John makes a fist and cracks his knuckles. “Sure, yeah. I told Maggie I’d bring over firewood for the bonfire.”
“Love a man who shares his wood,” Quinn jokes. Everyone laughs at the horrible euphemism.
“Let’s go before you shiver his timbers.” Gil puts his shirt on over his T-shirt while waiting for Maggie to stand and make her way toward the door. Once again, he walks behind her with his hand on the small of her back. The pressure and warmth from his hand are both familiar and exhilarating.
Outside, an empty street greets them. The marquee of The Clyde is dark and the quiet town resembles a stage set when the theater lights dim. She steps into the street and slowly spins with her arms out.
“Come on, Betty, you don’t want to be run over.” Gil grabs her hand and pulls her across to the other sidewalk.
“Al, you’re so silly. This is Langley. No traffic to worry about.”
“Here we go with the Al and Betty stuff again.” Selah groans. “It’s summer of ‘90 all over.”
Maggie smiles at Gil while swinging their linked hands together. “That was a very good summer.”
Gil winks at her. “It was, it was.”
Twelve
Maggie, Quinn and Selah settle on the sectional while Gil sifts through the shelves of albums. After dancing with Maggie, he’s feeling nostalgic for the summer they spent as housemates. He puts The Graduate soundtrack on the turntable just as the doorbell rings.
“They’re here!” Maggie jumps up. Quinn races her down the hall while Selah and Gil laugh at them, following behind.
Maggie pulls open the door. “You don’t need to ring the doorbell. Always so formal.”
It’s almost impossible for Ben and Jo to walk into the house with the crowd at the door. Hugs are given and bags are taken as they all shuffle inside.
“Come in, come in,” Maggie greets them, leading everyone back to the living room.
Gil carries the bags into the den. Earlier in the day his new roommate moved her things into his room. Sharing a room with Selah is a little odd, but it won’t be the first time. At least there are two beds this time instead of a king size and four friends on a road trip.
When Gil returns to the living room, he sees Ben standing by the dining table and the now dirty Scrabble game.
“You guys are playing dirty word Scrabble?” Ben shakes his head.
“Didn’t start out that way, but yeah, we are now.” Gil answers.
“We have a pervert amongst us, but they haven’t identified themselves yet,” Maggie says, joining them at the table.
Ben pulls out a handful of tiles from the bag and arranges them on the support. Looking over the board, he then plays ‘PUSSY’ off of ‘SIGHS’.
“Nicely played, Mr. Grant. Wonderful addition to the board.” Gil pats him on the back and Maggie groans.
“Anyone want a drink? Water? Wine or beer? Tea?” Quinn offers from the kitchen.
“We brought clam broth.” Jo sets a paper bag on the counter.
“Nothing says being in the Pacific Northwest like a steaming hot cup of clam juice.” Selah snarks and wrinkles her nose.
“You like a Bloody Caesar with clam juice, Selah. How’s this any different?” Gil asks.
“First, no vodka. Second, no tomato juice to hide the clam flavor. Third, warm clam broth. Do I need to go on?” She picks up a cup and smells it.
“My mom would always get a cup at Ivar’s when it was cold and we had to wait in the ferry line.” Maggie grabs the cup from Selah and takes a sip. “Thanks for bringing some, Jo. I’m sure I’ll find some way to use it.”
“I remember you talking about it at the funeral.” Jo hugs her shoulders. “Sorry to bring down the mood.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Maggie gives her a watery-eyed smile.
Watching the two of them from across the kitchen island, Gil wishes he was the one to comfort Maggie. He knows he should have come up for her mom’s funeral, but he wasn’t sure he would have been a welcomed addition or a burden.
“What’s happened so far?” Ben walks over to the fridge and grabs a beer. “Anything interesting? Other than Gil’s presence and listening to music on actual vinyl records.” He nods toward the turntable.
“Let’s see… Maggie made scones, Quinn played Peter Pan, Gil and Maggie danced to ‘You Can Call Me Al’, and I was forced into manual farm labor.” Selah fills them in on the highlights.
