Catch of the Day

“Really?” This little nugget of history fascinates me, picturing Malone as a youth. “Did he say what happened or anything? Did you guys talk?”

“Not that I remember,” Chantal answers, chewing thoughtfully on a fry. “I just gave him some tissues for his lip, because it was bleeding. For a while, I thought he might have had a crush on me…you know, we had this little secret between us, and he was a year or so behind me in school, but nothing ever came of it.” She drains the last of her milkshake. “Still, that brooding thing he’s got going on is pretty steamy. Don’t you think? Or, no, I forgot. You like them all sunshine and light and goodness. And speaking of, there goes Father What-a-Waste.” Chantal’s voice drops to an unmistakable purr as Father Tim walks past, throwing us a wave and a smile as he goes about his business. “God, he’s delicious.”

“Now, now. You know he doesn’t like us to talk like that,” I say primly.

“Mmm. But he is, isn’t he?” she purrs, smiling widely.

I laugh, unable to resist. “Yes. He is.”

“I SLEPT WITH Malone,” I tell my sister later that day.

“What?” she shrieks, dropping the baby’s plastic bottle. “Jesus, Maggie! Give a person a little warning here!”

Being the one with the news packs a certain wallop. It’s definitely been Christy’s life that has grabbed the most headlines, aside from my own embarrassing forays into the Catholic church. And so dropping this choice little nugget is, I admit, incredibly satisfying.

It’s showering outside, a gentle, nourishing rain that patters in the gutters and against the lead-paned windows of Christy’s house, deepening the three inches of mud that already blankets the great outdoors. Violet is sleeping, Christy is tidying, I’m lounging.

Christy sits down across from me and takes a sip of her now-cold tea. “Let me warm this up,” she says, sticking her mug in the microwave and pressing some buttons. “I want to hear every detail. And Violet better not wake up, because she’s going to have to wait.”

I tell her, starting with the kiss when he drove me home and ending with waking up alone this morning.

“Wow,” she sighs. “This is…wow. And I have to say, I told you so. Remember?”

“Yes, I do. Well done.” I salute her with my mug.

“So…Malone. He’s really…well, what’s he like? What do you guys talk about?”

I blush. “That’s a good question. Of course, it’s only been a couple of days. We haven’t talked much.”

“Oh, really?” Christy purrs. “So. Okay. He’s sexy, we knew that. I love the scruffy ones.”

“You do?” I ask. Will is quite tidy and clean-shaven.

“You always want what you don’t have,” she tells me with a wink. “More about Malone, please. What else?”

“Okay, well, we covered the great in bed part. Incredible kisser. Doesn’t talk much. That’s all I know.” I sigh. “He really hardly talks at all, Christy.” I frown and trace the rim of my cup. “To tell you the truth. I’m sleeping with a guy I really don’t know very well. It’s a little slutty.”

“Is that how he makes you feel?” Christy asks, mirroring my frown with one of her own.

I think about that. “No. He makes me feel…beautiful.”

Christy’s frown morphs into a smile. “Oh…that’s nice,” she sighs. “Beautiful is good.”

I smile, too. “Yes, it is. I just wish…”

“What?”

“Well, I just wish he was more…talkative. More like…” I wince but tell my sister the truth. “More like Father Tim.”

“Well, I for one am glad he’s not,” Christy chides. “Father Tim is a?”

“I know, I know. Save it. What I meant was, I wish Malone would just…open up a little.”

“He will, Mags, he will,” Christy assures me, not that she has any authority over Malone. “You know how they grew up, the Malone kids,” she adds.

“Actually, I don’t,” I say. First Chantal had something on him, now my own sister. Does everyone know more about Malone than I do?

“Oh, no? Well, it?” she pauses, considering. “It wasn’t good.”

“How do you know?” I ask.

“His sister was in our class, dummy,” Christy informs me. “Allie Malone. Don’t you remember? She was shy, black hair like Malone’s…pretty quiet.”

I wrack my brain for some recall. “Oh, okay, okay. God, I hardly remember her.”

“Too wrapped up in Skip.”

“Yeah. True. So tell me what you know,” I prod.

Christy takes another sip of her tea. “Well, I never went over there or anything,” she says. “And I don’t exactly remember how much she told me and how much was just what the kids said. But we were lab partners junior year, and we were kind of friendly.”

She stiffens as Violet rolls over, the rustling clearly audible over the monitor, but when no coo or cry follows, she goes on. “I guess the father was abusive. I don’t think sexually, thank God. But there was definitely some bad stuff. The police came once, I remember Allie talking about that. She was crying in the bathroom one day and told me that her brother and father both spent the night in jail…”

“Yikes,” I murmur.

“So, anyway, I really don’t know more than that. She went away to Boston and we never really kept in touch.”

“Did you ever hear that Malone hit his wife?”

Christy frowns. “No. I never did. He’s not?you know, rough or anything, is he, Maggie?”

“Oh, no. No, no.” My cheeks grow hot. “Not rough at all…just…intense.”

“I wish you could see your face right now,” my sister says, laughing.

“Listen, don’t tell anyone about this, okay? About Malone and me. It’s not like we’re actually seeing each other…we’re just…I don’t know….”

