Maggie Bean Stays Afloat

by Tricia Rayburn

  “Oh,” Electra said, her shoulders sinking slightly. “I don’t know … I mean, Pound Patrollers wants you to be involved as much as possible, but this seems rather out of the blue.”

  Maggie shot Arnie a look. That wasn’t an outright no. She agreed wholeheartedly that Electra’s way certainly wouldn’t lead to weight-loss success, but the kids would arrive any minute. If Electra let them lead the meeting, it wasn’t like they actually had a plan.

  “What would you talk about?” she asked, untying her cape.

  “It’s not so much what we’d say,” Arnie said quickly, “as it is how we’d say it.”

  Electra looked at him, clearly concerned by his vagueness.

  “From the heart.” Managing to keep a straight face, he held one palm over his chest. “We would speak directly from the heart.”

  “You know most adults would laugh right now and immediately shoot down your request.”

  “I do,” Arnie said, looking at Maggie, then back at Electra. “Just give us today. Let us try.”

  “Well …” Sighing, Electra removed her cape and tossed it on a nearby desk. “It’s no secret I haven’t been a kid in a few years—or decades. Maybe you guys know something I don’t. Maybe you can reach them in a way a mature, sophisticated adult can’t.”

  Maggie watched Arnie out of the corner of her eye. He stood just inside the classroom, arms crossed loosely across his chest as he awaited Electra’s official decision. He seemed coolly confident, as though he’d planned this all along and had just been waiting for the right moment to act. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him so sure of himself, and that eased her own worries.

  “Okay,” Electra said finally, clearly striving to sound more convinced than she felt. “The floor’s yours. But know that the second I feel this meeting getting away from you—”

  “You’ll swoop in and save the day like the superhero you are.” Arnie nodded.

  “Superheroine,” she clarified. “And don’t think I won’t.”

  “You take care of décor, I’ll take care of content,” Arnie instructed quietly when Electra flopped into a kid’s desk chair and flipped through Molly Goes to the Market.

  Maggie made a beeline for the room’s most troubling decorative touch.

  The mammoth silver scale had wheels, but it still took all of her strength to push it across the floor and into the corner of the room. Once it was as far away from the circle of desks as it could get without leaving the room, Maggie grabbed Electra’s discarded cape and tied one end to the upper edge of the chalkboard and the other to the top of a window, creating a silver tent around the scale. She ducked underneath and stepped quickly on the scale. Satisfied no one could see in since she couldn’t see out, she hopped off and hurried around the classroom, opening all the blinds. When the room was flooded with natural light, she cleared the desks of coloring books and crayons and climbed on and off them, pulling a glittery fruit salad from the ceiling. The disco ball was the last thing to go, and Electra accidentally broke a green crayon as Maggie took the sparkling strawberry with both hands.

  She left the overhead light off and twinkling white lights on (because thousands ran up and down the walls, and also because they did make for a warmer, more inviting environment), turned off the bubbly Beach Boys, and joined Arnie at the front desk. She was about to ask what he had up his sleeve, since she thought it might be nice to know exactly what they’d gotten themselves into, when the classroom door swung open.

  “Don’t worry.”

  Maggie looked away from the parents and kids and down at her left hand—which Arnie gently squeezed with his right hand.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, glancing at her quickly before letting go of her hand and heading toward the classroom door. “Welcome back. Matt, Lucy, Gretchen, Paolo, nice to see you. Jack, Katie, Margo, and Alex, glad you could make it.”

  Maggie knew she should join him in greeting and slapping high fives, but all she could really focus on was the fact that her fingers still tingled. She’d never held a boy’s hand before—not that the five-second grasp really qualified as hand-holding—and she certainly hadn’t had any reason to mentally prepare for the brief exchange of nervous palm perspiration. On top of which, Arnie’s hand had been warm and smooth, not cool and rough the way she’d imagined the hands of her imaginary future boyfriend would be. (Of course, her imaginary future boyfriend did manly things with his hands, like chop wood and build furniture; Arnie played video games and the flute.)

