Chapter 9
THEN: MAGGIE
“Do you want to take Sam, or shall I?” Diana said.
Maggie turned to the digital clock on Diana’s nightstand and was shocked to find it was nearly nine.
This had been made harder as they got into October and the sun started setting earlier and earlier.
Besides, with Diana it was also so easy to lose track of time.
They’d settled into a routine with their creepy doll, Sam, and Maggie realized that they were only a couple of weeks out from the final.
She’d be sorry to give up this time with Diana, but she would not miss Sam, who reminded her more and more of Chucky.
Tonight, there was even more of an easiness between the two of them, something that felt like an invitation to Maggie.
In fact, Maggie had been so caught up in her Friday afternoon with Diana she’d almost forgotten the anxiety that had been slowly tightening inside her since the last bell.
“Uh, yeah—no,” Maggie said, and she internally winced as her voice came out in jerky notes.
Diana blinked a few times, clearly noticing the swift change in Maggie’s mood.
Maggie took a deep breath and then said as smoothly as possible, “No, you can take baby Sam.” She tried for a smile.
She wasn’t sure she’d accomplished it, judging by the pensive look on Diana’s pretty face.
It was almost annoying how perceptive she was.
After school Diana had driven Maggie back to the orchard to hang out.
It was something they’d been doing over the last couple of weeks since they got Sam, even though Sam didn’t really require that much looking after together.
They could easily complete the one page of notes they had to keep in their joint diary, but Maggie as usual, was in no rush to go home and had been delighted to realize that her mother loved the idea of her spending ample time with “one of the Blakes”.
“Do you want me to drop you home?” Diana said, getting to her feet and clearing the dishes they’d left on the floor.
She’d insisted on apple pie and cider. While her mother would hate it, Maggie couldn’t help but devour her slice.
It was one of the best pies she’d ever tasted.
One of the few whole slices she’d eaten, considering her mother always cautioned her about “her figure”.
“Maggie?”
Maggie snapped her gaze to the now standing Diana. “Sorry, got a little, uh, distracted.”
“I asked if you want me to drive you home? It’s late and this way your folks don’t—”
“No!” Maggie blurted, she knew, too forcibly. She didn’t let anyone see where she lived, so there was no way in hell that she’d allow a Blake, with all of this land and house, see.
“Maggie, it’s like nine. If you want you can sleep over and I can take you home tomor—”
“No it’s fine, just let me call my mom,” Maggie said, shuffling over to the nightstand.
She’d been impressed and surprised to find that not only did Diana have her own phone in her room, but apparently, she and Julia had their own lines.
Maggie didn’t even want to think about what that phone bill looked like.
“Oh, Jules should be home soon she could always—”
“Diana, I said I’m fine, just, please, let me call my mom.
” Maggie kept her back to Diana, not wanting her to see the blush that was no doubt on her face.
The truth was, a sleep over seemed great, and her mom would no doubt be impressed, but then she’d still have to be driven home.
Her mother worked on Saturdays in some call center, and her dad would be too drunk by 10am to come get her.
“Okay, okay, suit yourself, I am going to take these things down to the kitchen,” she heard Diana say, then heard her move through the door before it closed behind her.
Taking a deep breath, she picked up the phone’s receiver and dialed her house. It rang four times before a gruff voice picked up.
“Hello? Paul, that you? Are—”
“Hey Dad, it’s me, it’s Margaret.”
There was a pause on the other end, and Maggie could hear the clinking of glasses and low voices in the background.
Shit. It was one of his weekly “boys’ nights”. The reason she hated weekends, because they always started with one.
“Margey? Christ, I am expecting a call and you’re tying up the line I’ve—”
“I just need to speak to Mom for a moment.”
“She’s busy, we have people over, this is really—”
“Dad please? I am going to need a ride home.”
“Where the hell are you anyway? Better not be out with some boy,” her father added. Maggie could hear two voices say something in response to that and she shivered. Before she could say anything, there was a commotion and then she heard her mother’s voice.
