Twenty-Six
Then
Maggie woke before the alarm the next morning. She was caught in a nightmare in which Aidan screamed and ranted at her, shouting that she’d ruined his life, his daddy’s life, that he hated her, that he never wanted to see her again. She jerked awake with a gasp, sheets tangled around her legs, clammy with sweat.
“Crap,” she whispered to her dark ceiling. It all came rushing back, the guilt and pain and sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Dinner last night was a blur in her memory: a whirl of light and perfectly seasoned chicken and her mother’s knife-edge gaze. She’d tossed all night, imaging all the ways in which Ghost and Aidan were lost to her now. In stolen moments, between nightmares, she’d dreamed that she was in bed with Ghost, his strong arm around her waist.
But now she was wide-awake, and the nightmare was real.
She bumped into her dad on her way out of the bathroom later, and he smiled at her, drowsy eyes brightening.
“It’s good to have you home, sweet pea,” he told her, pulling her into a hug that she didn’t reciprocate. “Your mother’s so glad you’re back.”
Was she? Maggie didn’t think Denise was ever glad about anything.
She dressed and tied back her hair; she didn’t have the energy to style it or bother with makeup. She felt drunk, her movements slow and uncoordinated. Her eyes ached from crying herself to sleep. She looked terrible, and didn’t care, shuffling down to the kitchen to choke down a piece of toast before she left for school.
The room was pitch dark, so she wasn’t expecting to see her mother sitting calmly at the table, sipping coffee, when she flipped on the flight.
Maggie started, hands flying out in front of her to form a belated, ineffectual shield.
Denise was already dressed, styled, sprayed, and shellacked for the day, a socially acceptable android who managed not to leave a lipstick print on her pristine white coffee mug. She sat ramrod straight on the edge of her chair, shoulders set, forearms equidistant on the table. Maggie knew her coffee contained three ounces of milk, no sugar. That her lipstick had been applied with two even sweeps across top and bottom lips, and dabbed with one press of a tissue. If she took four steps closer, she’d get a nose full of Chanel No. 5. – it was the reason she’d always hated that fragrance.
Maggie swallowed down her fright and said, “Good morning.” She had to try a little, if only so she had some grounds for justification when she continued to see Ghost.
“Good morning.” Denise’s gaze moved slowly down her, catching every frizzy hair and each speck of lint on her sweater, the scuffs on the toes of her boots. “I’ve made you a doctor’s appointment for this afternoon.”
“I’m not sick.”
“That you know of. You’re to have some blood drawn for pregnancy and STD tests.”
Maggie gritted her teeth and bit down on the nasty retort that built in her throat. She’d brought this on herself. For Ghost, she thought; it was worth it for Ghost.
She said, “What time?”
Denise smiled, a cruel lifting of her mouth. “Three. Don’t be late.”
~*~
Duane didn’t “clock in” for the day until after nine, which ordinarily wasn’t an issue since none of the rest of the guys ever dragged themselves to awareness before then anyway. Ghost didn’t care, though. He walked straight past the empty office and opened up Duane’s favorite dorm without knocking.
The smell hit him hard, sex and weed and unwashed clothes. The blinds were drawn, and it was dark as evening. He could just make out two figures in the bed, Duane and Jasmine, no doubt.
The sheets rustled and Duane pushed up on his elbows, squinting at Ghost. “Wha…?”
Ghost waved his loan paperwork. “I’ve got the money. I already called the construction company and they’re breaking ground Thursday, eight a.m.”
“Fuck,” Duane said, voice a croak. He sat all the way up, scrubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. His black dog tattoo was on his chest, stretched all the way across, like it was about to dive under his arm, faded gray from time and sun exposure. A tired old dog, just like the man who wore it.
Supercharged by anger and grief, high on coffee, Ghost felt as fresh and black as his own inked dog, the superior monster in this battle of wills.
Duane blinked a few times and stared at him, bleary-eyed. “What time is it? What are you doing?”
Ghost waved the papers again; they crackled. “Loan. I got one. Breaking ground Thursday. It’s ten ‘til nine now.”
