Track 33 Rapper’s Delight
Track 33
Rapper’s Delight
Maggie
Maggie took two steps back and then one forward upon recognizing the man curled up on the floor in front of her door.
“Jason?” she gasped, with a mixture of shock and confusion. “You came!” she added, as he looked up at her.
“Yes, I came!” he answered, in a tone that indicated he wasn’t there to happily surprise her.
“I called you a hundred times,” he continued, while rising to his feet. “I thought you were dead!”
“The theme of the week!” Matt joked inappropriately.
Maggie let out a strained laugh before narrowing her eyes at Matt, silently telling him to just stand there and be quiet. He rolled his lips under and pressed them together to indicate that he got it.
“Excuse me?” Jason responded.
“I thought my grandfather was dead, and then also my aunt.”
“You have a grandfather and an aunt?”
“I do.” She smiled about that, maybe for the first time.
“Is this your cousin?”
They had been lying so much that, for a second, she thought to say yes, in the hope of putting Jason at ease. But she had never lied to him before, and she wasn’t about to start now. The kiss at the bakery ran through her mind. She pushed it away for now and answered him best she could.
“No, it’s a very long story.”
“Well, I’ve come a very long way.”
She pulled her key from her pocket and let them both into the room.
“I know you’re mad, J, but I’m so happy to see you!” She threw her arms around him—she was lit up. “Now you can meet everyone!”
Her enthusiasm dimmed as she suggested to Matt, “Maybe it’s time to tell Bea?” Before quickly reversing with, “But that’s not really fair to your mom and Jake.”
She knew she had a habit of debating with herself, but this was next level, even for her. Jason looked confused. She paused and attempted to clarify.
“Matt’s mother, Renee, is the one getting married. Revealing that I’m her matron of honor’s long-lost daughter would surely take away from the bride’s big day.”
She turned back to Matt.
“Don’t you agree? The whole thing with Veronica ‘drowning’ was enough!”
“Who’s Veronica?” Jason asked.
“My aunt.”
“Your aunt drowned?”
“Only in alcohol,” Matt joked, trying once more to lighten things up. It didn’t work. He and Maggie laughed without Jason again, whose expression conveyed more hurt than amusement.
“So, no one drowned, and no one is dead?”
She had never seen him so angry, and rightfully so. Still, she tried to take it down a notch.
“Nope, just my phone.”
“OK, ’cause if you don’t mind me saying, you’re weirdly, for lack of a better word…giddy.”
“I’m not giddy,” she objected with a blushing giggle that only bolstered his argument.
Get it together, Maggie , she scolded herself.
She looked back at Matt again, feeling she needed to defend Jason’s atypical anger. She explained the egregiousness of her actions.
“My phone is always charged. This may literally be the first time it had been left to die. So, Jason was legit scared that something happened to me.”
She put her hand on Jason’s arm. “I’m so sorry, but I did call you from his phone; you didn’t get my rambling message?”
“From some random unknown number? No.”
He pulled out his phone to look. There it was. In the middle of a long string of text messages and calls to Maggie’s dead phone.
“I should have tried again,” Maggie apologized, “but with everything to see in Manhattan, you can imagine I was completely distracted.”
“Manhattan?” He doubled down on his crestfallen expression.
“Yes, we went to the city to pick up the wedding cake. Anyway”—she changed the subject in a big way—“I’m so happy that you’re here! I missed you so much.”
As she said the words, she realized that she kind of hadn’t.
“Matt Tucker, this is my fiancé, Jason Miller. Jason, this is my new friend Matt. I’m sure you will be fast friends too .”
She emphasized “too” in a stern, factual way. As if she was clarifying her and Matt’s relationship status for both men.
They shook hands. Jason was now smiling, and it was Matt’s turn to look crestfallen. Maggie had already had about as much of this little threesome as she could handle. It felt as if the tiny room were shrinking before her eyes. She pulled open the rickety window, desperately needing air, and inhaled a few big gulps.
Seeing Jason felt like a jolt of reality. Like she had spent the past three days in a bubble and Jason had swooped in and popped it.
“I’m gonna walk Matt out,” she said, taking him by the elbow and nudging him out the door. She stood in the narrow hallway and did the best she could to dismiss him.
“You know what? Now that Sunburn Steve left, I know the perfect way to end this. Go back and tell everyone we broke up and I’m going home. Then you can enjoy the wedding with Dylan and your family, without my complicated agenda taking center stage.”
She hoped he would jump at her plan, but he didn’t look enthused. In fact, he looked even more dejected.
“What about Beatrix?” he asked.
“I’ll email her.”
“That will be some email.”
“I’ll figure it out. Go, have fun. You have been an amazing friend to me. Thank you!”
She hugged him goodbye. He hugged her back. As he broke away, she held him a little tighter.
“Bye,” he said, the single word caught in his throat.
“Bye,” she said, barely audibly.
Even though every second away from Jason waiting alone in the room felt cruel, she took a beat to watch Matt descend the stairs. Her stomach dropped as he left her sight, and it plummeted further when she realized she might never see him again.
Jason, who could read her better than anyone, sensed her melancholy on her return. Maggie, as she reminded herself, would never do anything to hurt him, and she doubled down on making sure they were good before explaining everything that had happened. She told him the basics, including a very G-rated version of the bakery scene. She responded to his uneasy look, promising, “It was nothing, Jason, absolutely nothing.”
Who am I trying to convince, him or me?
“OK, but how would you feel if the tables were reversed here?” Jason asked, employing his trademark calm and logical debating tactics.
“Awful”—she touched his cheek with the back of her hand—“but luckily you are not me.”
Jason was the most cool-headed, pragmatic person she’d ever known. Even so, it was a lot to take in. He quickly dismissed the whole fake-dating thing as a means to an end and homed in on his greatest concern after hearing the goings-on over the past few days, which was:
“No offense, Maggie, but your family is fucked up beyond comprehension.”
She laughed. It was better than crying.
“You must be starving,” she said.
“I am.”
“Let’s get out of here. There’s a place with good fish tacos down the block.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to try something new?”
They exchanged a knowing smile.
She never wanted to try something new. She had miso soup and a California roll from the Japanese restaurant next to the record shop nearly every day for lunch. Maggie was a creature of habit.
For the first time, as they walked to the Salty Pelican, she questioned why that was.