Maggie's Baby

by Colleen French

  “Can’t. Jarrett and I are meeting his friend. His parents got a permit for a bonfire.” Maggie cut across the lawn that needed mowing. “Hope you have a good time.”

  Lisa let the screen door slam shut. “Yeah, right,” she muttered.

  ~~~

  That night, Maggie sat close to Jarrett on the beach blanket, enjoying the weight of his arm wrapped casually around her shoulder. A bonfire illuminated the quiet beach with jagged yellow light. Red cinders rose like fireflies into the air, cracking and popping. The half moon hung low in the sky, blazing a path across the water. In the distance she could hear the steady ebb and flow of the tide as the ocean rushed onto the beach.

  One of Jarrett’s friends from Georgetown played his guitar and some others sang a slow and mournful Billy Joel song.

  Jarrett lifted a beer to his lips, took a sip, and then leaned over to kiss her on the cheek, while talking to the friend sitting next to him.

  Maggie smiled and wished the night could go on forever. She loved the beach. She loved the salty smell that hung in the air and the rhythm of the waves. Someday this was where she was going to live. When she was a physician, she’d be able to afford a house like the McKays’. Maybe even live in it with Jarrett.

  The song ended and Jarrett’s best friend Zack set aside his guitar. “How ’bout another brewsky?” He opened the ice chest sunk in the sand and pulled out a bottle of cold beer.

  “I’ll take one,” his girlfriend said.

  “Me, too,” someone else called from the shadows.

  Zack stood to pass out the beer, swaying on his feet. “Maggie?”

  “No, thanks.” She smiled and lifted her diet soda. “I’m fine.” She didn’t like beer. It reminded her too much of her father, asleep in a stupor in his chair, or Lisa, who got drunk five out of seven nights a week.

  “Maggie’s drinking soda?” He turned to Jarrett. “What’s with your girl? I know you said she was just a kid, but come on.”

  Maggie felt Jarrett tense beside her. His hand rubbed her shoulder. “She said no thanks.”

  “Come on. It’s a party. The girl’s gotta have a beer.” He stepped in front of them and leaned over to Jarrett in feigned confidentiality. “How else you gonna get a little something-something, eh, buddy?”

  Jarrett jumped up, knocking his own beer over. Before Maggie could stop him, he drew back his fist and slammed Zack in the jaw.

  Zack fell backward into the sand, the beer meant for Maggie flying out of his hand and landing in the bonfire. “Why did you do that?” Zack stumbled to his feet, nursing his jaw.

  “Because you don’t talk like that around girls, and because she said she doesn’t want a beer.”

  Maggie jumped to her feet, not knowing what to do. Zack was Jarrett’s best friend; they were fraternity brothers. She put her hand on Jarrett’s bare back. “It’s okay, Jarrett,” she said softly. “He’s drunk. You didn’t have to hit him for my sake.”

  Jarrett drew back his fist again. “Sure I did. Maybe he needs another. Zack?”

  Zack stumbled to the ice chest and pulled out another beer. “Man, what’s gotten into you, Jarrett?” He gave a loud belch. “I just wanted everyone to have a little fun. Can’t have fun without beer.”

  Jarrett grabbed Maggie’s hand. “Let’s go for a walk. I’ve had enough of these jerks.”

  Maggie grabbed her towel off the sand and trudged behind Jarrett, letting him lead her by the hand. “Sorry about that,” Jarrett said, kicking sand. “Zack’s not a bad a guy. Just drinks too much.”

  “It’s all right. I could have handled him myself.” She glanced at Jarrett sideways, smiling shyly. “But thanks for coming to my rescue anyway.”

  Jarrett stopped and turned to face her. It was so natural for Maggie to let him wrap her in his arms. She lifted her chin to meet his kiss.

  “God, I’m going to miss you when I have to go back to school,” he murmured against her lips.

  He tasted like beer and himself, a man’s taste. “I’ll miss you, too,” she whispered.

  “I’ll come home every weekend I can.” This time he kissed the tip of her nose.

  Maggie wrapped her arms around Jarrett’s waist, letting the towel she’d thrown over her shoulders float to the ground. Her blood raced as she pressed her body to his.

