Track 24 The Joker
Track 24
The Joker
Maggie
You could have closed your eyes and followed your nose from the Tucker house to the Silver house—that’s how potent the delicious aroma of paella was. Maggie, Matt, and Dylan walked over with Renee and Jake. The betrothed couple entered first, to a rousing standing ovation and a boisterous rendition of “Here Comes the Bride.” Many in the chorus had been on the beach that day, so luckily for Maggie, introductions were mostly behind her.
“Ping-Pong?” Dylan asked Matt with a competitive grin.
“Do you mind?” he asked Maggie.
“Not at all,” she said with a smile.
Maggie weaved her way through the crowd, taking in everything and everyone around her. The house itself surprised her. It was decorated in a minimalist fashion with an aesthetic that was beachy but chic. The walls were dotted with eclectic artwork, from oversized photographs of far-off beaches to European travel posters to a huge oil painting that Maggie later learned was done by a famous artist who had lived nearby. The hardwood floors were softened with sisal rugs in muted colors. Guests were gathered around a pale gray mid-century-style sectional in the living room, socializing, sipping cocktails, and munching on Manchego cheese, Spanish nuts, and olives served on a massive coffee table with a glass top and a driftwood base.
Shep was the first to approach Maggie. She had seen him only briefly while he was faking death, so she was happy to have the chance to speak with him. To speak with her grandfather.
Heavy stuff.
She felt her eyes begin to water when he smiled at her and offered her a glass of sangria. She squeezed them tight and took it happily.
“You must be Matt’s girl? Shep Silver, nice to meet you.”
He reached out for a hug, like a bro. She sank into her grandfather’s arms, fighting the urge to weep. He smelled like both Tide and the tide. She memorized the scent.
“He’s a keeper, that Matty. As good as they come,” Shep said.
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said, meaning every word. In the short time she had spent with him, she was amazed at how good Matt really was. He seemed to emanate decency, which was why she had instantly trusted him. “He says the same about you.”
“I’m more like as bad as they come, but I’ve loved that boy since he was a baby.”
“That’s sweet. He must have been a cute baby.”
“The cutest. Wanna see?” He motioned to the stairs.
“Yes!” She’d been hoping to get the full tour, but her Midwestern manners had prevented her from asking.
She followed Shep up to a long hallway lined with white-framed photos.
“This started out as a family wall,” Shep explained, “but after nearly sixty years on this crazy island, the definition of family has blurred like a line in the sand.” He moved across the pictures. “Here’s the one I wanted to show you: my wife, Caroline, pushing Matty down the block in his pram.”
Maggie looked closely at her beautiful grandmother before taking in Matt’s chubby cheeks and gummy grin. It was just the kind of photo a girlfriend would go gaga over, picturing what her own baby would look like if the two were ever to be fruitful and multiply.
“He really was adorable,” she gushed. “And your wife, wow, so beautiful!” Caroline was barefoot in the photograph, dressed in an A-line sundress covered in big bright flowers. Her auburn hair was effortlessly tied in a knot, and her sunglasses were white and glamorous. Maggie could see the strong resemblance between Caroline and Veronica, and she wondered if looks were where the similarity ended.
“Inside and out,” Shep mused, and she had her answer. Although clearly those two sisters brought out the worst in each other.
“And over here, this is the team picture of Matt’s first homeowners’ softball game.” Shep searched the line of men, stopping at a lanky teenager with a big goofy smile on his face. Maggie looked closely.
“He was cute then too,” she remarked, a big goofy smile lighting her own face as well. She couldn’t help herself.
There was one thing about being adopted that she had never much thought about until she received the 23andMe report—ancestors. Neither of her parents had many people left in the family department. She had a faint memory of her dad’s mother, who passed when Maggie was around five—the only one of the four grandparents who was alive when she was born. She’d met a few distant cousins here and there, but they were older. When she and Jason married, she would have zero family of her own present. As she stood there now, in the presence of her grandfather, that fact, which had never bothered her before, suddenly stung.
Shep continued his narration as he went down the line.
“Bea and V in the Fourth of July wagon parade, me and Caroline at a seventies disco party.”
Maggie met each image with a smile.
“This one’s a camp show, Kiss Me Kate , I believe. They both loved being in camp shows. They would sing those songs all summer long. Caroline used to refer to those summers by the name of the show—The Oklahoma summer, the Pippin summer, the Fiddler summer. Those years—the Broadway years when the girls were young—they were the best of our lives.”
“What’s this one?” Maggie asked, pointing to a photo of what looked like a hippie dinner party.