“Ah, explains the Simon & Garfunkel tunes. Ugh, I remember that song being kind of your thing when we all lived together,” Jo says. “I can’t hear it without thinking of the time the table got knocked over and the last two of the nice wine glasses were broken.”
“I think we were better off drinking wine from plastic cups anyway. More stability.” Selah gestures with her stemless wine glass.
“Speaking of wine, do you have a decent white? I can’t drink chardonnay anymore,” Jo asks.
“Me neither,” Maggie says as she grabs a bottle of wine from the fridge. “Sav blanc okay?” she asks, reaching for a proper wine glass with a stem.
“Perfect.”
“We missed the world famous scones?” Ben asks. “I was looking forward to eating carbs. Jo has put us both on another low carb diet.”
“The joys of aging,” Jo groans. Neither one of them appears to have anything but perfect body fat percentages and ideal BMIs. Ben’s curly, brown hair has receded over the years exposing the worry lines on his forehead.
“I thought triathletes needed carbs for fuel. Isn’t the whole point of doing triathlons is so you can eat whatever the fuck you want?” Quinn asks.
“I’m not in training now. Knee issues and my ortho banned me from competing until next year.” Ben looks sad at this news. “Jo is running a 10K in September, though, so we still have one competitor in the house.”
“Aren’t the twins playing tennis anymore?” Maggie asks.
“Christopher does, but Theo got bored. He’s trying out for lacrosse this year.”
“Neither of them are gifted athletes. Ella did the required two years of soccer and stopped. She’d rather bury her head in a comic book,” Jo explains.
“I think they are called graphic novels now,” Ben says.
“Comic books, graphic novels… same thing.” Jo rolls her eyes.
“I think Ella will make a fantastic goth in a few years,” Quinn says. “I can picture her with striped tights and crinolines.”
“Are goths even still a thing?” Maggie asks.
“Of course they are. Wherever there are emo teenagers, there are goths.” Quinn rolls his eyes at Maggie.
“Oh, joy.” Jo takes a big gulp of her wine. “Something to look forward to.” She laughs at herself. “How did I get to be the mother of a twelve-year-old and fourteen-year-old twins? How is that even possible?”
“You don’t look like the mother of teens, if it makes you feel better. Your dermatologist must be fabulous,” Quinn says, looking closely at Jo’s face.
Gil and Ben sprawl out on the sofa while Quinn examines Jo’s face in the kitchen, Maggie and Selah observing from their perches on the bar stools at the end of the island.
“So how are you, man?” Ben asks as they drink from their bottles.
“Good. Better. I mean life is good.”
“Is better sitting in the room?”
Gil laughs at his obvious transparency. “Better might be in this room.”
“Good. About time.” Ben tips his bottle in Gil’s direction before taking a sip.
“I knew you had Botox!” Quinn’s voice carries over to them.
“What happened to the music?” Selah asks no one in particular.
After walking over to the stereo, Maggie laughs. “Oops, no one turned over the record.”
“What a pain in the ass,” Quinn comments. “I remember having to get up and turn the television channels, all four of them.”
“Ugh, can we not go down the
‘We’re so old do you remember blah blah’ road? It’s bad enough we all even remember what records are,” Jo says.
“Hipsters know what records are. Vinyl is cool again,” Quinn responds.
“How are you and Jo?” Gil asks Ben, ignoring the conversation about vinyl. “Where are the kids this weekend?”
“We’re good. Same really. The boys are at sleep away camp and Jo’s mother is staying with Ella this week.”
“It seems like sleep away camp is more of an East Coast thing.”
“It is. We’ve lived back east their entire lives, they’re truly East Coast.”
“Where are you guys again? Maryland? Connecticut?”
“Maryland was before Connecticut. We’ve been in Darien for the past three years.”
“You like it?”
“It’s okay. I spend most of my life in the office or on the road for meetings—it’s all the same to me.”
“How’s business?” Gil takes a swig of his beer and lets his eyes follow Maggie across the room.
