The Magnolia Chronicles

by Kate Canterbary

  Magnolia: You're a rad guy, Rob Russo.

  Rob: You're fucking right, I am.

  Magnolia: Do people say that? Rad. Is rad a thing?

  Magnolia: Who cares. It's a thing for us.

  Rob: I love it when you're decisive.

  Magnolia: Hmm. That sounds like a statement on my indecisiveness.

  Rob: Why would I do that?

  Rob: Ugh. That sounded passive-aggressive. Sorry. I'm wiped out and I haven't packed for this trip to New York yet and I'm being an asshole.

  Magnolia: Don't you leave first thing in the morning?

  Rob: 6 a.m.

  Magnolia: Go pack!

  Rob: It sounds like you're worried about me.

  Rob: I'd rather find out what you wanted to ask me.

  Magnolia: Go. Pack.

  Rob: Not until you ask me your two-part question.

  Magnolia: No. Get your life together.

  Magnolia: In fact, don't text me until you get through airport security tomorrow.

  Rob: Why not?

  Magnolia: You said it yourself. You're tired. You're traveling and working all day tomorrow. I'm sure you're stressed. Get ready for your day and then go to bed like a grown ass adult.

  Rob: Come with me.

  Magnolia: Where?!?

  Rob: Anywhere but first, bed. I'll sleep if you're with me.

  Rob: I was a perfect bedmate the last time we had a sleepover.

  Rob: How about this: I'll pack now and then head up to your place. For sleeping. Promise.

  Rob: Should I interpret your silence as disinterest in my suggestion?

  Magnolia: For your information, I was conferring with Gronk. He gets a vote when it comes to sleepovers.

  Rob: How did my furry friend vote?

  Magnolia: As long as you don't mind him sharing your pillow, he's open to the idea.

  Rob: And you? Are you open to the idea?

  Magnolia: I consulted the dog, so…yeah. Get your ass up here.

  Magnolia: I never asked my two-part question! And now I have another question.

  Rob: Wait. What? Which two-part question?

  Magnolia: From last week! Before you left for New York! You were procrastinating and I wasn't going to reward that behavior.

  Rob: I was not procrastinating.

  Magnolia: Sounded like procrastinating.

  Rob: Ask your three questions while I'm between meetings and can't offend you with my procrastination or beg for an invitation to your bed.

  Magnolia: Okay, let's do this.

  Magnolia: 1 – when did you get your nose pierced?

  Rob: When I was 19 and enormously stupid.

  Magnolia: It was that bad?

  Rob: Not the piercing, me. I was a self-absorbed jackass back then. I actually cringed thinking about that version of myself when you mentioned it.

  Magnolia: Unlike the cringing you do when remembering how you introduced yourself to me by telling me your height, weight, and length?

  Rob: Yes. Very much unlike that.

  Rob: Next.

  Magnolia: 2 – when did you take the piercing out?

  Rob: Before I took the Series 7 exam to get my trader's license. That was a little more than 10 years ago. Seemed like the right time.

  Magnolia: Do you miss it?

  Rob: Was that the third question?

  Magnolia: No, but you sounded sad.

  Rob: I'm not sad. A little sentimental over my dumb fool youth but no, I don't miss the nose ring.

  Rob: Neither do my parents.

  Magnolia: 3 – I've been wondering about this since the first time we met in person. I'd thought RRRooster441 was just a derpy handle but your belt buckle had RRR engraved on it that day so…what's your middle name, Rob Russo?

  Rob: It was really nice knowing you.

  Magnolia: What? You won't tell me?

  Rob: I'm concerned about the fallout, to be honest. It's a good thing I'm going to be on the West Coast all of next week. I won't be tempted to show up at your house and blast some Peter Gabriel.

  Magnolia: It can't be that bad. You should tell me.

  Rob: It's Richard.

  Magnolia: Okay, so…?

  Magnolia: Oh my god, it's Dick. Your middle name is DICK. That explains so much!

  Rob: Yep.

  Magnolia: The Dick. It's you.

  Rob: I've been trying to tell you this since the start.

