Moments In Time (13 page)

Mary Elizabeth hung up the phone and looked down at her disheveled daughter, whose arms and head rested on the kitchen table.

“Come on, Maggie, try to stand up. Kevin,
help me get Maggie on her feet…”

“Looks like my big sister really tied one on,” he said with a broad grin.

His mother shot him a look of disapproval and gestured for him to help Maggie up, which was no easy task. She was deadweight. Getting her onto her feet was one thing, getting her up the stairs was another. Halfway up she got giggly and started to sing “Midnight Special,” a raunchy tune J.D. insisted had been penned solely by Rick and that had been included on their last album on a whim. Kevin rolled his eyes toward the heavens as his sister slurred one ribald verse and started into the second.

“Maggie, where’d you ever hear that song?”

“Jamey. Sings it,” she confided.

“Well, whoever Jamey is, I like his taste in music.”

They were almost at the top of the steps, and she nearly collapsed with laughter.

“Maggie, what’s so funny?”

“You do,” she gasped between peals of laughter. “You do. Like his music.” She slipped down a step, and he gripped her arm to keep her from falling all the way down.

“Sure thing, Maggie. Whatever you say,” he mumbled.

Having gotten her into her room and flopped onto her bed, Kevin turned his sister over to their mother. “She’s all yours, Mom. Boy, old Maggie’s really ripped.”

“I’ll thank you not to mention this to your father, Kevin.”

“What, that I practically had to carry her upstairs, laughing and singing? Just kidding, Mom. My lips are sealed.”

“Sit up, Maggie. Let me get the back of your dress undone.” Her daughter nearly incapable of cooperating, it
took Mary Elizabeth a few minutes to get Maggie undressed. She slid a nightgown over the slender shoulders. “Been many a year since I had to dres
s you for bed, sweetie. Oh…
the aspirin. I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later she returned with two white tablets. “Here, Maggie, sit up. Jamey said to make sure you took these.”

“Jamey,
” she murmured. “Miss Jamey…
”

“I’m sure you do, dear.”

Maggie swallowed the aspirin and lay back on the pillow, eyes closed, crying softly, rambling on and on, unintelligibly. Finally, when the whispering stopped, Mary Elizabeth kissed her daughter’s forehead and turned out the bedroom light.

Several times during the night, Maggie’d been up and to the bathroom, sicker than she’d ever been in her life.
I’ll feel like shit tomorrow,
she thought as she tumbled back into her bed for the fourth time.

Even the lengthy Callahan Sunday breakfast was all but over by the time Maggie managed to struggle out of bed and into her clothes. Her stomach felt terrible, but surprisingly, her head didn’t feel as badly as she’d expected. She said as much to her mother when she ambled downstairs and took a place at the table.

“Oh, good. Then the aspirin worked.” Mary Elizabeth looked pleased. She met Frank’s questioning gaze and explained, “Aspirin. If you take it at night when you’ve had too much to drink, you’re less likely to have a headache the next morning.”

“Mary Elizabeth, since when have you been the resident expert on the cure for hangovers?” her husband inquired with a raised eyebrow.

“Why, Maggie’s friend told me last night when he called,” she explained nonchalantly. “He sounded very nice, Frank, very polite and well spoken.”

“What friend?” Maggie asked, taking the cup of tea her mother had poured for her.

“Why, Jamey, he said his name was. You didn’t tell us you were seeing an English fellow, Maggie.” Her mother begin
to clear plates and juice glasses from the table. “I always did like a British accent.”

“Mom, when did you talk to Jamey?” Maggie had gone white.

“Maggie, don’t you remember? He called last night as soon as we got home from Aunt Peg’s. We had a nice chat.”

“You did?” Maggie wondered what exactly J.D. had had to say.

“He asked me to tell you he’d call you this evening at your apartment.” Mary Elizabeth carried the breakfast debris into the kitchen.

“And he must be cool, because he knows all the words to ‘Midnight Special,’ ” Kevin added.

“How do you know that?” Maggie asked in a half whisper, wondering what she’d said last night. She rested her elbows on the table, chin in hands and tried frantically to remember.

