Chapter 17 #2
They wore shiny, tiny black shorts that could double as decent underwear and what looked like halter tops, but Maggie knew that garment was technically considered a “sports” bra.
One girl had a long blond ponytail, the other had a fluffy natural afro that looked like an ebony halo around her face.
They jogged down the steps in blinding white sneakers, giving perfunctory smiles to the old ladies as they passed.
Then the dark-haired girl stopped and frowned. “Are you guys lost? Looking for something in particular?”
“Oh, no,” Jo Ellen assured them. “We’re alum! Class of ’69!”
The number cracked up the ponytail girl, but the other’s expression grew serious. “Wow, really? That’s so cool! Welcome back.”
“We lived in that hall,” Jo Ellen said, gesturing toward Lyndon. “We met our first day of freshman year. I was a Yankee from New York, she’s a Georgia girl. We were Tri-Delts.”
The blonde’s eyes flicked with disinterest and judgment—she probably didn’t get a bid on rush week—but the other one came closer.
“I love that!” she exclaimed. “And you stayed friends all these years? Think that’ll be us, Courtney?”
“Prolly not,” she said, stuffing little white things into her ears. “C’mon, let’s run.”
But the girl didn’t move, studying Jo Ellen and Maggie like they were on display in a museum.
Oh, look, Courtney, dinosaurs from the sixties.
But she said no such thing, instead extended her hand. “I’m Avery,” she announced. “I’m the RA on the second floor.”
A resident advisor? She looked like a high school senior. Maybe.
“Hello, Avery.” Jo pumped the girl’s hand. “We lived on the second floor. Room 218.”
“That’s next to me,” she said, glancing up. “It’s a room with a good vibe. You must have left your spirits there.”
Maggie fought the urge to roll her eyes.
“We had the best year,” Jo Ellen gushed, all in with the vibes and spirits.
For a second, no one spoke, then Avery nodded and stepped back, respectful and kind. “I’m not supposed to let you, but if you want to go in…”
“No,” Maggie said quickly. “Too many steps.”
“Well, we have an elevator now,” Avery told her. “But if you do need anything, let me know.”
She gave a wave and jogged after her far less friendly pal, who was jumping on two feet, ready to run.
They looked up at the dorm again, then, without talking, walked toward the giant oak tree with an ancient bench under it, stopping to sit in the shade.
“This is making me feel old,” Maggie admitted.
“A little,” Jo Ellen agreed, looking around like she needed to soak it all in. “But it’s also making me appreciate right now. This moment—us.”
Maggie’s heart, so famously cold for much of her life, melted as she studied her friend.
“How do you do it, Jo? How do you stay so positive?”
Jo Ellen gave a dry laugh. “I wasn’t, Maggie.
When I was up in Ithaca this past winter, so deep in mourning my Artie that I couldn’t see straight, I didn’t know the meaning of the word positive.
I sat in his recliner for hours on end, with nothing to look forward to, nothing to think about, just… sadness.”
“What changed?”
Jo Ellen drew back, looking surprised that Maggie didn’t know. “You,” she said softly. “You’re like Artie.”
“I’m nothing like Artie,” she said with a humorless laugh.
“To me you are,” Jo Ellen replied. “You’re…fun.”
“Something I’m so rarely accused of.”
“With me, you’re fun.”
“I sure am,” Maggie agreed.
“I love you, Mags. Just like I loved Artie.”
“Oh.” Maggie put her hand to her chest. “That’s so sweet.”
“It’s true.”
They sat without speaking, the bench warm beneath them, the shade of the old tree dappling the ground at their feet.
Students passed by in twos and threes, backpacks slung low, voices rising and falling in fragments of laughter and complaint.
Someone kicked a soccer ball nearby. Somewhere else, music drifted faintly from an open window.
Maggie folded her hands in her lap and breathed, remembering that this had always been a place meant for thinking, for talking things through. A place where decisions had once felt possible.
“This is where I told you I was going to marry Artie,” Jo Ellen said, as always, her thoughts a mirror of Maggie’s.
“You’d been on three dates, and you were so sure.”
“You were sure of Roger.”
“Never that sure,” Maggie quipped. “He always…made me work for his affection.”
“Oh.” Jo Ellen put a hand on Maggie’s leg. “I don’t remember it that way. He adored you.”