  Magnolia: Yes, but this is next level, my friend.

  Rob: Any other questions?

  Magnolia: I'm fresh out of them. Thank you for indulging me.

  Rob: Can I invite myself to your bed now?

  Magnolia: No dick.

  Rob: I'm going to spend the next 5 hours analyzing the fuck out of that response.

  Magnolia: Have so much fun!

  Magnolia: DICK! Oh my god. I can't believe how perfect that is.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My date was agonizing over orange.

  "I just don't know," my mother said with an excessively long sigh. "Do these clash? I'd hate for them to clash."

  She held up the nail polish bottles, one in tangerine and another in raspberry, for my review.

  "I don't think you need to worry about your toes clashing with your fingers," I said. "They're far enough apart." I gave her the shrug born in adolescence and reserved for the mothers of daughters.

  "I think you should worry a little more. Men like it when women are put together and that includes a coordinated mani-pedi."

  "Do they now?" I asked, incredulous. My mother wasn't one to espouse such antiquated values.

  "They do. It's the little things that matter," she said. "They also like when women wear heels."

  "Do you own anything higher than a kitten heel? For the record, your gardening clogs don't count."

  She tipped her chin up, murmured in agreement. "I have some cute espadrilles. I wore them two weekends ago. If you were around, you would've seen them."

  "Those aren't heels," I argued, skipping over the guilt trip entirely. Juggling Ben and Rob meant neglecting a number of things. Sunday dinners at home, steady laundry cycles, my sanity. "Not really. More importantly, if men don't like my nails and shoes, that's their problem."

  "It doesn't have to be a problem at all," she replied. "Now, tell me what you think about these colors. Is it a crime against color wheel laws?"

  "You should ask someone else. I'm not an authority on polish protocol."

  She gave me the unimpressed stare that, even in my mid-thirties, told me to cut the sass and clean my room. "I don't know why I go to these lengths to have girl time with you when you can't manage a simple question about color coordination."

  "Neither do I," I replied. "A manicure lasts two days on me, tops. Most of the time, I don't make it to my car without screwing the whole thing up."

  My mother frowned, sniffed, and looked back at the rainbow of paint choices.

  Goddamn it. Goddamn this bad mood. Goddamn this week of work disasters and weird dreams and man stress. So much man stress. I pressed my fingertips to my eyelids. "I appreciate that you demand I spend time with you on a regular basis."

  Without glancing away from her fruit bowl of nail polishes, she said, "If I didn't do it, I'd never see you. It's been ages since you've shown your face at supper."

  "I'm sure Ash and Linden are enjoying that," I replied. "They always wanted to pretend they were twins."

  She picked up a bottle of pale blue, set it down with a wince. My mother lived by the treaty of seasonally inspired mani-pedis. Summer had to be a field of poppies, spring like an Easter egg, autumn a harvest festival. Blue had to wait for the frosty days of January.

  "They've outgrown their twin antics, you know," she said. "They miss you too."

  There was another sassy comment on the tip of my tongue but I swallowed it. Forced it down and reached for a better alternative because my mother didn't deserve my moody bullshit today. Our relationship wasn't fraught or complicated but we pushed and pulled at each
other. We sniped and snarked. She meddled, I evaded. In the end, we always made up and moved on.

  "I'm sorry I haven't been there recently. My weekends have been…" My voice trailed off as I searched for the right description of recent months. Hectic? Overscheduled? Overwhelming? All of the above. "Busy. I'm sorry. I've been busy and as I know you're aware, the drive from Beverly to New Bedford is a lot longer when you factor in all the traffic going out to the Cape."

  "That's why I like visiting with you during the week," she replied. "Less traffic."

  "Mmhmm."

  She tapped a lemony yellow bottle against her palm before holding it up to the light. "If you don't want your nails done, you can sit there and keep me company while I get mine. Maybe then you can tell me what's happening in your life since I never hear from you anymore."

  "Oh my god," I murmured to myself, sending an eyeroll skyward.

