by KT Morrison
She said, “I’ve been smelling it in the car the whole way from town—I was hoping you’d offer …”
He hooked an arm around her shoulder in a friendly headlock and kissed the top of her head.
In the kitchen, Mr. Milton sat at the table while Mrs. Milton poured water in the kettle.
Maggie said, “Is Max here?”
Both of them turned their heads at the same time with similar looks of puzzlement.
She said, “What …?”
Max’s dad said, “No, he’s not here.”
“He’s not here?”
“Sorry, Maggie. Did you think he was here?”
“He told me he was coming home.” She hated the look of disappointment on their faces. She said, “His loss anyway. More cake for us.”
Max’s dad laughed as he opened the lid to the cake box, his hand poised with a long knife to carve them some. “I want big pieces,” he said. “Don’t you?”
June said, “He was here, he just went to go visit his brother.”
Maggie nodded to Mr. Milton, wanting a big piece as well, saying to Max’s mother: “Connor? Or Michael?”
Mr. Milton said, “Connor. In Chicago.”
June said, “He didn’t tell you?”
She struggled to keep her expression bright. She said, “I must’ve missed … I must’ve missed his text.”
“Call him,” June said to Keith.
He said, “Yeah, let me get the phone …”
Maggie stood up and stopped him, set him back in front of the cake. “No, no, no, no, please, don’t.”
“He has to know you’re here. We’ll make him come home.”
She said, “No, that’s why I don’t want to tell him I’m here. Let him have fun.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “You came all this way …”
She said, “Yeah, I know. I’m going to go home tomorrow, anyway. He wouldn’t be home before I left.”
June’s face brightened, “You’ll stay here tonight?”
“Oh,” she said. “I don’t know … I thought I would get a hotel …”
Mr. Milton said, “You’re staying here. Don’t be silly. Come all this way …”
“I don’t want to put you out …”
June said, “Put us out?” She turned from her tea set, almost laughing, drying lemon off her hands on a paper towel. “You’re family. You are family.”
And she felt it. Real warmth. She was a Milton. Or would soon be. And that was pretty good. “Okay,” she said, satisfied, fortified—looking forward to staying with them. “Yeah, I’ll stay here. I’d love to stay here. Thank you.”
“We wouldn’t let you go to a hotel. We’ll have a better time without Max anyway, dragging us down.”
She laughed and said, “All his moping.”
Keith chuckled, putting very generous slices of black forest cake onto plates.
“When did he go to see Connor?” she asked, coming to the opposite side of the counter across from June, standing between two stools and leaning with her elbows.
Keith said, “I guess, was it …? Was it … June, was it Thursday?”
“Friday,” she said, getting tea from the cupboard.
“Yes, he went last Friday, he’s been there since then.”
Maggie said, “And how was last weekend?”
He flicked a puzzled look at June, then back to Maggie, saying, “What was last weekend?”
“Max came to see you last weekend?”
June said, “No. We were away last weekend.”
“Away?” she said.
“We were away in Lexington. We went to see my sister.”
“You didn’t see Max here?”
Keith said, “Oh, he was here when we got home.”
“When you got home?”
“I guess it was Tuesday. We come in he was sleeping on the couch in the family room with the TV on.”
“Oh,” she said, a sudden worry that he’d gone off last weekend to do something secret, something nefarious. But now embarrassed that she was very evidently completely unaware of her fiancé’s schedule.
June said, “It was a real surprise, just like you today. We came home, he was here. He stayed here three days, left on Friday to go see his brother.”
“Oh,” she said, “how is Connor?”
“He doesn’t keep in touch like Max does—which still isn’t enough—but from what he tells us it sounds like it’s going all right.” June poured boiling water into the teapot and Max’s dad passed the cake on plates to Maggie and where June would sit.
“Perfect timing with this, kid,” he said to Maggie, nodding to the cake with his chin. “My blood sugar was plummeting and Juney won’t let me at the Halloween candy till after the kids come.”
“I had to hide the candy from him,” June said into a drawer.
“You like your sweets,” she said to Mr. Milton.
“You want to help me scare the crap out of some of the neighborhood kids? There’s this one little smart-mouth … what’s the family name, June?”
“Sylvester,” June said.
Back to Maggie now, he said, “You wouldn’t want to dress up as a scarecrow by any chance?”
“I might,” she said with a smile.
Though Maggie had been hiding its absence well, when they sat down at the table together June spied right away …
“Oh no, where’s your ring?”
She’d been prepared. She thumbed where it should be, getting very used to doing that, saying, “We’re getting it resized.”
“Bigger?” June said to her, her voice a hesitant gasp.
It was tough not to roll her eyes up while she thought of what her lie would be, but she said, “Yes, bigger.”
Now June earnestly gasped and put her hands on her cheeks so quickly she knocked her spoon and it clanked on the saucer.
Keith looked at her.
“What …?” Maggie said.
June hissed, “Are you pregnant?”
“Pregnant?”
