Saxon Bennett - The Wish List

by Saxon Bennett

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Also by Saxon Bennett:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Publications from Bella Books, Inc.

  Copyright © 1996 by Saxon Bennett

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

  First Edition by Naiad Press 1996

  First Bella Books Edition 2010

  Editor: Lisa Epson

  Cover designer: Judith Fellows

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59493-223-6

  About the Author

  Saxon Bennett lives in the east mountains of New Mexico with her partner of eight million years and the two fur kids—one of each flavor, a neighbor indiscretion of swedish descent, Bubs, and a cat, Sarah, who is the lost princess of the wild tribe of sapphonic calicos and would like to be reinstated.

  She is the author of eleven novels.

  Dedication

  My eternal gratitude to Lin for plucking me from the morass of my own egotism, for reminding me of the virtues of having fun, and for all the lovely hours spent in your arms. For the furry friend in my life Sir J. H. Crapapore, what would I do without you to sit on my manuscript and type all those zzzz on the keyboard with your tail. I love you both.

  Also by Saxon Bennett:

  The Wish List

  Old Ties

  A Question of Love

  Both Sides

  Sweet Fire

  Talk of the Town

  Higher Ground

  Talk of the Town Too

  Back Talk

  Date Night Club

  Family Affair

  Chapter One

  Amanda stood behind the tiled island in the center of the kitchen, waiting for her toast to pop up and talking to her mother, who was not paying attention to her. Maggie was intently watching the swirls of cream in her coffee as she stirred them into the brown liquid.

  “Mom, are you listening to me?” Amanda asked.

  Maggie looked up; her green-gray eyes had that faraway look that Amanda disliked.

  “Yes, I am listening, Amanda,” Maggie replied, lying without hesitation. Amanda was like Harold, always demanding her attention. Maggie had grown used to the reprimands. She would smile as they rolled their eyes in exasperation. Harold and Amanda thought she was flighty. It was more like bored. Maggie went for mind-walks when she was bored or troubled. She was thinking of the ticket and Celia’s note when Amanda caught her wandering.

  “Then what was I saying?” Amanda demanded.

  “Would you like a summary or would you prefer verbatim?”

  “I know you weren’t listening. Why don’t you just admit it?”

  “All right, I wasn’t listening. I’m listening now. Please tell me again what you were saying.”

  “No, you tell me what you’re thinking about.”

  Maggie studied Amanda’s features. They were a strange fusion of hers and Harold’s. This other human being had been created out of something as simple as lust. Amanda was twenty-five. She had her father’s brown eyes and his furrowed forehead. She had her mother’s nose and mouth and luckily, since Harold had ended up being a rather stout figure, Amanda had her mother’s lithe body combined with her father’s dark good looks. She was purposeful and opinionated and, for such a young woman, had a possessive, dominating manner.

  “I was thinking about an old friend of mine.”

  “Who is that?”

  “Her name is Celia. I might go visit her in Arizona.”

  “How come I’ve never heard about her before?”

  “There wasn’t really any need.”

  “Mom, save us both time. Who is she really and why has she been a secret up until now?”

  “She was engaged to your father when they were in college.”

  “What happened? Why would you go visit her now?”

  “She was my best friend. It’s a long, complicated story, Amanda. I don’t think you’d understand.”

  “Try me.”

  Maggie looked at her daughter and felt the nagging need to confide a long-buried memory. Amanda, by virtue of timing and nothing more, fulfilled the need.

  “Celia and your father were engaged. Celia fell in love with someone else, and your father had the bad luck to find them together. It was very hard on him.”

  “That wasn’t very decent of Celia to play around on her fiancé. She should have broken it off first.”

  “We all think that, Amanda, but sometimes it isn’t that easy. Things happen, and they are not always neat and well-timed.”

  “Is that why you never talked about her? Because she dumped Dad and you married him instead?”

  “It’s part of it. Your father and I were always close friends. After Celia left, things just took their course.”

  “So Dad was rebounding when you picked him up. You weren’t the one great passion of his life.”

  “Amanda, that’s not fair. Your father and I loved each other very much. We were better suited for each other.”

  “So what was he like?”

  “Who?”

  “The man Dad got dumped for.”

  “Amanda, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m tired now. I think I’ll go lie down. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “I don’t understand why you want to visit a woman who hurt Dad like that.”

  “Neither do I, exactly.”

  Amanda looked at her mother and furrowed her brow. “All right, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  Maggie lay down, running her hand across the indentation of Harold’s side of the bed. Amanda’s questions kept playing themselves through her head. Why hadn’t she told Amanda the truth? Was it because Celia had left Harold for another woman? If it had been a man would she have told Amanda about it? It was harder for everyone that Celia fell in love with Bridgette. Harder still that she packed up and left without so much as a word.

  Celia was like that though, a bridge burner. When it was done it was done. So why did she want Maggie to come? Hadn’t it been awful enough? Maggie couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to the day she found out.

