Chapter 16
16
As she ended the phone call with her sister, Maggie realized she was standing in front of Midnight Fashion, the ladies’ clothing boutique that Liz Cranbury managed, under the beady eye of the original proprietor, Betty Stein. She’d been meaning to go inside, but she hadn’t had a chance yet. Now, as she glanced admiringly at the mannequins in the window with their color-coordinated outfits, she decided she might venture in. A little retail therapy would boost her mood, and maybe she could buy something new to wear to the grand opening.
“Maggie!” Liz exclaimed as she stepped inside the store with a tinkle of bells. “I’m so glad you’ve made it in. Betty’s visiting her grandson today, so I’ve got the place to myself. And look who’s here.” She nodded toward Annie, who was standing in front of the full-length mirror in a clinging navy-blue dress, looking glum.
“Oh…” Maggie smiled uncertainly, glad to see Annie, even if her expression was decidedly grim.
“She’s buying something new,” Liz explained in a stage whisper, “because she’s going on a date .”
“It’s not a date,” Annie barked. “It’s just a friendly get-together, as I told you and every other darned person in this town.”
Maggie smothered a smile. This sounded very interesting. “Oh?” she asked as she raised her eyebrows in inquiry. “Who is this friendly get-together with, Annie?”
“Mike the Mechanic,” Liz answered for her. Annie was still staring dispiritedly at her reflection. “Do you know him?” Maggie shook her head. She hadn’t had any need for a mechanic yet, thankfully, but maybe she’d meet him in relation to Annie.
“I look like I am trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Annie stated matter-of-factly as she plucked at the dress’s stretchy material. “And I have not succeeded.”
Maggie glanced at Annie’s outfit—a navy dress made of a soft jersey that clung to her ample figure perhaps a little too closely, revealing every bulge and ripple. It wouldn’t be flattering on anyone who didn’t have a stick-thin figure, at least not without some army-grade control-top underwear to smooth everything out. But beyond that, Maggie could see that Annie wasn’t happy in the dress, that it wasn’t her , and she realized she knew what that felt like.
How many times had Matt encouraged her to wear eye-wateringly expensive designers, when she would have been content as well as more comfortable in her slightly offbeat colorful clothes, the kind of things she’d worn before they’d become rich, or really, if she was honest, before they’d got married? Lynn’s comment about the country club membership and the Porsche had hit home.
He had changed since getting that promotion, something she’d acknowledged herself many times, but what she hadn’t fully realized was that despite her resistance, she’d changed, too. She’d let herself be changed, gone along with the interior designer and the swanky clothes and the new friends who helped his career, while putting her own preferences aside… so much so that she’d become afraid to voice an opinion, had tensed every time Matt had cast an appraising eye over her, or the dinner she’d made, anything. She’d felt like she was living on some kind of probation, never quite sure she measured up. It hadn’t always been that way between them, she acknowledged, but the seed had been there, which had taken root with Matt’s promotion.
If she’d been stronger, Maggie reflected, and if their marriage had been stronger, she would have explained how she felt to Matt and chosen her own furniture, her own clothes… just as Annie should.
“Tell me about this get-together,” she encouraged. “Is it formal? Semiformal? Smart casual?”
Annie plucked at the dress again, impatient. “What do those even mean?” she cried. “I don’t know. How should I? I don’t go on dates.”
“Don’t you mean ‘get-togethers’?” Maggie teased, and Annie gave her a rueful smile, their gazes meeting in the mirror.
“I’m too old to go on dates or?—”
“Not too old for get-togethers,” Maggie insisted with a smile. “So, what do you think the dress code is?”
“He’s taking her to the Litchfield Inn,” Liz informed her in a hushed voice. “Which is only the nicest restaurant in all of northwestern Connecticut! Men have to wear jackets and there is a no-jeans policy. And I have it on good authority that Mike is wearing a suit .”
“I can’t believe he even owns one,” Annie muttered. “And he won’t have shaved that ridiculous beard and he’ll still have grease under his fingernails, so…”
“Wow, well, that sounds exciting,” Maggie interjected cheerfully. She was dying to know more about this unexpected romance between Annie and Mike, but she decided to get the details another time. “What about something with a little more flow?” she suggested to Annie. “Maybe a pantsuit?”
