Maggie's Going Nowhere

by Rose Hartley

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  She smiled a smile so false and perfect it was as if it had been buffed onto her face with wax and a soft cloth. ‘How’s this?’ she asked. She swiped her phone to answer the call. ‘Hi Jono.’ Her voice sounded dead, but calm. She put him on speaker and pressed a finger to her lips to keep me quiet.

  ‘Babe,’ he said. ‘Are you almost here?’

  ‘Five minutes away.’

  ‘Did you ask Maggie about . . . the thing?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s the caravan. Definitely.’

  I stared at Jen.

  Jono laughed too loudly. ‘She better not be coming tonight.’ There was too much relief in his voice.

  ‘She is coming, actually. After all, she told the truth and accepted full responsibility for what she did.’ Jen stressed every word, rather ominously in my opinion. ‘She would never lie to me, so I’ve decided to forgive her. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. She’s back in the wedding party.’

  ‘Uh, okay.’ He sounded uncertain.

  ‘See you soon, babe,’ Jen said. ‘Is the band there yet?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jono said. ‘Some guy with prison tatts showed up. Did Maggie book these people to play music?’

  Jen drank like a fish and swore like a sailor throughout the wedding rehearsal. She recited her lines before the celebrant and deliberately screwed up his name – ‘Josh, I swear to love you always’ – then laughed hysterically while Jono stared in confusion. I felt like a child whose parents had decided to have a mid-life crisis. Jono’s mate Sammy pretended to hand over the rings and I pretended to hold Jen’s train, and all the while Rueben sat in the corner with his bandmates, nursing a beer and watching us from the other end of the restaurant’s private function room, waiting for the farce to finish so they could begin playing. Rueben looked like heaven, like the kind of man you’d wait ten years for, the kind you might win if you were really, really good at something, the kind that, if you were a tiny, thin violinist with great tattoos and wild hair who could play the fiddle solo in ‘Amarillo By Morning’, then just maybe you’d have a shot with him. I hadn’t talked to him yet. I needed about three more drinks. What would I say? Hi Rueben, I’m rethinking my opposition to marriage, if only so I can divorce the guy and take his house? Be with me, because I’m even better in bed when I’m desperate?

  The celebrant finally closed her folder. ‘And then I’ll say, “Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present—” and call out your full names, and then everyone will clap,’ she told us.

  Jen burst into hiccupping sobs.

  ‘Babe, it’s just a practice,’ Jono said.

  She stared up at him, her face twisted. ‘I’m just so . . . happy.’

  I swallowed. ‘How about we get you some food?’ I gestured wildly to the waiter to let him know we needed nibbles, stat. The celebrant backed away, smiling tightly, and packed up her things.

  ‘I need another drink.’ Jen sniffled. ‘Turpentine, preferably.’

  Guests started trickling in for the dinner part of the evening, and since Jen was busy leaning over the bar flirting with the fifty-something-year-old bartender and downing mojitos, I took it upon myself to greet and seat them, even the ones from Jen’s book club who I didn’t like. (Anyone who reads a Christos Tsiolkas novel and says they related to the characters is not to be trusted.) The four book club women looked pleased when they figured out I was twenty-nine and single.

  ‘Don’t worry, you only look twenty-six,’ said a tall woman in a brightly coloured Gorman jumpsuit, which was basically a clown suit for professional adult women.

  ‘Yeah, what’s your secret?’ That was from an exhausted-looking mother with a smidge of baby vomit on her dress. Listen, lady, the secret is not having kids.

  ‘A cooler full of human organs,’ I said. ‘A lack of adult responsibilities. And babies’ blood. Just a few sips a day.’

  Biyu pulled me aside. ‘Jen’s acting a bit strange,’ she whispered. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘She’s nervous,’ I replied. ‘Should I try to draw the attention away from her, do you think?’

  ‘You usually do,’ Biyu said, sounding a little apologetic. ‘You could tell Sarah you have a large penis again, or something like that.’

  ‘Sarah’s not here tonight,’ I said. ‘Jen didn’t invite her.’

  Biyu put a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh. Was I not supposed to tell her about the dinner? I thought you said Jen wanted everyone to come.’

