Maggie
“Don’t tell anyone I told you.” Bridget rests her hands on her lap. “Phil swore me to secrecy. But they died in a car accident.”
“Rhonda was driving,” Bridget whispers. There is a slight breeze that shakes the leaves and tiny green apples.
“It was about eleven or so years ago. I think Vanessa and Janie were six or seven or something like that. They were twins.”
“Rhonda was taking them to the movies, and she had some sort of spell, something to do with her heart, and she passed out while she was driving, ran a red light, and a truck T-boned her car.” Bridget looks up and a squirrel charges by and leaps to another tree.
“Oh, poor, poor Rhonda.” She doesn’t know how she can ever look at her after this.
Bridget motions for Maggie to push her through the grass, and Maggie takes the handles and steers toward the main building. She looks down and sees clover and some dandelions. Bridget reaches and plucks a dandelion, twirling it in her hand.
She scratches her shoulder. “I guess she had been getting dizzy and having some symptoms for a while, but she was too busy to go to the doctor. Maybe if she had, she probably thinks…”
“Yeah, you always think about what you could have done differently.” Maggie wipes her hands on her pants.
“I think she and Mr. Simmons almost got divorced, but at some point they found their way back to each other.”
“What a tragedy.” Maggie thinks of the photo of the girls in Mr. Simmons’s arms.
“She’s strong. Probably the strongest person I know. Have you noticed the bracelet she wears? There’s a charm for each girl.”
The sun warms them, and Maggie sees someone out of the corner of her eye kneeling and pulling weeds. She sees a couple holding hands, and a woman in the distance who looks like Nancy walking with her head down.
Without touching it, Maggie feels her necklace, slightly tarnished, against her skin.
The next day, she thinks of Vicky coming out of the hospital room when she shows up at Rhonda’s office and the double doors are closed.
She’s about to knock, but she hears Rhonda’s voice sounding anxious.
“Defaulting is not an option,” she says.
Maybe it’s because Maggie now knows about the girls, but Rhonda’s voice sounds full of hurt.
“Rhon.” Maggie recognizes Rhonda’s husband’s voice. “I think it’s time we look at the writing on the wall.”
Another voice, an older man Maggie thinks, says something about capital expenses and loans and liabilities, and Rhonda shushes them.
“We have longevity,” she says and sighs.
“This is a temporary slump. If I need to sell off some of the land in Saylorsburg, then that’s what we’ll do.
They didn’t put me here to buckle. For Christ’s sake, this is a large-scale operation with a loyal customer base, not some hot-dog stand that flooded.
If we have to upgrade to color TVs, that doesn’t concern me.
If we have to put air-conditioning in the cottages, we’ll move with the times.
Hell, I’ll even get one of those heart-shaped bathtubs if that’s what it takes. ”
“We have to think of ways to preserve what people are coming for and attract a new client base,” she hears Paige offer. “It’s a delicate situation, but we haven’t explored enough ideas.” Even Paige’s voice sounds off, more fraught.
“Exactly!” Rhonda says.
There is a long pause. “We’ve got to get out from under this somehow,” Jacob says slowly.
Someone is flipping through pages. “What do the reservations look like for ski season?” the other man says.
“Strong,” Rhonda says. “Very strong. And we have eleven weddings on the books for fall. A bunch for spring, too! Almost booked up for summer ’76! That is not the mark of a failing resort, I assure you.”
“It’s the maintenance,” Jacob says. “Everything’s getting old and nothing is cheap anymore. Holly Hills, Penn Cove: we’re seeing this in real time.”
Rhonda’s voice gets lower. “We’ll have the rest of this conversation later, Jacob,” she says, and the other man stammers. Paige says something, but the sound is muffled. Maggie wrings her hands and can’t seem to walk away, even though she knows she should.
Just then the doors fly open, and Paige is standing there, and Maggie feels like she’s been caught.
“I was just about to knock,” she whispers.
Paige pulls the door closed behind her. “Now’s not a good time,” she says calmly. “Did you need something?”
“I was just seeing if she was free. I think I’m supposed to start organizing her office?”
Paige purses her lips. “I think she’ll be a while.” She motions for Maggie to follow her. “How about this? You help out in the Wooden Duck for a bit. I’ll tell Rhonda to come get you when she’s, um, untangled.”
Maggie nods, and Paige turns into the suite of offices next door.
When Maggie walks the long hallway toward the Wooden Duck, she glances at the painting of Rhonda’s family.
She thinks of Red Maple closing its doors, and she can’t imagine this beautiful place, so full of life, so iconic, being empty; or worse, being bulldozed. Hasn’t Rhonda lost enough already?
Her heart is pounding, and for the first time that she can remember, she isn’t thinking about her own giant loss.
In the upstairs sitting area where guests sometimes read, she looks at the gleaming wood paneling, the giant shelf of books with plush chairs and a gold cigarette stand between them.
She thinks of Chip being able to come here and saying his time away was everything.
She feels something buzz inside her, and she imagines being able to save this place.
She imagines helping Rhonda get Red Maple back on its feet. Maybe she can look at things with fresh eyes; and maybe they’ll listen.
As she turns toward the Wooden Duck, she sees Elliot and Nancy standing together.
“There he is!” Elliot calls, and his face is a whole other face: so kind, so enamored. “My buddy.”
“Look who it is! Look!” Nancy says, and she’s laughing.
Elliot reaches his arms toward her, and Nancy smiles and hands him a baby boy, just a couple months old, in a blue onesie. Elliot looks down at him smiling, and Maggie stands by the bookshelf and can only stare.