The Meaning of Maggie (15 page)

“Then stop making it my business!”

She stormed out of the room and I yelled after her. “APOLOGY ACCEPTED!”

Two days later in gym class, I secured three layers of Band-Aids on my heels and carefully positioned my socks. And then I put on another pair of socks just in case. I walked out of the locker room, through the gym, and onto the track, certain I was going to have to
go it alone today. No way would Mary Winter want to help me two classes in a row.

But she did.

“Hey Maggie, what are we singing today?”

I shook my head. “It's okay. You don't have to run with me anymore.”

She leaned down to tighten her laces. “Why not?”

I leaned down and tightened my laces too, because it looked professional. And then I thought, since I was down here, I might as well pull up my bootstraps too.

“Because this is my fight, Mary. Not yours.” I patted her on the shoulder, saluted, and took my place on the track. I had to prove to myself that I could do it. I gazed around the track and visualized it as a Scantron that I was about to fill in with every right answer. My feet would be my number two pencil.

I reached for my toes one last time and then another pair of feet joined mine. And they belonged to Mary Winter.

“Hey, I get it if you don't want to run together. But maybe after class you can talk me through our science homework? I'm lost.”

My mind wanted to tell her to go away. But my feet, legs, and spleen
⁵⁴
remembered the pain of trying to run by myself. Maybe it was okay to need someone's help. Just this once.

I scooted over and made room for her next to me on the track. “We can talk about it while we run. I have it memorized.”

So we ran and we sang and I almost died once and then I recovered and then I dropped some knowledge about mitochondria and then I almost threw up and then I got a cramp and then I remembered the triangle on my lower back and then we only had three more laps to go.

And I realized that maybe Mary Winter wasn't out to get me. Maybe she wasn't even being mean with the flower back in February. Maybe she wasn't trying to ruin my life. Maybe she was just nice. Maybe it was okay if Clyde liked her.
⁵⁵

Maybe we were friends.

I must've gained a lot of muscle from running because I no longer needed Mom's help getting the Nutella jar open, which meant I got Nutella without her permission, which meant my life was complete. And I felt better than ever when school ended. I got all As again and won every award at Awards Night. Again.

I kept my chin and bootstraps up as I signed Mary's yearbook at the Yearbook Signing Party after Study Hall. She'd blocked off a little corner just for me and I wrote extra small so I could fit in all my well wishes for her over the summer. I wrote how lucky it was that she got to go to summer school!
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And how double lucky it was that we became friends in gym class and I hoped we would have a class together again next year, but
maybe not gym. Maybe something super fun like Latin or geometry. And I promised to keep running or at the very least take up speed walking like the old ladies in the mall with the cool hats and even cooler fanny packs.

I was just dotting my last i when another yearbook slid across the table next to me. I looked up and there he was: Clyde.

“Hey Maggie, wanna sign my yearbook?”

I almost choked. And I wasn't even chewing anything. Which was unusual.

I was nervous but I pulled it together. “Um yeah, sure.” I opened his yearbook and it was covered in like a zillion signatures mostly from girls. I couldn't find an empty spot anywhere. He seemed to have gotten really popular. Especially with the ladies.

“Where should I sign?”

“Hmmm.” He scratched the back of his head like some kind of rock star philosopher. “How about next to your picture?”

I turned to the page where my picture should have been. “Oh, I don't have one this year. See?”

“Were you sick on picture day or something?”

“No, I wanted to wear a tricorn hat like George Washington and they wouldn't photograph me wearing it. So I refused to have my picture taken at all.”

“Really?” Clyde laughed. “That's pretty cool. Standing up for what you believe in and everything.”

“Well, I was sitting. But thanks.” I found an empty space on the second to last page. “How about right here?”

“Perfect. Want me to sign yours?”

I couldn't believe it. He wanted to sign my yearbook. I tried to keep my hand from shaking as I passed it to him.

