The Latecomers Fan Club

by Diane V. Mulligan

  “Shhh,” he said, backing her up against a building out of the glare of the streetlight. He met her eyes and she held his gaze. “You sure about this?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  That was good enough for him.

  Maggie

  Thursday night after work, after her mother and Frank went to bed, Maggie sat on the couch flipping through a magazine wondering how she’d get through the weekend. It was her weekend to work, so she didn’t have another day off until Wednesday. Torture. She was contemplating the feasibility of calling in sick when her phone rang. It was almost eleven o’clock. People only make calls after ten o’clock if there’s an emergency. She glanced at the screen. Nathaniel. Heart racing, she answered the phone.

  “Hey, Mags,” he said, his words thick. She could practically smell the alcohol on his breath over the phone.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Well, it’s late, and you sound pretty lit up.”

  “What? No. I just, I just miss you, that’s all.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said. It had been a long, long time since anyone drunk dialed her. She didn’t know what to do. Hanging up seemed like a good option, but it was Nathaniel. She couldn’t hang up on Nathaniel. “Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

  “Yeah, work is really busy. Midterms.”

  Maggie waited to see if he was going to say more. She didn’t have much to contribute to this conversation. She certainly didn’t feel like pouring her heart out to someone who wouldn’t remember any of it tomorrow, and she hated that the first time he called in weeks was in a drunken stupor.

  “Are you mad at me?” he asked after a moment.

  “Why would I be mad at you?”

  “I should have called sooner. I’m such an idiot.”

  Yes, you are, she thought, and so am I. Why had she been pinning all her hopes on Nathaniel? Thirty-four years old and he was acting like a sloppy teenager. Ridiculous. “Why don’t you call me tomorrow? We can talk tomorrow.”

  “No, don’t go,” he said. He sounded like he might cry. “I fucked up, I know, I fucked up everything. But don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

  “Okay, I don’t really know what you’re talking about, but don’t worry about it. I’m not mad at you.” She needed to end this call. She needed to talk to him when he was sober and figure out what the hell this was all about.

  “Please, Maggie,” he said.

  “I’m going to call you tomorrow.” She hung up the phone. Not two minutes later, it rang again, but she didn’t answer. He tried three more times before giving up. Whatever was going on, Maggie realized, whatever was keeping him distant from her, it wasn’t about his feelings for her. She didn’t know if that was a relief or not.

  Saturday morning at the store was slow, as always. Unless there was some special sale with doorbusters, Saturday mornings were long, boring hours of straightening racks and refolding clothes. Maggie was counting the minutes until her lunch break when she could call Nathaniel. She needed to figure out what was up with him. Drunk dialing—so absurdly childish. Not a peep in weeks and then this. What was he thinking? She couldn’t stand the idea that Nathaniel might have become just another disillusioned alcoholic. Nathaniel was a dreamer, a big thinker who doesn’t let the naysayers hold him back. He was supposed to be proving them wrong, not becoming one of them.

  As soon as it was time for lunch, Maggie grabbed her purse and headed outside. She didn’t get reception inside the mall. Her stomach fluttered as she dialed his number. On the fourth ring, just as she was about to give up—and she didn’t want to leave a voicemail—he picked up.

  “Hey! Haven’t heard from you in a while,” he said. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me.”

  He didn’t even remember that he’d called her. Maggie rubbed her eyes with one hand and sighed.

  “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  “You tell me,” she asked.

  There was silence on the other end. Guilty silence? she wondered.

  “You called me last night,” she said at last. “Check your call log.”

  “Oh my God, Maggie,” he said. “I had too much to drink, I guess.” He sounded flustered. She could almost hear his face turning red.

  “Yeah, I thought you had that drinking thing under control.” This wasn’t the conversation she wanted to have with him. She didn’t want to take care of him. She wanted him to take care of her.

  “I do, I really do. Bad night, that’s all.”

  “Well if you’re okay, I’m gonna go. I’m at work.”

  “Wait. What are you doing tomorrow? I’d like to get together.”

  “Work.” He hadn’t called in weeks, they hadn’t seen each other in nearly a month, and now, after making an ass of himself, he wanted to get together?

  “How about next weekend? Saturday?”

  “I don’t know,” Maggie said. Maybe she’d been a fool to think she and Nathaniel could be anything other than friends. For that matter, maybe it was best to leave their friendship in the past. She needed to move forward with her life, not backwards. She’d been acting like a love-struck school girl, and now she needed to get real.

  “Come on. Come into the city. If the weather stays like this, it’ll be perfect for walking around. Let me make it up to you for last night.”

  Walking around Boston on a beautiful spring day. That did sound nice. And seeing him in person might help her get a better sense of the situation. It couldn’t hurt any more than deciding to forget him. She agreed and then hung up the phone. She walked across the parking lot towards the food court. It’s just two friends, getting together, she told herself. It wouldn’t be a romantic date any more than their coffee date had been. He was just her friend. They’d be out in public, walking and enjoying each other’s company. I will not go back to his apartment, she told herself. Please do not let me sleep with him. She repeated it over and over in her head. If she slept with him, she wouldn’t be able to think clearly about their situation ever again, so she had to make sure that didn’t happen, however tempting it might be.

