The Meaning of Maggie (3 page)

1. A TATTOO.
   
2. EXCLAMATION POINT.
   
3. EXCLAMATION POINT.
   
4. EXCLAMATION POINT.
   

Evidently, once she solved all of the magical mysteries, she found her way back below the Mason-Dixon and met Dad. He asked her to be his girl forever and they got married and it was all happily ever after. But then the fun pictures ended as the '80s began and I guess that made sense because that's when Dad's arms and legs started falling asleep.

Mom and Dad didn't say so in the family meeting, but I knew the real reason he left work was because his legs just wouldn't wake all the way back up. I had overheard them talking about it one night while I'd been following a lead on a piece of cheesecake. I'd heard Dad's voice dive into a whisper. “It's only a matter of time before my legs are gone for good.”

I couldn't believe it! Dad's legs were permanently falling asleep?! I'd panicked in secret while quietly opening the fridge door. And then, just when I'd needed it most, I'd discovered something else terrible. Someone had eaten all the cheesecake.

But all of that was a million miles away from our living room as Dad's spirits flowed and lifted. He seemed so happy as he relived his wayward youth, story by story. I tried to relate, but I just couldn't.

“I can't believe you all had so much fun being young. I just want to be old. I want to be old and rich and smell like butterscotch.”

You would have thought I'd said something super awful. Like that I hated Led Zeppelin. Or worse, that I was a Republican. Dad unfolded his feet, let down his legs, and pulled my face to his.

“Can't you see how you have the whole world in front of you, Maggie?”

First of all, that's not even possible because just as much of the world is in front of me as is behind me because that's just how geography works.

He could tell I was skeptical. “There's a lot of ‘what ifs' in life, Mags. You owe it to yourself to see what's out there. You know every president takes a different path.”

I considered it. What if one day I hitchhiked across the country? Nope. Too many ax murderers. What if one day I took a plane out west? Maybe. I did like to fly because when you fly you get to chew gum even though it rots your teeth. What if my Magic Markers made protest posters? I did have a lot to protest, both related to Tiffany and unrelated to Tiffany. What if I had friends with dreams and VW buses? Sure, that sounded cooler than friends with regular buses. What if one day I grew my hair so long every strand told a different story? That sounded really cool. Although too bad my face was so round. I could never have long hair. At least that's what Tiffany said.

I was really starting to get confused. That morning I'd known exactly what I wanted. I wanted to be president and I wanted to be rich, not necessarily in that order. But now Dad was making it seem like there was more to life than all of that, WHICH WAS NEWS TO ME.

I'd always thought that all the answers to life's questions were in books. I'd thought knowing where the sidewalk ended and where the red fern grew and where the wild things were could help me figure out LIFE. But maybe Dad was right. What if I needed to write my own story? I closed my eyes and the weight
of the world settled on my eyelids. And when I opened them, I realized my legs were also crossed like a pretzel.

My head was going to explode. Plus, I was up way past my school night/summer vacation bedtime.

“I can't deal with all this possibility at once. So I will bid you farewell, family.” I tipped my pretend cap toward Dad. “Until tomorrow, good sir.”

I headed down the hall for some well-earned rest when Mom called after me, “What about your cake?”

I turned around. She was holding the chocolate-on-chocolate cake I'd begged for with eleven yellow candles burning just for me. As much as I wanted to retire for the evening, it was my civic duty to make a wish. And while there wasn't any scientific evidence, I believed with all my heart that the world progressed one wish at a time. That's why while my family sang “Happy Birthday,” I thought long and hard about what I wanted most in the whole wide world. And the list was long.

Should I wish newsman Hank would call me the next day and ask for a front-page interview? Should I wish for my own room like I had every single year before? Should I wish Dad's legs would wake up again? Or was that wish too big for just eleven candles? Would I have to wait for that one until I was older, when I had more wish power?

There were too many wishes to consider. So I took a deep breath and wished for the wish that jumped fastest to the front of my mind.

I wished school was all year 'round!