  “You all remember the lovely Maggie.”

  Jolted back to the present moment when she realized Arnie, the kids, and their parents were watching her expectantly, Maggie waved and smiled. “Hi.”

  “Great.” Arnie motioned to the desks and chairs in the middle of the room. “Now, if you’ll just take a seat, we’ll get this show on the road.”

  “Arnie, what’re we—”

  “No pressure,” he whispered, opening his laptop, hooking a long black cord into the back, and pulling down a screen behind them. “I’ll go first. If you want to go after that, perfect—but don’t feel like you have to, at all.”

  “Okay.” Maggie eyed the laptop screen warily. “But what do you mean, you’re going first? Going where? To do what?”

  “Electra, could you get the blinds, please?”

  Maggie watched Electra snap shut each set of blinds. Whatever Arnie was about to do, it had better work.

  “We’re going back in time,” Arnie said quietly, typing quickly, “to get to know one another.”

  Maggie looked up when giggles filled the room, and then at the screen behind them when Lucy pointed in its direction. “‘Arnold Bartholomew Gunderson,’” Maggie read, “‘the story of an ordinary boy’?”

  Arnie punched one last key and smiled at her. “It’s a test run.”

  “Is that you?” Matt asked boldly, his big grin revealing two deep dimples.

  “I wish I could say no.” Arnie stepped to the left of the screen and looked at the picture of a happy, laughing, totally naked (except for a diaper) baby, who crawled toward a bottle of milk with his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

  “You look like a dog,” Lucy said, giggling behind her hand.

  “Thanks. I think I was just really hoping Mom remembered to add the Hershey’s syrup.” He faced the classroom. “Anyway, since we’re all going to be spending quite a bit of time together and eventually talking about some pretty important things, I thought you guys should know who you’re dealing with.”

  “A pumpkin!”

  “That’s right,” Arnie said, looking back at the screen. “You’re dealing with a pumpkin.”

  Maggie smiled at the sight of Arnie as a toddler, dressed in an orange felt pumpkin Halloween costume and holding a Snickers bar as big as his arm.

  “Pumpkins are cute. So are Superman pajamas, birthday parties, Christmas mornings, trips to Disney World, and first days of school.” Aiming a small white remote at the laptop, Arnie scanned through a dozen equally adorable pictures of him opening presents, eating cake, hugging Mickey Mouse, and boarding school buses. “As you can see, for the first few years of my existence, life was pretty perfect. I was a happy kid doing happy-kid things—playing, going to school, taking fun vacations. My biggest problem was being shot down every time I begged for a chocolate Labrador puppy.”

  “I want a golden retriever,” Margo announced loudly, pouting at her mother.

  “We have three cats and a turtle, but I really want a pug,” Alex added.

  “I feel your pain,” Arnie said, and put one hand on his chest to show his sympathy. “But trust me, in the big, grand scheme of things that will probably make more sense when you get a little older, not being able to have a pet is a pretty minor problem.”

  Maggie glanced quickly around the room. She wasn’t exactly sure where Arnie was going with his life-in-photos slideshow, but every kid, parent, and Patrol This group leader watched the screen, completely attentive. No one squirmed in his or her seat or
looked toward the door longingly. Whatever Arnie was doing, it was working.

  “Behold,” he said, pausing dramatically at the first unsmiling shot. “Sixth grade.”

  “You don’t look very happy,” Lucy noted.

  “I wasn’t. In case you can’t tell by the fake bookshelf behind me, this is my school picture. And right before the photographer took the shot, I made the very big mistake of accidentally catching my appearance in the monitor behind him.” Arnie sighed. “And I didn’t like what I saw.”

  “You are wearing a pink shirt,” Paolo pointed out. “Didn’t you know that was a bad idea when you were getting dressed?”

