted a smile on my face and called out, “Hey, Mama Dean! I brought your favorites for lunch.”

  Mama Dean was sitting in her rocking chair, wearing the polka-dotted roller bonnet over wet shampooed hair and an inside-out housecoat held together with three big safety pins. “Well, look what the cat’s done drug in,” she said.

  I put the chicken salad in the refrigerator, cut three slices of pie, poured coffee, and carried everything on a tray to the front room. “Have you all been doing all right?” I was determined not to let her get me down.

  “You’re the one whose been so almighty busy,” Mama Dean said.

  “I have been busy,” I said, avoiding her eyes.

  “I see you had enough time to do your hair different. It looks like it’s been boiled and hung upside down to dry,” she said, sniffing.

  I patted my hair nervously. Had it really been that long? I’d done my hair weeks ago. Then I remembered: I’d done Mama Dean’s hair last week and the week before that. I’d only missed yesterday because it wasn’t our regular day. Mama Dean was setting me up, spoiling for a fight. But I didn’t have to take the bait.

  “Now, Mama Dean, you know I was here last week. You said you loved my hairdo. Why, I was planning to try it on you today,” I said, winking at Mother.

  “Well, sister, who put Tabasco sauce in your oatmeal?” she snapped. “I never said any such. I don’t hold with that newfangled bull; old-fashioned hairdos, old-fashioned morals. Why, the hairdos and the morals in this town is already going downhill in a handbasket.”

  “Now, Mama, hairdos don’t have a thing to do with morals,” Mother said. “Remember how worked up you got when crew cuts came into style? You said all the boys looked like death-row convicts and most of ’em grew up just fine.”

  “But now it’s the women looking like convicts. I never thought I’d live to see any such. I saw Mary Price uptown the other day in a crew cut as yellow as a pumpkin. I swanee, she looked wild as a buck.”