Duane kept staring.
Beside him, Jasmine stirred with a groan, rolling onto her side, curling up in the fetal position. Her hair was fanned across the pillow and Ghost could see its dark roots showing through the bottle blonde.
“Who the hell gave you a loan?” Duane asked, frowning.
“The bank.”
“Bullshit.”
Ghost tossed the paperwork on the bed. “No. For real.”
Duane pretended he could read in the dim room, and finally shoved them back toward Ghost, scowling in earnest now. “You’re really doing this?”
“You said I could if I got the money together, and I did.” Ghost smiled. It was humorless, because he hurt too bad to smile for real, but satisfying nonetheless.
Duane fumbled for a pack of smokes and a lighter on the nightstand, lit one up. The sharp cigarette smell was a welcome mask for the room’s other scents. “I’m not gonna help you with this,” he finally said. “If it fails, I won’t bail you out.”
“I never expected you to.”
He nodded. “Alright.”
“What’s going on?” Jasmine mumbled, and Ghost took the chance to slip out, relief pounding through him like a second pulse.
He’d been so afraid Duane would try to shut him down again, rip up the papers Ghost now clutched to his chest like a lifeline. Petrified that he’d lost Maggie for nothing.
Not lost, she’d said. Just a temporary separation.
But that was a child’s naïve hope. Separations were never temporary.
He walked out of the clubhouse all juiced up with adrenaline with nowhere to go. Without the day’s roster, he couldn’t make any drops, and with the garage still just a paper concept, he had nothing legitimate to do.
He was just starting to think he ought to go home and bust out the vacuum when a bike pulled up beside his: Roman.
“Hey,” Roman said, and it wasn’t so much a greeting as a question.
“Hey,” Ghost said, reaching for his helmet.
“You’re here early.”
“Yeah.”
Roman stared at him. “Why?”
It felt good to say, “I got the loan,” and be smug with the guy for maybe the first time ever. Ghost had never had anything to gloat about before.
“You did?” Roman was shocked. “But…how?”
Ghost smiled. “Don’t worry about it.” He popped his helmet on –
And the clubhouse door opened.
Duane had thankfully put on pants. Shirtless, shading his eyes with one hand, he held out the other to Ghost, fingers flicking impatiently. “Let me see that again.”
Ghost hesitated. Beside him, he felt Roman stiffen, a note of fear that vibrated through the space between them. Poor idiot, Ghost thought – of Roman, and of himself. Everyone in Duane’s sphere was an idiot.
“Come on.”
By the time he reached his uncle, he’d figured out what he wanted. Throat tight, he feigned nonchalance and handed the loan paperwork over. With a clear view in the sun, Ghost knew right where his eyes went.
“Arthur Lowe,” Duane read, pinning Ghost in place with a look. “Who is that?”
“He cosigned.”
“Yeah, I can read. I asked who the fuck he is.”
“Does it matter?”
Ghost didn’t think anyone would have faulted him for wilting under his uncle’s glare. But he didn’t – he stared back, and said, “A friend.”
“It’s that girl of yours again, isn’t it? This is her dad?”
“No–”
“Don’t lie to me, Kenny! I know what her damn last name is. You think I wouldn’t? I know everything.”
Ghost ground his teeth and kept silent.
“What I can’t decide,” Duane continued, “is whether you’re stupid, or reckless. It’s bad enough to bring some spoiled civilian bitch around, but then you go and get her country club old man to cosign your goddamn loan.”
“She’s gone,” Ghost bit out, and Duane’s brows shot up. “She left, okay? We traded: Mags went home, and he signed the loan.”
Duane blinked a few times, and then laughed, one sharp, shocked punch of sound. “No shit?”
“No.”
He clapped Ghost on the shoulder. “There ya go. Alright then.”
~*~
“You wanna come over later?” Rachel asked, tentative, as they walked out the front doors of the school. Maggie could hear the reluctance in her voice; the fake-brave Rachel of a few months prior – always pushing Maggie toward boys and stealing her brother’s cigarettes – had been replaced by a girl who was very sixteen, and very uncertain about her friend’s lifestyle change.