  Sally, Celia’s mother, had opened the front door, telling her that Celia was downstairs in her room. “Just go on down honey,” Sally said. Maggie had since thought of those words as a portent. Why couldn’t Sally have called to Celia, telling her Maggie had come? Celia would have been warned and Maggie spared. But no, things never go the way they should. Harold had called her a pessimist, but Maggie thought herself a pragmatist who firmly subscribed to Murphy’s Law: If it could go wrong, it did.

  Maggie heard Celia talking to someone. She hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. She wished she hadn’t. Celia’s voice was different, full of an intensity Maggie didn’t know.

  “But I do love you. I want to be with you. Honest I do. I just need more time. Please. I’ll get things straightened around, I promise.”

  Maggie assumed she was talking to Harold. Funny that Sally hadn’t told her that he was there. Maggie was about to knock on the door, when she came face-to-face with Bridgette rushing from the room in tears.

  Celia called out after her, “Wait!”

  “I can’t.”

  Maggie’s confusion was apparent. Celia glanced at her and ran after B
ridgette, leaving Maggie to sort out what she had just seen. In the light spring rain, Maggie walked home down by the river. She sat and watched the barges and the rowing skiffs go by, trying to figure out how she felt. Later that night Celia called, but Maggie was already in bed, chilled and sick. For days Maggie avoided Celia, but then Sally called to ask her to come over.

  Maggie knew Celia wouldn’t be home so she went. She didn’t know why. Perhaps it was to make what she was feeling real. Sally confirmed her doubts and now her worst fears. Sally showed her a note she had written to Celia asking her why she spent so many nights away from home and why she was staying with Bridgette and was there something unusual about their friendship and perhaps they should spend a little less time together because it wasn’t normal. Celia had written her response on the bottom of the note, saying that Sally wouldn’t understand and that Celia couldn’t really explain it except to say that she wanted to be with Bridgette and nothing was going to come between them.

  “What do you suppose it means?” Sally asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Maggie replied.

  As Maggie left Celia’s house, she looked back at the pristine pillars, thinking about the times she and Celia had sat on the front porch and talked. It would never be like that again. Maggie could not decide if she was disgusted or curious or jealous. Maybe she felt all three emotions. Why had Celia chosen Bridgette? Why not Maggie if she liked girls? Had Celia had feelings like that for Maggie? Maggie knew she loved Celia, but lust?

  She remembered wishing as they both lay naked in their twin beds, talking in the dark, that one of them was a man so they could always be together, not separated by boyfriends and later husbands. But it hadn’t occurred to her that they could be lovers.

  Maggie walked to Diva’s for beer. It was happy hour. After enough beers anyone could be happy. She was methodically peeling the label on her beer bottle when Harold saw her. He seemed surprised to see her there by herself. He had come with his friend Phil.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Maggie looked at him and swallowed hard, telling herself not to cry. “Yes, I just had a rough day at school. I thought I’d treat myself.”

  “Where’s Celia? You can usually entice her for a quick cocktail.”

  “I just stopped by on a whim. In fact, I’d better go.”

  “No, don’t. Stay and have one more with me. I’ll buy.”

  Maggie looked uncertain, but Harold ordered her a beer and she found herself not wanting to go after all. She got slowly drunk and listened to Harold and Phil tell her horror stories about med school. She kept looking at Harold and feeling guilty for knowing things she shouldn’t.

  She felt like screaming at him, your fiancée is in the arms of another woman and has no intention of marrying you. It’s all a farce, Harold. It’s never going to happen. Every second that we sit here she gets farther away and there is nothing either of us can do to stop it. But then again, maybe the whole thing will just go away. Maybe if we just keep our mouths shut, Celia can have her little fling. She’ll realize that it won’t work. It could happen. She took another swig of beer and began to feel better.

  “Celia’s going to move in with Bridgette,” Harold said rather matter-of-factly.

  “She is?” Maggie said, stunned.

  “Yes, I think it’s a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “I like Bridgette. She’s organized and responsible, and I think she’ll be a good influence on Celia. Besides, it is time Celia learned what it’s like to be out in the world.”

  “She will make better wife material that way,” Maggie replied.

  “Crudely put, but yes. I know she’s young, but she is flighty.”

  Maggie ordered another beer. Getting drunk seemed the only thing to do. It might bury the anger she felt welling up. Moving in. Oh, Harold, if you only knew what this means. That responsible woman is fucking your girlfriend, not training her to be your wife. Part of Maggie wanted to crush his bubble, swat it to the ground, but the other part felt an indescribable pity, knowing the hurt she was feeling would be so much more for him.

  Maggie rolled over on the bed, unable to sleep, able only to keep remembering those days when everything was falling apart. She watched the snow fall. It was probably warm in Arizona. What did Celia look like now? It was so long ago.

  When they had sat on the litter-strewn shore of the Mississippi River, the buds had just begun to bloom. It was Maggie’s favorite time of year. The lingering cold was gone. Summer was coming, but Celia was making plans that no longer included her. They walked in silence until they came to the shore.

