Maggie Box Set

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  “That’s what you get for killing possums.” Should she take Louise to the vet? But the dog is bouncier after every bout of sick. She’s fine, Maggie decides. Just ate something that doesn’t agree with her.

  A lukewarm shower feels cool on her skin post-walk. To save time, she skips a hair-washing in favor of dry shampoo. She throws on light makeup and draws on some nearly symmetrical eyebrows. A long-sleeved silk top covers her burns and works with a blue-jean skirt in a pencil shape that she can wear with a pair of Old Gringo boots.

  When she emerges from the bedroom, the house is empty except for her and the dogs. She still has an hour before she has to be at the church. For a brief moment, she considers opening the Martin case. Getting out her beloved guitar. She could work her way through the new songs she’d written in Wyoming, the first in years. Maybe pick her way to a few new melodies. But she’s just not up for it. Playing is an extension of her emotions, and she doesn’t want to feel anything more than she already does. Normally in an emotional muddle like this she’d be seeking out a hassle-free sexual partner. If she lived in a metropolitan area, she might have been a Tinder-hookup kind of girl. But she’s not in the mood for sex as a salve either, maybe for the first time in her adult life.

  “Louise, Gertrude, guard the house.”

  The dogs hop up on the couch.

  “Good, just like that.”

  Maggie gets behind the wheel of her truck. Like Bess has a mind of her own that strangely thinks like Maggie’s, the truck takes her to Los Patrones in Giddings. Or so Maggie tells herself. She feels better after yoga and a walk, but not that much better, and Los Patrones is the closest fully stocked bar to the church.

  She parks and pats the dash. “Thank you, Bess.”

  Inside, she perches on a stool at the bar. NFL football blares on a TV to her left. She inhales the savory smell of sizzling fajitas being carted past her to a six-top table crowded with ten people. Above her head, red metal letters spell out CANTINA BAR, and almost touching her forehead, margarita glasses hang upside down from racks. Not much around town is open on a Sunday night, so the place is hopping.

  She settles for a double Balcones and pulls up People.com on her phone. Reading about herself may negate the soothing effect of the whiskey, but she’s put it off long enough. The article about her is still the top story on the site. “Gary Fuller and the Black Widow,” she reads. As Franklin had told her, there’s a picture of her singing karaoke at Pumpjack’s in Amarillo, although the main photo is one of her with Gary. One from her private stash. The only person she’d ever shared a copy with was Gary, via text. The two of them were in his kitchen. Their faces are smashed together for a selfie. Blueberry pancake batter is smeared across her cheeks like speckled war paint. She remembers that morning, maybe two or three years ago. The day after he’d returned from a tour. The morning after a welcome-home party between the sheets.

  She reads quickly, and her mouth drops open. The recycled shit in the article is irritating, but some items are flat-out defamation. They list her rehab stints, including a third round that never happened. They cite lovers she’s never met. And they name her as the cause of the deaths in her bandmates’ crash, never mind that she wasn’t with them or even there. Other stuff is naked, irresponsible speculation. That Gary’s legions of redneck-crazy fans are saying she might have caught Gary with another woman, that she might have killed him and set the fire to hide it. As “evidence,” the site includes a picture of fans holding a vigil outside his home. Hundreds of them. And quotes an unnamed source close to the investigation as saying they have “no other leads at this time.” But the part that’s most upsetting? People.com claims a witness in Amarillo outed her affair with Gary and their Friday meet-up before it happened, as reported on the TMZ entertainment blog.

  Maggie scrolls through TMZ until she finds the post. Sure enough, they’d posted a scoop on Friday afternoon. “Secret Affair Between Gary Fuller and Fallen Star Maggie Killian Rekindled.” What the hell? Her blood boils. TMZ credits an anonymous tip from someone in Amarillo, Texas, where they claim she’d last been seen belting Ava Butler karaoke songs. They link to the video on YouTube. The last assertion is the clincher: Gary and Maggie are planning a sexy rendezvous at his ranch in Texas tonight. Don’t do anything we wouldn’t do, kids!

