The Fairy Trail

by Catherine Ras

  So, she kept Charlie at arm’s length.

  “You don’t have to come, Aunt Agnes. I’m okay.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure, but thank you for answering the phone.”

  “I made you a promise, Mags, and I intend to keep it. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Thanks.” Maggie pressed the end button and stared up at the second floor of her dorm building. She couldn’t go back into that room.

  ***

  “What. Are. You. Doing here?”

  Maggie was ready for this. She knew when she had packed her room up two weeks ago while Charlie was off visiting Olivia’s family that her mother would not be happy to see her again. Aunt Agnes had picked her up from school and let her stay with her until she gathered up enough courage to face her mother.

  Four months on her own and her Aunt Agnes’s support had prepared her for almost anything her mother would throw at her.

  Maggie turned around to face her mother. She wore her pink uniform dress with blue apron. It wasn’t what she planned for herself, but for now it would have to do.

  “I came home last night. I quit school and got a job that I need to get to so I won’t be late. As soon as I make enough money, I’ll be gone.” Maggie didn’t wait for her mom to reply instead choosing the quick exit. She just wished she’d had enough guts to take a quick look at her mother’s expression; then she would have a heads up on what might happen next.

  Her phone vibrated in her apron pocket. She didn’t have to look at it to know who it was. She put her hand in her pocket and pressed the side button to silence the phone.

  She put her ear buds on and started her favorite playlist. Music was good to shut out the voices in her head that yelled, argued, and debated with her mind.

  When her first song ended, the next one didn’t start, so she pulled her phone out, tapped a few buttons and stopped. She looked up to see she was standing at the entrance to the fairy trail.

  The temptation was pulling her apart. She swore she would give up on the fairies after what happened with Doug, but she was more scared now than she was when he entered her room. The future she thought she’d have wasn’t working out the way she wanted.

  She quickly turned, picking up her pace until she was almost running. It was the only thing keeping her from going back. She had to do this herself.

  When she got to Leena’s Diner, she flattened herself against the side of the building, her breathing short and labored. It wasn’t just because of the two miles she jogged, but she was lost and alone once again. Yes Aunt Agnes said she would be there for her, but she hadn’t had anyone since Charlie and her aunt help her figure things—well, except for the fairies who seemed to get her into more trouble than out of. It was time she stood on her own two feet.

  Her phone rang again. She tilted her head back and sighed as she pulled it out. Now was the time to stand on her own.

  “Hello.” Maggie waited, not knowing what Charlie would say.

  “I’ve thought all night about what I’d say to you. It’s probably a good thing you didn’t answer the phone right away because it wouldn’t have been good. Now I just want to know why.”

  “Three’s a crowd,” Maggie hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. In three words, she gave away everything. She was planning on lying—her mother was ill, she had to go home. Although, she knew Charlie wouldn’t believe that because why would Maggie go home to help a mother who never did anything for her other than make her life miserable by pounding into her day after day that everything bad in her mother’s life was her fault?

  After a second, Charlie replied. “Three’s a crowd. That’s what you have to say to me. Really Maggie?”

  “Sorry. College wasn’t working out for me. I figured since you had Olivia, you’d be okay.”

  “If that’s true, we could have talked about it.”

  “We stopped talking a long time ago.”

  “I honestly didn’t know that until you left two weeks ago without saying anything.” There was a moment of silence. “You’re jealous, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you leave?”

  “I told you.”

  “Maggie, if that was the case and we were friends like I thought we were, you would have talked to me about what was going on with you.”

  “You’ve got Olivia to talk to now, so what does it matter?”

  “You didn’t want to be with me.”

  “What?” Maggie took the phone from her ear and looked at it as if it was malfunctioning.

  “You’re the one who kissed me. Remember?”

  Maggie didn’t want to answer that.

  “It wasn’t a friendship kiss, and for a brief time, I thought, well, I thought maybe you were interested in a relationship. But you skirted every advance I made, and soon I realized that kiss was just to get back at Isabella and Mike. So I moved on.”

  Maggie’s heart sank hearing confirmation of her callousness and her fears. She couldn’t speak because she couldn’t lie to Charlie.

  “But I thought we still had our friendship. I guess I was wrong. Good-bye, Maggie.”

  The connection went dead. Once again, Maggie stared at her phone, waiting for Charlie’s name to appear and hear the familiar ring she assigned to Charlie when they moved in together to come from its speaker.

  Nothing happened.

  She glared at the phone, remembering the night they sat together and Maggie was playing every ring tone set in her phone. Soon they were pulling up ringtones online and laughing hysterically when they found the song “I Kissed a Girl.” That was Charlie’s ring tone.

  Maggie unlocked her phone, chose settings and changed the ring tone to the default setting. Then she went inside the diner.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  A year later, Maggie loathed the tight, pink, short skirt uniform with the baby blue apron. She felt a pang of anger every time she had to pull out the little black fold over pad and cheap pen with the word “Leena” painted in gold stretched along the length of the writing utensil to take an order.