“I know just the thing!” Liz hurried over to a rack and pulled out a simple but elegant pantsuit in deep red. It had a deep vee neckline but was otherwise perfectly modest, the cut of the pants loose and flowing.
“I’ve never worn a pantsuit,” Annie remarked dubiously. “I really don’t do anything like this.”
“So you’ve said,” Liz replied with a good-natured groan. “Just try it on,” she coaxed. “I think Maggie is right. I think you’re more of a pantsuit girl.”
With a sigh, Annie took the hanger and disappeared into the dressing room. Liz took the opportunity to sidle closer to Maggie.
“So,” she remarked in the same stage whisper she’d used before, “I haven’t seen Zach around your place lately.”
“No, I think he’s been busy.” Maggie tried to sound offhand and unbothered and was pretty sure she’d failed at both.
Liz’s eyebrows rose. “Busy? He was a whole other kind of busy last week…” She gave Maggie a knowing smirk before bursting into laughter. “I can’t believe you, girl! Snagging that hottie! I am so impressed.”
“Liz.” Maggie tried to give her friend a quelling look. “That was a freak event,” she stated as firmly as she could. “One time only.”
Liz’s smirk disappeared as she nodded in understanding sympathy. “Honestly, knowing his reputation, Maggie, that might be just as well. You don’t want to get hurt.”
“Are you two talking about Zach Miller?” Annie burst out of the dressing room, looking like a fabulous Amazon in her scarlet pantsuit.
“Oh, Annie ,” Liz breathed. “You look gorgeous!”
Annie shrugged off the praise as she half-glared at them both. “Were you talking about Zach?” she demanded again.
“Um… yes,” Maggie admitted. She was glad there was no one else in the boutique to hear more about her personal life. Had Annie heard what Liz had said about her “snagging that hottie”? Probably.
“Liz Cranbury, you should know better than to listen to this town’s gossip when it comes to Zach’s reputation,” Annie declared, her hands fisted on her hips. “He might have been a bit wild in high school, it’s true, but those days are long gone. Do you remember how he held down the store for over a year while his mother had cancer? When he was still a teenager, by the way. And how he and Jenna took that place over, when the Millers just upped and moved to Florida, with barely a goodbye. Not to mention how he’s always willing to help anyone out, for just about anything? You turn around, and Zach’s there, lending a hand?—”
“If he’s not on a date—” Liz murmured, shooting Maggie a laughing glance.
Annie rolled her eyes. “ I’m going on a date. The boy’s allowed to look for love. Aren’t we all?” She glanced down at the pantsuit and then gave Maggie an approving nod. “Now this is something I can wear without feeling ridiculous. I’ll take it!”
As Annie went back to change, Maggie browsed through the racks, looking for something to wear to the grand opening, her mind still on Zach. It felt as if every interaction she had was pointing to the fact that she’d made a big, fat mistake. The question remained, though: what could she do about it? The answer was obvious—talk to Zach. Apologize. And she could do that, of course, but then the far thornier question remained about their kiss. What did she really want to do about that ? And what if it wasn’t up to her, anyway? It had been a whole week. Reputation aside, Zach had every right to have moved on, especially considering the way she’d behaved.
Recklessly, feeling the need to do something, Maggie took out her phone. As Liz rang up Annie’s purchase, she opened WhatsApp and thumbed a quick message.
I’m pretty sure I overreacted the other day. I’m sorry.
She pressed send before she could overthink it; she was already having palpitations at the thought of Zach reading the message.
“Now,” Liz sang out, “we need to find something for you, Maggie!”
Two blue ticks appeared by her message. He’d read it already.
Maggie swiftly slid her phone into her pocket as Liz came toward her. “What are you looking for? Something special?”
“An outfit for the grand opening of the café,” Maggie answered. Her fingers were still curled around her phone, waiting for the vibration to indicate that Zach had replied. “Good luck with your ‘get-together,’ Annie,” she called as her friend started out of the store. “I want to hear all about it.”