  "I heard that." She stared at three bottles, shook her head, returned them to the shelf. Then she selected the original tangerine and raspberry shades and headed toward the technician waiting beside her station.

  I grabbed the first bottle of dark red I spotted and followed. "I'm sorry. Again," I said, dropping into the pedicure chair beside her. "I've had a lot going on."

  "Not that much. You haven't logged into your online dating accounts in months. I can tell because you haven't opened any of the new matches or messages you have."

  I shouldn't have been surprised to find she was keeping tabs. "I should really deactivate those."

  She shook her head, huffed out a sigh. "If you're giving up already then yes, I guess you should deactivate them. Better than misleading the men who match with you."

  I blinked at her, ignoring the technician's question about the water temperature. After five or six million blinks, I finally asked, "Would you like to repeat that?"

  She shot me a sharp glance before turning back to the dated copy of People magazine in her lap. "You promised me you were going to try this year. You said you were going to do it for yourself. But you're not trying if you don't even open the messages."

  A laugh burst from my lips, deep and loud and unwelcome in the land of muted HGTV and hushed conversation and the illusion of relaxation. I caught a handful of indignant glimpses and plenty of side-eye action. "Believe me, I'm trying my ass off."

  My mother stared at me then, her lips turned down in a frown and her brows pinched. "It's rude, Magnolia. For all you know, they're perfectly nice gentlemen and you don't even bother to acknowledge them. It's rude to ignore the messages—"

  "They can fucking wait," I snapped.

  A hysterical laugh followed, one that turned every head in my direction. This was where it happened. Right here in a strip mall nail salon, this was where I lost my damn mind. With adorably pretentious high school girls and exhausted suburban moms as my witnesses, that laugh turned into a wild, contagious giggle, and another, and then there was no stopping. I wasn't sure what invited the tears—the uncontrollable giggling or the suggestion I'd given up on this dating initiative. More likely, it was the men. The ones I cared for, the ones I wanted to hide from hurt.

  But I went on laughing and crying and just fucking trembling through the enormity of these feelings. I was a boiling kettle, screeching and steaming while everyone watched. They offered tissues and water, and chocolate and even a Xanax at one point. But there was only one way to quiet a kettle, and I didn't know how to turn down the heat.

  "Magnolia," my mother whispered. She looked at me, her eyes wide. "Magnolia, what's wrong?"

  "You-you-you-you," I stammered between laughs, "you th-think I'm not trying but you have no idea what I'm going through."

  "Then tell me." She held out her hands as if it was that simple. And maybe it was. Maybe I was too far down this path to see the light anymore but it felt far from simple. "Tell me what you're going through. Maybe I can help."

  I shook my head, already feeling the heaviness of a cry-graine creeping in. "I stopped using the apps," I started with a sniffle, "because I think I'm falling in love and my life is a m-m-m-m-mess."

  My mother's mouth fell open. She quickly recovered, asking, "Is he married? Please don't tell me he's married. You know better than to get involved in that kind of situation again."

  Again.

  I would've kept laughing if I wasn't busy seething over that word.

  Again.

  I'd made some mistakes. I knew that without the reminder. I'd made mistakes, and it took me longer to learn from some of them than others. But figuring it out was the sticky side of growing tired of your own bullshit. Learning to love your flawed, fragile self required a thick foundation of hard-packed mistakes and a ruthless devotion to never committing them again.

  Again.

  "That's not fair," I said. "I didn't know Peter was married. Sure, I missed some of the warning signs but I didn't knowingly get involved with a married man, Mom. I wouldn't do that."

  "So, he isn't married?"

  I rolled my eyes, barked out a laugh. "No. Not married."

  She shrugged, waiting for an explanation.

  I'd often thought about how I'd present the coincidence of Rob and Ben to my family. In my head, it always took place after the summer, after our arrangement ended. After I'd chosen.

  But the reality of making a choice between Rob and Ben—crowning a victor—sank in my belly like a stone. This wasn't a season finale and these men weren't contestants and I wasn't taking long, contemplative walks on a deserted beach while a film crew caught my every frown and far-off gaze. This was my real life, and choosing one of these men meant building a relationship on uneven ground.

