Chapter 4
Alex
James’ Dads held my attention, thank goodness, and although I stayed a good distance from Maggie all night it was killing me that she ran so fast.
She and my sisters were deep in conversation with my mom and niece and it was torture that I needed to wait to talk to her, to get her alone, to explain about Maria. She probably thought I was a cheating jerk and with everything else challenging us that I couldn’t be trusted on top of it.
My eyes pleaded with her to excuse herself for a moment.
Nervous habits took over and I gnawed on the necklace my mother gave me with the icon of The Virgin pendant. She’d usually scold me for it but she was too engrossed with Maggie that she hadn’t seen me. But Maggie did. I crooked my neck and flicked my chin to the side of the house.
“I’m going to fetch another bottle of water,” Maggie announced standing. “Can I get anyone anything?”
“I’ll get it mum,” James said.
I shot to my feet. “I’ll grab some more wine from the villa,” I announced.
“Oh, don’t go all the way there. We have plenty, go on into our fridge.” James waved me off.
“James, stay and enjoy your guests.” Maggie said. “I’ll find my way.”
“Mum, there is two bottles of water in the fridge too. Will you grab those?”
Maggie glared at me making me almost laugh out loud at the ease of the contrivance. But I grunted trying to keep up the grumpy attitude I’d already presented to the group towards Maggie.
I swiped my hand for Maggie to walk ahead into the house in sarcastic gallantry and then inside I pulled her hand leading her into the bathroom.
She didn’t resist to my relief.
I closed the door and locked it.
“Alex,’ she began with her hand up as a barrier. “This isn’t going to happen.”
“Okay, just listen to me please,” I said and she looked surprised.
I sat on the closed toilet and took a deep breath.
“When I was in college I was working at The Drake Hotel as a bartender,” I started. “You know it?”
She nodded and leaned on the sink counter crossing her arms over her spectacular chest. She was wearing a strappy long sundress and her hair pulled back in a tight, smooth low bun at the nape of her neck that I wanted to suck on and bite like a vampire.
“A woman came in one evening, early. She must have been in her mid-forties and she told me she was having a girl’s weekend with her old sorority sisters.
” I continued. “I was twenty-one at the time and listened like I was trained to do as a bartender. But instead of telling me about her boring suburban housewife life with her husband and kids she talked about how she was in a reflective phase. Anticipating seeing her old friends she told me she was on this journey of memories of who she was back when she was at school, compared to who she was at that moment twenty years later.”
I pulled the necklace to my lips and Maggie’s eyes darkened.
“You remind me of her,” I said.
She adjusted herself in an uncomfortable shift from one foot to the other.
“Not in a bad way.” I added. “She came in after her dinner and talked to me again about how she’d changed and grown in her personality, and ideas and opinions. That her friends had somehow unleashed this introspective clarity in her head.”
I stood and didn’t make a move closer to her. I dropped my hands to my sides and balled my fists trying not to touch her.
“Her revelations of wanting to explore who she was in her second half of life was inspiring and—-such a fucking turn-on.” I stopped talking and dipped my chin making sure Maggie understood.
She didn’t speak or move, but her eyes welled a bit, becoming glassy. Her lips pursed showing off the beautiful red hue.
“I wanted to take her home with me. I wanted to hear more about her evolution. I wanted to be part of her journey into knowing herself, and maybe she could help me figure out who I was,” I said in almost a whisper.
“I wanted to—keep her,” I confessed. “But of course I didn’t tell her that,” I scoffed.
“She left, back to her husband and kids in the suburbs.”
Maggie drew in a shaky breath.
“I wanted to be a part of that fascinating transformation she was having. Like a rebirth. It was inspiring and beautiful. Are you having those revelations too, Maggie.” I asked already knowing the answer. “I want to be a part of it. Inspire me—-it’s so fucking sexy.”
Before I could say more or lean in and kiss her both our phones beeped. And we could hear the other phones from outside.
We hadn’t had cell service in months on the island.
Both of us looked down and saw the same text message from an unknown number.
“Maggie—” I pleaded.
She glanced up from her phone screen. “Nobody wants to keep me, Alex. I had to learn to keep myself—-and my evolution is my business.” She said with definitive closure. “We played a little game, and that’s it, the end of the story. Sorry.”
Then she stormed out of the bathroom.
Rejoining the rest of the group all murmuring to each other about getting the same text. Maggie asked:
“Does anyone recognize this chemical formula?” She said in a hot as hell professorial voice and held the phone up.