Chapter 7
7
Maggie squared her shoulders as she stepped into the church, her Pilates mat rolled up under her arm. It had been two weeks since that dinner at Laurie’s, and she’d been determinedly making progress, one fumbling step at a time. Attending Elaine Barton’s Pilates class in the church basement was the next step in her Make-Starr’s-Fall-Work, or really Make-Maggie-Normal program.
Over the last two weeks, the boardgame café had begun to take shape. She’d ordered some furniture for the front room to be delivered next week; she’d set up a bank account; she was going on the barista course in a couple of weeks. They hadn’t been ready to open on February 1st as Ben had hoped for, but, as long as they’d passed the necessary inspections for food hygiene and fire safety, they could potentially open their doors by mid-March, with limited offerings of coffee and cake. It was both an exciting and scary thought.
Ben had done as he’d promised and continued with his schoolwork, spending his free time either organizing all the boardgames they’d bought or gaming, often with Zach Miller. Apparently, they’d formed some kind of team and Zach was, according to her son, “killing it.” Sometimes she heard him talking on his headphones to Zach, which made her smile because it was the most social Ben had been in well over a year, although she could barely understand the gaming slang.
“Complete skill issue!” he’d chortled last night, his thumbs moving rapidly over his controller. “You are so bot farming . I’m the one who secured the dub, are you kidding me? Oh, man, the lag!”
She hadn’t been able to hear any of Zach’s replies through the headphones, of course, but she had been curious as to whether he spoke the same incomprehensible language.
Her sister was less approving of their friendship. “Ben is playing with a thirty-year-old stranger?” she’d exclaimed when Maggie had explained the situation on one of their phone calls. She sounded both censorious and scandalized. “Maggie?—”
“He’s not a stranger,” Maggie had protested. “And I don’t know that he’s thirty, anyway. He might be younger.” Which was a depressing thought. “He’s a neighbor,” she’d continued, “and he’s very nice. He’s just about the last person I’d expect to be into gaming, but I’m very glad he is, for Ben’s sake. It’s good for him.”
Lynn had still been dubious. “How do you know this guy isn’t, I don’t know, grooming him in some way?” she’d demanded.
“Grooming him?” Maggie had repeated in disbelief. “Are you serious? I mean, I know you like to be cautious, Lynn, but… I’m pretty sure he’s just being nice.” She’d taken a deep breath as she’d briefly closed her eyes. “I need you to be happy for me, okay?” she’d told her sister quietly. “This is working, or starting to. I need you to accept that. And if things get hard, which I know they will, I need you not to ask me to move to Boston or back to Greenwich or wherever. We’re staying here. We’re going to make Starr’s Fall work.”
Lynn had been silent for a long moment. “Okay,” she’d finally said. “I get it. But if I’m right…”
“You aren’t,” Maggie had told her, exasperated as well as amused. “Trust me.”
Although really, Maggie reflected as she headed down the stairs toward the church basement, Zach Miller basically was a stranger. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks; they’d last spoken in the hallway at Laurie’s, when she’d almost lost it. Was he avoiding her, the awkward middle-aged woman who had become too emotional? She could hardly blame him, and yet she knew she was disappointed. Some part of her had been hoping to run into him.
She had seen Laurie several times, at least; they’d chatted in the street, and Maggie had stopped by Max’s Place to drop off a thank you card for the flowers and cookies as well as the dinner invitation. When she’d let it slip that she and Ben did not have a pet, Laurie had urged her to adopt one from the Humane Society. Maggie had demurred; she was barely managing to keep her and Ben together. Even though Ben had asked for a cat and she’d dreamed of a dog, she didn’t yet trust herself with another living creature quite yet. But maybe one day…
“Are you new?” An athletic-looking woman in matching lilac leggings and sports top, her wavy gray hair pulled back into a loose bun, came toward her. “I’m Elaine Barton. Welcome to Peaceful Pilates.”
Peaceful Pilates sounded nice, Maggie thought. Well, the peaceful part, anyway. “Thanks, I’m Maggie Parker. I just moved to Starr’s Fall.”
“You’re opening the boardgame café with your son, aren’t you?” Elaine remarked as she shook her hand. She let out a throaty laugh. “Everyone knows everyone else’s business here, I’m afraid, for better or for worse. Such an interesting idea—I’m a backgammon player, myself.”
“We’ll have backgammon,” Maggie promised. She was pretty sure it was one of the dozens of games they’d purchased a few months ago, when they’d first come up with the idea of the café.
