Track 8 Rock the Boat
Track 8
Rock the Boat
Maggie
Jason quizzed Maggie when he dropped her off at the airport like a dad sending his kid on her first solo flight. Truth was, the Wheelers weren’t big travelers, partly on account of being tethered to the store. And even as an adult, Maggie preferred to stay close to home. She sometimes worried she was holding Jason back in that department. If he were to write another letter to himself—a Dear Jason at Fifty—his desire to travel would probably still be top of mind, along with a coveted doctorate of ethics degree from the University of Leeds in England. She’d seen an application for the program once on his work computer. When she’d asked him about it, he explained it was a pre-Maggie dream. I thought you said you could barely remember anything pre-Maggie, she noted.
“It was before we went from friends to lovers,” he whispered, as if there were someone else there to hear. She knew he felt funny keeping their relationship a secret. Any secret felt ethically questionable to him, even before they were sleeping together. Now that they were pre-engaged, the idea seemed even more egregious. It was a good thing she was going it alone this weekend. If she didn’t find her birth mother before the wedding, she might have to crash it, since it was the only place she knew Beatrix would be for certain. Jason, with his finely tuned conscience, would make a lousy wedding crasher.
“I know we are on the way to the airport, but you can still change your mind.”
“I’m sticking with the plan. If I don’t find her before Saturday at dusk, I will be on the beach on Fire Island, eavesdropping on a wedding. I even brought a dress.”
“Just saying, she will be back in her office in Gambier in a year. You’ve waited this long.”
“You know me. I can’t wait a year. I would practically hold my breath till then. All forward movement in my life would come to a standstill.”
“Fine.” He reached his hand into his backpack, digging around for something.
“Here, I printed out the Fire Island Ferries schedule for you.” This made Maggie laugh.
“You didn’t have to do that. I have it on my phone.”
“What if your phone dies?”
“When was the last time I let my phone die?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Correct, because it never happens.”
Maggie was one of those people who charged her phone when it hit 80 percent and filled her gas tank at the halfway mark. She took the paper with a smile. Jason was sad that his summer school gig prevented him from coming with her, so the least she could do was humor him with his silly precautions.
“You should be boarding by eleven,” he added. “Did you decide how you’re getting from the airport to the ferry?”
“I’m gonna Uber. It will be pricey, but the train seems complicated.”
“You got this,” he encouraged, before wrapping her in his arms and kissing her sweetly on the top of her head.
As she pulled her bag through the revolving door, she witnessed another couple passionately kissing goodbye. Her first inclination when saying goodbye to Jason, or hello, was still to fist-bump or high-five. She thought of the lame goodbye kiss they’d shared and decided on a redo, continuing, full circle, until she was back outside again.
His car pulled away just as she called out his name, leaving her dejected. She shook it off and continued on her adventure.
And some six hours later, she was standing at the Fire Island Ferries terminal just as her birth mother probably had countless times before. Between the fabulous weather forecast, and what she had learned about the carless thirty-two-mile barrier island, it promised to be a beautiful long weekend. As the departure time approached and the crowd thickened, Maggie couldn’t help but search the faces for one that looked like her own.
The wedding was in four days’ time, though if this small town was anything like the one she hailed from, she would probably cross paths with her birth mother before then. She pulled up Bea’s photo on her phone and took yet another good look at her.
The plan was to settle into the room she’d booked in town before trying to find Beatrix, first getting a feel for her before possibly introducing herself. Maggie was still dead set on not pursuing things any further unless she believed it would be a drama-free, value-added relationship.
Part of her wanted to find her birth mother and make a smart decision about whether to let her into her life, but she knew that another part of her was using this as a stall tactic. Accepting—or refusing—Jason’s proposal would dramatically redefine their relationship. If she wasn’t willing to move forward, then wasn’t she just holding both of them back?
She vowed to use her downtime to think about their future as well.
Maggie’s stomach rumbled, interrupting her thoughts. She realized that the meager flight snack she had bought on the airplane didn’t cut it. She waited in line at the snack counter, where every single person in front of her ordered clam chowder. When in Rome.