“Because you were singing it while I was helping you up the steps last night. And when I asked you how you knew the words, you said Jamey sings it. So, he must be cool.” Following this explanation, Kevin left the room.

“Ma
ggie, please get your elbows off
the table or move them closer together. If your chin gets any lower it’ll be in your teacup,” her mother instructed.

“Sounds like you had a better time at Kathleen’s wedding than I thought you did,” her father said with a laugh as he pushed himself away from the table. “I’ll be watching the baseball game in the den, Mary Elizabeth.”

Maggie looked across the table at her mother, who was removing the rest of the breakfast dishes. “Mom, what did I say last night?”

“Very little that I could understand. You were not very coherent.”

Thank God.

“I did get the impression, judging from his concern, that this might be more than a casual relationship.”

Maggie nodded.

“Are you serious with this man?”

Maggie admired her mother’s cool demeanor, knowing
she had a lot of questions she would like to ask. Mary Elizabeth could extract secrets from a stone. It was all in her quiet, nonchalant technique.

“More serious than I’ve ever been in my life, Mom.” Maggie put her cup down and met her mother’s eyes.

“Does that include your former husband, Maggie?”

“I never felt this way about Mace, Mom.”

“Then why did you marry him?” Her mother sat down next to her.

“I guess because I felt I had to,” Maggie replied simply.

“Why would you have thought that? Didn’t you love him?”

“Not the way I should have. Not the way that takes you through a lifetime. Not the way I love Jamey. I loved Mace, Mom, but I wasn’t in love with him.” There, it was out now. The truth.

“Then why did you go through with it?” Her mother took her hands in her own, deep lines of distress creasing her face.

“Because everyone would have been so disappointed. Everyone thought he was so perfect. And I didn’t want to hurt him. And,” she added, her voice lowering as in a confessional, “because I’d slept with him.”

Mary Elizabeth silently studied her daughter’s face.

“I thought it obligated me, Mom. I thought sleeping with him meant I had to marry him. I didn’t know I had a choice
…
And he and Daddy were so close. And we’d gone together for so long. I didn’t know how to not go through with it.” Earnest tears slid from between her lids, closed against the judgment she feared she’d encounter if she opened her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Maggie.” Mary Elizabeth brushed the hair back tenderly from her daughter’s face. “How could I have not known?”

“It’s not your fault, Mom. In my heart I knew it wasn’t right, but I went through with it. I don’t blame anyone but myself.”

“And Jamey? How long have you known him?”

“A couple of months.” Maggie searched in her pocket for a tissue.

“And you feel this strongly about him after so short a time?”

“Right from the start. Mom, he’s all I could ever want in this life.”

“Why haven’t you brought him home?”

“Mom, I want to. And he wants so much to meet you. But Dad might find him a bit hard to take. You know, Dad has these prejudices
…”

“Maggie, is he a Protestant?” That could certainly account for her daughter’s reluctance to bring this man home.

Maggie laughed for the first time that morning. “He might be Protestant, most likely is. I’ve never asked him.”

“Maggie, you know how your father is about religion. That could be a problem.”

“That’s not the only thing he’ll have a problem with.” Maggie wiped her wet eyes with a tissue her mother handed her.

“Is it because of Mace? Because Dad is so keen on Mace?”

“That’s part of it. I know he always hoped that we’d get back together. I don’t know how to explain to him that it was a mistake. That staying in that marriage would have destroyed me.”

“I’ll talk to your father about that, Maggie. I feel some of the responsibility was mine.”

“Mom
…
”
Maggie protested.

“How could I have been so oblivious to what you were going through?” Mary Elizabeth asked herself softly, her voice apologetic, self-recriminating. “I’ll talk to your father, sweetheart. Maybe he’ll understand. Is there anything else that I should know about this new friend of yours?”

“Well, actually, Mom, there’s one other thing.” Maggie took a deep breath, grateful that it would all be out in the open and done with, for better or for worse.

As she opened her mouth to speak, Ellie walked into the room.

“So, here you are. And how hung over are we today?” she asked, grinning.

“Not too bad.” Maggie wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of knowing that her stomach was in chaos.

“Missed you at church.” Ellie sat down with her coffee, oblivious to the fact that she had interrupted a conversation that would not be finished while she was present.

