The Melting of Maggie Bean

by Tricia Rayburn

  “I just wasn’t feeling it anymore and started coming here instead of having to explain to my parents why I wasn’t at practice.”

  She nodded. “I can understand that.”

  “So, tryouts are tomorrow, right?” he asked, changing the subject.

  She shrugged, pretending to discover a bothersome hangnail on her right pinkie. “Four o’clock, but it’s no big deal.”

  “I don’t know anyone else practicing that much.”

  “Aimee’s in the pool every day.”

  “Okay, I don’t know anyone else practicing that much in ice-cold lake water.”

  “It does seem to be a solo operation.”

  She waited for him to ask why she didn’t just use the pool with Aimee.

  “Well,” he said, downing his cup before meeting her eyes, “I’m just happy you’re okay. You are, right? Just recovering from a cold or something?”

  Not eating in twenty-six hours seemed enough like an illness, so she nodded. “Yeah, thought it was a weird forty-eight-hour bug, but it might be stretching into the seventy-two-hour range.”

  They sat quietly but not uncomfortably. He turned his head slightly and she watched him watching the fire. As he stretched his legs in front of him and leaned back on his hands, the fire cast a warm light around his silhouette.

  Her stomach turned suddenly. This feeling, she knew, wasn’t hunger.

  “Speaking of parents, I should probably call mine,” she said, more brightly than she felt. Despite the potentially socially crippling events that had brought them together, she was sitting and having an actual, coherent, and occasionally even witty conversation with Peter Applewood, and she wasn’t looking forward to leaving.

  “Actually, it was getting late, so I called my folks and told them a bunch of the guys were going out for pizza, and then called yours to tell them you were coming.”

  Her mouth fell open. “How’d you get my phone number?”

  “You’re the only Bean in the white pages.”

  Maggie covered her face with her hands.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head. “They just won’t believe it.”

  “Believe what? That you’d go out for pizza?”

  She laughed. “No, that they’d believe. It’s the baseball team part they’d question.”

  “Do you not like baseball players?”

  She felt herself turn red and restrained from fanning her face with her hand. Had those magazines taught her nothing? She was sure she shouldn’t be this honest with someone she so wanted to impress.

  “Maggie!”

  Her head spun toward the front door as it flew open and slammed shut.

  “Are you okay? I came as soon as I got Pete’s message.” He nodded to Peter before dashing to the couch and kneeling on the ground in front of her.

  “I’m fine,” she said sheepishly. “Just a little bug, it’s nothing.”

  She brought the empty cup to her lips and tilted it up until her eyes were hidden. She felt him watching her and knew that if anyone could guess what had really caused her stunning episode, it was Arnie.

  “Right, well.” He stood up when she didn’t say anything more, walked back to the door, and retrieved the three plastic bags he’d dropped.

  “Steamed chicken, vegetables, and brown rice.” He held the bags out to her.

  Maggie lowered the cup, looked at the bags, and then met his eyes, which were almost sad underneath his red knit cap.“ You need to eat,” he said quietly.

  28.

  “Oh my gosh, that bathing suit is just so cute! Where’d you find it?”

  “J.Crew, but yours is adorable! The aqua really brings out your lemon juice highlights.”

  “You think? They’re totally fading from the summer—”

  “No way. They’re fabulous!”

  Maggie stood still in the cramped bathroom stall, drinking orange juice and waiting for a lull in the shrill locker room conversation. She looked down at her new red one piece, the one she’d bought on clearance over the weekend, when they’d taken an unexpected trip to the mall for new sneakers for Summer. It was a little small—a size fourteen when a sixteen would’ve done—but skimming past her old size eighteen had been so exciting, she couldn’t stop.

  “We are so gonna nail this,” J.Crew said to Lemon Juice.

  “Totally,” Lemon Juice agreed. “These spots were made just for us.”

  “I heard it was a last-minute decision to add the two spots, and that Annie and Jules really fought for the extra girls.”

  Maggie swallowed loudly. Annie and Jules. Anabel and Julia. The cocaptains.