“I can’t,” Maggie said, and saw Rachel’s shoulders slump with relief. “I’ve got an appointment.”
“Oh, okay.” Too bright, too hurried. “Maybe next week.”
“Maybe.”
In a different scenario, Rachel would have begged Maggie to go somewhere now that she had wheels. But today, after Maggie had run off and become a biker old lady, and then come back again, she waved and skipped off toward her brother’s car, not looking back.
Had Maggie known what awaited her at her own car, she would have ditched her doctor plans and begged Rachel to go get ice cream or something.
As it was, she was all alone when she walked up to the Monte Carlo and found Roman Mayer leaning against the driver’s side window, blowing smoke rings up toward the afternoon sun.
“Shit,” she said, grinding to a halt.
He flashed her a tight, nasty grin and flicked his cigarette away. “I take it you remember me, then.”
“Unfortunately.” She curled her hand tight around her keys, sliding some of the longer ones through her fingers, makeshift claws.
“Then you probably remember that conversation we had.”
“You mean when you accosted me in the dark hallway? Yeah, I remember that.”
He pushed off the car with a deceptively lazy movement, the kind that looked relaxed, but which left a steamy handprint on the window, a symptom of nervous sweat, and which pulled his jacket tight at the shoulders, all his muscles tense. Two long strides brought him into her personal space. His eyes glinted, unruly lock of sandy hair falling onto his forehead.
“I thought you were gonna keep Ghost distracted?”
“If you’ll recall, I didn’t agree to anything.”
He smiled again, deadly flash of teeth, warning glimmer. “You’re a real smart bitch, huh? You keep talking like that, you’re gonna get slapped by somebody one of these days.”
“By you?”
“No. I’m a gentleman.”
Maggie sighed. She softened her tone, let some of the fight bleed out of her. She was tired and running late. She didn’t think he’d hurt her – that would do nothing but set Ghost off – but she didn’t think it would help her cause to keep needling him. “Roman, what do you want?”
He eased a fraction, sharp anger bleeding into frustration. “I want…” He caught himself, glancing away, lips pressed together in a tight line.
Ghost had told him about the loan, then, and apparently about their separation.
“You think I broke up with him, and that now he’s going to be focused on the club,” she guessed, earning a narrow-eyed, suspicious glance. “I thought so. Okay. I didn’t break up with him. I just…You know what, that’s personal, and I’m not telling you. And you’ve got to get over this thing with Ghost. It’s his uncle’s club; he needs to step up.”
He ground his molars.
“I’m not going to distract him because you don’t like competition.”
He was still a long moment. Indistinct shouts of students floated across the parking lot. The breeze sent felled leaves scurrying along beneath cars.
Maggie said, “You–”
He moved like a snake striking. Standing in front of her one second, crowding her back against the side of a pickup truck the next. Caging her in with his arms. Leaning close into her face, breath hot against her mouth. “This ain’t your damn club,” he hissed. “You don’t get a say.”
She felt his heart thundering against her own where his chest was crushed to hers; felt the feral rhythm stuttering under her skin, pounding through her throat, choking her.
Her voice trembled, high and breathless, finally scared. “I’m not – not trying to have a say. I’m just looking after Ghost.”
“Fuck him,” he growled, “and fuck you.” He slapped the truck’s window – she closed her eyes and gasped – and shoved away from her, stalking between the cars.
Maggie was shaking so badly she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up, but she staggered to the Monte Carlo and fumbled the keys, managed to get it unlocked. She waited until the door was open and she was poised to slide in before she called after Roman: “It’s not Ghost you ought to worry about. It’s Duane who’s trying to get you killed.”
She didn’t wait for him to respond, just climbed in the car and locked the door.
It was ten minutes before she felt steady enough to start the engine, and by that point, Roman was long gone.