“Maggie was sick last night, Ellie,” Mary Elizabeth told her.

“No doubt she was. Maggie, you threw back champagne like Uncle Paul throws back shots.”

Laughing in spite of herself, Maggie replied, “That explains it then. I’ve never been able to drink more than a glass or two. And the way I feel today is a good reminder why I never do.”

“Topping off the day with gimlets was another good idea,” Ellie noted, then added, “I hope you’re okay.”

“Thanks, El.” Maggie smiled, touched by her sister’s uncharacteristic concern.

On impulse, she st
ood up and kissed the top of Elli
e’s head, and Ellie responded by reaching a hand around to touch her sister’s face for the briefest moment. Maggie found herself suddenly wishing it could be this way more often, she free to reach out to Ellie, who had always seemed to be surrounded by an invisible barrier, like an opaque bubble, which made even casual physical contact with her almost unthinkable. Maggie had often wondered how Elliot ever approached her to make love. She thought of Jamey’s loving touch and was swept with a feeling of sadness for Ellie, for lacking that simplest of joys, the caress of a loving hand.

Mary Elizabeth was clearly startled by the rare display of affection between her oldest children and was moved by it. The moment passed, and Maggie withdrew again to the other side of the boundary. With a wink toward her mother that promised to resume their conversation another time, she went upstairs to pack her things.

12

E
L
LIE
HASN’T CHANGED MUCH,
M
AGGIE THOUGHT SADLY.
She
even seems to ho
ld her children at a distance. I
can’t remember the last time I saw her cuddle with Mary Fran or hug little Danny
.

“…
but as far as writing a song is concerned,” Hilary was deep in conversation with J.D., “how do you actually do that? What comes first, the lyrics or the tune?”

“Sometimes one, sometimes the other,” he told her, keeping his eyes on his wife’s back. She’d been off in her head someplace—he’d recognized the signs and wondered where she’d been, what door within her memory had opened to her, and if what she’d seen when she’d peered inside had been a welcomed reminder of happier days or the stinging recollection of a bygone hurt.

“Have you any musical talent, Maggie?” Hilary asked.

“What? Oh, no
…
none,” she replied flatly.

“Then it must be fascinating to live with someone who has written so many wonderful songs.”

“Fascinating,” Maggie agreed with a saccharine smile.

“Do you write all the parts for every song yourself?”
Hilary decided to ignore Maggie’s sarcasm. “All the parts for all the different instruments as well?”

He nodded.

“How do you know how to do that?”

“Training and experience,” he said, grinning. “An unbeatable combination.”

“No, I mean with all the instruments. The guitars and drums, for example. How can you write for those instruments if you don’t play them?”

“I do play them,” he told her.

“What else?” Hilary leaned forward in his direction.

“Just about anything with keys or strings.”

“But how do you know where to put the different instruments in the song?”

He looked at her blankly, as if it were a stupid question. “I just hear it in my head.”

“You hear the whole thing, a whole song, with all its component parts, in your head?”
Hmm,
she thought,
maybe he’s more than just another pretty face
…

“Pretty much. Sometimes I just hear part of it, then when I write it down, the rest of it just comes,” he explained.

“Well, I’m impressed,” she said, smiling almost flirtatiously, “but tell me, after having written so many songs, how do you keep coming up with new ones year after year? Where does the inspiration come from?”

“It comes from everywhere. The news. Everyday events. The people around you. And of course, my wife has been a continuous source of inspiration for me.”

“Out of all the songs you’ve ever written, which was your favorite?”

“Absolutely no contest there.” He smiled. “It would have to be ‘Sweet, Sweet Maggie.’ I’d written it while on the road that spring we’d met. It was a special surprise for her. She was there the first night the band ever performed it in public. In Atlanta.” He turned to her, asking with deliberate emphasis on the name of the city, “You remember that four-day weekend in Atlanta, don’t you, Maggie?”

It seemed he waited forever for her one-word whispered response.

“Yes.”

Remember? My whole life changed in the aftermath of that weekend,
she thought.
After Atlanta, there was no turning
back
…

M
aggie hated flying, hated the very idea of being wrapped in the belly of that metal container, strapped in and unable to escape, always dreaded the takeoffs and prayed for the landings. She wished she’d been able to get a nonstop flight. The additional wait in D.C. made her even more anxious.