“And I want to hear all about you and Zach,” Annie replied. “Because something seems to be going on there!” So she had heard the hottie comment, clearly. “Don’t misjudge him the way everyone else has,” she added, like a warning.
Okay, the universe was clearly sending her a message. Maggie’s fingers tightened on the phone, willing it to vibrate. With a wave, Annie left the store, and Maggie turned her attention to Liz, who was pulling out silk blouses and tailored pants, not the kind of thing she wanted to wear to the opening of a boardgame café.
“I was thinking something more casual,” she told Liz. “And colorful. And maybe a little… funky.” She blushed as she said it.
“Colorful and funky?” Liz glanced at Maggie’s outfit—a gray turtleneck sweater and dark blue jeans. She hadn’t worn colorful and funky in a long time, but once she’d loved bright colors and whimsical prints. She’d put all those clothes away when Matt had got serious about his job, and she’d done her best to assimilate with the soccer moms of Greenwich, Connecticut—a well-heeled bunch, to be sure.
“Okay, let’s see what we have in the colorful and funky department…” Liz murmured as she continued to riffle through the racks.
As discreetly as she could, Maggie slid her phone out of her pocket, just in case she’d somehow missed the vibration of a message. Nope. Nothing. Disappointment curdled her insides, and she slipped her phone back in her pocket. Well, what did she expect? Zach to snap back with a “sure, no problem”? She’d been too unkind for that, she realized. It was a bitter pill to swallow, the taste of her own insensitivity acrid on her tongue.
“What about corduroy?” Liz suggested. “I always think it’s such a fun fabric, and this bright purple is pretty colorful, especially with the patch pockets.” She held up a miniskirt in vivid purple with aqua-blue patches for pockets. Maggie might have worn something like that in college, but now as a respectable, middle-aged widow?
Except that wasn’t who she was. It wasn’t who she wanted to be anymore.
“I’ll try it on,” she told Liz, and took her hand off her phone to take the skirt.
“And let me find a top to go with it, maybe in that blue…” Liz said, hurrying away to look.
A few minutes later, Maggie was gazing at her reflection, quietly amazed at the transformation some new clothes—and color—could do. She might still have that skunk-like streak of white in her hair, but her face looked younger, less drawn, and the aqua top Liz had found brought out the blue in her eyes.
“Wow, that took ten years off you,” Liz remarked, and then gave an embarrassed laugh. “Sorry, I meant that in a good way.”
“I took it in a good way,” Maggie assured her. She smoothed her hand down the skirt. With colorful tights and ankle boots, it would be the exact vibe she’d wanted for the opening of the store—fun, enthusiastic, a little bit whimsical.
“I’ll take them both,” she told Liz firmly. “And some tights.”
Back at home, Maggie put her purchases away and then went to check on Ben—and Penny, who had definitely settled into their household routine. Her son was in front of the computer, morosely clicking on the message icon on the RainQuest app. A small sigh escaped her as she leaned against the doorway of the kitchen.
“Did you finish your schoolwork, Ben?”
“Yeah, a while ago.” He sighed and slumped a little more in front of the computer. “Zach still hasn’t messaged me. And he hasn’t been on RQ at all .”
“He’s busy—” Maggie reminded him, knowing it was sounding like an increasingly feeble excuse.
“I know, but you’d think he’d still hop on once in a while. It makes me think he didn’t ever want to play with me. Like, was he just doing it out of pity ?” He pushed disconsolately away from the computer, spinning in his chair.
“Oh, Ben.” It was, Maggie feared, time to be fully honest. “I think he’s avoiding playing RainQuest because… well, because I’m afraid I might have been a little harsh with him,” she admitted with a wince.
Ben glanced up at her, his gaze full of accusation. “So you did say something!”
“I might have lost my temper a little,” Maggie felt compelled to acknowledge. “About the whole meme thing, I’m afraid.”
“ Mom …”
“I know, I know,” Maggie said quickly, holding up one hand to stop the understandable torrent of dismay. “It was just, you’d told me you got the idea from him, and?—”
“I mean I did , but I knew he was joking,” Ben retorted, his voice full of disgusted defensiveness. “He even told me he wasn’t suggesting such a thing, and that I shouldn’t do anything like that, obviously .”