  All the power sat in my hands. It'd been fun for a time. It'd been nice to feel adored, cherished, special. I'd never been special, not in the ways that it mattered. But I wasn't meant to keep this power.

  "Is your period starting? Is that what this is about? You're feeling a little PMS-y?"

  I lifted my palms to my eyes. "Oh my god. Mom. No. Just…no."

  She huffed out a breath. "It's a fair question," she said. "You're not usually this dramatic and believe me—hormones can make you crazy."

  "Thanks," I murmured. "That's really helpful."

  She shifted toward me, her arm brushing against mine. "If he's not married, what's the problem?"

  "There are two of him," I replied. "That's the problem."

  "Okay. He's a twin," she mused. "There's no way you'll have less than two babies at once but that's nothing to cry about."

  "That's the only way this could be worse," I said. "If they were twins." I shuddered at the thought of my brothers dating the same woman. Good god. "Not twins. Two separate men. I'm seeing two men who are not twins."

  My mother arched both eyebrows. "Are you kidding me?"

  "Does it look like I'm kidding?" I gestured toward my face. I didn't need to see my reflection to know I was a puffy, red mess. "Does any of this look like a joke to you?"

  It didn't matter how loud I spoke because everyone was already tuned into this meltdown. Of course, they were. Nothing happened to me in private. Every critical moment in my life unfolded with an audience. It made me wonder—if I wasn't judged, did it even happen? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure but I was completely certain I was done with this, all of this. The judging, the arched eyebrows, the again, the constant sense that I still wasn't doing it right.

  Just fucking finished.

  "No, Mom, I'm not kidding," I continued. "I've been seeing two men for"—I shook my head, trying to recall the moment it all began—"a few months now. Two different, unrelated men who are neither twins nor married."

  She watched me for a beat, her eyebrows bent and the technician's repeated request that she return her foot to the bath ignored. Then, "A few months? It's been going on for—for a few months? And you didn't think I'd like to know that?"

  "Yes, a few months and I'm not here for your complaints about it," I replied, still riding high on my righteousness. "I didn't set out with the
objective of getting caught between two guys and I wouldn't wish this chaos on anyone. But most of all, I don't need anyone reminding me that once upon a time, I did foolish things. I did unbelievably foolish things and I ignored all the warnings in the world." I jabbed a finger at my chest. "Yep, that was me. But how many times do you think I needed to see my entire life ripped in half and sold for salvage before I burned the fool right out of me? How many times do you think I need my dog stolen from me or my business relationships fucked up or getting served with deposition summonses before I killed that stupid girl with fire?"

  "Magnolia, I just—"

  I held up both hands, cutting her off. "I don't need to hear it. I don't need anyone telling me I've made a bad habit of betting on the wrong horse. It's true. I've done it too many times and I've paid for each one. I've paid so much. Do you know how much it's cost me? Do you know how many of my friends got married and had babies and bought houses and succeeded in their careers and did all the things everyone is supposed to do while I wandered around, lost and confused, and hoping I'd get mine one of these days? That was all I wanted. But I was wandering and foolish and missed out on everything. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever catch up. If I'll ever get my turn." I swiped a tear off my cheek. "But I'm not betting on horses anymore, Mom. I'm betting on myself now."

  I shifted in my seat, staring out the salon windows. It was blindingly bright, the kind of sunny that bellowed summerrrrrrrrr! and dusted my nose with freckles within minutes outside. There were people walking on the sidewalk, driving on the road. Going about their lives. They weren't caught between a history of bad decisions and a desperate desire to get it right for once in their fucking lives. Or perhaps they were. Maybe they were suffering and struggling, failing and fucking it all up. Maybe we all suffered and struggled, but we couldn't see it until we got up close and really looked at someone.

  "How do you like the color? It's good?" the technician asked.

  I bobbed my head without looking. It didn't matter whether my toes clashed with my fingers or I wore heels or I did anything other than finding the right path through this—the one where I didn't choose a man but we chose each other—because I wanted my damn turn. I'd earned it.