“Margaret? What’s up honey, I didn’t expect you home, did you do something to upset the Blakes?” Maggie heard the note of concern in her mother’s voice.
“No, Mom, I just need a ride, it got late and—”
“So this is a good chance for you to have a weekend with the Blake girl,” her mother said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“I know, but we have a long weekend this weekend,” she swallowed, “and you work Sunday and neither you or Dad can get me on Monday, so,” she swallowed again and realized her mother would surely see this as a failure on her part.
Which was crazy because she definitely didn’t want to go home, but she knew she and Diana hadn’t gotten to the point where they could spend three solid days together, even with her sister being home and being super cool, and she didn’t have clothes, and she’d have to keep coming up with excuses as to why they couldn’t just bring her home.
“Fine, have her drop you at the usual,” her mother finally said, her voice tight with disappointment, but she could also hear her father urging her mother off the phone and knew her mother wouldn’t be able to continue to argue with her. “I’ll meet you there in twenty minutes.”
“Go straight to your room when you get inside, we will talk tomorrow,” her mother said as they approached the trailer.
Maggie was now shivering from waiting a full forty minutes outside the same random house she had to pretend was hers whenever she got dropped off by someone.
It was a corner house with poor lighting around the side, so it was easy for her to tell the person who was dropping her off that she always went in around back, and the shadow of the side of the house made it impossible for a person to judge whether or not she’d actually gone in.
She’d sit crouched down in the dark and wait for them to pull off before rounding the house and standing under a tree waiting for her mother.
Just like her mother had taught her when she was young.
Tonight had been no different. Maggie had tried to absorb as much of the heat as she could from Diana’s BMW. The October night had gotten crisp, and her mother’s car had no heat and barely any insulation. Then her mother had been super late on top of everything else.
“Got it,” Maggie said as they walked up the stairs to the trailer.
Once inside, Maggie was hit with the smell of cigar smoke, and the heat of men in an enclosed space.
“There she is!” Her father’s voice boomed from the living area where he and his friends were clustered.
Maggie turned her head slightly to see him there, with his light brown hair, watery blue yes, pale skin, and rosy cheeks that let Maggie know he’d been drinking.
But of course he had been. There was an answering jeer from the men that sat on the green couch along with him.
Two more men sat on folding chairs. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of bourbon.
In front of them, the loud sounds of a football game played.
“She’s tired Carl,” Maggie’s mother called from the kitchen, and she approached her daughter and looked her in the eyes, her brown almost black hair framing her face and making her cheekbones look even more angular.
Her chestnut brown eyes were locked on her, and Maggie turned to the group and agreed.
“Whoa whoa wait, come here little Margey,” one of the men said, and then another responded, “She ain’t so little now though is she, how old are you now sweetie?”
Maggie swallowed. It was Jeffrey, one of her Dad’s friends that always hung around her a little too long, hugged her a little too tightly.
“I’m a junior in high school,” Maggie said, hoping the reminder of her being in high school would be off-putting enough.
She was sixteen, and if she had said as much, her father would have, like he always did, reminded Jeffrey that she was almost seventeen.
Which Maggie knew from previous encounters was close enough to eighteen for most of her Dad’s friends.
“So still a little girl then? Wanna sit on my lap?” Jeffrey said, and at that, all the men laughed, including her father.
“Carl she’s going to bed, young girls still need their beauty rest,” her mother insisted, dragging her back through the kitchen area that led to the bedrooms. Maggie heard Jeffrey mutter to her father and her father responded, probably louder than he meant to, “Yeah soon enough, I mean honestly we all have to find ways to pull our weight around here.”
Once in her room, her mother closed the door and rounded on her.
“I told you to stay at the Blake’s and instead this is what you wanted to come home to.
Well nice going Margaret, now there is only so much I can do for you if you keep on insisting on coming back home to this life, flaunting around for those men.
I told you to go straight to your room. But you don’t listen to me.
It’s like you want this, you want this life forever. ”