  “Bad shirt, true—but not the problem.” Arnie flipped to the next picture of him wearing a puffy blue snowsuit and pouting at the base of a mountain. “A week after that picture was taken, I had to have my annual school physical, where a very grumpy nurse made me get on the scale and then had the nerve to cluck her tongue and tell me to be careful.”

  “Be careful of what?” Gretchen asked incredulously.

  “Of growing up—not out.”

  Several gasps filled the air.

  “Adults!” Katie exclaimed. “No offense, Mom.”

  “Listen, I don’t hate the grumpy nurse for saying what she did. Do I think she could’ve had better delivery? Maybe expressed concern instead of an ominous warning? Sure. But she was right.”

  Maggie leaned against the teacher’s desk and watched more images of Arnie opening presents and eating cake—he was older in these photos, noticeably heavier, and though he still smiled politely for the camera, gone was his childhood glee of earlier photos. In each picture, it was obvious he couldn’t wait for the spotlight to turn.

  “Somehow, some way—most likely by an unnatural consumption of enormous amounts of potato chips, cookies, bagels, pasta, and quesadillas—I gained a lot of weight in a very short amount of time.”

  “Why all of a sudden?” Alex asked. “Did something happen?”

  “Well …” Arnie looked at the floor and tapped the remote lightly against his leg, as though searching for the right words. After a brief moment, he shrugged and looked up. “I wasn’t happy. My parents had always worked a lot, but when I was in fifth grade, my dad was made president of his company and my mom started traveling more for her job. So, it was just the nanny and me most of the time. She tried to stop me from snacking at first, but when it seemed to be the only thing that made me feel better, she started baking brownies and peanut butter cookies herself.”

  Maggie glanced at the parents to see them shake their heads in disapproval.

  “And then, of course, that only made things worse. The brownies were delicious, but having one just made me crave more. And I never felt better after eating them—in fact, I usually felt worse, especially if I had a stomachache. And I always felt guilty for eating so much, and then when I started growing out of my clothes, I only felt guiltier, so would eat another plate of brownies, and then another, to try to feel better, which, of course only made me outgrow more clothes.”

  “Which made you eat more brownies,” Katie surmised.

  “Exactly. It was like going eighty miles an hour around a traffic circle with no exit ramp.”

  “So how’d you finally get out?” Katie’s mother asked, leaning across the desk.

  Arnie clicked the remote, and a new picture filled the screen.

  “Whoa,” Jack said. “A tornado hit your house?”

  “In a sense.” Arnie half-laughed, half-sighed. “That pile of wood and velvet is all that remains of a very expensive chair that my parents brought back from their European honeymoon. It was apparently one-of-a-kind, and once belonged to Marie Antoinette.”

  “I don’t recall a tornado ever coming through here,” Jack’s mother said.

  “That’s because I only hit one house. Or, one chair.” Arnie looked at the screen. “Which I sat in, and broke.”

  Maggie knew that to remain professional, she needed to appear as though this wasn’t the first time she was hearing this story, so even though her head spun and eyes welled with sympathetic tears, she gripped the side of the desk and stared at the screen. In all the time they’d spent together, not once had Arnie ever mentioned breaking the chair. She could imagine how mortified and disgusted with herself she would’ve been if it’d happened to her, and her heart ached just thinking about Arnie going through such a thing.

  “It was pretty much the worst day of my life,” he continued bravely. “My parents freaked, grounded me, and immediately signed me up for Pound Patrollers.”

  Maggie heard people shifting in their seats behind her and pictured the mothers exchanging frowns.

  “But, much to my incredible surprise, the worst day eventually led to a whole slew of best days. I hated the idea of going to weight-loss meetings, but I had no choice. So, I went, and made the best of a seemingly bad situation.” Arnie clicked ahead to the next picture, the one of him and Maggie in PATROL THIS T-shirts. “And before I knew it, three very amazing things happened: I lost weight, met my best friend, and became a happier, healthier person.”

  Maggie smiled and hoped her cheeks didn’t look as red as they felt when the entire room looked at her.