She looked at her watch and realized they were due to land in twenty minutes or so. She rose from her seat and went into the bathroom, removed her makeup case from her purse, and sat it on the side of the sink.
Might as well fix this face before we land,
she thought and added some blush, reapplied some eye shadow, and was about to brush her hair when there was a knock on the door.

“I’m sorry to rush you,” a woman’s voice said, “but my little girl really needs to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, sure. No problem.” Maggie stuffed her makeup back into the case, the zipper breaking as she fumbled to close it, then tucked the open case into her purse. In her haste to vacate the room, she dropped it, it’s contents spilling out onto the floor.

“Oh, damn,” she muttered as she bent down and retrieved her wallet, keys, checkbook, hairbrush, makeup, all of which had scattered.

“I’m really sorry to hurry you like th
is, but she’s only three and…
”

Maggie opened the door and smiled sympathetically at the young woman and her small, fidgety daughter as she stepped past them and exited the room.

She returned to her seat. It was almost time to land. She fastened her belt and leaned back, anticipating the next four days. Four whole days. She couldn’t wait to see him, to touch him, to love him again. He’d been right,
two weeks was way too long…

He was there when she got off the plane, waiting for her as he’d promised. Her impulse was to run to him and throw
her arms around him, but instead she walked casually to where he stood watching her approach. She dropped her bag to the ground, and they held each other for a long moment.

“Oh, Maggie, Maggie, you feel so good to me,” he whispered. “God, it’s so good to hold you again. I thought the plane would never get here.”

“Me, too. I was afraid it would get lost or crash and then I’d never see your face again.” She kissed him long and hard. “How far’s the hotel?”

“Not too. Let’s get your stuff and go.”

Maggie’s luggage was retrieved, a cab hailed. They sat in the backseat, drinking each other in.

“You look tired,” she said, raising a hand to touch his face.

“The result of too much travel, too little sleep. I told you this is a rotten way to live.”

When they arrived at the hotel, he asked, “Do you need lunch?”

“I ate on the plane,” she said, and held her arms open to him.

They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to feed the hunger, the empty places filling up with contentment, the loneliness giving way to blis
s. The intensity of their love-
making rocked them both into exhaustion.

“Damn. Look at the time.” He’d been laying in a half slumber for about twenty minutes or so and had glanced at the clock as he was about to turn over. “We have exactly forty minutes to dress, eat dinner, and get down to the arena for the show. What’ll it be, Mags, room service or the coffee shop? Decide quickly.”

“Room service,” she muttered.

“Fine. Call and order for us while I’m in the shower, why don’t you, and if we’re lucky, dinner will be here by the time I’m dressed.”

She called down and ordered veal and spaghetti, salads, wine for herself, and beer for him. She lay back on the pillow, gloriously happy for the first time in weeks. Nothing had ever felt like the joy inside when she was with him.

He came out of the bathroom, already dressed in his stage
clothes, je
ans and a long-sleeved blue-and-
white-striped cotton shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, tails out, as was his habit when he was performing.

“You planning on joining me tonight,” he asked with a grin, “or were you planning on waiting right there till I get back?”

“Just too lazy to get up. It feels so good to be here.”

“Well, you’d better get moving. Your dinner should be here any minute.”

As if awaiting the cue, there was a knock on the door.

She grabbed her clothes and went into the bathroom, dressing as quickly as she could, knowing they were running out of time. He was halfway through dinner when she came out and sat down with him.

“I apologize for starting without you,” he told her, “but we’re so hurried right now as it is.”

“It’s okay. I’m not that hungry.” She picked at the salad and the spaghetti and drank half her wine.

“You about ready?”

“Just one second. I want to put some makeup on.” She picked up her purse and headed back to the bathroom and turned on the light.

“Damn,” he heard her say.

“What?”

“My makeup case isn’t in here. It must have fallen under something when I dropped my purse in the bathroom on the plane.”

“You don’t need makeup. You’re adorable just as you are.”

She made a face. “How irritating. Now I’ll have to buy all new stuff.”