And even though my dream didn't come true, September arrived and before I knew it, the first bell of the school year rang. The first bell of the school year was probably my favorite sound ever. And this first bell was even more special because I was in a whole new school in a whole new grade with whole new kids. It was a new beginning, a blank slate, a manifest destiny. My heart raced and not just because I was running late because my locker was jammed with encyclopedias D through F, which I had brought with me JUST IN CASE. My heart raced because I was totally enveloped in the thrilling pursuit of KNOWLEDGE.

Middle school was super fancy compared to elementary school especially since they'd done away with that waste of learning time called recess. Which was why
sixth grade was definitely going to be my most knowledgeable grade yet.

My first class of the day was English which would be a breeze because I'd already read most of the required reading over the summer. Reading the books a second time would be just for pleasure.

Second-period Advanced History got my blood pumping as Mrs. Nicol assigned an eight-page paper due at the end of the semester, which was going to be my greatest paper writing feat yet. And I already knew what my subject was going to be: the first woman Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O'Connor. I loved Sandra Day O'Connor mostly because she was super smart and partly because she wore a robe all the time and that seemed both regal and comfy.

In third-period Advanced Science, we picked out our goggles for the year and I chose a pair with an extra-long strap to accommodate my brain getting bigger and bigger. Fourth-period Advanced Math was all about percentages and I 100% loved it. And lunch was the best ever because I got a whole table all to myself so I spread out my notebooks and went to town on a stack of syllabi. By the time I finished my PB&J, zebra cakes, and fruit snacks, I'd also finished writing down every important due date in my datebook and highlighting them in their correlating subject colors.

French was
très magnifique
. We picked our French
names for the year and I chose Marie after Marie Antoinette because she let people eat cake. And study hall was productive and perfect. I sharpened all my pencils and assigned all my notebook dividers and OH MY GOODNESS WHO IS THAT.

The most beautiful boy I'd ever seen sat down in front of me. Or maybe he wasn't beautiful but he was definitely cute. You know, cute for a boy who wasn't a dignitary or royalty or something.

My palms started to sweat, which usually only happened during Quiz Bowl lightning rounds. I wasn't really sure what was happening. But I liked it and hated it in equal parts.

I peered over his shoulder and saw the name Clyde scribbled on his notebook. I didn't know this kid. Sure, I didn't know a lot of kids on the first day of middle school. But it didn't seem like he was from another elementary school. It seemed like he was from another planet. Another galaxy. Another universe. Maybe he was an alien? Impossible. Aliens weren't that good looking.

I locked eyes with his feet and tried not to stare even though my eyeballs really wanted to. He wore black-and-white Converse sneakers filthy with grass stains and in black marker he'd written “Neil Young” on the bottom of his right sole. Weird. His mismatched socks led to skinny legs that led to cutoff corduroy shorts that led to a skeleton T-shirt that led to his hazel eyes looking right at me. Oh dear.

He leaned in. “Hey, do you know today's date?”

I fumbled a couple “ums” and then Idiot
¹³
Oswald said something that ruined my life.

“Hey Maggie. You better answer him because that's the only time you'll ever get asked for a date.”

The class snickered and I died. Seriously, if someone were writing a book about me, my last words on earth would've been “September sixth, 1988.”

I shrank into my seat but Clyde defended my honor—my honor!—which no one had ever defended before.

“Hey, I wasn't talking to you.” He smiled RIGHT AT ME. “I was talking to Maggie.”

HOW DID HE KNOW MY NAME? I died again. Seriously, I died twice in one day.

After school I ran home from the bus stop as fast as I could which wasn't very fast because my book bag weighed as much as a baby rhinoceros. The wheels in my head were moving way faster than my feet. Why did Jeff Oswald have to ruin the most perfect of perfect days? Why didn't Jeff Oswald's mother swallow him at birth? Why did the cute boy ask me for the date when he could have asked anyone? And why did looking at him make me want to lose my lunch when I love lunch more than anything?