“Mostly,” Maggie agreed, looking around as a thought formed in her head. A shocking thought, but one that had been niggling for a while. “I’m not entirely happy, Jo.”
Her friend turned to her, all humor disappearing. “What’s wrong, Maggie?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I feel like I’m not where I belong and it might be too late in life to do anything about it.”
There…it was out. In one simple and ugly sentence. She braced for Jo Ellen’s scoffing laugh and assurance that they were not old or far gone and they belonged right where they were.
But Jo just stared at her intently. “Is it being here?”
“Not here on campus,” Maggie said. “But here in Atlanta. It doesn’t feel like…home.”
“Barbara’s house is not home,” Jo Ellen said. “As if you’d tolerate that paint job.”
“I need to do something, Jo, but I don’t know what.”
“Well, they’re expecting plastic surgery. Shall we run over to the med school and sign up for facelifts?”
Maggie shook her head, smiling.
“If it makes you feel better, I have felt the same way recently. Not here, but in Destin.”
Maggie slid her a surprised look. “How?”
“Like that place is…” Jo Ellen winced. “Home?”
Maggie nodded slowly. “Destin feels more like home than Atlanta,” she said, feeling a strange ripple of relief when the words were out. “And that surprises me.”
“I feel the same and it doesn’t surprise me at all,” Jo Ellen said.
“But I don’t live on that pretty street with a rose garden and my daughter and granddaughter.
I live in a drafty old house in Ithaca where the snow is high, the sun is rare, and Artie’s gone, and you’re…
far away.” She added a bittersweet smile.
“I can’t bear the idea of going back when summer ends. ”
“I don’t want to go back to my old life, either,” Maggie said quietly. “Not really.”
The words hung between them, honest and unadorned.
Maggie felt something shift in her heart.
“I miss companionship, too,” she said slowly, apparently unable to stop a lifetime’s worth of true confessions. “Not romance. Not…that. I miss having someone to talk to. To laugh with. To plan with.”
Jo Ellen’s smile softened. “You mean me.”
Maggie met her gaze. “I mean you.”
For a few heartbeats, neither of them spoke.
“You know,” Jo Ellen finally said lightly, though her eyes shone, “we could become life partners.”
Maggie snorted.
“I’m serious!” Jo Ellen insisted. “We’re good at this partnership. We finish each other’s sentences and fight over the remote and we never hear what the other one said unless we’re in the same room.”
“And you bang dishes.”
“You don’t understand computers,” Jo Ellen volleyed back.
“And you snore!” they exclaimed in perfect unison.
“Basically, we’re already married,” Maggie said. “So, we should just live together in Destin.”
Jo Ellen practically jumped off the bench. “You mean it? In the apartment over the garage? On the beach?”
“Assuming my kids don’t sell it out from underneath me, which I totally gave them permission to do.”
“Maggie!” Jo grabbed her hands. “I do have grandchildren in Ithaca, but they’d come down a lot. And honestly, don’t you think Kate’s going to give up Cornell to marry Eli?”
Maggie choked. “I don’t know, but I’m not letting that color my decision.”
“Our decision,” Jo Ellen corrected. “You and me, getting old together, helping each other through, taking road trips and long walks and…oh!” Her eyes filled, proving she was the softest, most tear-prone human alive. “Please say yes! Don’t make me get on one knee, Mags!”
They laughed, but beneath it ran something real, something solid. Maggie felt it clearly now—the comfort, the steadiness, the quiet joy of knowing she would not be navigating the rest of her life alone.
“Time goes so fast,” Jo Ellen murmured as they rose and their joints gave a soft protest. “So, let’s make the most of what we have left.”
Maggie squeezed her hand. “Together.”
“I can’t wait to get home,” Jo Ellen said excitedly as they walked. “To Destin, I mean.”
“No more spying?”
“Once more at lunchtime tomorrow. Let’s see if he leaves. If not, we’ll call him innocent.”
Maggie agreed and they headed home, passing the two girls on their jog.
“Hey, Class of ’69,” the blonde called as they passed.
But the other girl, Avery, waved and blew them a kiss. “You two are gorgeous!” she called.
“Yes,” Maggie called. “We certainly are!”
They linked arms and strolled together like a couple of co-eds with their whole lives ahead of them.