  “Son of a bitch!” She thought people only found out about them after Gary’s death, because she was at the fire, and because of her admitting the relationship to law enforcement. But she was wrong. It doesn’t take much to narrow down possible identities for the rat. The only people she’d told about Gary were in Amarillo. Emily, her husband Jack, Officer John, and her new buddies Wallace and Ethan. Of those, one is obsessed with online gossip. She seethes. And she’s offered up the information about her date with Gary on a text string with the group.

  Maggie forwards the link to Michele in a text. One of your Amarillo friends is not mine. And I need an attorney to sue the shit out of People.com for libel. Then she forwards the TMZ link to the Amarillo friends group, with no comment.

  “You were talking about my ex-husband?” the bartender asks. Her name escapes Maggie, but the woman talks like a sailor and looks like a grandmother. She’s wearing a T-shirt that says BAKING FOR MY GRANDKIDS IS MY SUPERPOWER. She even smells like cinnamon. Or maybe that’s the Fireball she’s pouring for another patron.

  “What?”

  “I heard you yell son of a bitch. Got here as fast as I could.”

  Maggie laughs, although it’s bitter. She takes a deep breath to pull herself together, then changes the subject. “Y’all need to carry Koltiska liqueur.”

  “What the fuck is Koltiska? Is it from Texas?”

  “Nope. Our sister state to the north. Wyoming. Separated from Texas at birth.”

  “I won’t order any out-of-state shit, Maggie. You know the rules.”

  “You can always get smarter.”

  The bartender slides a shot glass to her. “You’re such a needy bitch. This is new. Try it.”

  Maggie passes her empty glass. She doesn’t pause to check her drunk. She’s only had one, albeit a double. This will be her stopping point. “What is it?”

  “Don’t be so goddamn pushy. Try it, then I’ll tell you.”

  Maggie knocks it back. She shudders and wipes her mouth. “Well?”

  “Rebecca Creek Whiskey.”

  “Tastes like Crown to me.”

  “Yeah. But way fucking cheaper. And I can’t give it away. Here, let me fill you up again. On the house.”

  No way is she turning down a freebie. Maggie holds out her shot glass for the top-off, then throws a twenty on the bar. “Thanks for taking care of me.”

  Grandma bartender salutes her.

  Maggie is about to drink her whiskey and leave when a man takes the barstool next to her. He’s big, but lean. He turns to her, so she shoots him a glance and snorts. Light blue eyes, blondish-brown curls under a John Deere cap. Stonewashed jeans that are more about optics than country living. Perfectly scuffed boots. A T-shirt that shows off gym muscles and is too tight for ranch work.

  “Maggie Killian?” he asks.

  “And you’re Thorn Gibbons, right?”

  His eyes flit around, like he’s making sure no one heard her. “I’d appreciate it if you’d keep that to yourself. Nice to see you again.”

  She almost laughs. His fake country accent can’t decide if it’s Tennessee, Oklahoma, or Texas. “We’ve met?”

  “Well, sort of. I opened for Gary once in Houston. You were backstage. We were introduced, but it was a long time ago.”

  Maggie has zero memory of it, but he could be right. “Sure.” She tosses back her shot.

  “Had, he, uh, mentioned me lately?”

  “Should he have?”

  “Just wondering.”

  A seriously random thing to wonder about. But she’s met a lot of performers obsessed with what other people say and think about them. She was just never one of them. “Well, we hadn’t been in
touch.”

  “But I thought, you, um, talked to him before he died. Weren’t you on your way to his house when you found the fire? At least, that’s what I read.”

  “Can’t always believe what you read. I’d think you would know that.”

  He exhales. “Sure. Yeah.”

  “What brings you to town?”

  “Um, I had a gig in Austin. I drove over to see Gary. I should have checked the news before I came.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I didn’t know until I got here. About him . . . the fire.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “It rattled me, you know? He gave me my first break. He was like a big brother to me.” Thorn’s voice cracks melodically. He wipes dry eyes.

  “I’m sure his death rattled a lot of people,” she says, thinking of Tom Clarke. “So why are you still here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t I see you yesterday morning? At the grocery store in town?”