~*~
When Maggie stepped out of the exam area of the doctor’s office, she found her mother in the waiting room, paging through a Good Housekeeping.
If she got one more surprise visit today, she was going to scream.
Denise set the magazine aside and looked at Maggie expectantly. “Well?” she asked, drawing curious glances from waiting patients.
“I’d rather not talk about it in front of anyone.”
Denise’s mouth pinched up into a tight, pink bow. “You’re pregnant, then?”
“No, Mom,” she hissed. “I’m not, I just…”
Several of the other women in the room looked away, eyebrows climbing to their hairlines.
Maggie sat down beside her mother, whispering. “I’m not, and I knew I wasn’t. I didn’t have to go through all this.”
“What about the other tests?” Too loud, entirely too loud. She didn’t give a damn if anyone overheard; maybe she wanted them to.
Jesus. The woman was relentless…and Maggie was not. Her body went boneless, suddenly, betraying her. It was too much effort to fight with her mother and she didn’t have the fortitude to press on, not after she’d been poked and swabbed and been made to feel shameful about the time she’d spent with the man she loved.
She slumped down in the chair, head leaned back as her neck went weak. “They’ll call later in the week with the results.”
“Good.” Denise gathered her purse and stood. “I’ll follow you to your FBLA meeting.” Where she would no doubt wait until Maggie was securely in the building before she went home to microwave tonight’s dinner.
“Okay,” Maggie said, dragging herself upright.
Each step seemed to drain her a little more. By the time she’d parked in front of the school, among the smattering of cars up near the front that belonged to teachers and students staying late for extracurriculars, she felt herself nodding off behind the wheel. She pinched the inside of her wrist, told herself to get it together.
As predicted, Denise sat behind the wheel of her own car, watching her walk into the building.
Maggie ducked into the first restroom she came to. She was hyperventilating. Idiot, she told herself, but couldn’t seem to take control of her breathing. Her heart pounded and her head swam, and she grabbed the edges of a sink to keep from slumping to the floor.
She was having a panic attack, she realized. The pink-painted cinderblock walls pressed in around her, her blood roared in her ears, and she allowed herself to truly panic about her situation for the first time.
She’d felt hopeless before she met Ghost, but now, after tasting freedom for a little while – no rules, no curfews, no cutting stares and biting criticisms, nothing but warmth, and love, and banter, and waking with a smile on her face – the return to her old life was intolerable. She stared at her pale, hollow-eyed reflection and reminded herself that people all across the world lived in truly intolerable conditions: famine, war, illness, violence. Told herself that she was healthy and whole, even if she felt scraped-clean inside.
But it didn’t lessen the pain of loss. Because that’s what it was – loss. She’d lost her man, and her new life, and her freedom, and she ached for it.
She stared down her reflection. Deep breath in, slow breath out. Deep in, slow out. Slowly, her heartrate calmed. Then the crushing tide of exhaustion again, dragging at her, weighing down her arms and legs.
Denise was doubtless going to sit out front until the meeting let out. She wouldn’t come in and talk to her teacher-sponsor about her attendance, because that would be gauche. But she’d make sure Maggie left with the other kids, climbed back in her car, and then follow her home.
I could leave out the back, she thought, wildly. Go on foot. Ghost’s place was only a few miles away. But she imagined herself turning up on his step breathless, wild-eyed, desperate, a runaway, and she dismissed the idea. She couldn’t lower herself to that level, manipulate his feelings that way, when she was the one who’d made the decision to go back home.
Home wasn’t really home anymore, was it? But she was stuck for now. She’d started this; she had to see it through.
She gave her reflection one last look – what a sad specter of a girl she was right now – and went to her meeting.
~*~
“Daddy?” Aidan asked, voice quiet and unhappy.
Ghost sipped his whiskey. It was five o’ clock somewhere, right? Who cared. “Yeah?”
“When’s Maggie coming back?”
He sighed. He couldn’t look at the kid, because the hope in his eyes was too much. Instead, he stared blindly at the TV and said, “She’s not.”
Aidan didn’t speak to him the rest of the night.