  Maggie pressed her lips to his, teasing him with the tip of her tongue. He wound her hair around his fingers, deepening the kiss.

  “Maggie, I love you,” Jarrett whispered when their mouths separated.

  “I love you, too,” she whispered.

  Jarrett leaned over to pick up the towel she’d dropped. “Let’s sit over here out of the light and talk.”

  Maggie laughed, running to catch up with him. “Talk?” she teased, “Or kiss?”

  He laughed with her, his rich, masculine voice sending shivers of pleasure through her. “Okay. A little kissing, a little talking.”

  Still laughing, she plopped down beside him on the towel he’d spread in the sand, just out of reach of the incoming tide. They sat hand in hand with the dunes to their backs, the ocean washing onto the shore directly in front of them. Jarrett picked up a bucket and shovel left behind by some child, and began to fill the bucket with sand. “What are we going to do about dating when we go back to school, Maggie?” He dumped the sand from the bucket onto the beach in a smooth tower.

  She watched him create another tower in the sand.

  She had known this discussion was coming. She’d rehearsed what she was going to say over and over again, but now she couldn’t remember her lines.

  Even if he said he loved her, she couldn’t ask Jarrett not to date other girls at college. It wouldn’t be mature of her. Still, what did she want to be, mature or nuts? Just the thought of Jarrett kissing someone else made her crazy.

  “What do you want to do?” she hedged.

  He went on building his sandcastle, creating a wall with his capable hands. “You haven’t dated that much, Maggie. I’m sure there are guys at Belltown High you’d—”

  “Are we talking about me or you?” she asked pointedly. “Because I already know there’s no one in Belltown I want to swap spit with. Too many germs.”

  He tipped back his head and laughed as he formed a moat around his castle with the red plastic shovel. “You’re going to make a great doctor, Maggie. You’ve got that unromantic, clinical way about you.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. “Seriously,” she said, brushing his cheek with her fingertips, “you’re older than I am; I’m still in high school. I’m sure there are some great college girls—”

  He dropped the toy shovel and bucket and brushed the sand from his hands. “I didn’t meet anyone like you at Georgetown, Maggie.”

  She smiled. Looking into his blue eyes made her heart sing. “Good. I hope it stays that way, but we probably should leave it open.”

  She lifted her shoulder. “If you meet someone you want to go out with, then go out with her.”

  “And if you meet someone”—he poked her between her breasts with his finger—”you’ll go out with him.”

  “Yeah, right.” She lay on her back to look up at the stars. “Like I’d want to date Mark Little or Derek Smelton. They've got weird hair on their chins and their voices are still changing.”

  He chuckled and stretched out on the towel beside her. “Look what I made for you.” He pointed at the sand castle.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful,” she breathed. Then she looked at him, suddenly somber. “But it won’t stand long. The tide’s coming in. The water’s going to wash it away.”

  “So I’ll build you another one. As many as you like. For the rest of my life, every time we come to the beach, I’ll build you a sandcastle. Even when we’re old and we have to hobble onto the beach with our walkers.”

  “Don’t make promises like that,” she whispered. “We shouldn’t make promises we might not be able to keep.”

  He kissed her temple. “Maggie, Maggie, you’re so serio
us sometimes. What am I going to do with you?”

  She looked at him. She didn’t know why the sandcastle bothered her so much. It just did. She didn’t want the ocean to take it away. “You could kiss me,” she whispered.

  Without answering, he lowered his mouth over hers. When he came up for breath, she brushed back a lock of his damp hair. “Thanks for the castle and thanks again for being my hero, Jarrett.”

  He leaned over to kiss her, pressing her into the still warm sand. His voice was a whisper of genuine emotion. “I hope I always will be.”

  Chapter 3

  The Present

  Maggie sat down in the sand, drew her knees up, and wrapped the light blanket around her as much for emotional comfort as to ward off the morning chill. The sun was just rising in all its glory over the lip of the endless ocean, all bright and yellow, a burning ball of gas and light—the most magical time of day at the beach.