  My heart sank. ‘Biyu, tell me you didn’t take it upon yourself to invite Sarah Stoll to Jen’s wedding rehearsal dinner.’

  Sean and Sarah were standing by the bar. He wore suit pants and a blue striped shirt unbuttoned at the collar to show his dark chest-hair, while Sarah was poisonous in red lipstick and a black and white long-sleeved body-con dress. I became acutely aware of how tight Jen’s black dress was around my hips.

  Sarah and her spray tan were sipping a chardonnay. Sean looked me up and down, handsome as ever but inspiring in me nothing but loathing. All I could think about was what I would say when I talked to Rueben. His band was halfway through their first song, a slow number. Rueben wasn’t singing, although there was a microphone in front of him, so I hoped that meant he would sing backup vocals. The rhythm guitarist, a young, skinny, black-haired guy, was crooning into his own microphone, but I didn’t recognise the song. Rueben caught my eye and winked, filling me with a rush of heat.

  Love is insidious. It creeps up on you like a spider, bites you in the back of the neck and slowly spreads its poison while you’re scrambling around for an antidote. There isn’t one, of course. There’s no one better than me, I told myself. I’m sex-faced. I’m open-minded. I’m good with a spreadsheet. I’m as elegant as the dandy with the shih tzu. Rueben would have to be crazy not to love me back.

  I downed my drink.

  Jen barrelled over. ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the bartender. ‘That pavlova I ordered? We’re going to need it wheeled out before the main course.’

  My mother hobbled in late on her crutches and gave me the evil eye, so I stuck out my tongue at her. She was in a 1980s Ken Done toucan-print dress that was outrageously tight on her but looked surprisingly cool overall. Her flyaways had been smoothed into a chignon and her lips brightened with hot-pink lipstick. She sat down at a table with Jen’s uncles and aunts, who were already working through their third tray of canapés. Jono tapped his glass with a teaspoon to get everyone’s attention and I wondered if the spoon was sharp and if I should keep it away from Jen in case she really did gouge out his eye. Or maybe I should let her do it, I thought. A sympathetic judge would only give her a few years in the slammer if they heard about the crabs. Was provocation still a valid defence?

  Jono coughed and began his speech. Jen had slid into the chair next to him and snapped open a lipstick, smacking her lips as he spoke, peering into her hand mirror. We all stared. No one ever saw Jen applying make-up; she was always already perfect. She had a glass of red wine in front of her, the colour of a bloodstain.

  ‘Thank you all, friends and family, for being here for us,’ Jono said, opening his arms.

  Here for us, I repeated to myself silently. Ah yes, next he’ll say supportive.

  ‘Jen and I have the kind of amazing, supportive relationship I’d never thought I’d have.’

  Doctor, we have here a terminal case of abuse of language. I suppose he heard that stuff on television. Married At First Sight, Dating Naked, the kinds of shows where they talk about relationships and support and utilising every moment to catalyse dreams while getting drunk and crying about how they never thought their search for love would lead here, to a bearded sex therapist with crystal-enhanced genitals, who is trying and failing to add meaning to their lives.

  ‘I literally can’t wait to commit to this beautiful, gorgeous, sexy woman,’ Jono said, and in a parallel universe somewhere Maggie Cotton dry-retched, though in this universe she just gagged a little and asked the guy next to her to
grab the waiter for a refill.

  ‘To Jen.’ He raised his glass, and we all did the same.

  ‘To Jen,’ we chorused. People cheered and clapped. Two tables over, I noticed Dan drape a hand across Lisa’s shoulders. Sarah nuzzled into Sean’s neck. A cute waitress delivered beers to the band, bending down to whisper something in Rueben’s ear. I stuffed a spring roll into my mouth and almost choked.

  Jen stood up and my heart started pounding.

  ‘Jono,’ she said, swaying a little on her feet. ‘When I met you I was twenty-three, and to be honest, pretty insecure. You didn’t quite fit the pattern I had expected my life to take, but you looked good in a V-neck T-shirt, and isn’t that what it’s really all about?’ People laughed; a little nervously, perhaps. Jono smiled awkwardly. ‘And you know what? You made me happy. You really did.’ Claps. Awwws. A few nods and whispers. Jen picked up the glass of wine from the table and held it close to her chest. ‘And I made it my business to make you happy. Cooked for you. Gave you a home, rent-free. Did that thing in bed you like with the Minnie Mouse noises.’