  These two knew them on familiar terms. Not a good sign.

  “Annie told me that too!”

  They both gasped. Maggie pictured their perfectly manicured hands covering their perky chests. Were these really the sorts of girls with whom she was so determined to spend every weekday afternoon?

  “Do you think she told us both because she had us specifically in mind?”

  Maggie stood up straight and sucked in her stomach as the girls squealed in the locker room, down the hallway, and through the door leading to the pool. She waited in the stall, reading the pairings of initials scratched or penned on the door, trying to decipher the alphabetic love codes to distract herself a few minutes longer.

  TA & MG. AL & UD. CC & RH. Togetha 4-eva.

  MB & PA. She briefly considered scratching her own perfect pairing on the door, right below the door handle so that no one would notice and wonder about the new addition.

  She heard the last bare feet patter quickly down the hallway and through the pool door. Her watch said 4:05, which meant even the latecomers should’ve been out now, awaiting instructions. Maggie took one final breath and opened the door. Before throwing out the empty orange juice carton, she checked the nutritional information. Reminding herself that orange juice was good for her, she tried not to be alarmed by its 160 calories and whopping thirty-two grams of sugar.

  “Maggie?”

  “Anabel, hi.” She quickly covered her stomach with her jeans and sweatshirt.

  Anabel’s eyes traveled up from Maggie’s bare toes to her red face.

  “So, tryouts, huh?” Maggie nodded as though standing half-naked while conversing with a Water Wing cocaptain was totally normal.

  “Yeah,” Anabel agreed, eyebrows furrowed. “Are you—?”

  “Me? Trying out?” She shook her head. “Nope. No way.” She looked down, crossed one leg over the other.

  “So why are you—?”

  “I was just on my way to the pool. At a gym. In another town.”

  “Huh.” Anabel nodded. “They don’t have locker rooms there?”

  Maggie sighed. Her cheeks were on fire and her eyes refused to meet Anabel’s. Lying was useless.

  “I was going to try out,” she admitted.

  Anabel smiled slightly.

  “But I changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Something came up.” There was no way she’d make it out there now. Anabel would tell Julia, who’d tell the other judges, and then she wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “Just now? In the bathroom stall?”

  “Yup! So anyway, I might as well go to a gym in another town, now that I’m all dressed up.”

  “Right.” Anabel nodded and bit her lip.

  “But good luck out there. I’m sure your new team members will be great.” She forced a smile.

  “You could still try out, you know.”

  Maggie’s mouth fell open. Anabel wasn’t laughing. How was she not laughing?

  “I mean, anyone can. And if you’ve been practicing”—she shrugged—“why not?”

  Maggie forced her mouth closed as Anabel grabbed a granola bar from her locker, turned on one heel, and disappeared through the pool door. Was she imagining things? Had the orange juice sugar gone right to her brain? She padded over to the door and watched Anabel take her place behin
d the judges’ table.

  She hurried to her locker, shoved her clothes in her backpack, and grabbed the school pool towel, the one she was forced to use since misplacing her extra-large yellow striped towel. She wrapped the terry cloth as best she could, successfully covering herself from chest to mid-thigh, and headed for the door, ready for (just about) anything.

  “Okay girls, here’s the drill!” Ms. Pinkerton boomed into the megaphone.

  Maggie crept quietly behind the bleachers, inches away from the backs of dozens of spectators. She ducked and lifted her head as the cranky gym teacher talked, peering between the bright wool sweaters and corduroy jackets, searching for the best spot to wait her turn, where she could see and not be seen. She’d added her name to the list that had been hanging up for two weeks just before she’d entered the locker room, and expected to watch most of the tryouts before her name was called.

  “You’re going to start in groups of five, one group at a time!”