  But Maggie couldn’t feel the magic. She couldn’t feel anything but the numbness that had invaded her three days before, when she’d received news of Stanley and Jordan’s deaths.

  “I brought tea and muffins.” Kyle approached from behind her, a picnic basket swinging over one arm. On the other, like a maître d’, he carried a small checkered tablecloth. In his usual neat, fashionable style, he wore pristine white Capri jeans and a red polo. A white tennis sweater was draped over his shoulders. “How about some tea, Maggie dear?”

  “No. No tea. Nothing for me.”

  “Horse-hockey.” Kyle spread out the red-and-white gingham tablecloth, its corners fluttering in the salty breeze before they came to rest in the sand. “You’ve got to eat to keep up your strength.”

  Maggie said nothing as Kyle sat beside her in the sand and spread out the morning fare. He had a plate of homemade cinnamon apple muffins just out of the oven and a tub of butter. From a thermos, he poured a mug of tea for each of them. “Earl Grey with lemon, no sugar, no milk. Just as you like it.”

  When Maggie made no attempt to take the steaming mug, Kyle gently pressed it into her hand. “Drink, Maggie.”

  Because it was easier than arguing with Kyle, Maggie took a sip from the blue, salt-glazed mug. The tea, though tasteless to her palate, warmed her from the inside. Still, it couldn’t chase the chill from her heart. She stared at the waves breaking on the shore. It would be low tide soon. Teens would be out on their skim boards, taking advantage of the pools of water that lay on the beach only at low tide and the fact that the lifeguards weren’t on duty yet.

  Kyle sat beside her and sipped his tea. “Penny for your thoughts.”

  Maggie watched a wave crest and break, pouring like water from a cup. She couldn’t stop thinking of Stanley and Jordan. “This is all my fault.”

  “What?”

  “Stanley and Jordan. Them dead.”

  “Of course it is, dear.” Kyle set his tea down carefully on the tablecloth and reached for a plate and a muffin. “You were driving that Jeep like a bat out of hell on the Beltway. You saw the red Mazda, but you’d had one too many vodka and tonics at happy hour. You just couldn’t brake in time.”

  Maggie shook her head, staring but not really seeing. “I never should have married Stanley.”

  “You’re right. Too dour. Too controlling. I told you that years ago. I make it habit never to date men named Stanley.”

  Maggie swallowed another sip of tea. “I never really loved him, Kyle.” Not the way I loved Jarrett, she thought, and then wondered where that had come from. “He was convenient. Comfortable. But I didn’t love him.”

  “Sure you did. Eat.” He put a plate in front of her. The blue plate contrasted well with the tablecloth. It was Kyle’s way. The muffin was already cut and glistening with butter.

  “I definitely didn’t love him.” She exhaled. “Well, I mean I loved him like I love my old barn coat. Like I love my slipper socks with the hole in the toe. But I didn’t love him with a passion—not like a person loves a red Mustang convertible.”

  Kyle took a bite of his muffin and reached for a cloth napkin to wipe the corner of his mouth. “Excuse me if I’m slow-witted at six in the morning, but are you comparing your deceased husband to a sports car?”

  Maggie couldn’t resist a sad smile. What would she have done without Kyle these last three days? Gone mad, probably. “You know ...the way the wind blows your hair when you ride with the top down. The way you can feel the speed. The way it makes your heart pound every time you start the engine.”

  “I once dated a guy who made me feel like that.”

  Maggie glanced over at her dearest friend. “And what happened to him?”

  It was Kyle’s turn to stare off into the distance. “He dumped me for a cheeky blond lobbyist.” He chased a crumb across the salt-glazed plate with his finger. “Never met another like him. Still looking, though.”

  Maggie’s gaze met Kyle’s. Dampness glistened in his eyes, making her tear up. She looked away.

  “Hell.” He took her hand. “I’m supposed to be here comforting you, and instead I’m talking about my lousy love life.”

  To pacify Kyle, she picked up half her muffin and took a nibble. Despite the heavenly aroma, it tasted like sawdust in her mouth. She chewed and swallowed out of reflex. “I feel so damned guilty, Kyle. I made him unhappy.”