  “And I share all of this with you not because I think my life is especially interesting and worth sharing with anyone who’ll listen or enjoys all embarrassing baby pictures, but because I want you to know that I get it.” He shot Maggie a small smile. “Maggie and I have both been there, and we get it.”

  As the kids began firing questions (how much weight did he lose, how did he lose it, did his parents get another chair), Arnie went to the laptop, hit the keyboard, and ended the slideshow. He raised his eyebrows at Maggie, silently asking if she wanted a turn. She shook her head. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to share—she would, eventually, when she had photos ready—but Arnie’s story had resonated. It had broken down walls, and there was no reason to talk more, potentially bore easily distracted kids with too much information, and put the walls back up.

  “Believe me,” Arnie said, nodding once at her before facing the room, “soon you’ll know more about me than I do. But first, I want to get to know you. Who you are, how old you are, your favorite movie, what you do for fun, and anything else you want to share. So feel free to grab some water and fruit, and we’ll chat.”

  “Arnie,” Maggie said once the kids and parents were occupied by snacks, “that was amazing.”

  “Very nicely done,” Electra said, joining them at the front desk. “I didn’t know where you were going at first, but once you got there, those kids were hooked. Now, we just have to get them on the scale.”

  “Not yet,” Arnie said.

  Electra looked at him and opened her mouth to protest.

  “I mean, if that’s okay,” Arnie said quickly. “I just think they’ll get on the scale when they’re ready to get on the scale.”

  Electra closed her mouth. Apparently there wasn’t much to say after Arnie’s successful storytelling. “I’m hungry.”

  “Really amazing,” Maggie said again when Electra left for the snack table. “But how come you never told me about the chair?”

  He smiled slightly and shrugged. “I was just waiting for the right time.”

  Before she could ask what that meant, he closed the laptop and headed for the circle of desks and chairs in the middle of the room.

  14.

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Me too.”

  “But you never get nervous,” Maggie said, growing even more nervous at the thought of Aimee being nervous. “You’re my rock, my pillar of unwavering confidence, my tower of strength in uncomfortable circumstances, my—”

  “Mags.” Aimee looked at her. “This is a party for counselors—your coworkers, but my counselors. Not exactly my area of social expertise.”

  “Should we just forget it and go get low-fat frozen yogurt instead?”

  Aimee shook her head. “Maybe.”

  They stood
on the sidewalk in front of Polly’s house, right where Maggie’s mother had dropped them off fifteen minutes earlier, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Aimee usually led the way—into classrooms, school functions, club meetings, and basically anything else that involved more than two people and wasn’t the library—with Maggie following closely behind, but tonight she’d climbed out of the car and stopped short. Which meant that unless they wanted to stand there for the next three hours, inviting an inevitable barrage of curious looks as other guests came and went, Maggie was going to have to take charge.

  “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and facing the yellow two-story Colonial that was easily three real estate leagues out of that of her family’s. “First, we go in and see if we know anyone or if anyone admits to knowing us. After that, we find the kitchen and become very busy with soda and pretzels. Then, depending on how things go up to that point, we find the entertainment, during which we can hopefully just blend in with the upholstery and people-watch until it’s time to go.”

  “Solid plan.”

  Before she could change her mind, Maggie hooked one arm through Aimee’s and headed for the front door. “Do you think we ring the bell?” she whispered once they were on the porch.

  Fortunately, a group of loud, laughing guys—soccer instructors, Maggie guessed, though it was hard to be sure without the color-coded camp T-shirts—burst through the door and ran down the porch steps before they could debate the issue.

  “Well...” Aimee stared through the open door.

  Maggie’s heart raced and she silently reminded herself there was no reason to be nervous. It wasn’t like they were crashing—Polly had officially invited her. Still, this being not only her first party with high school kids but also her first real party ever, she couldn’t help but worry about what she would say and do once they crossed through the doorway. What did high school kids say and do at these things, besides make fun of one another while playing American Idol karaoke?