  When Claire called to ask Maggie to babysit on Saturday, Maggie felt as though her prayers had been answered. Claire and Gene were going to a retreat at their church all day, and their babysitter called to cancel because she had mono. Gloria and Frank already had plans, and Claire didn’t know who else to call. Maggie didn’t want to cancel her plans with Nathaniel, and she certainly wasn’t going to shift them to the evening. That would be a recipe for disaster. Instead, she could take Timmy to Boston with her. She’d promised him at Christmas that she’d take him to Museum of Science sometime soon, and as of yet she hadn’t made good on that promise. This was the perfect opportunity.

  Once she and Claire had worked out some details, she called Nathaniel to let him know they’d have to amend their plans a little. He sounded disappointed and not at all interested in the museum, but he agreed to meet them at Quincy Market for lunch.

  On Saturday morning, Maggie put on a jean skirt and a preppy knit top. She wished it was warm enough for sandals, but she knew that would be a risk. It was still only March, even if it had been warm all week. She left her long hair down, smooth and sleek. Nathaniel had always been a sucker for girls with long hair. She wanted to look cute but also grown up. She didn’t want to forget—or for Nathaniel to forget—that they were in fact no longer in high school, that actually they’d been out of high school for fifteen years and needed to behave like it.

  When she pulled up to Claire’s house, Timmy was on the porch waiting. He shouted through the screen door to his mother and ran to the car. Claire came out behind him, waved to Maggie, and watched as they pulled away.

  “You look pretty,” Timmy said. “How come you’re all dressed up?”

  �
�I’m not,” Maggie said, glancing at him.

  “You’re wearing a skirt. Mom only wears skirts when she’s getting dressed up.”

  “I just felt like it, I guess,” Maggie said, hoping Nathaniel would also think she looked pretty.

  There was little traffic, and they made it to Alewife Station in record time. Maggie thought Timmy would get a kick out of riding the T, and she loved the part of the Red Line where the train went above ground to cross the Charles River, giving a view of the shining dome of the State House and boats on the river. Besides, parking at Alewife would be cheaper than museum parking. Maggie felt so jittery about seeing Nathaniel that she wondered how she’d have the patience to tour the museum with her nephew.

  “How long are you going to live with Grammy?” Timmy asked as they waited for the train to pull out of the station.

  “I don’t know. A little while I guess.”

  “Mom says we aren’t going to see Uncle Andrew anymore.”

  “That’s probably true,” Maggie said. She had been wondering what Claire had told Timmy about her situation. She knew that in the past her sister had told Timmy that Maggie was rich because Andrew was rich, and she suspected that Claire encouraged him to ask Maggie for expensive toys and things for his birthday and Christmas. At least, Maggie doubted he asked his mother for the types of expensive things he asked her for. Claire was jealous of the life Maggie married into—no worries about bills, the ability to take fancy vacations.

  Claire used to give Maggie a hard time about her car, wondering why Maggie kept the same old beat-up Volvo that she bought right after college even though Andrew could afford to buy her a new car. Only in the last year of their marriage had Maggie given in and let Andrew replace the Volvo with an Audi A4. The Volvo had long since passed the point of being safe, so Maggie conceded even though she hated having one more thing for which she’d be indebted to Andrew, but when it came time to drive across the country, she was glad for the Audi. It was the one thing she made sure she got to keep in the settlement.

  Maggie wondered why Claire hadn’t just told Timmy that she had gotten divorced. Certainly he understood the concept; his parents got divorced when he was two, and he visited his father every other weekend.

  “But he didn’t die,” Timmy said, swinging his feet and looking up at Maggie with wide eyes.

  “No. He’s in California.”

  “Okay. He gave me that cool magnet set for my birthday last year. Do you think he’ll remember my birthday this year?”

  “I don’t know, buddy. Probably not.”

  “Oh.”

  And whatever will you do without more toys? Maggie thought.

  “Do you think they’ll have dinosaur bones at the museum?” Timmy asked, brightening.

  “Maybe.”

  At the museum, they watched a video called “The Miracle of Flight,” looked at fossils, and learned about static electricity. Maggie hadn’t realized how limited the attention span of a child is. Timmy whizzed through the exhibits at breakneck speed, lingering on one or two items in each, if that. In some of the galleries, Maggie tried to read the placards to him or explain something, but he was fidgety and disinterested. He preferred to explain to Maggie the things he already knew or thought he knew about different topics.

  They had been at the museum barely an hour when Timmy declared he was hungry. Maggie glanced at her phone. They weren’t meeting Nathaniel until one. She had thought ahead enough to throw a granola bar in her purse, but when she offered it to Timmy he made a face and refused. It had peanuts in it. He didn’t like peanuts.

  “But you like peanut butter,” Maggie said.

  “No,” he said, pouting. He crossed his arms and set his lips in a way that would have been comical if this were a movie, but in real life Maggie found it anything but endearing.

  “Are you sure you’re hungry? It’s still early for lunch.”