June was smiling now, but trying hard to hold back, her face working through a trembling range of elastic happiness; reaching across the table and grabbing her hand, the one that should be wearing a ring, she said, “Please, tell me you’re pregnant.”
Maggie put her hand over June’s and said, “No. I’m not pregnant,” then she burst into tears but laughing uncontrollably, kissing June’s hand, and never feeling more accepted and welcomed in her whole life.
5
Lacuna
Thursday, November 2nd
After a block of free studio time, she checked her phone, standing at the doorway that passed from the glass-walled atrium, where the easels stood, out to the main outer corridor of the Fine Arts building. Still nothing from Max.
Hair tied back in a ponytail, fingernails stained crescents of oil paint, she dropped the useless phone into the pocket of her sweats and took her wool coat off its hook. Max needed to come around soon, the sharp blade of the hurt he applied was beginning to dull.
By now he would know that she visited his parents in Michigan, expecting for him to be there and also learning he hadn’t been there the weekend before when he said he would be. The texts she’d sent him this week—ten days now—were heartfelt and honest and frankly heartbreaking. Max not answering her, staying silent, she worried, was less about his heart and more about punishing her. It would seem, after all, that he’d gone to Northwestern to whoop it up with his rowdy brother. And what of the weekend before? If he wasn’t with his parents where had he gone?
Part of her considered that her sweet but apparently manipulative Max could draw out his silence for another reason. Anticipating his sweet and hurting fiancée would be so devastated by the relinquishing of her ring, he’d hope she would abstain from her contact with ‘the other man.’ Max would hope the longer he forced her abstinence the more Cole’s power over her diminished. Risky, though, for Max, and she didn’t think he could really keep his nerve. He would worry that she
would soon turn to Cole (it would be so easy), therefore, sadly, Max’s lacuna was real. Her Max was hurting. And it was painful that she could think of him as a machinator. But he’d led her to that, hadn’t he? The divulging he knew she’d tied Jay’s hands with pink tights could only mean one thing, and its implication was huge and frightening. How much of their relationship was artful construction and what was really … real? If Max could devise …
Thoughts aborted, she stopped her step so abruptly her K-Swiss squeaked on the polished concrete floor of the corridor. Dead ahead, waiting for her: a familiar silhouette. Cole leaned on the metal handrail, the wall behind him expansive polarized glass, the wintry sun casting a tight halo of light around him.
It had been ten days since she’d seen him, and the suddenness of this revelation thumped her in the stomach.
Both hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans, one desert boot heel hooked on the concrete curb running the base of the window. His long blonde curls framed the masculine features of his pretty face and he jutted his chin forward when their eyes met, tilting his head affectionately, a wary smile tugging his lips. It stopped her in her tracks.
“Cole,” she sighed, exasperated, defeated, remaining strength draining out her feet, her posture slumping.
A hand came from his pocket and gave her a gentle wave, but he stayed where he was. “Hi,” he said.
She stood her ground, watching him as students passed between them, moving left and right along the corridor. While she didn’t want to see him, when the way was clear she crossed the hall and came to stand in front of him.
“What are you doing here?” she said in a whisper that whisked with the trace of a whine.
“I know, I know,” he said, tucking his hand back in his pocket, though she could tell his urge was to touch her. And she longed to be touched, too.
“I told you I can’t.”
“I respect that, Maggie, I do. But when?—you know? Not ever?”
“I told you when.”
“It’s been ten days.”
“I’m not ready.”
“I miss you.”
She slumped again, a quick sigh escaping her, and she rolled her eyes and looked way, way up to the iron girder ceiling. A reluctant complaint groaned from her.
“What?”
“This is what I didn’t want,” she said, and now she took the spot next to him, resting her rump on the same handrail, both of them facing the same direction across the corridor, watching the door to the studio space from where she came.
“Maggie,” he sighed, looking down at his feet.
“No.”
When he turned, the honest expression on his face took her breath away and she moaned again.
“Maggie, I want to be your friend. At least let me be your friend.”
“You are my friend, Cole.”
“Don’t shut me out.”
“I don’t trust myself around you.”
“Don’t punish me for that.”
She looked away. “It’s not meant to punish.”
“Did I call you? Text you?”
“No.”
“I respected what you asked me.”
She shook her head at him, smirking now. “You’re here now—waiting for me.”
“It’s been ten days,” he pleaded.
“I told you when I would be ready, Cole.”
“Have you talked to him?”
She shook her head no, looked down at her own shoes.
“Why won’t he fucking talk to you?”
Why do you think, Cole? She just shrugged.
“He still at home?”
“No,” she said, turning to face him. “I went to his house.”
“You went to Michigan?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, nodding. “Max was in Chicago. To see his brother.” She left out the subterfuge of the last weekend she spent with Cole and they had fun, and Max was who knew where. Maybe spying on them from the closet.
“Oh,” he said, turning to face her. “I’m sorry.”
“I hung out with his mom and dad.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing,” she said, bowing her head.