  Jono coughed. ‘Uh, babe, maybe you’ve had a bit too much to—’

  Jen raised her glass in the air. ‘To Jono. The guy who took six years from me and never once paid an electricity bill. The guy who gets text messages in the middle of the night from people who are saved in his phone as “Goldilocks” and “Fire Crotch”. The guy who gave me crabs and told me I’d caught them from my best friend’s caravan.’

  She dumped the whole glass of wine over his head.

  In the restaurant’s deathly silence, I searched for Rueben’s gaze and caught it. Those lily-pad eyes crinkled slightly, and he smiled.

  Jono was wiping red wine from his face, shaking his head as if to wake up from a dream. Jen looked my way and nodded.

  I had waited six years for this moment. I stretched, wiggled my fingers. Cracked a few knuckles. Strode over to the giant pavlova on the silver tray behind Jen and Jono’s table. Picked it up, tray and all, and dumped the lot over Jono’s head. Pieces of meringue and gooey cream slid down his face. I popped a piece of kiwifruit in my mouth and licked my fingers. It would be a shame to waste it all.

  ‘Maggie!’ My mother’s shout echoed across the room, and she hobbled towards me, a frown creasing her forehead. When she reached us, she gathered both crutches in her right hand and, with her left, leant on the table for support. ‘That was a pathetic effort,’ she told me, and raised her crutches.

  Whack. She cracked Jono around the shoulders.

  ‘Hey!’ He held up his arms to fend her off.

  ‘Shut up and take it, you cheating dog,’ she said, and hit him again. ‘How dare you. How dare you!’ Whack. It was as if Mum, because she’d never had a chance to take revenge on her own cheating dog, had transposed my father’s face onto Jono’s, and was feverishly beating the shit out of a goo-covered guy whose hands were flailing about like little seal’s flippers.

  ‘Go for it, Mum,’ I said.

  She rested back on her crutches for a moment to take a breath. ‘The pavlova was a start,’ she said, ‘but it won’t leave bruises.’

  ‘I hear you.’

  Splat. Something warm hit the side of my face and exploded. I wiped my hand across my cheek in shock and came away with chunks of arancini. I looked around wildly and saw Sean standing a few feet away, pointing a righteous finger at me.

  ‘If anyone gets done for cheating here, it should be her,’ he said.

  ‘But you cheated on me first with Sarah!’ I cried.

  ‘No I didn’t!’ he yelled. ‘I was only flirting.’

  ‘Hey!’ Dan interrupted. ‘Leave her alone.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ Sean said, furious. ‘Lover-boy from the alley.’ He picked up a plate of rocket and beetroot salad and chucked the whole thing at Dan. The plate shattered at Dan’s feet and little ribbons of lettuce landed across a pair of pink high heels belonging to Lisa.

  ‘Oi!’ Lisa said. ‘These are my favourite shoes.’

  There was silence, like a break in the clouds, while the guests held their breath and waited to see what I’d do. Dan stepped towards Sean but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. This was my moment. My problem was that both Sean and Sarah were before me, and I wanted to get revenge on the two of them but couldn’t rely on throwing something with each hand and hitting them both. I imagined a window into my soul: it was filled with hot spring rolls, sharp like darts, directed at their targets. Slowly, I reached down to the platter on the table and gathered a spring roll in each hand.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Sarah warned.

  I narrowed my eyes and unleashed. The one I threw at Sean with my left hand fell short. My right hand had more power. Sarah tried a sideways avoidance manoeuvre, which only helped my arrow hit its target, since I’d aimed badly to begin with. The spring roll hit her torso, leaving a greasy smear on the white section of her dress.

  ‘That’s for dobbing me in to Centrelink,’ I said. There was a collective intake of breath from Jen’s aunts at the next table, possibly because dobbing someone in to Centrelink was so deeply dishonourable it was tantamount to taking a hit out on the person.

  ‘I’m calling the police!’ Sarah shrieked.

  A loud crash distracted us. Jen had upended the entire bridal table with one hand, and with the other was chugging red wine from the bottle. Jono, on his knees, wiped pavlova from his forehead and reached a begging hand to Jen.