  Her feet were sore because she couldn’t afford to buy a sturdy pair of shoes or sneakers to work in. Most of her money went to her mother. The second day Maggie came home from work, her mother told her that if she was working and was still going to live under her roof, she would have to support herself. That meant rent, utilities, and food.

  By the time she paid her mother, there wasn’t much left. Instead of spending it on frivolous things, she put the meager leftovers into a savings account, hoping to get out from under her drunken, drugged- out mother who never cared for her.

  To make matters worse, over the summer, Charlie walked into the diner with Olivia and sat at Maggie’s table. Maggie tried to switch with the other waitress, but Tess didn’t like serving gays or lesbians. Maggie didn’t know which made her angrier, Tess’s prejudice or having to serve Charlie herself.

  She put her head up, took out her pad and walked over to the table. She would remember that night as one of the most uncomfortable in her life, but at least it wasn’t the worst. While she walked home, she tried to decide which one she would anoint as the worst night of her life. There were too many.

  When she was in her bedroom, she pulled out her bank book and checked the balance. She was close to having enough to put down a security deposit on the one bedroom apartment over the diner. Leena said she’d give her a good deal.

  While sitting on her bed, she heard a loud crash come from the kitchen. She ran down to find her mother sprawled out on the linoleum floor, pieces of a broken vodka bottle surrounding her like the tape police used to mark a dead body.

  Her mother was laughing.

  Maggie grabbed the broom and swept as much of the broken glass away from her mother as she could and then helped her up and plopped her down in a kitchen chair.

  “God, mom. What is wrong with you?”

  Her mother started cackling. “You know the answer to
that?” she slurred. “You. You’re what’s wrong with me.”

  “Yeah, I know. Don’t worry. I told you I almost have enough money to move out. You won’t have to put up with me anymore.”

  “Where’z my dring?”

  “You left it on the floor.” Maggie picked up the broom and dust pan and swept up the rest of the glass.

  “Ged me nother.”

  She dumped the glass into the trash can and put the broom and dust pan away.

  “Go to bed, mom.” Maggie went up to her room. She knew from the past year she didn’t have to worry about her mom falling on the stairs. Within seconds, she would be asleep at the table and still there in the morning.

  As she lay down on her bed and pulled her comforter up, she whispered over and over, “One more month, one more month,” until she fell asleep.

  ***

  The apartment was small. In her living room and bedroom, she could walk from wall to wall in six steps. In the kitchen, it only took two. She didn’t bother to count in the bathroom.

  But…it was hers and hers alone. She was finally free of her mother and the chains of her childhood. It wasn’t the future she had dreamed about her senior year in high school, but she did this on her own, and she knew if she kept working hard, striving not to fail, maybe her other dreams might also come true.

  Her only disappointment was Aunt Agnes who had met a new man—Tony. As her aunt spent more time with her new male interest, she spent less time worrying about Maggie, and eventually the phone calls wondering how she was doing, did she need anything stopped.

  It didn’t matter. Maggie was used to taking care of herself. It would be better not having anyone hovering over her, like when her aunt insisted she lower the hem of her uniform. Maggie had done so—a half inch each month for the last three without Leena catching on. Yet, her aunt had been right. That one and a half inch made her feel better about her job so that she’d be able to stay there until she had enough money to go back to college without feeling like a whore who was trying to pick up male diners for a good time.

  So, life was…okay, and tonight Tess was taking her out to celebrate her new apartment after work. There was only one bar in their small town, but on a Friday evening, it was alive with not only the locals, but people from all over the county who loved Rock with Wings and Pizza Night.

  Maggie looked at herself in the mirror, pleased with the outcome of her hour long hair and makeup session—an hour long because she couldn’t decide on how to wear her shoulder length hair or what color pallet she wanted to use for her makeup.

  After deciding on leaving her hair down with soft curls and a dusty smoke composition, she grabbed her wallet and ran down the back steps that entered the kitchen of the diner. Tess was just sliding her timecard into the clock that ruled their lives on work days. Looking at the archaic, metal square box whose ticking was most obnoxious, Maggie swore when she finally got back to college, it would be for a career where there were no time clocks.

  “There’s the new independent lady,” Tess exclaimed. “How’s the unpacking going?” She picked up her very large, cloth purse that looked more like an overnight bag and swung it over her shoulder.

  “There isn’t much to unpack, so I’m almost done,” Maggie smiled broadly.

  Tess held out a small package wrapped in the newspaper comic section. “It’s not much, but everyone needs one.”

  “Oh, I don’t know if I want to open this and ruin the beautiful wrapping job.”

  “There are more comics where that came from. Go ahead, open it.”

  Maggie tore at the package as the child in her felt excitement to open a gift—something she hadn’t done in a very long time. Inside was a cooking timer in the shape of a male kitchen chef.

  “Everyone needs one of those, but you never think to get one. Besides, doesn’t it look just like Barty?” She giggled.