“Looking forward to it.” Elaine gestured to the basement floor. “Roll out your mat and we’ll begin. Have you met the others?” There were three other women already sitting on their mats. “This is Annie Lyman,” Elaine said, pointing to a solid-looking woman dressed in gray sweats and an old t-shirt. She had curly salt-and-pepper hair and looked to be in her mid-forties. She gave Maggie a friendly wave.
“And this is Zoe Wilkinson,” she continued, pointing to the woman next to Annie, who was different from her in every way. She was in her late twenties, tall and lithe, with a shock of bright pink hair and a nose ring. While Annie was happy to simply sit on her mat, Zoe was already sinuously stretched out in a cobra pose, her head tilted back as she smiled at Maggie.
“Nice to meet you.”
“And you?—”
“And Liz Cranbury,” Elaine finished, pointing to a woman in her fifties wearing high-end sportswear and a friendly expression. She tucked a tendril of frosted blonde hair behind her ear as she gave Maggie a smile.
“Great to have you here.”
“Thanks,” Maggie said. She was feeling less nervous than she’d expected to, which was a good thing. She rolled out her mat next to Liz’s and stepped onto it gingerly. It had been a long time since she’d done any Pilates, and Liz and Zoe both looked like experts, although Annie appeared as if she’d been brought here under duress.
“Her doctor recommended it,” Liz explained in a stage whisper. “For stress.”
“Oh dear…” Maggie glanced at Annie, who was, it had to be said, looking a little doleful. “That’s too bad.” She wondered what she was stressed about; judging by the way the chat flew around this town, she’d probably find out soon enough.
“All right, ladies,” Elaine called, moving gracefully to the front of the class. “Let’s start with a few cat and cows.” She glanced at Maggie, eyebrows raised in query, and Maggie gave a little nod. She knew how to do a cat and cow.
She came onto her hands and knees on her mat, arching her spine down and then up, “broadening through her collarbones,” as Elaine encouraged in a gently sonorous voice. As she continued to move, she felt something in her start to loosen. She’d forgotten how much she liked this, and not just that, but she’d forgotten how to be in her body. For too long she’d been existing entirely in her head, and what an anxious, unhappy place that could often be.
As Maggie went into her “first downward dog of the day,” muscles she’d ignored for too long stretched and the tension that had bracketed her neck and shoulders for the better part of a year started to ease. She moved into a cobra, feeling almost as sinuous as Zoe next to her, who was looking extremely supple and so very young. As Maggie went into a plank, she felt every single one of her forty-one years.
She moved through the rest of the class, enjoying the stretches and exercises, feeling pleasantly tired and yet also energized by the end of it. And for forty-five whole minutes, she hadn’t thought about anything much, which felt like a relief as well as a miracle.
“After class we always go get something to eat,” Zoe informed her with a smile once they’d finished and were all rolling up their mats. “We move around town—The Rolling Pin, The Starr Light, even The Latest Scoop.” She gave an abashed grin. “That’s the ice cream parlor I manage.”
“Oh, right…” Maggie had enjoyed the Pilates class, but did she really have the energy to socialize afterward? “I probably should?—”
“It’s The Starr Light today,” Elaine informed them. “They have a two-for-one brunch special.” Her tone invited no argument. “Rhonda does a fabulous eggs Benedict.”
Everyone was slinging their bags over their shoulders, tucking their mats under their arms. It would be churlish in the extreme to refuse, Maggie felt, and it wasn’t even that she wanted to, but…
“Coming, Maggie?” Elaine asked, a very slightly imperious note to her voice, even though she was smiling.
“Yes, coming,” Maggie replied meekly as she fell in step with Annie, who was still looking morose.
Outside, the day was bright and clear, the village green sparkling with frost, the air cold enough to freeze in Maggie’s lungs. It was early February, but spring still felt a long way off.
“How’s Barb, Annie?” Liz asked as they walked along, her voice full of compassion.
Annie sighed. “She’s definitely declining. I wish I could say otherwise… hell, I wish I could pretend otherwise, but I can’t.” She pressed her lips together. “The truth is, what with managing the farm, I’m afraid I might have to put her in a home. I can’t trust her to be okay on her own, and the carer only comes for a couple of hours three times a week.”
“Oh, Annie.” Liz rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“Barb is Annie’s mom,” Zoe murmured to Maggie. “She has Parkinson’s.”
“I’m so sorry…” Maggie murmured back, although she knew it was really Annie she should be saying this to, and Zoe gave a sympathetic grimace. Maggie’s dad had died of Alzheimer’s several years ago, so she had some idea of what Annie was going through—the slow agony of watching a loved one slip away memory by precious memory and knowing there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Matt’s death just a little over a year later had made her feel even more alone.