Her first bite was delicious—possibly best ever. She hoped it was a sign that she had made the right choice to come here.
“All Aboard Bay Harbor,” the captain crooned.
Maggie boarded the ferry and picked a seat up top, happy to have her face in the sun and the wind in her hair. She slid onto the bench and leaned her elbow over the side rail, enjoying the view of families and friends of all persuasions boarding the boat. She watched as the last passenger stepped aboard. The crew shut the doors and the whirr of the engine sounded. They were off, or so she thought. Seconds later, a stretch limousine pulled into the parking lot, beeping its horn just as the ferry was about to pull away from the dock. The limo driver, a large man with a larger voice, stepped out and bellowed with a sense of urgency:
“Hold the boat!”
The man sitting to Maggie’s left laughed, causing her to look his way. He grinned, acknowledging her with an explanation.
“They don’t hold the boat for anyone.”
A leggy redhead stepped out of the car and waved up to the captain as if she were not just anyone.
The captain held the boat, the limo driver retrieved her luggage, and the woman paraded onto the deck like she was boarding the Queen Mary instead of the Fire Island ferry.
“Veronica Silver, as I live and breathe,” the man to Maggie’s left declared.
Silver!
It wasn’t a very common name—Silver—according to the three-day Google trip that Maggie had embarked on after learning her birth mother’s name. The surname Silver ranked around 1600th in popularity in the United States; Wheeler, in comparison, ranked 243rd. But from what Maggie could tell during her brief research as a newly anointed member of the tribe, there were many Jews named Silver. Veronica Silver could very well be related to her mother, though she didn’t look to be.
“It’s not Silver anymore,” the man on the other side of her neighbor corrected. “She’s married to some West Coast crypto tycoon.”
The man seated next to the man seated next to him loud-whispered, “Oh my God, she must be here for the wedding. I can’t believe they invited her. On a boat, no less.”
Did everyone know everyone around here? Was it possible that this place was even smaller than Chagrin Falls?
The hairs on the back of Maggie’s neck stood on end. More than that, they throbbed, as if they were screaming, “Danger—abort mission!”
Said danger rose from the stairs below, smiling coyly at whomever she passed. Some smiled back, others seemed to avoid eye contact.
Veronica Silver Something-or-other sat down on the bench in front of Maggie, causing a plume of Chanel No. 5 to do battle with the fresh sea air. The woman reached into her monogrammed LV tote and pulled out a silk scarf that even Maggie’s humble eyes knew to be Hermès and tied it over her head with ease. Maggie prayed she wasn’t a close relative and, if she were, that her mother would not be as…fancy. Maggie had a style of her own, but her bohemian record store owner vibe mostly came from the thrift shops she frequented in Cleveland. She saw no resemblance between herself, with her dark curls and olive complexion, and this fair-skinned redhead.
Within seconds, her chatty seatmate said hello to the woman in front of him.
“Veronica Silver, it’s been a long time, but I would recognize that carrot top anywhere!”
Maggie wondered if he was making a move. If he were, he should have gone with something sexier than carrot top . The name brought back images of that unruly comic from the ’90s. Veronica turned back, resting her arm over her seat as if parallel parking, and blinded them with the huge emerald-cut diamond on her finger.
Her face showed no sign of recognition. The chatty man got that too.
“Mitch Grabow? We were in youth group together. Picture me with braces and a big ’fro.”
Veronica’s expression remained the same. He soldiered on.
“I pulled a fishing hook out of your knee once. Remember that?”
“I do,” she acquiesced. “It left a scar.”
A small laugh escaped Maggie’s lips, and she blushed from her obvious eavesdropping. There was no doubt that Veronica Silver was a piece of work.
“Here for any special reason?” he asked, clearly indulging in another kind of phishing.
“A wedding on this very ferry, I believe,” she responded.
“Yup, the wedding of the century. I’ll be there too.”
She smiled the phoniest smile Maggie had ever seen.
“Is Beatrix in town for it?” he asked.
Damn it—close relative , Maggie thought.