Could it be? Was I in love with Clyde? Did I even have time for love? I just had so many other things going on
like school and homework and I had big plans to start a Model UN club and so far I was the only member so I had to represent every country at the same time. Of course I didn't have time for love! I mean, what did love even feel like? Sure my pulse was all over the place but that seemed normal for the first day of school. And my palms did sweat when I saw him but maybe that was because my hands were super excited for my new school year pencils. I didn't know if I felt like I was in love. Yet I didn't have any scientific evidence to the contrary. What was I going to do?

I thought about all the great love stories throughout history. Romeo and Juliet. Peanut butter and jelly. Mom and Dad. All of them fell in love when they were young just like me. My parents met when they were sixteen, which was only five years older than me and I was a mature eleven too. I took vitamins and read the paper and I owned stock.

Maybe it was time for me to take a gentleman friend. But I had a lot of work ahead if I was going to make this happen. There was no way a cool kid like Clyde would like a girl like me. Sure, you could call me a lot of things: Gifted. Presidential. Genius. But I was far from cool. To be honest, being cool had never really interested me. But now, I needed to get cool FAST. And there was only one person I knew who could make me cool: Dad.

Dad and I had only talked about boys once before when he said something about birds and bees and then
he told me it was just natural and I asked what was just natural and he said s-e-x and I'd freaked out, run to my room, slammed the door, and watched PBS for three hours just so I could feel wholesome again. Hopefully, the conversation about Clyde would go better.

So just as the five o'clock news ended and just before the six o'clock news began, I walked into the living room, cleared my throat, and swallowed my fear.

“Dad?”

He answered without looking away from the TV. “You can't have any money.”

“I don't want any money.” I took an Oreo from the stash next to him, twisted it open, and gave him half. It was the cream side too—our favorite.

“The cream side? This must be serious. What's going on, Mags?”

I confessed how I thought I
might
be in love with this new boy named Clyde who looked like an Outsider, cute like Ponyboy, but mysterious like Sodapop. Who scribbled pictures of guitars and airplanes in his notebook and on his tennis shoes. Oh and he was really into Neil Young, just like Dad. Or at least into Neil Young enough that he would write his name on his shoe. Why would he do that? Mom would kill me if I wrote on my shoes.

Dad interrupted. “Whoa whoa whoa. Maggie, you're breaking my heart—”

He understood!

“I know! I can't believe it either. I'm in love!”

“I can't believe you don't understand why he's into Neil Young.”

WHAT!

“Dad! You're totally missing the point!”

“Calm down, I get it. But first things first. Push me over to my records.”

I locked his wheels in front of the stereo and handed him a giant stack of records. He thumbed past a naked lady holding an airplane, past a blimp on fire, past a “Greetings from Asbury Park” postcard, and finally stopped on a sun behind the words
Harvest Neil Young
. His fingers were sleepy, so I pulled the record from the sleeve, set it on the turntable, and lowered the needle. There was a loud crackle, a pop, and a few more rice krispy noises. Then an acoustic guitar met a harmonica and made music.

As we listened, I felt my heart rate lowering and before I knew it my head was bobbing with Dad's. That night, I understood Neil Young. I understood why he was on the bottom of Clyde's sole. And I'll never forget when he sang softly about being a miner searching for a heart of gold.

On the third song, Dad turned Neil down and lifted my chin up. “Okay, Maggie. Number one. Keep that chin up. Boys like confidence. They don't know they do, but trust me, they do.”

I understood. Sort of.

“Love can make you do crazy things.” Dad smiled. “And I should know. I did a lot of crazy things for your mom.”

He started time traveling. “On our first date, I showed up walking on my hands. I just knew it would blow her away. But I never thought her dad would answer the door. But he did and when it creaked open, all I saw were old man loafers.”

He'd toppled over and Grandpa didn't look pleased and Dad was all kinds of embarrassed and his heart was in his throat and he couldn't believe he'd thought walking on his hands was a good idea. He had just needed to be more confident.