“It isn’t what it was before 2008, that’s for sure. I come out to Vancouver more often. At least it’s nice to see Maggie now she’s out here. It’s a long haul trip to make once a month and I end up missing a lot of stuff at home.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe how many of us ended up back in the Pacific Northwest. Only you three traitors on the east coast now.”
“I’d love to move back here or to Vancouver, but with kids in school it makes it more difficult to move around. After we moved to Darien, Jo said no more moves until the kids were in college.” Ben puts his beer down on the floor. Biscuit flops down next to it and sniffs the bottle. Gil reaches out and rubs behind the dog’s ears.
“You catch any Mariners games when you’re out here?”
“Yeah, they still suck.” Ben laughs. “I’ve gone to a couple of games when I’ve been in Vancouver. Easy drive down and you can get tickets on game day.”
“Hey, let me know when you’re in town. I’ll drive up from Portland to meet you.”
“Sounds great. You still in the same place you shared with Judith?”
“Nah, she insisted we sell the house in the divorce. It’s fine. Too many memories. Bought a Craftsman-style place. I spent the first year stripping paint off the original woodwork.” Gil is uncomfortable talking about the end of his marriage and fall out from the divorce. He stopped being in love with Judith long before the ink was dry on their legal separation, but the divorce is still a dark period in his life.
“Sounds like torture.”
“It was a great way to work out some frustrations, that’s for sure.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. Judith was a piece of work.”
“Everyone keeps reminding me.” Gil’s laugh holds a tinge of bitterness.
“Whatcha talking about?” Maggie walks over and joins them on the sofa, tucking her feet under herself.
“Stripping paint.” He doesn’t want more Judith and divorce talk to taint what has otherwise been a fun night.
“You two need another drink?” Ben asks, heading into the kitchen.
“I’m good.”
“Me too,” Maggie agrees. “Were you really talking about stripping paint?”
“Yeah. The woodwork was covered in layers of it when I bought the house.”
“I bet it looks amazing now.”
“You need to come see for yourself.”
“I’d like that. Maybe after the reunion weekend?”
Walking back to the sofa, Ben mentions to the group, “Speaking of reunions, Jo and I rented a house for the weekend in Olympia.”
“We figured a house would be easier than hotel rooms,” Jo says as she perches on the arm of the sofa next to Ben.
With her dainty figure and perfectly blonde hair, she looks like a small, yellow bird. Maybe a goldfinch, Gil muses. Jo was the golden girl in college. The prize and perfect match for Ben, all brains and a big man on campus—at least in his mind he was.
“Sounds great. Ryan is looking forward to seeing everyone and visiting campus,” Quinn says, joining them on the sectional. He scoots in next to Maggie, forcing her to sit closer to Gil.
“Will we get to see the good doctor this weekend?” Jo asks.
“He arrives Saturday morning. The more, the merrier.”
“Good thing we didn’t bring the kids. They’d have nowhere to sleep.”
“Can always put up a tent on the lawn,” Maggie suggests.
Jo looks mildly horrified by the thought of her kids sleeping on the front lawn in a tent. Quinn chuckles.
“Reunion weekend is no kids, right?” Selah asks.
“Heavens yes,” Jo answers. “I’d rather protect them from stories from Auntie Selah and Uncle Quinn about their parents’ adventures in college.”
“You mean they don’t know about how Animal House is tame compared to some of Ben’s antics?”
“I never put a horse in anyone’s office. There’s no proof that goat had anything to do with me. Or anyone else I know,” Ben adds, looking at Gil.
“Hey, don’t look at me.” Gil holds up his hands. “I’m sure I had an airtight alibi at the time.”
“Yeah, what was her name? Dawn? Erika? Suzanna?” Ben asks.
Gil furrows his brow and squints. “I’m pretty sure it was Suzanna. Or maybe Suzanne. It was a long time ago.”
“And you, dear sweet Gil, were a bit of a slut,” Selah pipes in.
Gil laughs. “Okay, kettle.”
“It was college. That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Quinn says. “Unless you are Ben and Jo, you don’t end up with your college love. It’s all about experimenting, finding yourself, and heartbreak.”