“Fuck buddies?” Christy laughs.

“Christy! No! Oh, hell, maybe.” I can’t help laughing, too.

“Can you imagine what Mom would say?”

“I really don’t want to think about that,” I answer truthfully. Mother is not one to be sympathetic to hormonal urges. Young people today are so trashy, she’s fond of saying. Don’t they have any self-respect? Even if Malone and I had a real relationship, he’s not exactly what Mom has in mind for me. Why can’t you meet a doctor, Maggie? Or a lawyer? Or maybe that Microsoft executive on Douglas Point? If you’d just clean yourself up a little, you’d be quite presentable, you know. You need to stop lighting your fire under a bushel.

At this moment, my niece lets out a coo over the monitor, signaling the end of her nap. Christy gets up and goes upstairs, and I sit at the table, mulling over what she’s told me.

I stay to play with Violet, rolling on the floor with her, encouraging her to grab the little moose puppet Jonah gave her at birth. She finally does, and Christy and I cheer as the genius baby stuffs an antler into her drooling mouth and chews on it. Christy convinces me to stay for supper, and I do, drinking in their domesticity and happiness.

On my way home, I try to imagine Malone acting like Will, laughing, pulling me onto his lap the way Will does to Christy, kissing his baby and practically leaping at the chance to change her diaper. I can’t. Malone doesn’t inspire thoughts of husband and father.

So what are you doing with him, Maggie? Mom’s voice asks in my head. Killing time until the real thing comes along? Or just scratching an itch?

I’m pretty sure I don’t want to answer those questions, but I have a long time to think about them. Malone doesn’t come over that night. He doesn’t call, either. And I don’t call him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“SO, MAGGIE, how’s the quest going?” Father Tim asks me as I pour him some coffee.

“The man quest?” I ask.

“Are you on any other kind?” he quips, raising his eyebrows with mock sincerity.

“Oh, how cutting! And you a priest. Tsk, tsk.” I glance around the diner?pretty full, since it’s raining hard outside, and people love to go out for breakfast when it’s raining. “The quest is on hold at the moment, Father Tim,” I answer. “When the time is right, yadda yadda. What can I get you this morning?”

“I guess I’ll have the special, Maggie. Sounds lovely.”

The special is French toast made with homemade sweet almond bread and soaked in a peach glaze. It is lovely, and an original recipe, and if I could get a restaurant critic out here, I’m sure he or she would love it. “You got it,” I tell him. “Bacon with that?”

“You know me well,” he smiles.

“Mmm, yes, and I know you’d better get your cholesterol checked.”

“You’re a wonderful friend,” he says, and unexpectedly, he takes my hand and pats it, looking up at me. And though I have a coffeepot in my other hand and he’s wearing his priest clothes, there’s something very…marriage proposal about our little tableau. For one second, that sense of longing and rightness I always get around Father Tim hits home, and I feel my face grow hot.

“Well,” I say. “Right back at you.” To hide my discomfort, I glance out the window and freeze. Malone is standing in front of the diner, and with him is a woman. A beautiful woman. A young, gorgeous, wow kind of woman. She’s laughing, and he’s smiling. He’s smiling! A baseball cap shields his face against the rain so his expression isn’t completely clear, but yes, that is a smile, ladies and gentlemen.

Father Tim releases my hand, and I smile automatically at him. When I glance up, Malone’s smile is gone, and he’s looking at me. The lines that slash down his face are emphasized from the lights in the diner. Is he angry? He says something to Miss Universe, and without so much as a wave, they continue on their way, away from Joe’s.

“What the hell is his problem?” I mutter. My face is burning. Suddenly I feel quite grimy in my worn jeans and the sweater with the coffee stain on the left wrist. Who cares? I ask myself, but my heart feels tight.

“Ah, Louise, love,” Father Tim calls, “come and keep a lonely priest company.” Louise, a middle-aged widow, wrestles her umbrella inside the door.

“Back in a flash, Father Tim,” I say as the kitchen bell dings. I get to work, bringing Father Tim and Louise breakfast, chatting up Georgie, exchanging diner slang with Stuart, bussing tables and wiping up spills. But my thoughts stay with Malone. Who was that woman? I’ve never seen her before…and truthfully, I never want to again.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen Malone with a woman, though surely he hasn’t been without female company since his wife left him all those years ago. But still. Smiling with that young, beautiful creature…It stings. It’s been three days since I last saw him. During that time, he hasn’t called me or stopped by once. Not once. So I’m forced to think that yes, indeed, any connection we have is purely physical.

I’ll admit, I’ve been feeling a bit conflicted. It seems wrong, somehow, to have these intense physical reactions to Malone when I don’t even know his first name. My mother’s voice keeps floating through my head?When are you going to find someone decent to marry? Why can’t you settle down with someone like Will?

My protestations to my mother that I’m trying fall on deaf ears. I’m not succeeding, and as she so ruthlessly points out, the years are passing. Of course I’d love to settle down with someone like Will. Someone who found me delightful and couldn’t wait to come home to me, someone who loved children and wanted a couple.