Maggie had to bite her tongue to keep from pointing out that Ben hadn’t mentioned those rather salient details during their discussion. In any case, she should have winkled them out, and even if she hadn’t, she should have asked Zach about it before launching into her tirade.
“Why did you get so mad at him?” Ben complained. “He had nothing to do with it. I mean, not really .”
“Well, like I said, I was in a temper,” Maggie replied, although already she suspected that the reason was a bit more complex than that. If she were being entirely, and uncomfortably, honest with herself—and not necessarily with her son in this moment—some scared part of her had been looking for a reason to back away from Zach. As lovely as their kiss had been, it had also terrified her. And not just the kiss, but the intensity of her own feelings. She’d needed an excuse to escape, and the whole meme episode had unfortunately provided it. “I’m trying to make it right,” she told Ben. “I apologized to him?—”
Ben straightened, then leaned forward in his chair. “You saw him?”
“No,” Maggie admitted, “I messaged him.”
Her son rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not the same thing. You told me that all the time when I wanted to be homeschooled. ‘Nothing beats face-to-face communication,’” he mimicked in a falsetto that was definitely not how she sounded. At least she hoped not.
“And yet I let you do school online,” Maggie reminded him. “But I was right. Face-to-face is always better.” She was really shoveling in the humble pie today. Should she approach Zach directly? The thought made her insides fizz with anxiety and a tiny, treacherous bit of excitement. It had been over an hour since he’d seen her message, and he still hadn’t replied. What did that mean? She didn’t want to second-guess him, but it was hard not to. Hard not to fear the worst, that he just wasn’t interested anymore.
“So are you going to talk to him?” Ben pressed.
“Yes, I will,” Maggie agreed, with some reluctance. That was sure to be an awkward and uncomfortable conversation, but it was one she knew she needed to have. “Now, since Zach isn’t playing RainQuest with you at the moment, what about teaching me how to play?”
Ben stared at her in disbelief. “You?”
“Why not?” Ben had asked her to learn before, but Maggie had always been reluctant. Now she knew she wanted to share in something that her son loved. “I’m meant to be running this boardgame café, after all,” she reminded him. “I need to know how these games work for when you’re not there. RainQuest is a boardgame as well as an online one, right? We stock it downstairs?”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed cautiously, “but I didn’t think it was your thing.”
“Well, it isn’t,” Maggie admitted with a smile, “but it’s yours, and that makes me want to know how to play it.”
Ben swiveled around to face the computer. “Well, it’s pretty complicated,” he warned her, “but I guess I can teach you the basics.”
Maggie smiled at his dubious tone, knowing already that she would find the basics challenging enough. She pulled out a chair and drew it next to Ben before settling down. “Okay,” she told him. “Show me.”
Ben started taking her through the fundamentals of the game, and after ten minutes, Maggie’s brain hurt.
“So you have to choose a class, species, and occupation for your character, and all those things affect your… stats?” she clarified, trying to keep track of all the different options.
A smile tugged at Ben’s mouth as he rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “Mom, I covered that ages ago. Keep up.”
“Sorry…” Zach had told her what species she would be, she recalled, and she’d forgotten to look them up. What had they been? She racked her brain trying to remember, and then she saw it on the screen and pointed. “Ben, what’s an… aasimar?”
“An aasimar? Why?”
“I’ve just never heard of it before.”
“It’s a planetouched humanoid descended from a celestial,” he read off the screen, before clicking on the icon so Maggie could read the description.
Aasimar grew up cautious around others, sometimes misunderstood. With an inherent bent toward empathy for others, they can be easily hurt. They will openly strike at evil, but never if it endangers an innocent.
She swallowed hard. That all felt weirdly revealing, like Zach had seen something in her she hadn’t even meant to show him. Was she easily hurt?
“And a shadar-kai?” she asked, recalling the other option Zach had given her.
Ben clicked on the relevant icon, and Maggie read the description.