He opened it and was immediately impressed. “Wow, there are a lot of signatures in here. From teachers.”

I tried to be modest. “Yeah, they
really
like me.”

He started writing and my brain blanked. What should I write? Should I tell him to keep in touch? No. You can't keep in touch if you're not in touch in the first place. Should I profess my love for him in a no-holds-barred essay referencing my extensive research about how we were MEANT2B? Maybe not.

What would Dad tell me to write? He would tell me to say something cool. So I did just that:

Dear Clyde,
Have a perfect summer. I'll see you next year close to the harvest moon! Get it? Like Neil Young's
Harvest Moon
? I hope you got it. I'm sure you did. You get everything. And if you need any book recommendations for over the summer, I have about a thousand.
Sincerely
,
⁵⁷
Maggie

I handed the yearbook back to him and he handed mine back to me and away he went, off into the metaphorical summer sunset. I wasn't by his side, but I hoped I was in his heart.

As soon as he disappeared around the corner, I searched for the page he signed in my yearbook. I couldn't find his signature anywhere. I went page by page and finally found it where I least expected it. On the same page in the same square where my picture was supposed to be, Clyde had sketched a portrait of me. And I was wearing a tricorn hat just like George Washington's. Next to it he had written, “Stay cool Maggie Mayfield. Peace. Clyde.”

I pressed the book close, hoping his words would transfer by osmosis directly into my heart. He thought I was cool! The final bell of the school year rang and I realized I had never ever been happier.

I decided I would keep up with my running over the summer. Well, for a couple weeks anyway. I ran up and down our neighborhood and saw things I'd never seen before because I'd really only been up our street in a car. The farthest I'd ever walked was to the mailbox and that was only once a month when
National Geographic
arrived.

It turned out there was a whole world out there full of other families doing other things. I passed one house with a dad playing basketball with his son and I
wondered if Dad's legs were awake and if I were a boy, would we being doing the same thing? Probably not. I bet even as a boy I would be too smart for sports.

I'd always stop in front of the house at the top of the hill when I was on an evening run. I'd peer into the window where the mom was always in the kitchen doing dishes or making dinner or cleaning something. And I'd remember when my mom was always doing something in our kitchen window and it seemed like forever ago. Before she was a puddle of clothes. Before I had to share her with all those hotel guests. So much had changed since the summer before. And not just my calves, although they were significantly shapelier.

I even hung out with Layla and Tiffany and not against my will. When they lathered up in SPF 0 and lay out on towels in the driveway, I joined them. Well, I joined them from the safety of the shade I'd created with three umbrellas and an old tarp from the garage. I didn't want to damage my fair skin. Dad always said I would have been adored in the Victorian era. Which I liked to think about because I always felt like I belonged to every era except the one I was born into. I especially felt a connection to eras where they wore layers and layers of underpants and read books by candlelight while enjoying madeleines and drinking tea.

It was shaping up to be a perfect summer. Until one day when it took a sudden and peculiar turn.

I was partaking in some light summer reading of
Leaves of Grass
while Layla and Tiffany read
Seventeen
magazines in their usual sunning spot. All was quiet on the home front. Even Dad was outside with us catching some rays while reading
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
for the millionth time.

But the quiet was broken when Mom's car zoomed up the driveway. She slammed on the brakes and just stopped short of pancaking Layla and Tiffany. They jumped up in terror, Dad yelled some bad words, and Mom freaked.

“What are you doing lying in the middle of the driveway?!” she screamed out the window.

“Us?!” Tiffany yelled. “What are you doing going ninety up the driveway?! In the middle of the afternoon?!”

“Everyone calm down,” Dad commanded. And then he laughed. “And let's remember it was your mother who almost killed you. Not me.”

“That's enough. I really am sorry,” she said. “I should have called first to tell you I was coming home early. But I have good news. Phyllis and Donny are coming to visit!”