But why was she going into this doom spiral of thoughts? “How long have you lived in Starr’s Fall?” she asked Zoe.
“All my life,” Zoe answered with a laugh. “Although I went to art school in Hartford for a few years, and then I moved to New York for all of six months when I was twenty-two. I wanted to become an important artist, do the whole Greenwich Village thing, but I couldn’t take it. I might have run riot in high school, busting to get out of here, but I finally realized I’m a small-town girl at heart.”
“That’s a good realization to have,” Maggie replied with a smile.
“And what about you? Where did you move from?”
“Greenwich, but I grew up outside Philadelphia. I guess I’m a suburban girl, but I’m trying to be small town.”
Zoe laughed. “Small town is best,” she agreed.
Maggie nodded and smiled back. She felt as if she’d cleared a hurdle—a semi-normal bit of chitchat! She’d even laughed and made Zoe laugh. These things were definitely getting easier.
The grilling, however, was yet to come.
As soon as they were seated in a deep vinyl booth in The Starr Light Diner, with mugs of coffee and huge laminated menus in front of them, Elaine leveled her with a smilingly pointed look. “So, Maggie, what brought you to Starr’s Fall? We know about the boardgame café,” she continued, cutting to the chase, “and someone—Laurie, I think—mentioned you went on vacation here once?” She wrinkled her nose while Maggie took a sip of coffee, steeling herself for whatever coherent response she could come up with. “But how did you get from that to moving here?” Elaine finished, eyebrows expectantly raised.
“Well…” Was there any reasonable answer? “We needed a change,” she explained helplessly, knowing she needed to say more. And really, didn’t she want to be honest, for once? She couldn’t hide who she was or what she’d lived through forever. “My husband died just over a year ago,” she blurted. “A car accident.”
Elaine’s expression of good-natured nosiness morphed into pure apology. “Oh, I’m so sorry…”
“I told you it was something like that,” Liz stage-whispered. She made a face at Maggie. “Sorry. We are all so nosy.”
“It’s okay,” Maggie said, and surprisingly, it was . She was amazed they hadn’t heard what happened from either Jenna or Laurie, but maybe her new friends could be discreet, even in a small town like Starr’s Fall. And also amazingly, after a year of dreading talking about Matt’s death and all the ensuing fallout, she found that now, sitting with these smiling women, she might be able to manage it. Mostly, anyway, and that was in large part due to the fact that unlike everyone back in Greenwich, these kind people didn’t know anything except what she told them. “It’s just been hard for my son Ben and me,” she continued carefully. “And our life back in Greenwich… There were too many memories there. So we decided we needed a clean break. A fresh start. And we remembered Starr’s Fall as such a happy place, so…” She trailed off, letting them fill in the many blanks.
“Sometimes a fresh start is the best thing,” Liz remarked sagely. “That’s how I felt after my divorce. I didn’t want to move, but I did start helping out at Midnight Fashion, and now I’m the manager.”
“Betty Stein finally retired,” Zoe interjected wryly.
“Have you been in there yet?” Liz asked, and Maggie shook her head. “Well, you should,” Liz told her with a smile. “It was all a little dated before, but I think I’m bringing it up to speed.”
“Oh, you definitely are,” Elaine assured her with a wink. “Why, even I’d buy something there now.”
“Say it isn’t so, Elaine!” Zoe teased. “I thought you were strictly couture.” They all laughed, subsiding into mutual smiles, and Maggie felt as if she had become part of something, as if she’d been accepted, with no more questions asked. It was a good feeling.
“All right,” Elaine said after a moment as she briskly picked up her menu. “Eggs Benedicts all around, and I think mimosas as well.”
It was ten o’clock in the morning, but Maggie knew better than to object.
“I’ll agree to that,” Annie said on a sigh. She’d barely spoken since they’d sat down, and Maggie’s heart ached for her. She knew all too well what Annie was going through. She hoped at some point she’d get a chance to talk to her more privately about it, although she wasn’t sure what wisdom she’d have to offer besides a commiseration that watching an aging parent’s health fail basically sucked.
A waitress sashayed up to them, a pencil tucked behind one ear, her tired peroxide-blonde hair scraped back into a bun. “What can I get you ladies?” she asked, and Elaine ordered for them all.
“Mimosas,” the waitress remarked with a wink. “That kind of day, is it? Alrighty. Good thing it’s after 10a.m. You know I can’t violate the new liquor laws.”
“Rhonda owns the place,” Elaine explained to Maggie. “Since forever. I don’t think anyone can imagine Starr’s Fall without her.”