  Maggie froze, clutched her towel in tightened fingers. Groups? Holding her breath and peeking through a tan suede jacket and an orange wool sweater, she saw the other girls, about twenty in all, standing beside the pool, already gathered in small clusters. When had those been chosen? How did she miss that? She’d signed up late, but there had been no note about any registration deadline or anything at all about group assignments. Had there been all sorts of tryout rehearsals she’d missed out on too, because she’d been too busy numbing her butt and passing out at Mud Puddle Lake? Had she been paying so much attention to calories, fat, and carbohydrate grams that she’d grown completely oblivious to the things she actually needed to know in order to avoid looking like a complete idiot?

  Heat sprung to her cheeks. She wiped the sudden perspiration with a corner of the towel. No one even knew she was there and she was already embarrassed.

  “So!” Ms. Pinkerton boomed. “Do we have everyone?” She looked down at the black clipboard with the sign-up sheet Maggie’d just penned her name to. She was quiet for a moment, reading down the list, her finger still pressing the megaphone so that the names she mumbled under her breath sputtered across the natatorium in an unidentifiable garble.

  Maggie waited, held her breath, braced for her unplanned revealing once her name was read. She waited, but nothing happened.

  Was that even the right list? Had someone erased her name?

  Ms. Pinkerton’s head shot up. She scanned the excited girls at her side and the spectators on the bleachers in front of her. She looked back down at the clipboard, a puzzled look briefly altering her normally unwavering scowl and narrowed eyes, and then back up to the stands.

  Ms. Pinkerton was apparently extremely confused, so much so that she actually lowered the megaphone.

  “Is there no one else?”

  If she hadn’t been watching, Maggie would never have recognized the soft voice. It was almost melodic.

  Ms. Pinkerton cleared her throat, tried to project. “Everyone who wants to try out is already standing next to me?”

  Maggie looked up as the spectators shifted in their seats. If Ms. Pinkerton was referring to her, why didn’t she just call out her name?

  “If any of you have ever done it before, tried out for anything, faced any sort of competition, then you can guess how nerve-racking this may be.”

  The clusters of girls exchanged confused looks.

  “And not every young woman is automatically programmed with the confidence needed to get out in front of you, me, the judges, and their peers, and give it their all,” Ms. Pinkerton continued, her normal voice loud enough to travel to the highest bleacher but uncharacteristically quiet enough to keep people from covering their ears in protest.

  Maggie closed her eyes. How on earth was she supposed to come out from her hiding spot after that?

  “But,” Ms. Pinkerton continued, scanning the crowd again, “it takes a certain character to even get this far, and no matter what happens in this pool, these girls are to be congratulated. Let’s remember that.”

  Maggie raised her eyes as the wool, corduroy, and denim shifted on the metal seats above her. The spectators looked at one another, probably wondering what brought on the unexpected introduction.

  Maggie closed her towel more tightly around her chest, ready to take advantage of the stand shuffling, and make a quick, unnoticeable exit back to the locker room.

  She bent down briefly to straighten the bottom of her towel and cover her thighs. She’d be happy to toss the stupid thing into the school hamper and never see it again. She stood back up and retucked the top folds so that there was no danger of her cover-up accidentally revealing more than she wanted as she dashed back to the locker room.

  “Okay, then!”

  Maggie’s head snapped up as Ms. Pinkerton once again took to the megaphone.

  And wished she’d wrapped the towel around her head instead.

  The orange wool sweater and tan suede jacket, behind which she’d hid, had bent forward to talk to a green corduroy jacket and navy peacoat sitting on the bleacher in front of them. And looking right above them and at her, meeting her eyes with a slight, surprised smile, was Ms. Pinkerton.

  29.

  Ms. Pinkerton raised her eyebrows, just enough that only those who were really looking would notice, but remained silent.

  Maggie bit her lip, the only body part not temporarily paralyzed. The cranky gym coach was actually giving her a choice. And there were a million reasons why it was such a bad, bad idea, but what came to mind instead were the reasons why it wasn’t the worst idea. She’d worked for the motivation to even admit to wanting to try out, and then worked at physically preparing, and she didn’t want even one reason discounting any of that now. She stood in a brand-new, skirtless red bathing suit, which she’d worked to wear, and which she deserved to wear. So without giving herself even one extra second to change her mind, Maggie nodded.