  ‘Babe,’ he was saying. ‘Babe.’

  In the middle of the frenzy, I felt a warm, rough hand settle on the back of my neck. I turned and looked into Rueben’s eyes. It was like the sound had been turned down. All I could hear was my own breathing, all I could see was Rueben’s green gaze, all I could feel was the heat where his hand connected with the back of my neck. He was smiling.

  ‘Do you think it’s too late to reinvent myself?’ I said. ‘I’ve decided I want to be Gandhi.’

  ‘I hear Gandhi was a bit of a jerk.’ He stepped close enough that I could see the fine lines fanning out from his beautiful eyes. I wanted to run my fingers down his wiry arms and over the tattoos etched there, but I knew people, especially my mother, were looking at us.

  ‘This is a bit forward,’ he said, ‘but would you be interested in having sex in the bathroom?’

  ‘I should probably help stop this mess,’ I said.

  ‘Maggie, you’re the epicentre of this mess.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  Rueben took me by the elbow but, instead of leading me to the bathroom, led me out the front of the restaurant, where the streetlight added a russet quality to his dark hair. The night felt long again, minutes dripping like candle wax, and I waited for him to say something.

  He closed the distance between us, took my upturned face in his hands and kissed me. His kiss was warm and soft and I tasted salt and could smell the waxy lemon of the magnolia blossoms above us. There was hardly any space between us, like we weren’t two people but one and a half, as if we’d met in the middle and spread into each other like butter melting into hot bread. My hands were trembling and I grabbed the back of his shirt to steady them. He pulled away too soon but kept his hands on my neck.

  ‘What’s changed?’ I asked, breathing hard. I felt boneless, senseless. ‘You’ve been knocking me back so long I assumed you’d taken a vow of celibacy.’

  ‘I liked you from the start,’ he said. ‘But I thought it was a bad idea to go out with someone from work.’

  I pulled him back towards me and kissed him again, long and slow.

  ‘Now,’ he said when he finally broke away. ‘We should go and stop this mess.’

  I pulled a magnolia blossom from the bottom of my shoe and we turned to go back inside.

  Chapter 25

  ‘Okay, who’s responsible for . . . this?’

  Two police officers stared around the food-smeared restaurant in disbelief for exactly ten seconds, then decided to question the oldest people in the room not cove
red in food, who happened to be Jen’s uncles and aunts. No way they were going to rat on Jen. A tiny, shrivelled woman in black raised a trembling hand and pointed a bony finger at me.

  The police officers, a man and a woman, descended on Rueben, who was standing next to me with an arm slung around my shoulders. The man’s eyes dropped to Rueben’s tattoos.

  ‘Name?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ I waved a hand in front of their faces. ‘It was me.’

  ‘Okay,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll take both of you in.’

  Behind the officers, I saw the aunts and uncles gather around a weeping, wine-soaked Jen and drag her out of the room.

  ‘What’s your name?’ the police officer asked Rueben again.

  ‘Rueben Blackwood.’

  ‘Got any priors?’

  I could practically hear Rueben gritting his teeth.

  At midnight, I capitulated and took the blame for damage to the restaurant. At 1 am, just as I’d finished making my statement, I remembered I was broke and couldn’t pay for the damage, so I began to insist that Jono had started it. At 3 am, Jen showed up at the police station in her ugg boots and mascara-smeared eyes to claim that she was responsible for the whole thing. At 4 am Jen’s father phoned the station from Saudi Arabia to confirm that he would be paying for the damage. Fifteen minutes later, they let us go.

  Jen and I stood outside the Collingwood police station, breathing in the cold air, not looking at each other.

  ‘Sorry I left the restaurant,’ she said finally. ‘Aunt Rosa shoved me in a cab before I knew what was happening.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘You don’t argue with Aunt Rosa.’ I rubbed my shoulders and neck, which were aching from sitting in a hard-backed chair for so long. ‘Do you think they let Rueben go earlier?’

  I heard a noise behind us and turned to see the station door open. Rueben stepped out, looking grey and worn. He saw us but kept walking.

  ‘Hey!’ I trotted after him. ‘How come they kept you so long? I told them you had nothing to do with it.’