  “Harold told me that you know about me moving in with Bridgette. That wasn’t how I wanted you to find out. I wanted to tell you, but you kept avoiding me. I don’t really expect you to understand, but I don’t want you to hate me. Please don’t hate me.”

  Maggie sat studying her cuticles. “I don’t hate you, and I want to understand. It’s just all so strange. Why this? Why now? Are you two sleeping together? What does it all mean, Celia?”

  “I’m not really sure. I know that I’ve never felt this way before. She makes me feel things I didn’t think I possessed. I know that I love her. I don’t know how things will turn out, but loving women is a part of me that won’t go away.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Most likely burn a lot of bridges, but I’ve never been afraid of that. You know me,” Celia said, smiling at her.

  “This is serious, Celia. You’re playing with other people’s lives here.”

  Celia stood up and walked to the water’s edge. She turned and looked at Maggie. “Don’t you think I know that? Do you think this is easy for me? Loving Bridgette means everything to me, but it doesn’t mean I’m certain about anything. Once I jump, there is no going back. Once I say yes, I sleep with women, my whole frame of reference changes. There is no support, no long-standing rules to go by. My mother is ready to commit me to some kind of treatment, and even you, my best friend, act different. Can’t you see this is hard for me?”

  “And it’s easy for the rest of us?” Maggie replied.

  Celia looked back out onto the river. “No, I know it’s not easy for anyone.”

  “I feel that I’m losing you, and it hurts. I know people change, but I always thought that we wouldn’t, that we would always be there for each other. Now I’m not so sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  Maggie couldn’t bring herself to mention Harold. This wasn’t about him. This was about loving your best friend and losing her. How could she say now that she wanted to be like Bridgette in Celia’s eyes? That she had thoughts but didn’t know what to do with them? Celia was right. There wasn’t a road map for this.

  Maggie got up. She went to the kitchen and opened a long-neck beer. When Harold was alive she had weaned herself of beer because it wasn’t a socially acceptable beverage for women. So she had taken to other alcohols. But now she drank beer again.

  She knew she had left Celia hurting on the bank of the river that day, but Maggie was hurting too. She left telling Celia not to pull a Virginia Woolf, walking into the river with rocks in her pockets and drowning herself.

  Celia managed a smile and said, “It’s not like that.”

  Bravado until the end, Maggie thought bitterly.

  Later, things called for true bravery, and Celia managed it. She did have the courage to stand up to everyone. Things got ugly, and Maggie ended up standing on the side of the moral majority. She let Celia down. But it got so complicated. It was awful, that night when Harold discovered them together. Celia should have told him, got it over with instead of waiting, instead of letting him find them like that.

  When Maggie answered the phone she could barely understand the sobbing voice on the other end. Finally, she asked, impatient with concern, “Where are you? I’ll come get you.”

  She picked him up and they drove to the bluff that overlooked the city. Night followed twi
light, and as the lights below began to flicker, Maggie listened to his story and tried to imagine what he had seen. She held his head in her lap, trying to soothe him. She knew nothing would take away the hurt or disgrace he was feeling. He kept asking over and over again what he had done to make this happen.

  Maggie met Celia at her apartment. It was the first time she had been there. It was tastefully, if sparsely, furnished. Bridgette had obvious tastes, and the place reflected them. Maggie was jealous. Why couldn’t she be as decisive? Maybe that was why Celia was attracted to Bridgette. Maybe Maggie’s wishy-washy ways didn’t appeal, but Maggie was still that way. Having tastes, likes, and dislikes meant standing up for yourself. It meant knowing your own mind, and Maggie didn’t.

  She was angry with Celia that day. Why hadn’t she told him? Did she know what she had done to him? How hurt he was? Celia was unwilling to sacrifice her own happiness, her sense of what was right for her life to anyone, much less someone as extraneous as Harold.

  “That’s what he is to you, extraneous?” Maggie asked.

  “To be perfectly honest, yes. He cornered me, and I know that now. My whole life up to now has been a charade. Well, the game’s over.”

  “And am I part of that charade, too?”

  “No. You were one of the only real parts. With you I could be myself. With Harold I didn’t feel that way.”

  “I love you, Celia,” Maggie blurted.

  “I love you, too,” Celia said.

  They held each other, and as Maggie pulled away she looked deep into Celia’s eyes.

  “Promise me you’ll never forget what we had,” Maggie said, and then she kissed Celia on the lips, a lingering kiss that she hoped said all that words could not. Maggie never forgot that kiss. Sometimes she would allow herself to daydream about it, but as the years went by she forced herself to put it away.

  When Celia and Bridgette left, Maggie and Harold began spending time together. Both missed Celia, both were envious of Bridgette, and both felt that they were wronged by a woman who had once seemed so harmless. They became lovers, then husband and wife. They bought a house. Maggie, under Harold’s careful supervision, landscaped the yard, refinished antiques, and had a child. They lived life like so many before them, and they never spoke of Celia. Now, it seemed so long ago, so far away, it almost wasn’t real.