Geoducks Are for Lovers (18 page)

Quinn raises his beer and toasts, “To Maggie and her brilliant family for buying this beach house all those years ago, but not having the foresight to build a boathouse. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty.” 

Maggie sticks her tongue out at Quinn. She senses herself becoming overwhelmed by the big revelations and everyone’s not-so-subtle hints. Following her instinct to escape situations that make her uncomfortable, she gets up and dusts the sand off her butt. “I'm going to put my feet in the water.”

“Getting too hot and heavy for you already?” Selah asks. She’s almost as bad as Quinn this weekend with her blatant attempts to push Gil and Maggie together.

Maggie ignores her as she walks down the beach to the water's edge. The cold waves lap at her ankles. She knows Gil follows her by Quinn's wolf whistle. 

“Hey, you know we are mostly teasing you, right? It's easy to fall into the same old patterns when we all get together again,” Gil says, reaching her side.

Maggie nods in response. This weekend is different. For the first time in decades, she and Gil are both single. If she ever had a chance, a second shot at something... she stops herself. She isn’t ready for something with anyone until she sorts out herself first. 

Gil drapes his arm around her shoulders. 

His presence has always been a comfort. She might be feeling the Jameson more than she thought as she sighs and leans into his side.

“I know. It seems all so long ago. We're forty. How did we get to be forty? Where did the past two decades go? I mean, it's been five years since Lizzy died. Half a decade. Fuck.” She breathes deeply, trying to squelch her rising emotions.

“Who’s forty? Some of us are forty-two and others…” He nudges her. “…are forty-one.”

“Reminding me of my age isn't making me feel any better, you know.” She tries to break away from his embrace, but he pulls her in tighter.

“We are older, Maggie May. Fact of life. Can't change it. But that doesn't change how much we all still care about each other. How much we care about you.”

His words seem weighted with more than group affection and nostalgia. She turns and gazes up at him. In the dark with a sliver of moon and the fire, he’s the same twenty-year-old boy she loved, but never told. Her heart flutters at the thought the same way it did back then. 

Gil rubs her shoulder as he returns her gaze. “What are you thinking about? Or should I ask what are you overthinking?”

“It's been a very long time since you called me Maggie May.”

“I called you that at the fire and I'm pretty sure I used it yesterday and the day before.”

“I meant in the grander scheme of time. You stopped calling me Maggie May after the summer we all lived together.”

“This is true. I wish I never had stopped, but it didn't seem right anymore.” He pulls her closer to him. “But now it feels right. Something about us all being together again.” He tilts his head down, trying to catch her eye. “Do you agree?”

She looks up at him, their faces close together. She nods. Her old nickname does feel right. Being in Gil’s arms feels right. She wraps her arm around his waist, and turns her body to face him. 

He pulls her into a hug, wrapping his other arm around her back. They stay still a moment or two. 

Laughter coming from the fire brings them out of the past and back to the present, and their potential audience on the beach.

“We should probably head back,” Gil suggests.

Maggie is reluctant to leave their little bubble. “Can we continue this later?”

“I’d like nothing better.” Gil takes her hand and squeezes, before leading her over to the fire. 

They are greeted with cheers.

“At least this time you caught Maggie before she got too far away,” Quinn says, handing them their plastic cups refilled with Jameson. 

Maggie gives Quinn the stink eye.

Quinn ignores her. “Who wants to play the hut game?” 

Everyone groans.

Gil and Maggie settle on the sand in front of the driftwood log. He has his arm around her shoulders and gently strokes her hair. Turning her knees, she curls into his side. She looks at the faces of the people who know her best, the people she loves. The warmth of the fire and Gil’s soothing touch anchor her to the moment.

* * *

After the group majority manages to talk Quinn out of another one of his party games, they share stories and memories from college as the fire burns down. 

“Remember the time Maggie almost burned down the kitchen trying to make biscuits?” Selah asks.

“The whole house was filled with smoke. It looked like she was trying to make hockey pucks,” Jo adds.