“You can pick some up in the morning if you really think you need it, which I don’t. I think you look fine, great, with or without it. But right now, we really have to put a move on it.”

J.D. had gotten her a great seat, front row, near the stage, close enough so that she could be easily admitted backstage after the show. He handed her the pass she would need, told her where to look for Joseph, the guard whose job it would
be to keep tabs on her and escort her backstage when they’d concluded. They walked into the dressing room pandemonium, where Maggie was greeted by the band and crew.

Rick took her into his arms and confided, “Good to see you, sweetheart. Maybe the old man will be his old self again now that you’re here. He’s been a miserable son of a bitch for the past few weeks.”

Maggie laughed again, and within minutes, the band prepared to go on and J.D. asked Joseph to lead Maggie to her place before the lights went down. Soon she was into her seat, surrounded by an ocean of screaming faces. She became increasingly uncomfortable with the noise and the crowd swelling around her. The lights went down and then J.D. was on the stage twenty feet away from her, and she felt slightly less anxious. Soon the music engulfed her, and the tide of panic began to recede. When it was over, the great throbbing mass of vocal thunder surrounded her again, and she searched the crowd to her right for Joseph, who would lead her backstage and out of the madness.

“
Y
ou’ll be okay while I clean up? I’ll be very quick, I promise,” J.D. told her when she’d arrived back in the dressing room.

She nodded and walked to the table the caterer had set up. Taking an apple from a fruit basket, she eased onto a small sofa as the door opened and a hearty cheer erupted from the band members. She looked up and saw that a group of about a dozen young girls were led into the room by one of the road crew.

Rick grasped a pretty dark-haired girl by the arm, turned to Peter, the only married member of the band and said, “Hey, Petey, I think I’ve just found the cure for your depression. You know what they say, if you can’t be with the one you love—” Rick stopped midsentence when he saw the look on Maggie’s face.

She averted her eyes, got up from the sofa, and set about to find the wine bottle to fill up her glass, giving her an opportunity to turn her back on Rick and the others.

When J.D. rejoined them, still drying his hair with a
towel, she motioned to the door with her head, signaling she’d like to leave.

J
.D. lay back on the pillow, exhausted and happy. “What a wonderful way to end two long, lonely weeks.”

Maggie stretched lazily, arms and legs, and kissed his face before hopping out of bed.

“Where are you going?” He watched her fumble with her purse.

“To take a pill.”

“You have a headache?”

“I will if I don’t take the pill,” she quipped. “Birth control pill.”

She was still fumbling around, then took everything out of her purse and placed it on the bed.

“Damn. I know I packed them.”

She took the purse into the bathroom and turned on the light. The small round pink plastic case was not there. Then it hit her, where she’d put them. She slowly walked back into the room.

“Jamey, my makeup case…
”

“So buy some stuff in the morning. Now come back to bed and bring that unmade face here to me where I can kiss it and show you how appealing you are to me, with or without cosmetics.”

She sat on the edge of the bed.
This will ruin our weekend, ruin our time together
…

“What’s wrong, Mags? What is it? Come here and let me make it all better.” He reached for her and felt her rigidity. “You can’t be that upset about losing a few items that can easily be replaced.”

“We can’t replace the pills.” The words seemed to echo in her head.

“What?”

“My pills were in my makeup case,” she said quietly.

“The makeup case you lost.” The import suddenly became clear to him.

She shook her head yes.

The room was very quiet.

“Well, then, I guess you’ll just have to call your sister the nun and ask her to say a few extra prayers tonight, Maggie. It’s been a very long two weeks,” he said as he gathered her to him. “I’m not sleeping on the sofa for the next three
nights.”

He had awakened her with sleepy kisses early the next morning, and he was deaf to her protests that serious consequences could result. It had been too long since they had greeted a new day together, he told her, he would take his chances.

They had both fallen back to sleep, and when she awoke up some hours later, she rolled over, somewhat disoriented, looking for her watch. It was twelve-fifteen. He was still sleeping like an exhausted child, but she was starving and wanted a cup of coffee. She quietly got out of bed and slipped into a pair of jeans and a sweater and, leaving a note for J.D. on her pillow, went downstairs to find the coffee shop.