Oh dear. Phyllis and Donny were Mom and Dad's hippie burnout friends from way back. They used to visit when I was little whenever they were on their hippie motorcycle trips to hippie places across the country. But we hadn't seen them in a while. I assumed they'd been kidnapped or had turned to a life of crime. This
was exactly what my perfect summer didn't need: a night of swapping antiwar stories with a bunch of degenerates.

Mom rushed us all inside. “Time to clean up. They'll be here tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I asked. That didn't seem like enough time to hide the valuables. “What's the rush?”

“Well, it's your dad's and my wedding anniversary. What better way to celebrate than with friends? Plus, we need witnesses.”

“Witnesses to what?! Are you planning a bank heist?!”

Dad laughed, which I thought was the wrong reaction for someone being accused of a felony. “Your mother and I are going to renew our wedding vows right here.”

“What's that mean?”

Mom smiled. “It means there's going to be a wedding.”

The next morning I heard a loud rumble from the window. Two homeless-looking people were parking their motorcycle in our driveway. Dad joined me at the window and waved to them.

“Don't wave at them!” I yelped. “For all we know, they could be murderers!”

“I'm afraid we have to let these murderers inside.”

I leaned forward. They looked like they had done time. Hard time. I had to get Tiffany. If anyone knew how to chase off bad people, it was Tiffany. She chased me away all the time and I was a good person.

I ran to our room and flung open the curtains. “Look outside!” I hissed at Tiffany, who was still prone on the bed. “Are these the scariest people you've ever seen?”

“No, you're the scariest person I've ever seen,” she said without even looking.

Layla must have heard the panic in my voice because she came to see what was up.

“Do you think they're going to kill us in our sleep?” I asked.

“No, but they are creepier than I remember. They even have skeletons on their shirts. What's creepier than that?”

That made me wonder where else they were keeping skeletons.

Layla looked worried. “God, I hope they don't come to
my
wedding one day.” She had a point.

“Geez, I hope they don't come to mine either.”

Tiffany was awake now. “No one is coming to your wedding, Maggie. Not even the groom.”

She was the worst. But I didn't have time to deal with her. I ran into the living room. “Hey parents. We have a consensus. These people are terrifying and we don't really think you should let them in.”

There was a knock at the door.

“Too late.” Mom laughed.

“I can't die! I'm going to be president! Of the United States! Of America!”

Dad shushed me away while Mom opened the door.

Phyllis was the first one in. “Hey y'all!”

As her skull shirt moved closer, I started to lose it. We were all gonna die. I'd never be president. Forget of the United States, I'd never be president of my class and I had a really good platform for the next election too: free pizza Fridays! But I'd never get to rally for it because I'd be dead. With no free pizza for anyone ever again.

Phyllis hugged Mom so hard I thought Mom's arms might pop off. “I've missed you so much,” her scratchy voice kept repeating.

When she finally released Mom, I got a good look at her. The first thing I noticed was the mood ring she wore as a wedding band. It was bright red, which meant she was happy/excited/anxious and/or in love. The next thing I noticed was her long wavy red hair, followed by her blue jeans that belled at the bottom. And then I noticed the skeletons on her shirt again. And then I noticed they were heading straight for me and then I took a deep breath.

My feet left the ground as she pulled me into the skull on her chest, which I assumed wasn't the last skull I would see that day.

“Oh my gawd! You look just like your daddy!”
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My feet thumped back to the ground and Phyllis
moved on to her next victims, Layla and Tiffany.

“Look at these beauties! Y'all look just like your mother! She was such a little knockout.”

Dad wheeled around next to Phyllis. “She's still a knockout.”

Phyllis's mood ring faded to green, which meant she was uneasy/restless/scared. I wondered why she felt any of those things. Maybe she didn't recognize Dad without long hair? Maybe she was scared the police had bugged him with a wiretap? Maybe she'd never seen a wheelchair with an “I'm proud of my Honor Roll student” bumper sticker stuck to the back of the seat?
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