“And she makes a mean mimosa,” Zoe confided with a grin. “This isn’t the first time we’ve had a liquid lunch, as it were.”
“It’s not liquid,” Elaine admonished her. “Remember the eggs Benedicts.”
Maggie smiled, just glad they’d moved on from her sad story. And, she had to admit, she was looking forward to her mean mimosa.
“Ooh, ooh,” Liz hooted softly, her blue eyes rounding. “Look who just came in. Starr’s Fall’s resident hottie.”
“Liz Cranbury, he’s half your age,” Elaine chided. “Now as for Zoe…”
Zoe shook her head firmly. “Not my type. I like more grungy guys.”
“As if you’ll find one of those in Starr’s Fall,” Elaine scoffed. All four women’s gazes followed the man who had just entered the diner, and somehow, Maggie just knew who they were looking at before she discreetly turned around.
Zach Miller, chatting to Rhonda with that oh-so easy smile before he threw back his head and laughed.
“Have you met our scrumptious Mr. Miller?” Liz asked Maggie, her tone playful.
Maggie felt her cheeks heat, and she reached for her coffee. “Um, actually, yes, I have,” she replied, striving to keep her tone casual. She had nothing to hide, after all. “He came into the boardgame café to ask when it was opening.”
“Did he now?” Elaine remarked thoughtfully.
“Maggie might be a bit old for Zach,” Zoe chimed in, before giving Maggie an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”
“I really don’t think—” Maggie began, before Liz leaned across the table and confided, “You might as well find out now, Zach’s kind of a player.”
Zoe nearly spat out her coffee. “Kind of?”
“Okay, he’s been around,” Liz acknowledged. “But how could he not be, when he looks the way he does? What woman wouldn’t want to date him?”
“He’s dated every eligible woman under forty in the entire county,” Zoe declared. “If not the entire state. I should know, I went to high school with him. He was three years older than me, but even back then he was something of a legend, and I don’t mean that in a good way.” She grimaced, only partially apologetic. “Sorry, I know everyone thinks he’s charming, and I guess he can be, but back then he was kind of a jerk.”
“That was a long time ago,” Annie put in quietly, her tone gently admonishing. “Zach’s a good guy. I’ve known him since he was a little kid, and yes, he had his wild high school days, but hasn’t everyone, in one way or another?”
Zoe sighed in reluctant acknowledgment. “Guilty, I guess, but Zach was one of those in-crowd guys. You know the type?” She glanced at Maggie. “The cocky jock who goes around flirting with all the girls and toeing up to all the guys? And knows how good-looking he is, and how it means he can get away with anything? I just don’t think that has changed.”
Yes, Maggie knew the type. She remembered those kinds of guys from high school, and then later on, when they all became the bankers and hedge fund managers who schmoozed with her husband. In fact, her husband had been one too, which had all been part of the problem…
Not that she wanted to think about that. Maggie managed a stiff smile as she nodded her acknowledgment. She knew she shouldn’t be surprised, and yet she realized she was. The Zach Miller she’d come to know, however briefly, the guy who had asked her if she was okay and what she needed, who gladly gamed with her son… he didn’t seem like that kind of jerk. But if he’d dated all the women in the entire county who were under forty…
Well, good thing she was forty-one, she supposed.
Their mimosas arrived, and Maggie reached for hers gladly. As she sipped the cocktail, she realized she felt disappointed, which was stupid, because it wasn’t as if she and Zach had even been friends . She hadn’t seen him in two weeks, after all. If anything, he was more Ben’s friend than hers, and he was almost closer in age to her son anyway, which was both humiliating and humbling considering the complicated nature of her thoughts.
Unable to help herself, she glanced over at the booth Zach had slid into, a cup of black coffee in front of him as he frowned down at his phone, his tousled hair sliding into his eyes. Wendy brought him over a plate of fried eggs and hash browns, and he tilted his head up, raking a hand through his hair as he smiled his thanks.
Goodness, but he really was ridiculously good-looking. That tousled, gold-tipped hair, eyes that glinted from all the way across the room, the hint of stubble on his lean jaw. He was wearing another plaid shirt over a t-shirt, navy blue this time, and the usual faded, well-molded jeans. Eek. She needed to stop looking.
Maggie glanced back at the table and saw that every single one of her new friends had followed her gaze, and judging from the smugly knowing expressions on their faces, had guessed the exact nature of her thoughts.
“Don’t worry, darling,” Liz said as she leaned over and patted her hand. “We all do it.”
“But he’s never dated any of us,” Elaine put in, and they all burst out laughing. This time Maggie couldn’t find it in herself to join in.