  Thorn studies his hands, which are wrapped around the body of a longneck, covering the label. “No. I was sleeping one off in Austin.”

  An internal siren goes off in Maggie’s head. “Huh. You’ve got a twin in Giddings, then.”

  “Does anyone know what happened to him yet?” He starts picking at a corner of the label.

  “You mean other than he burned to a crisp?”

  Thorn flinches.

  “I don’t think so.”

  He stands, setting his empty bottle on the bar, label away from her. But she recognizes a fancy city-boy beer bottle when she sees one. “Well, it was good to see you. I just wanted to say hello.”

  “You going to be in town long?”

  “No. Headed back to Austin to catch a flight to Nashville.”

  “Take care.”

  “You, too.”

  She watches the flashy stitching on his jeans pockets as he walks to the exit. A slinky-bodied woman with a pouf of peroxide-blonde hair almost trips in her spike-heeled boots in her hurry to get to him. Maggie expects him to duck her, since he’s trying to go unrecognized. Instead, he takes her hand, and together they push through the door and out of the restaurant. Maggie frowns. Another decidedly odd encounter. And probably an untruthful one.

  Her phone rings. Fearing it’s Michele—or worse, Charlotte—she flips it over. But it’s neither of them. It’s Gene Soboleski, Michele’s half brother. Hank’s best friend. Come on, T-Mobile and USPS. I need that new SIM card. She almost doesn’t answer it, but then changes her mind. Gene is her friend, too.

  She jumps up, finger in her other ear to block the clank of glasses and silverware. She presses accept with the thumb of the hand holding the phone. “Hello?”

  “Maggie May, it’s Gene.”

  “So I see and hear.” Using her tush, she opens the door and steps outside, into the dusk of an early fall evening in Texas.

  “It’s kind of an emergency.”

  Her breath exits her lungs in a whoosh. Hank. She drops onto Bess’s bumper, a poor excuse for a seat, but all she has between her and the ground as her legs go wobbly. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hank’s been out of sorts since he got out of the hospital. About you.”

  Not the kind of emergency she’d feared. She draws in a deep breath and gets a snoot full of the pain of Hank’s baby and engagement. “Not my problem.”

  “He disappeared yesterday afternoon. His truck’s gone. Sheila’s on my ass. I haven’t heard from him.”

  She grabs hold of his words like a life preserver. He and Sheila are fighting. “Sounds like she’s having trouble keeping him on the leash.”

  “Help me out here. Have you seen him? Talked to him? Heard from him?”

  “Not in a few days. And, Gene, I’m in the process of changing my phone number so that I won’t hear from him.”

  “I was hoping he came chasing after you.”

  You and me both. “Sorry to disappoint you and Sheila.”

  “Maggie—”

  “I have to go. I’m headed to your father’s wedding reception.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, Edward married last week.”

  “Married who?”

  “My mother. Which makes you my stepbrother now.”

  “Damn. Maybe that’s why Michele called me so many times. Guess I should have answered. And now I have another new sister.”

  “Lucky you. So as much as I’d love to keep talking about Hank and his pregnant fiancée, I have to go.”

  She presses end call. Enough wallowing. So Hank has cold feet and is drunk somewhere, maybe riding a bull for old times’ sake. That’s Sheila’s problem, not hers.

  And thinking about it could just break her heart.

  Eighteen

  Sober enough. That’s how Maggie thinks of herself. She puts one foot in front of the other as she tightrope walks into the church, ever so carefully. She doesn’t stretch too hard, but she gives herself a little pat on the back. She’s not even late for the service. A small miracle, given the monumental setbacks she’d endured at Los Patrones. Learning she has a traitor amongst her new friends. Reading the lies being spread about her. Running into Thorn. And getting the call from Gene. Gene, about Hank.