“Where do you think Biscuit got his name? It was a tribute to my inability to make biscuits that summer. Or ever.” 

“True, but we discovered your gift for scones, so I can at least forgive you for the hockey pucks.” Gil tousles her hair.

“It was a great summer. Everything changed after that,” Ben says, innocently. 

“It did change after that summer. Lizzy and Maggie left for study abroad. Leaving us all behind,” Jo says. Grimacing at the implications of her words, Jo frowns and mouths, “Oops, sorry.” 

Maggie sighs.
And here we are.

“Right, Maggie ran away to France and fell in love.” Quinn can’t leave it alone.

“I didn’t run away. My focus was French Literature, Q, you know this.” Maggie bristles. “Plus, Lizzy went to France with me.”

“But Lizzy didn’t fall in love. Or lust as it were,” Selah points out. 

“Ah, the French Incident discussed at last,” Jo says. “Now that we know Maggie and Gil slept together, it all makes sense.”

“It does?” Gil asks. He pulls his arm away from Maggie. 

The cool night air replaces his comforting warmth.

“Sure. You and Maggie were inseparable. She left and you moped for the year. Hence the bet on whether or not you slept with each other,” Jo explains.

“I didn’t mope.” Gil wraps his arms around his bent knees.

“Mope, pine, long, whatever verb you want to use, you did it.” Jo looks at him as she continues, “This was back before sim cards, email, Skype, and Facetime. Once Maggie was in Europe, it really was being on the other side of the world. Then she returned with the Frenchman in tow, and that was that.”

“I’m right here you know,” Maggie huffs. “This is the most awkward way to have this whole conversation. This is something between Gil and me, not the whole class.”

“We all had to suffer, Mags, so it does involve all of us.” Selah gives her and Gil a sympathetic look. 

“Life happens, people move on, things change. We’ve all changed,” Maggie says. “Sometimes we make decisions that can’t be undone and send us down a different path.” She looks at Gil, who meets her gaze. 

“Sometimes everything works out as it should,” Gil says with a mix of hope and regret in his voice. The easy, familiar comfort between them from their talk down at the water fades.

Selah joins the conversation. “We can’t undo the past. Think of all those strange twists and turns which led us to all be together again. If Maggie hadn’t met and married Julien, she might not have discovered her love of food, if those burned biscuits were any indication. Gil might not have his career if Judith hadn’t been such a hard-ass about him finishing his dissertation,” Selah says.

“Who knows what would have happened if we did all take a road trip to Graceland,” Ben says. “Maybe I would have discovered my inner wanderer, and taken to the road to follow the Dead or Phish around the country instead of going to Harvard.”

“If you became a Dead Head, we would’ve broken up for sure. No kids, no big house, nothing.” Jo frowns.

“See?” Selah sounds more positive. “It all happens for a reason. Each choice made us who we are today, for better or worse.”

“I’m going to go with the better option,” Jo agrees.

Maggie is quiet during this conversation, lost in her own thoughts of past choices bringing them to this point.

“I guess I can see your point, Selah,” Maggie agrees. “If my mother didn’t get sick, I never would have moved to the beach. I’d still be toiling away in a one bedroom apartment in New York. This is much better.” She gestures around the bay, then glances at Gil’s profile as he stares the fire. “The company is much better here. I’m very blessed to have you all in my life.” She begins to get emotional again.

Gil turns to look at Maggie, and pulls her to his side.

“We’re all blessed to have you in our lives, too, sweet girl.” He kisses the top of her head. 

Maggie rests her head on Gil’s shoulder again. “Gah, sorry guys.” She wipes a few tears from her cheeks. “Way to pull down the conversation with the emo.”

Gil strokes her hair. “Don’t worry about it. Digging up the past always brings things to the surface.”

Everyone voices their agreement. 

Ben yawns, which causes Quinn to yawn. 

“What time is it? It has to be one o’clock at least,” Jo asks.

“It’s midnight. Are you turning into a pumpkin?” Ben nudges Jo, who yawns.