“That one comes with some story. Summer of 1969. The summer I met Caroline. She came to the beach with her friend Florynce Kennedy. Ever heard of her?”
“I have not.”
“She was an amazing gal—a radical Black feminist—she once led a mass urination protesting the lack of ladies’ rooms at Harvard. Not her greatest accomplishment, but my personal favorite.”
Maggie laughed. She had known him for all of five minutes and she had already fallen in love. “How did you meet Caroline?” she asked.
“We were in a share house together, filled with civil rights activists. I didn’t really fit in at the start of it, but by the end I became assistant counsel for the Black Panthers.”
“The Black Panthers? Oh my God!”
“What I wouldn’t do to impress Caroline!”
“That’s them”—he pointed to the photograph—“in the berets and button-down shirts. We had decided to take the Panthers to a restaurant in a town on the island that didn’t permit Blacks or Jews. It caused quite a ruckus. We ended up coming back with more friends the next day, demonstration-style. We jokingly demanded they serve us herring and ham hocks and yelled things like ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner?’ The sixties. That was some time in this country. Some time.”
Maggie was blown away that this man was her grandfather. And more than a little excited to be the beneficiary of his miraculous genes.
They moved farther down the wall to more family snaps. A gorgeous shot of the four of them on the ferry. A big group of kids with Bea and V in the center on the swimming dock on the bay, and some older pictures of their forbears, she assumed, more sepia-toned than black-and-white.
It was the first time Maggie had looked at old photographs and been able to think about where she came from. She studied them to see if there was something of herself in the smiles she saw on the wall, or in their physiques or expressions. She stopped in front of one photograph that showed a young woman around her age wearing one of those old-fashioned one-piece bathing suits that look like modern-day workout gear. The woman had her same dark curls, her same broad smile. Maggie leaned in.
“That’s my mamma,” Shep said, with a mixture of longing and pride.
“Is that on Fire Island?”
“No. Coney Island, by way of Yemen. I was the first to come to Fire Island. First to go to college and law school too. I adored my mother. My Beatrix takes after her.”
As if on cue, Beatrix flew past them down the hall, giving off a frazzled energy.
“Oh my God, Dad. Why are you torturing this poor girl?” Bea looked toward the room below. “Where’s Matt?”
“Outside playing Ping-Pong with Dylan and some of the others.”
Bea was very distracted.
“It’s time to serve dinner,” she told them.
“Veronica’s not back yet?” Shep asked.
“Please, Daddy. Let’s not.”
“I can help,” Maggie volunteered, twisting a brown curl around her finger nervously.
“I’m fine, honey, don’t worry.”
“That’s a good idea,” Shep whispered in Maggie’s ear. “If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” Maggie smiled. “Thanks for showing me all of this.”
“Thanks for pretending you were interested.”
If he only knew.
On the way to the kitchen, Bea peeked out back, where, not surprisingly, the game had morphed from Ping-Pong to beer pong.
“You’re sure you want to help? It looks like you’re missing some fun out there.”
They peered outside to see Dylan and Matt hugging in victory.
“I’m sure,” Maggie responded, her cheeks burning. She touched her hand to one and then the other.
“Dylan and Matt are just old friends, you know,” Bea said, quickly catching on and looking at Maggie with empathy.
“Oh yes, I know. That doesn’t bother me,” she replied, though she wasn’t so sure. Dylan seemed so exotic to Maggie. Blond, sun-kissed, and able to leap giant waves in a single bound. She was probably happiest with sand between her toes, while Maggie would yell “First shower!” while still packing up her stuff on the beach.
Bea put her hand on Maggie’s shoulder, directing her toward the kitchen. Maggie fought the urge to ask her for a hug. After experiencing the hug from her grandfather, she was curious what her birth mother’s embrace would feel like.
Was she a hugger now?
“It’s hard to be the new one around here,” Bea offered. “From the little I’ve seen of you two, you’re a perfect match, like two halves of the same person.”
If lying to your mother was a rite of passage, Maggie realized that she’d accrued a lifetime’s worth in one long weekend. She felt bad about it.
“Thanks,” Maggie said, appreciating the compliment.
“Thank you. I could use the help since my sister disappeared. Surprise, surprise. Do you have siblings?” Bea added.
“Nope, only child.”
“Lucky you.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Both my parents are gone, so, you know.”
She wasn’t sure why she was telling Bea this. The whole conversation was so…meta.
“I’m sorry. My mom is gone too,” Bea commiserated, pulling off the fridge a handwritten list of everything she was serving that night.