It seemed an innocent question, but the looks of bewilderment she saw on the faces of those around her made her wonder.
“I wouldn’t know. My sister and I are not that close. But you already knew that.”
“Oh God,” Maggie mumbled, under her breath, but loud enough for them both to glance her way. She looked to her phone as if it held the cause for her alarm, turned her body toward the bay, and considered jumping. She was a strong swimmer. If this was indeed her mother’s sister, she feared she would have little in common with her long-lost family, plus, talk about messy! Maggie’s plan to suss things out before admitting who she was felt smarter than ever.
As the ferry entered the basin on the other side of the bay, Maggie panned the crowd looking for her birth mother. Her throat tightened, her heart raced, and her eyes watered at the possibility of seeing her for the first time. The feelings surprised her. She was not a highly emotional person. Her parents had raised her that way, never really arguing and fostering a low-maintenance, “it is what it is” sort of attitude. She could tell from the brief trip on the ferry that her Auntie Veronica was the definition of high maintenance. She wondered whether Beatrix was the same.
Maggie held back a little, allowing the other travelers to depart before her. She was keen to see who was waiting for Veronica at the dock. Surprisingly, it was no one.
The tiny town was straight-up adorable. Barefoot people meeting passengers, kissing them hello, and placing their belongings on wooden wagons. Kids shouting, “Lemonade here!” and others hawking friendship bracelets and painted shells. The lack of cars was immediately evident, as was the abundance of bicycles.
Veronica headed for the only commercial building in sight, with a big sign on top that read bayview market . She had a confusing energy about her, like a swan, elegant on the surface, but paddling like crazy underneath, to keep herself afloat. Maggie followed her, careful to stay ten steps behind. She watched as Veronica entered, raised her oversized Chanel sunnies, eyed the teenage girls at the register, and smiled. Maggie had a feeling she was hoping for a bigger welcome on Fire Island than she had thus far received—which was zero until Veronica arrived at the deli counter, where the three guys behind it all stepped around to greet her. A round of “It’s been forever”–type sentiments was followed by hugs and kisses. Maggie stood in the far aisle, taking it all in. She noticed that Veronica was one of those huggers who led with her breasts. Maggie, on the other hand, always awkwardly caved her chest inward in that situation, taking more of a headfirst approach.
The guys seemed thrilled to see her. A fourth put down his meat cleaver and called out “Veronica Silver!” in a bellowing voice that filled the store. Across the aisle, a middle-aged woman in cutoff jeans, Ray-Bans, and the newly anointed Kenyon College mascot—an owl—on her baseball cap, clearly heard the “announcement.” She visibly startled and dropped her container of eggs flat out on the floor as if her hands had stopped working.
Maggie gasped and the woman looked up to see where the gasp had come from, cocking her head to the side. Maggie herself was famously a head cocker. Her father used to call it her puppy-dog face. She froze at the sight of the woman, who looked both familiar and like a complete stranger.
An uncanny feeling came over her.
She knew she had just seen her mother.
Maybe a glimpse of her was enough. Maybe she could go home now. Maggie quickly memorized her familiar coloring and the texture of her hair peeking out from her telling baseball cap. The woman’s lips, now curved downward, reminded Maggie of her own. But mostly there was something about her essence that felt known to her. She considered helping her pick up her eggs, to get a closer look, but the woman turned and ran.
Maggie didn’t follow her but stepped out the front door of the store just in time to see her jump on a bike and pedal off. She watched her for a minute, until tears unexpectedly blurred her vision. Seeing her mother, seeing her in the flesh mere minutes after her arrival, tugged at feelings she didn’t even know existed. She wiped her eyes and did a little emotional exorcism to calm herself. When she did so, cautious Maggie screamed: sit back down on the bench by the ferry and wait for the next boat back to the mainland.
She bravely headed to the register instead and asked the girls there if they could point her toward her hotel in Ocean Beach. They seemed to grimace when she mentioned where she was staying. She thought to ask them why, but it felt pointless. She had prepaid for the room. She grabbed something to eat, adjusted her expectations, and went on her way.