The Gift (5 page)

“Maybe you’d like singing this song,” Maggie said. “I
think it would suit your voice.

“That might be a good idea,” he replied.

 “I’ve been thinking that maybe we should record some
cover songs. We could make up some cassettes and take them around to clubs to
get gigs. I’m pretty sure we could get some gigs up in Boston, if you’re
interested.”

“I think that’s a great idea, Maggie. Let’s make some
cassettes and then bring them with us to Boston.”

The food was almost ready, so Maggie put the guitar back
in its case and walked over behind Zak. She put her arms around his waist and
hugged him tightly.  He turned around and tilted her chin up and kissed her
soft lips lightly. Her face almost glowed with happiness. Then he turned back
to check the food and announced that it was ready.  They put mounds of hot rice
on their plates and poured the shrimp creole over it. They sat down at the
table and started eating hungrily.

 “This is so good,” Maggie exclaimed. “You’re a great
cook Zak.”

“Thanks, Maggie. I love to cook when I have the time.”

Just then Justin came in the back door. Zak invited him
to help himself, which he did happily. Justin sat down next to Maggie at the
table with his plate.

“One of the advantages of living with Zak, is getting to
eat his food,” he said and smiled at Maggie.

“Maggie and I were just discussing making up some
cassette tapes to take around to the clubs up north,” Zak said. “What do you
think about recording a couple more covers, Justin?”

“I think that sounds like a good idea,” he replied.

So after they finished eating, they went out to the
studio and recorded another two songs. They worked up the “Kind Woman” song
that Maggie had suggested and then Justin suggested the song “Louisiana Lady”
which they all knew from an album by the New Riders of the Purple Sage. They
thought they could present themselves as being a southern band which might seem
exotic to the club owners up north. Justin had a good voice, so he decided to
sing the New Riders song.

After they were done recording, Zak and Justin made up a
cassette with four songs on it, including their previous recordings of “Truck
Stop Girl” and “I Know You Rider”. They made 20 copies and labeled the tapes “Bayou
Blasters”. Zak packed them in a bag with his clothes and then Maggie added in
some of her clothes too. They were trying to travel light since they had to
bring Maggie’s things back from Boston. They went to bed by midnight which was
unusual for them, because they planned to catch an early flight to Boston.

The next morning, Justin got up with them so he could
drive them to the airport in New Orleans. Maggie found herself feeling a little
sad as they drove away from the bungalow. She wasn’t really looking forward to
going back to Boston and she was going to miss her new home.

.

Chapter 6

The flight to Boston went smoothly and Maggie
and Zak held hands all the way. Zak sat next to the window so he could see out
when they got to Boston. He thought the silvery harbor and the city with its
scattered skyscrapers looked beautiful as they made their final descent onto
the runway at Logan Airport. They left the plane and walked over to the baggage
claim, waiting impatiently for their one bag. After it finally arrived, they
walked out of the terminal to the taxi stand and got a cab to the location in South Boston where there was a U-Haul rental place. They picked up the van that Maggie had
reserved over the phone and Zak started driving to the house in Lexington that Maggie had shared with her band.

Maggie felt nervous as they pulled up in front of the
familiar gray Victorian. She had asked that Doug not be around when she arrived
to pick up her things. She didn’t see his car in the driveway so she assumed
that he had honored her request. Zak knew that Maggie was nervous, so he leaned
over and squeezed her hand and kissed her. They got out of the van and walked
to the front door and rang the doorbell.

After a minute or two, Spencer opened the door and let
them into the house. Most of the band was playing pool in the living room,
looking studiously casual. Maggie introduced them all to Zak and they shook his
hand. Then Zak offered to go out to the van and get some boxes so they could
start packing Maggie’s possessions. There was an awkward silence after he left,
but then Spencer came over and kissed Maggie on the cheek.

“I’m sorry that things didn’t work out between you and
Doug,” he said. “But Zak seems like a good guy. We hope that you’ll be happy.”

Maggie was relieved. She liked these guys and didn’t
want to lose their friendship.

“Thanks Spencer, I’m going to miss you. Zak and I are
hoping to come back to Boston soon though.”