  “I’m hungry!” he said, stomping his feet and letting his hands, now balled into fists, fall to his sides. “No! No! No!”

  Maggie wasn’t sure what he was objecting to or how he had gone from peaceful but hungry to an erupting volcano of anger in such a short time. Maggie felt as if everyone walking by was staring at them, assuming she was Timmy’s mother, judging her for letting her child throw a tantrum in public.

  “If we leave the museum to eat, we can’t come back,” Maggie said. There was no way she was going to feed him the absurdly overpriced food from the museum cafeteria.

  “I want a snack!”

  “Do you want to leave the museum?”

  He shook his head. His face was red and his lower lip quivered.

  “Okay, then you can have this granola bar and we’ll have lunch soon.”

  “No!”

  Maggie squatted down in front of him and placed her hands lightly on his shoulders. “Okay, buddy,” she said, trying to sound calm and soothing, even though she wanted to scream back at him. “Tell me what you want to do.”

  “My friend said they sell astronaut ice cream here, and I want some,” he said, gulping back sobs.

  “Okay,” Maggie said, straightening up and holding out her hand for him.

  He hiccupped. “Okay.”

  Of course the astronaut ice cream was in the gift shop. Maggie remembered the novelty of the stuff from her own childhood, although she cringed now to even think of it, the horrible chalky feeling of it on her teeth. She led Timmy by the hand and hurried to the register to ask where they could find it. She didn’t need Timmy getting any ideas about other things he couldn’t live without. Thankfully, it was right there, where the candy might have been at a convenience store. Timmy picked out a package of Neapolitan, and Maggie took out her wallet to pay.

  “Aunt Maggie,” he said, tugging Maggie’s hand as she waited for the cashier. “Can I look at that?” With his free hand he pointed to a case of geodes.

  The woman behind the counter smiled knowingly at Maggie.

  “Sure, buddy,” Maggie said, “but we’re not here to shop today, okay? We’re just looking.”

  Timmy had a much greater attention span for the gift shop than for the actual museum. Maggie put the astronaut ice cream in her purse and followed him around as he picked up one item after another, exclaiming at each item’s incomprehensible awesomeness. Finally, when he’d thoroughly explored the store, and Maggie was attempting to steer him out, he said, “Can I please get a toy?”

  “This stuff is just junk. There’s nothing here you need.”

  “But I always get a souvenir,” he said, running his hand over the top of some tumbled rocks in a display case.

  “You can get rocks anywhere.”

  “But I like to get something.”

  “I know. And I know sometimes I have brought you things when I came home for visits, but I can’t today.”

  “Why not?” The pitch of his voice had been creeping up so that now he was speaking in a whiny squeak. Maggie saw another meltdown brewing.

  “I promised your mom I wouldn’t,” Maggie lied. “Your mom doesn’t like it when I buy you things because she thinks I spoil you.”

  “You don’t have to listen to her!” Timmy’s voice shook and Maggie reached into her purse for some tissues to wipe his nose.

  “No, but I do respect her opinion.”

  “It isn’t fair,” Timmy said, pushing away Maggie’s hand as she offered him a tissue. Instead he ran his hand under his nose and then wiped it on his pant leg. Maggie cringed.

  “The astronaut ice cream is a pretty good souvenir,” Maggie said, pulling it from her purse and holding it towards him.

  “That’s stupid.”

  “You didn’t think it was stupid before.”

  “It is! It’s dumb! I want a real souvenir.” He stomped his foot.

  Maggie wondered who had taught him the word souvenir. She’d like to
slap whoever it was. She was getting pretty sick of the foot stomping routine, too. She glanced around the store. What was cheap? What could she offer to appease him? When she and Claire were little, their mother always let them choose fancy pens as souvenirs, telling them to add to their pen collections. Maggie had kept hers on her desk is a pretty little box. Claire, she imagined, generally lost hers within a day or two. Maggie thought about all the varieties she had amassed—one that lit up, several with things in them like ships or roller coasters that moved up and down the barrel of the pen as you shook it, some that were made of wood. Near the defamed astronaut ice cream, Maggie saw a display of pens. “I bet your mom would like it if you started a pen collection like she had when we were little,” Maggie said.

  Timmy looked skeptical.

  “Let’s look,” Maggie said, leading him to the display. “Wouldn’t this be cool to take to school Monday to show your friends?” She held up a pencil that was shaped like a bone. “Or this one?” She held up another that looked like a mummy.

  Timmy seemed to be coming around. He picked up a pen that you could click to choose between eight different colors of ink. It said “Museum of Science” on the side. “Can I have this one?” he asked, sniffling.

  Maggie bought the pen and whisked Timmy from the store.

  “Can I have my astronaut ice cream now?” Timmy asked.

  Disaster averted, Maggie thought, handing him the package.

  When they got to Quincy Market, Maggie spotted Nathaniel waiting right where he said he would be by the flower shop. She steered Timmy towards him.

  “Hey, stranger,” she said, giving a little wave. She wasn’t sure if hugging him was an appropriate greeting or not. Instead she put one arm around Timmy’s shoulder, as Timmy was now pulling his shy act, and she clutched her purse with her other hand.