  She moved without thinking and hurried to one end of the bleachers. The farther along she moved, the stronger the scent of chlorine became, till it tickled her nostrils and she could taste it on her lips. And she smiled in relief, because unlike the bitter Mud Puddle Lake water, the chlorine still tasted as sweet as the chocolate she hadn’t touched in over two weeks, the way it had when she’d swum with Aimee and hadn’t thought about anything other than how good she felt.

  She could do this.

  “Maggie!” Aimee exclaimed as Maggie rounded the corner.

  The rest of the girls turned toward her, nineteen mouths falling open in disbelief. Maggie focused on Aimee as she hurried across the slick tile, eager to finally reveal why she’d been lying low.

  Aimee held her arms open and Maggie squeezed her tightly, feeling the tension that had built during the past few weeks melt away.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you!”

  Aimee pulled away and held Maggie at arm’s length, looking her up and down. The towel had slipped off after the embrace. “Mags, you look amazing!” she exclaimed, a wide smile illuminating her turquoise eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Aim. It was just something I needed to do on my own, you know?” Maggie said quickly and quietly. The rest of the girls talked together behind cupped palms, the crowd discussed its own confusion in hushed voices on the bleachers, and Ms. Pinkerton busily cleared up the delay at the judges’ table, but at that moment, no one needed an explanation more than Aimee.

  “I knew something was up,” Aimee whispered, “but I didn’t really know what till I came out of the locker room a few minutes ago.”

  Maggie pulled slightly away.

  “You have a fan club, my dear.” Aimee nodded toward the bleachers.

  Maggie turned her head slowly toward the stands. In the first row sat Maggie’s mom and Summer, her mom’s crossed legs bouncing in nervous excitement and Summer’s small hands clutching two miniature pom-poms from last year’s Halloween costume. When they saw that she saw them, their faces erupted in smiles wider than any she’d seen in months, and they wav
ed furiously and flashed two thumbs up.

  Maggie laughed and waved before turning back to Aimee. “Did you know I was doing this?”

  Aimee’s eyes widened. “Of course not! I just thought you were buried under extra-credit assignments.”

  Ms. Pinkerton called to the first group to enter the water.

  “But then how did they know I’d be here?” Maggie hadn’t even so much as spoken to anyone about her plans besides—

  Aimee nodded her head back to the bleachers.

  Maggie squinted and scanned the crowd again. She waved to Mr. and Mrs. McDougall. Saw Sherry Sherwood, a classmate who worked at the Ice Cream Shack. That was it. Those were most definitely the only people she knew. The only people she even recognized, besides—

  Arnie and Peter Applewood. Maggie covered her open mouth with one hand. Arnie held a small blue cardboard sign with Smile, BEANie Baby! This One’s Yours! in glittery block letters. She wasn’t so over-the-top excited that she thought Peter was there for her and not Julia, but her heart still flipped when he smiled and waved.

  Maggie laughed once, nervous, and waved timidly before turning away from the bleachers completely.

  “Seems like you have much to tell me over dinner!” Aimee teased.

  Before Maggie could answer, Ms. Pinkerton’s voice boomed from the megaphone.

  “Okay, girls, let’s see some water wonder, shall we? Group one, you’re up!”

  The group of girls hopped into the water, stood by the wall, and watched five Water Wings members gracefully perform the basic routine the group would reenact. Ten feet and fifty toes all met in the middle of one perfect circle as the Water Wings floated without drifting on their backs, and Ms. Pinkerton hurried over to Maggie and dropped the megaphone to her side.

  “Group five, Bean,” she instructed quickly before turning on one foot and storming away.

  Maggie didn’t know what to pay more attention to: the exchange of nervous glances by the members of group five standing just down the pool’s edge, or the fact that Ms. Pinkerton had actually singled her out again.

  Between that and her personal cheerleading squad, it was shaping up to be a very unexpected afternoon.