Zak brought the boxes in the front door and then he and
Maggie went upstairs to her bedroom to pack. She didn’t really have that much.
There were some books from college, a small tv and table, and her stereo. These
things could go over to her parents’. She packed her clothes, shoes, notebooks
of songs that she was working on, and record albums into six boxes. These
things would be going back with her to Louisiana. She left her dishes and pots
and pans for Doug. She didn’t want to be bothered dividing the kitchen items
that they had bought in common. He could have them. She would buy new dishes if
she needed them. As she finished filling the boxes, Zak carried them out to the
van. Finally, the only items that were left were her instruments. There was the
Harmony mandolin that Spencer had given her, a battered Gibson LG-1 acoustic
guitar and the violin that she had played in high school. Maggie looked around
her room one last time to make sure she hadn’t missed anything and then started
carrying her instruments downstairs. She felt sad, she had spent a couple happy
years here with Doug and her friends. She didn’t know when she would be back,
if ever. Zak noticed that she looked downcast. He put his arms around her and
held her tightly for a moment.

Maggie paused at the living room to say good bye to her
friends.  Her eyes filled with tears as she went around and gave everyone a
hug. She pulled a cassette out of her blue jeans and gave it to Spencer.

 “I thought you might like to hear some of the music
that I’ve been working on with Zak and his band. We’re going to drop off
cassettes at some of the clubs here, so if we get some gigs we’ll be back to
see you.”

Spencer kissed her on the cheek and told her to take
care.  Maggie held the tears back until she and Zak got into the van. Then she
started sobbing with a force that surprised even herself. Zak looked concerned,
but she told him that she would be o.k. She tried to pull herself together
during the half hour ride that it took to get to her parents’ house.

By the time they got to her parents’, Maggie was
composed again. They pulled up in front of the tidy, yellow Colonial where
Maggie had grown up and she thought it seemed smaller than she remembered. She
took a deep breath, leaned over to kiss Zak, and then they got out and walked
up the front steps of her childhood home.

Maggie knocked, and waited for her mother to come open
the door for them. Her mother also seemed smaller than Maggie remembered. Her
honey-colored hair was showing white roots and her blue eyes seemed watery. She
seemed happy to see Maggie and Zak and reached out to hug both of them.

“So you’re the young man who is stealing away my
daughter,” she said.

Zak laughed, but he felt a little embarrassed. Maggie’s
parents had already told her over the phone that they didn’t think that it was
a good idea that they were rushing into living together. They felt that it was
too soon, that she didn’t know enough about him. Maggie told them that she was
in love with Zak and couldn’t bear to be without him. She promised that she
would be back often to visit though

Maggie’s father came out of the den. He was tall with
thinning brown hair and a nose that had become more prominent with age. He
introduced himself to Zak and shook his hand. They made some awkward small
talk, and then Zak excused himself to bring in the boxes that Maggie wanted to
leave at her parents’.  Maggie told him that he could leave them in her old
bedroom at the top of the stairs. She asked her mother what she should do with
the small pieces of furniture, the tv and stereo that she had brought home, and
her mother told her to put them down in the basement.

Zak was relieved to have something to do while Maggie
talked to her parents. When he finished moving Maggie’s things, her parents
invited him into the kitchen for coffee. After they had talked for an hour or
two, Maggie’s mother showed Zak to the guest bedroom on the first floor at the
rear of the house. Maggie would be staying in her old room on the second floor.
Maggie hadn’t even broached the subject of staying in the same room with Zak,
she was pretty sure that it would make her parents uncomfortable. Maggie and
Zak planned to stay for only two nights because it was a long drive back to Louisiana and they had to be back for their gig on Saturday.

Zak carried their suitcase up to Maggie’s room. Maggie
changed into a fresh blouse for dinner while Zak surveyed her room. It looked
the same as it had during high school, her stuffed animals arranged carefully
on her bed, a pennant from her college displayed over the bureau. A poster of
the Grateful Dead hung on the wall opposite her bed. It seemed to Zak that her
room was suspended in time, and he found that poignant. He grabbed Maggie’s arm
and pulled her to him, and kissed her deeply for a long time.