“I can’t remember the last time I stayed up until midnight.” Jo stretches. “God, I’m old.” She laughs. In her black yoga pants and North Face fleece she looks like a college student, not a forty-something mother of three.

“We’re all old,” Maggie agrees.

“Speak for yourself. You are only as old as you feel,” Selah says, stretching out her legs under her blanket. “Most days I am about twenty-seven.”

“My mother once told me when she was in her early sixties she still felt thirty-four,” Maggie says. “I guess age is relative.”

“It’s easy to forget how old you are until you see someone who’s twenty-one or even thirty, and you realize how young they seem,” Ben says. “New hires look like teenagers to me. They act like ones sometimes.”

“Well, this teenager is going to bed.” Jo gets up and stretches. 

“Let me know if you need anything,” Maggie offers, but doesn’t move from her spot next to Gil. His arm feels good around her.

“I’m going to bed, too. I want to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for Ryan tomorrow morning.” Quinn stands up and then gathers plastic cups and the empty bottle of Jameson.

“Me too.” Ben follows Jo up to the house, carrying some blankets.

“Then there were three,” Selah declares. “You two don’t need a chaperone, so I think I’ll go in and maybe write some smut.” Selah kisses the top of Maggie’s head as she passes by. “Live in the moment,” she whispers to Maggie.

“And then there were two,” Gil says as he sits up to poke the dying fire. “Do we need to stay until it’s out?”

“We can spread out the logs and pour seawater on them when we want to go to bed.”

“I don’t mind hanging out a little longer. It’s such a gorgeous night.” Gil lies down next to Maggie and tilts his head back on the log to look at the stars. 

“Sometimes we can see the Northern Lights here in the winter. They’re amazing.” She follows his lead to keep the conversation neutral. She scoots down so she is lying next to him, her hands clasped on her stomach.

“Must be beautiful. I missed seeing them in Alaska since I went during the summer solstice. Twenty-four hours of sunlight and all that.”

“When did you go to Alaska?” 

“I went with Judith and her parents on a cruise.”

“A cruise doesn’t sound like something you would choose.” Maggie acknowledges to herself she doesn’t know everything about this Gil.

“Not really, no.” Gil laughs, but it’s a dry laugh. “There was a lot about our relationship I wouldn’t have chosen. But Selah is right. It was something I did which lead me to be who I am now. To be with who I am with now.” 

Maggie turns her head to face him. “I’m glad you’re here. Even if it has taken us too long to come back together.” She reaches out and interlaces her fingers with his. They stay that way for a while as the fire dies out and the stars slowly move across the sky. Neither breaks the comfortable silence as no more words are needed.

Eighteen

Maggie wakes up cold, with something hard under her cheek. It takes a moment or two for her to remember she fell asleep on Gil, on the beach. Gazing up at the stars and the thin wisps of wood smoke, she stretches, and glances over at a sleeping Gil. Her movement causes him to stir.

Blinking open his eyes, he scrubs his face with his hands, and looks at her. 

“Hi.” 

“We fell asleep.” She yawns, sitting up.

“Any idea how long we’ve been asleep?” He glances around. “The sky isn’t getting light, so it can’t be that late. Or early.”

“No idea, but the fire is almost completely out.” She yawns again. The embers glow and flicker under the accumulated ashes. 

“Where’s the bucket?” His own yawn echoes hers. “Let’s put this thing out and go to bed.” He slowly stands and grabs the bucket from behind the log where she points.

While he walks down to the water, Maggie gathers a few stray cups and blankets. 

A cloud of steam rises into the air when he tosses the water on the embers, obscuring him for a moment.

After shaking the sand out of the blankets and folding them, she sits on the log and waits for him to get another bucketful of water. Watching the last embers, she is reminded of her conversation earlier with Jo. One small ember could reignite a fire given the right kindling. Her mind drifts to Gil. What they have now is an ember. Fragile and easily extinguished. She frowns at the thought of extinguishing that ember forever.