Shadar-kai were originally trapped in the Shadowfell by the Raven Queen, unwilling to enter the Fortress of Memories. While they are hardier than other elves, thanks to the Raven Queen’s curse they can be mournful, yet they also have strong magical abilities to resist evil and ultimately they can do much good.
Wow. Zach had really understood her and her grief in a way she was only beginning to understand herself. She felt both strangely vulnerable and also touched that he’d seen so much and found a gentle way to tell her. He’d wanted to know what she’d thought, she remembered. She wished she’d looked up the descriptions earlier. Maybe then she would have understood that Zach had far more depth to him than she’d so unkindly assumed, back when she’d confronted him and hurled all those hurtful things like burning arrows.
She checked her phone again; still no message.
“Mom?” Ben broke into her thoughts. “We’re moving on now, okay?”
“Yes. Moving on.” Maggie powered off her phone, not wanting the distraction. She felt like a teenaged girl, constantly hitting refresh on her messages, hoping her crush had texted. “Keep going,” she told Ben, and he launched into a description of how potion making worked. Even though she wasn’t really getting the game, Maggie enjoyed the way his eyes lit up and his voice filled with enthusiasm as he talked about it. He’d been so morose and unhappy for so many months—years, even—that seeing him look relaxed and confident was a huge boost. It gave her a needed certainty that moving to Starr’s Fall had been the right thing to do, even if there was a long way to go before they were both fully settled there. And Zach was part of that; at least he had been…
She really needed to make it right between them.
“Mom, are you listening?” Ben broke into her thoughts.
“Yes,” Maggie said quickly. “You were talking about, erm, potion making…?”
“That was, like, three minutes ago. I’m talking about combat now.”
“Combat. Right.” Ben looked at her dubiously and Maggie let out a little laugh. “I am trying, Ben.”
“I know.” He fell silent, his hands resting on the keyboard. “Dad was never interested in RainQuest,” he remarked after a moment, his gaze on the computer screen. “Or me playing it.” He paused, while Maggie waited, her breath held, her heart feeling squeezed. She and Ben had never talked this way about Matt. They hadn’t talked much about him at all, a fact that only now filled her with a guilty unease. Should she have forced those conversations? Why hadn’t they had them?
“Sometimes,” Ben continued, still looking at the screen, “I felt like he didn’t really like me playing it. Like, it was a little too weird and geeky for him, you know?”
“Oh, Ben…”
“Wasn’t it?” Ben turned to look at her, his face full of bleakness. “Sometimes I think Dad wished he had a son like Tyler Gerard.”
Tyler, the star lacrosse player who had bullied Ben relentlessly, simply for being different. “No, Ben,” Maggie told him forcefully. “Dad would have never wanted that.” She paused, needing to order her thoughts because it was so important she got this right. “I think sometimes he struggled with how to relate to you,” she explained carefully, “simply because he wasn’t into the kinds of things you were. But he loved you. He always loved you. I know that absolutely.”
“Yeah.” Ben didn’t sound particularly mollified. “I mean, that’s kind of a parent’s job, right? But… I wish he’d liked me more.”
“Oh, Ben.” Maggie didn’t know what to say to that. She couldn’t deny it, not entirely, because she wasn’t all that sure that Matt had liked her , even if he’d loved her, especially as the years had gone on and he’d become so focused on his ambition and making sure their lifestyle matched it.
“I’m not always sad he’s gone,” Ben blurted. He hunched down in his seat, drawing the neck of his sweatshirt over the bottom of his face as if to make himself disappear.
Maggie’s heart ached with sorrow for her son. How long had Ben been keeping this secret? “That’s okay, Ben,” she said softly. She thought of what Laurie had told her; relationships, especially the most important ones, were never straightforward. “It’s okay to have complicated feelings. You don’t have to feel guilty about that.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad you told me.” A moment passed where neither of them spoke, and Maggie just let it be. Eventually she took her hand away and Ben sat up, pulling his sweatshirt back down and wiping his eyes like he had a speck in them, although Maggie knew better.
“Now,” she said, with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. “Tell me again about the combat skills. My character can use a morning star but not a halberd?”
Ben glanced at her, a small smile curving his mouth. “Yeah, that’s right,” he told her. “I think you’re catching on.”