They were interrupted by Maggie’s mother calling them
downstairs for dinner. Reluctantly, they released each other and went down to
the dining room. Maggie’s mother had prepared a simple dinner, clam chowder,
baked scrod, mashed potatoes and carrots. Maggie and Zak were appreciative, but
secretly Zak thought that the food was somewhat bland.  When Maggie’s mother
and father went into the kitchen to wash the dishes, Maggie leaned over and
whispered laughingly in Zak’s ear, “How did you like my mother’s beige meal?”

He said he thought it was delicious, and he thanked
Maggie’s parents when they came back into the dining room with coffee and
Boston cream pie.

“My mother’s specialty is dessert. You should try her
lemon icebox cake and her Swedish Spritz cookies.

Maggie’s mother beamed at her.

“Well, of course the Spritz cookies aren’t my recipe. I
learned it from Maggie’s grandmother who brought the recipe over with her from Sweden.”

“Well, it just doesn’t seem like Christmas unless you
make the Spritz cookies, Mom,” Maggie said.

After they finished dessert, Maggie and Zak cleared the
rest of the dishes, washed and dried them and put them away in the cabinet.
Maggie’s parents had retreated to the den to watch television, so Maggie and
Zak decided to get Maggie’s guitar and mandolin out of the van and do a little
playing in the living room. They shut the sliding pocket doors so they wouldn’t
disturb Maggie’s parents, and then tuned up the instruments.

They had recently been working on some acoustic songs
thinking that the two of them might do a set together. Zak had picked Bob
Dylan’s song “Girl from the North Country” because it reminded him of Maggie.
Maggie had learned a Louvin Brothers song called “If I Could Only Win Your Love”
which she had discovered on the Emmylou Harris album that she had recently
bought. Maggie’s parents could hear them play from the den, and were impressed.
Zak was a fine guitarist and Maggie’s mandolin playing had improved
tremendously over the last few months. They both had clear, strong voices which
harmonized well together. Suddenly, the music stopped and it was quiet in the
living room. Maggie’s parents looked at each other, pretty sure that they knew
what was going on. They turned up the volume on the tv a little so that the
young people could have their privacy.

Maggie and Zak heard her parents finally go upstairs to
bed. Maggie practically dragged Zak into the guest bedroom. They had been
kissing each other for a long time in the living room and Zak had tried to
persuade her to have sex with him right there on the thick rug. But Maggie had
been worried that her parents might come in to say goodnight. She assumed that
they knew that she and Zak were having sex, but didn’t want to present them
with direct proof. So they waited until her parents were safely in bed and then
went to the guest room to make love. Maggie and Zak were young and newly in
love and had trouble going for long without expressing their passion for each
other. Maggie and Zak spent the whole night together, but Maggie went up to her
bedroom early the next morning when she heard her parents stirring. She thought
that her parents would appreciate her preserving their fantasy that she was
still a virgin.

When she heard them preparing breakfast in the kitchen,
she emerged innocently from her room and descended the stairs sleepily. She
poured herself a cup of coffee and another one for Zak, which she took into him
in the guest bedroom. They kissed each other tenderly for a few minutes and
then joined Maggie’s parents in the kitchen.

After some pancakes and eggs, they started to feel
rejuvenated. They were planning on stopping by some clubs in the evening to
drop off some tapes, but in the meantime they thought they would do some
sightseeing. Zak asked Maggie if she would show him the town where she had
grown up, so she borrowed her parents’ car and took him to see her high school,
elementary school, and church.

Then they decided to drive into Boston so Zak could see
the city up close. After a short trip on the turnpike, they parked their car on
a street next to the Boston Public Gardens.  They walked up Beacon Hill and
down to Government Center.  Zak liked the old brick houses and sidewalks on Beacon Hill, especially in contrast with the skyscrapers like the Prudential and John
Hancock buildings which lined Boylston Street in the center of the city. He
liked the intimate size of the city and the feeling of being part of history.
As they were walking back to the car, Maggie showed him the burial ground
called the Granary. Many famous patriots who had fought during the
Revolutionary War were buried there, including one of Maggie’s ancestors. She
told Zak that sometimes she would think about the fact that her ancestor had
walked these same streets 200 years ago. She liked feeling part of a
continuation of things.