  Damn Hank Sibley and damn Gene for calling. She can pretend to Gene that she doesn’t care where Hank is and call it Sheila’s problem, but she can’t lie to herself. She craves Hank, longs to see his name on her caller ID. His face at her door. He’s like a sickness, sapping her strength, leaving her weak and vulnerable. But she’s going to protect herself from him. She’s changing her phone number, soon. And she won’t even be in her home until tomorrow when Leslie leaves, and Maggie’s homelessness ends. If he shows up—which he won’t—she’s safely tucked away at Michele’s.

  In the meantime, she can call Hank and hang up. Just to see if he’ll answer for her. To reassure herself he’s all right.

  Or she could if she had no pride or spine left.

  “Shit.”

  Heads turn inside the vestibule. She rolls her lips inward. Must not curse aloud. Talking to herself in general is a negative in church, even more so when she’s drunk enough to swear, too. And—oh hell. All right. Yes, she’s drunk. How else is she supposed to handle all this? People staring, asking about Gary and everything they’ve read online—and yes, she’s upset about what’s going on and sad about Gary, but he’s gone, and he isn’t who she loves.

  She loves Hank. She fucking loves Hank. She doesn’t want to, but she does, and it makes her want to scream and tear at her hair. Instead, she keeps advancing into the church to witness yet another union of happy lovers. Insult to injury, even if it is her own mother and she should just be happy for her.

  “Maggie.” She turns to a tall, distinguished man with thick salt-and-pepper hair. His suit is custom-made. His shoes are Italian leather, bought in Milan, or so he claims. This is the man she’s come to know as her birth father in the last two years.

  “Boyd.”

  He kisses her forehead and hugs her to his side. Then he chuckles. “Don’t let anyone strike a match near your mouth, honey.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s your mother’s wedding and reception. Of course I’m here.”

  “Were you invited?”

  He busts out a laugh. “Your mother and I share a common interest. You.”

  “So you’re saying you were invited?”

  “Yes.” He grins. “When I called and asked if I could come.”

  “I knew it.”

  Two church ladies appear on Maggie’s near horizon. Tonight they’ll lecture her about the impact of her week-long absence and recent notoriety on her mother, along with suggestions about how much good it would do Maggie to have more Jesus in her life. These are the women who have prayed for Maggie since her infancy, and it hasn’t done any good so far. She has no misconceptions it will start working for her now.

  But whether she likes it or not, she braves them and the “c
hurch of the Wends” once a month with her mother. Maggie isn’t a churchy person, but even she can admit there’s something special about St. Paul Lutheran. A plain white wrapper on the outside, a come-to-Jesus organ inside, with color, color everywhere, the most amazing of which is the stained glass and the brilliant Wendish-blue walls.

  A woman whose hair blends right in with those walls zeroes in on Maggie. “You’re here for your mother. God bless you.”

  “Of course I am.” Maggie moves closer to Boyd.

  A stylish-circa-1970 woman with a gray bob takes the next go at Maggie. “We pray for you all the time. The power of prayer triumphs again. Praise God.”

  “You didn’t get me here by praying. I came because it’s my mother’s wedding and reception.”

  Blue Hair turns to Boyd. “Senator Herrington, what a blessing to have you joining our congregation to celebrate sister Charlotte’s marriage.”

  Gray Bob adds, “We’ll pray for you, too.”

  Maggie grins as Blue Hair takes one of Boyd’s arms and Gray Bob grabs the other. He looks like he’s facing his personal judgment day. She uses their interest in an even bigger sinner than her to slip away and sit with Rashidi and Michele.

  The short ceremony is a beautiful blur. When it’s over, Maggie’s drunk has worn down to a weary buzz. She walks from the nave toward the school with her expanded family, everyone chattering but her. Suddenly, Charlotte stops and hugs a woman with a killer bod whose back is to Maggie. “Leslie, so good to see you.”

  “And you, Charlotte.”

  “Let me introduce you to my daughter. Or daughters, I guess, now that Edward and I are married.”

  The woman turns. It’s Maggie’s squatter, her face as overly made-up and immobile as ever. Maggie is starting to wonder if she’s on the autism spectrum or has had a stroke. “I know Michele. Good evening.”

  Michele smiles. “Hi, Leslie.”