Maggie avoids Gil’s eye at Quinn’s observation. Gil bumps her leg with his a few times to get her to look at him. When she does, he gives her a soft smile, and says, “All of that is ancient history. What matters most is who we have in our lives now.”
“Amen.” Selah raises her glass.
“Speaking of sleeping, where are we sleeping tonight? I’m exhausted,” Jo says.
“You and Ben are downstairs. Gil and Selah are upstairs in the twin beds, and Quinn is in the other guest room,” Maggie explains.
“Great. I’m off to bed, then.” Jo kisses Maggie on the cheek and blows a kiss to everyone else.
“Me too,” Ben adds, following Jo down the hall. “Night.”
“Towels are under the sink in the hall bath,” Maggie calls out as they retreat down the hall.
As if on cue, she yawns. It’s been a long day with many beers this evening. She snuggles more into the couch and a little bit more into Gil. Dancing with him tonight broke the ice. The wall around her heart where her feelings for Gil are kept begins to crack. He feels like home even after all these years. In many ways he is the same charming, sweet boy she met freshman year. The guy who couldn’t believe she liked Roxy Music so much she had a giant Bryan Ferry poster above her bed.
“I was thinking of freshman year. Whatever happened to my freshman roommate you dated?” With her eyes closed she tilts her head in his direction.
“No idea. Can’t even remember her name,” Gil says.
“I think it was Jennifer.” Opening one eye, she squints at him.
“Hmmm… rings a bell. I imagine she has a kid in college and a mini-van. She seemed keen on getting her M.R.S degree right from the start.” He cringes.
“She might be at the reunion and we can find out. Maybe you’ll see her again and remember your love for her.”
Gil laughs and then looks at her. “No big interest then, no interest now.”
“There was some interest then. I remember having to hang out at the library late more than one night. You never know. Maybe she’s hot. Maybe she married a much older guy and he died, and left her millions, and she got a boob job.” She opens her other eye to stare at him.
“Sounds like just my type.”
“I
knew your type was Anna Nicole Smith.”
“My type has never been that. My type is more natural, less silicone.” Gil traces down her arm, then pokes her in her side.
When Maggie squirms away from him with his threat of tickling, she notices Quinn and Selah are gone. “Where did everyone go?”
“Miss Observant, they left sometime between Jennifer and Anna Nicole.”
Maggie realizes she didn’t even hear them slip away. “We should go to bed, too. You okay sleeping with Selah?”
“I’ll manage.” Gil yawns and stretches out. “If she snores, I can always sleep out here. Or crawl into bed with you, like old times.”
Maggie doesn’t take him seriously. “The couch is really comfortable. I’ve fallen asleep out here many a night next to the wood stove— warmest spot in the house some nights.”
“I notice you missed my overture.” He winks. “I’ll let Biscuit out. You should head up to bed. I think I’ll stay up for a bit and read.”
She blinks at him for being called out, but decides to let it pass. “That’s sweet. Are you sure? He’s usually pretty quick this time of night.”
“No problem.”
“Okay, well, goodnight.” She turns toward him and gives him an awkward half hug.
“Night.” He kisses the side of her head. A kiss she can feel down to her toes.
She drags herself off the sofa and up to her bed. Alone like many other nights. Only tonight her bed seems big and empty with only her.
Thirteen
The sun shining into his room wakes up Gil earlier than normal. He rolls over to see Selah still conked out in the twin bed next to his. Stretching and yawning, he remembers last night’s dancing and flirting with Maggie. He doesn’t stop the smile that crosses his face. Amazed how a song can transport him back in time, he hums a few notes and feels lighter, more optimistic than he has in a long time.
Maggie’s door is closed when he walks by and he decides not to disturb her. Well, he does want to disturb her, but not for running. He’d like nothing more than to quietly crawl into bed with her. Unlike college, he isn’t even that bold, so he decides he’ll go for a run to work off some of the pent up energy and sexual tension in his body. Maggie has only been back in his life two days, he knows he needs to proceed cautiously.
Geoducks are for Lovers Page 9