“Can I … Can I just touch you? … Touch your cheek?”
She shook her head no.
“Please, Maggie?”
Elbow on the handrail, his masculine but well-groomed hand was held palm up and it would be so easy to put her hand in his. She shook her head no again.
He said, “How’ve you been? Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better,” she laughed weakly, and put her hand over her forehead like she was feverish.
He lamented: “The last time I saw you …”
Now she hung her head. The last time they’d been together they were both naked, just had sex, Max interrupted, took his ring, and then …
Her hand curled his thumb, gripped him for a heartbeat, then she raised his hand to her cheek, held his wrist while he stroked her cheek with his knuckles. His hand was warm; strong and gentle.
The last time they’d been together she’d wailed and cried. Cole soothed her, cradled her while she sobbed into his chest, the two of them wrapped in their sex-dirtied sheets. In the aftermath: besides the pain Max inflicted, there was a profound… embarrassment. While Cole comforted her she was painfully self-conscious of what he saw that day and how he would regard her. A strange worry that she wasn’t attractive when she cried. What did she look like sobbing, tears running down her face? Worried that her drama would be … would turn him off. When Cole was, and had been for a long time, her close friend, it frightened her that her heart had made adjustments in their dynamic. He really was more than a friend.
She rubbed her cheek against him as much as he caressed her. The bottomless dread of the last ten days felt suddenly narrower with Cole next to her.
He said, “It’s time, Maggie. Let me be your friend again.”
A light chuckle escaped, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the pleasure of his touch. After a moment, she nodded her head.
“Yeah?” he said, the relief in his voice palpable.
“Yeah,” she sighed, resigned, opening her eyes and staring into his.
His pupils darted back and forth over hers as his tentative smile widened. “Skip class. You have GOV—let’s go somewhere and talk instead.”
“Skip class?” she said worriedly. She’d taken two days off to go to Michigan and two days last week. She said, “Where?”
“Anywhere. Satinder’s away today and tomorrow.”
She let his hand down.
“Your room? Come on, this is what I’m saying …” Now she turned her back, wishing everything was so much easier.
His arms came around her and being in his embrace raced her heart wildly. He whispered, “Not like that, Maggie, I swear not like that.”
“Cole,” she complained while he rocked her in his arms. Out of his embrace, she turned to regard him. “This is what I’m talking about.” He regarded her plainly, mouth agape, eyes wet and wondering; she saw he was honest, just struggling for connection, communication.
Both hands on his chest, she smoothed his dark wool sweater, felt the hard body underneath. A sudden imagining of Max appearing in the hall—ten days waiting, being good, and he wanders in at this moment, dashing all hope. She whisked her hands away, curled her thumbs inside loose fists. “Take me … Would you please take me to Altieri’s?”
“Really?” he laughed.
“Buy me a pizza, okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Yes. Thank you.”
As they walked side-by-side across campus, heading for the village, her phone buzzed in the pocket of her sweats. Fished out, she read on the screen:
Max: I want to talk. Will you talk with me?
Ten days. Max let her suffer for ten days of silence and, though she knew he’d been hurt too, the coincidence that he would text her in the minutes after she reconnected with Cole was striking. She stopped on the path and
Cole continued, turning after a few steps, saying, “What?”
Phone back in her pocket, she turned around in a circle, watching the horizon, watching behind trees and windows, wondering from where he spied her.
“Nothing,” she said.
But by the time they reached the main street, passing under the FarmFresh student laundry, she had an idea. “Cole, would you go away with me this weekend?”
Laying on his teenage bed, looking down between the V of his sock feet, he saw: his dresser, then from floor to ceiling on either side, dark wood cubbyhole shelving; storage for a basketball, a baseball glove, his favorite books, speakers for the stereo, metal boxes with snap latches that contained mementos … Things that had meant something at one time, though he rarely thought about them anymore … Drawings girls had given him, sometimes letters, postcards from aunts and uncles … In the corner, leaning sideways, his snowboard that hadn’t seen use in five years; leaning against the snowboard, his skateboard, which hadn’t seen use in maybe ten years. Above the dresser, affixed to the wall, a mirror with a blue Mexican tile border. One he’d stare into, looking at his stupid face every morning before going to school, checking his sideburns, running his fingers through his hair, and when he started shaving, double checking to make sure no stubble was missed. Tucked inside the frame: photographs. Through the years, various female faces stared back from those spaces. All removed, of course, now having found the love of his life. There were ticket stubs, notes from Maggie, and only two photographs now. One of her that she had given him, wearing her blue blazer from private school, a young, pretty, teenage Maggie with a serious face. The other photograph, one of the two of them together, cheeks pressed, a selfie taken on his iPhone then sent away to be printed, mailed to his dorm room. The two of them together, at their most buoyantly happy, probably after eight months of dating.
When he returned from Connor’s, he found something else tucked there. A stiff card, and on it, in his Maggie’s pretty handwriting, three statements:
I love you.
I miss you.