  “You didn’t. Stanley was as happy as Stanley could ever have been.”

  “He didn’t want children.”

  “He loved Jordan. Don’t let your grief-stricken head tell you otherwise. He loved his son, your son.”

  “Yes. He came to love him.” Maggie’s chest felt so heavy that it ached. “But Jordan was an inconvenience. Stanley was meant to be a bachelor. He didn’t adjust well to puke on his Armani coat and three a.m. feedings. I convinced him we should marry and have children because my biological clock was ticking.”

  “I was there. You didn’t arm wrestle him down the aisle. And as far as Jordan’s conception, it takes two to rumba, love.”

  Maggie ran her hand over her face. “When I told him I wanted another baby when Jordan was only a few months old, you should have seen the look on his face. He suggested getting a puppy. When the results of my testing came back and Dr. Naylor said there wasn’t a chance in hell I would ever get pregnant again, Stanley couldn’t hide the relief in his voice. Instead of giving me another baby, he took me to Paris. I cried the whole week we were there. I ruined his trip.”

  “Stanley wasn’t unhappy.” Kyle finished off his muffin and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “You were, maybe, but not Stanley. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but if you ask me, he didn’t have enough emotional substance to be unhappy. The man was a robot.”

  Maggie reached for her mug of tea again. It was actually beginning to taste good. “I know you never liked him, but he was good for me. He came into my life at a point when I needed his stability.”

  “He came at a time when you needed sperm from a decent gene pool.”

  Maggie frowned.

  “I mean, he just never seemed right for you, “ Kyle continued. “When you talked about Stanley, you never got the shine in your eyes you had the night you got drunk and told me about the boy you dated in high school.”

  Maggie groaned and lowered her head to her bent knees. That was twice in one day she’d been reminded of Jarrett—a raw wound that had been pacified by antacids and denial, but had never healed. “I did not get drunk.”

  “Wasn’t this where you used to come with him? Talbany Beach? Where you fell in love?” Kyle rattled on as he cleaned up the breakfast stuff, leaving her plate in the hope, she knew, that she might eat another bite or two. “It was this beach, wasn’t it? You said his folks had a place.”

  Maggie knew what Kyle was trying to do. He was trying to get her to think about something other than the funeral today, something other than her baby boy cremated, his ashes in a jar. What he didn’t know was that the subject of Jarrett was almost as deep a wound, just not as fresh.

  “Just
a few blocks from here,” she said softly.

  “Your first puppy love. I remember mine. Jason Rickers. He was in my drama class my sophomore year of high school.”

  Puppy love. Maggie’s chest tightened. Kyle went on telling her about his Jason, but she wasn’t really listening. For a moment she allowed herself to think of Jarrett. She remembered that night at the beach just before he’d gone back to college when, so young and in love, with their whole lives ahead of them, they’d rolled in the sand. Laughing. Kissing.

  After all these years, she could still vividly remember the shivers of pleasure she had felt when Jarrett’s mouth had touched hers. She remembered wanting to make love to him that night. She remembered Jarrett was the one who said they should wait and be sure it was right. Jarrett, always the hero.

  She had never let Stanley be her hero. Another reason to feel guilty.

  “Of course, Jason never knew I had a crush on him,” Kyle finished with a sigh of love lost. “He wasn’t gay, so I never had a chance with him. But heavens, how I enjoyed playing that scene from Death Of A Salesman with him.”

  Maggie glanced at Kyle. He was model handsome. “I think I’ll go up to the house now,” she said. Her voice was ghostly in her ears. Unreal. This was all unreal. “Get a shower. Get ready.”

  “Maggie, it’s not even seven yet. You have plenty of time before we need to head to D.C. The memorial service isn’t for eight hours.”

  “I know, but I need to go by the hospital. There was a patient I admitted—”

  “The hospital can function without you.” He stood, brushing the sand off his jeans, and offered her a hand.

  Maggie rose, bringing her blanket with her to shield herself from the first vacationers appearing on the beach. Beneath the blanket she was dressed in nothing but panties and an old T-shirt of Stanley’s. There seemed to be no reason to dress.