  Barty was the cook in Leena’s Diner. He was married to Leena and the staff often took bets on which one would be in a bad mood. Often, no one won because most of the time, both of them sulked around the restaurant barking orders.

  Maggie smiled. “Thank you, Tess. You’re right on both accounts. I don’t have a timer,” she leaned forward and whispered, “and it does look like Barty.” They both laughed.

  When they walked into Only Road Bar, every chair, bar stool and table was occupied. Tess and Maggie managed to squeeze in between two stools to get a drink. Tess leaned over the bar to speak to the bartender. Maggie couldn’t hear what she was saying, but immediately after, Tess took her hand and led her to a table near the back wall.

  Minutes later, a waitress walked over with drinks and appetizers, more than Maggie could pay for.

  “You don’t have to pay a thing,” Tess said as she tipped her drink in Maggie’s direction. “It’s on me.”

  ‘I…I can’t. It’s too much,” Maggie’s voice faltered with fear of being left so she’d have to pay.

  Tess handed one of the drinks to Maggie, and then sat back in her chair. “I know your parents.” She waited for a response from Maggie who tried not to show surprise.

  “Your mom worked her for a short time until she got pregnant. We were best friends until she gave birth to you. She closed off from the world and was never the same after that. I know it wasn’t easy for you.”

  Maggie began to feel anger. “So what is this, a pity outing?”

  Tess set her drink on the table. “I don’t blame you for feeling that way, but no. I work with you. I like you. At the very least, you deserve a night out without having to worry about anything. You’ve worried enough in your short life. So drink up, eat, and be merry. Tomorrow, it will be back to a working relationship. Okay?”

  Maggie lifted her glass. “Okay.”

  Tess picked up her glass again and clinked Maggie’s.

  Throughout the evening, they ate, drank, and played pool and a few video games. After two alcoholic drinks, Maggie switched to Coke. Watching two alcoholic parents had a positive effect on her. She didn’t want to end up like them.

  Close to midnight, Maggie was dancing. She turned in circles, her head bobbing up and down to the beat. She paid no attention to the rest of the bar until someone caught her eye.

  Standing near the entrance was Charlie. Next to Charlie was Olivia.

  Maggie retreated to her table faster than a mouse to its hole that was being chased by a cat. She grabbed her purse and quickly scanned the room for Tess who was sitting at the bar in deep conversation with a man she didn’t recognize.

  Trying to stay hidden from view, she wove in and out of the crowd, choosing to duck behind people that were taller than her or groups that were tightly woven to hide her presence.

  When she finally reached the bar, she squeezed in between Tess and the person next to her. She lightly tapped her on the shoulder, and then whispered, “I can’t thank you enough, but I need to go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Tess snapped her head around but not in time to catch Maggie.

  Maggie slipped out the back door of the bar nervous about walking the few miles home so late at night. Calling a taxi would only make her spend the money she didn’t want to on the evening festivities. She scanned the parking lot for anyone she might recognize when a voice called out to her.

  “Need a ride home?”

  Maggie turned toward the familiar voice. Charlie looked…beautiful, and Maggie didn’t know what to do with that.

  “You’re staring at me.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I figured as much. As soon as you saw me, you ran out.”

  Maggie scoffed. “I did not. I’ve been here all night. I’m tired. I have to work tomorrow.”

  “Then let me drive you home.”

  “Thanks, but I can walk.”

  “You shouldn’t at this hour of the night. Do you have anyone else that can drive you?”

  Maggie was getting irritated. “What about Olivia?” she blurted out.


  Charlie smiled. “She knows I’m out here offering. We’re meeting friends, so she’ll be deep in conversation until I get back.”

  Maggie weighted the options of taking a very uncomfortable ride home with Charlie and walking home at midnight risking being picked up or attacked.

  “Fine,” Maggie said. “Where’s your car?”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Maggie felt her eyelids heavy as the drone of the car tires on the asphalt felt like a lullaby. She just wanted to close them, go to sleep, but something tugged at her. So, she asked, “Why are you here?”

  Charlie’s laugh was short. “I live here, remember? I came home to visit my family. The few friends I had in high school wanted to get together and meet…” She stopped.

  Maggie looked out the window. “Aahhh, to meet the little woman.”

  “Really?” Charlie turned down the street where Maggie’s house was.

  “I don’t live here anymore. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

  “How would I know?”

  “You knew where I was tonight.”

  Charlie pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it in park. She confronted Maggie. “Is that what you think? I hunted you out so I could see you?”

  “Didn’t you?”

  Charlie didn’t answer right away. “Did you ever care for me? I mean more than a friend.”

  Now it was Maggie’s turn not to answer immediately even though she knew the answer. Finally she spoke with disinclination because she didn’t want to admit the truth, but a part of her hoped if she did, things might…change.

  “Yes. You knew when we talked and pretty much accused me of leaving for that reason.” She turned her head to look at Charlie who was now looking straight ahead.