“She taught me to do this when having a big party. She loved to entertain. I like doing things the way she did, makes me feel like she’s still here.”
A timer went off.
“Warm rolls,” Bea proclaimed, slipping on oven mitts, and pulling the pan from the oven. Maggie grabbed the basket from the table and lined it with a cloth napkin.
“I did the same thing with my mom. Especially at our store. I run the family business now that my parents are gone.”
“Right, the record store.”
“Maggie May Records.” Maggie’s face lit up when she said it. And then again when she witnessed her birth mother’s enthusiastic reaction.
“Wow, it’s named for you, how cool is that? I’ve always dreamed of owning a bookstore. I imagine the two are very similar.”
“Very. Lots of people browsing and sharing recommendations. Our local bookstore and my shop are the most popular attractions on Main Street—other than the Popcorn Shop, which sells candy and ice cream and drops that big New Year’s Eve ball we were talking about on the beach.”
“Hard to compete with popcorn, candy, and ice cream.”
“Exactly.”
Beatrix went to work stirring the huge pot of paella. She scooped up the perfect bite with her wooden spoon and blew on it. “Want to taste?” she asked Maggie, who signaled yes by opening wide.
It was delicious in every way. Maggie’s eyes teared up a bit, and she scrunched them tight as soon as she felt it. Too late.
“Too spicy?” Beatrix asked at the sight of Maggie’s watery eyes.
“It’s perfect,” Maggie replied.
She thought about this crew she had landed among. Individually they were great, but there was no denying that together they were complicated. Even though her birth mother had just fed her paella off a wooden spoon, she still was not sure what to do.
“Great. Let’s put the salad and the rolls on the table. Then we will muscle up and bring out the main course. You look strong enough!”
Maggie flexed her biceps, and they laughed.
Soon the hungry guests appeared. Matt took a minute to check in on Maggie, covering her eyes from behind and saying, “Guess who?” in a funny voice—maybe Elvis. She put her hands over his, and it made her heart jump. The feeling surprised her, but she quickly pushed away any concern. She was crazy vulnerable right now and this stranger had quickly become her person. Of course, she was feeling all kinds of emotions.
“Let’s eat outside,” he said when she spun around to face him. “You can meet some of my old friends.”
···
Matt’s friends were great, laughing and reminiscing and teasing one another in between bites of the scrumptious paella. Her mom’s scrumptious paella. Maggie began fantasizing about visiting Bea in Gambier, being introduced at some professors’ mingle. “This is my daughter, Maggie.”
She smiled at the thought for a second or two before her real mother’s image ran through her head. Maggie pictured her face hurt by the betrayal. But was it really a betrayal? She debated the possibilities in her head. There was no doubt that her mother would want her to have a family of her own. Though marrying into Jason’s would have the same result.
“You OK?” Matt whispered in her ear.
She nodded, shrugged it off, and smiled at the group.
She felt Dylan’s eyes on her, checking her out on more than one occasion. She could picture Matt and Dylan as a couple, were it not for the circumstances. Though both New Yorkers, they each had a California vibe to them—Dylan with her cropped blond hair and lithe build, and Matt with his laid-back style and Ryan Gosling crew cut. Matt looked like a better match for her than Sunburn Steve back at the guest house.
“What do you do?” a guy in a Wesleyan T-shirt to Matt’s left asked.
“I own a record store.”
All eyes turned to her in complete amazement. The reason soon came tumbling out of their mouths.
“Oh my God, Matt, you hit the lottery!”
“Matty always dreamed of owning a record store.”
“Are you just using me, Matthew Tucker, to fulfill some childhood fantasy?” she teased, messing with Matt’s hair.
“You got me.” He smiled back, messing with hers. The conversation turned away from them, and Maggie half whispered to Matt, “It’s so cute how some people call you Matty.”
“ Well, some people call me Maurice ,” he joked.
“That’s funny, because some call me the gangster of love ,” Maggie countered, literally without missing a beat.
They cracked up over their consecutive references to “The Joker” and Steve Miller’s lyrics, laughing too hard and too privately. When they were through, five sets of eyes were staring at them.
Dylan had no problem voicing her objection.
“Hello, we’re here too! You guys see each other all the time.”
Maggie wasn’t sure whether Dylan was a little jealous or just wanted a share in the fun. She and Matt both gazed downward, their cheeks three shades of red, before peeking up at each other and laughing again.
The five pairs of eyes looked back at them. It was clear they agreed on something: Matt and Maggie made a very cute couple.