The Meaning of Maggie (7 page)

Dad stared. “What is this?”

“It's my Law of Mom book. I wrote down every single one of her rules.”

He was speechless as he paged through page after page of rule after rule, which I expected since sometimes
I even blew my own mind. I pointed out one of my favorites: “No peanut butter knife in the jelly jar.” Honestly, it's just common courtesy.

“Does your mother know about this?” he said at last.

“Oh yeah, she helped me write it just before she went to work.”

Dad nodded. “Of course she did.”

The next day I knew something was wrong on my walk home from the bus stop. At first, I thought I'd forgotten something at school. So I stopped mid-driveway and went through my book bag, which was packed to the brim since we were now on Thanksgiving break and I wanted to keep up with my studies between slices of pie. Math notebook? Check. English notebook? Check. History paper with a big red A on it? Check. French dictionary? Check in French. Personal copy of
The Secret Garden
with my personal notes? Check. School copy of
The Secret Garden
with my school notes? Check. Empty bag of candy corn? Check. Nothing was missing. Nothing was out of order. And there was a rogue candy corn at the bottom of my bag, so that was good.

But I still had that sick-to-my-stomach feeling. That's when I got worried that something had happened to Dad. What if he'd fallen again? I picked up my pace to a fast walk and swung open the front door. But it wasn't Dad who was in trouble. It was Tiffany.

Picture it. Tiffany Mayfield, who's already a web of long arms and long legs, tangled with another set of long arms and long legs belonging to a boy. A BOY! On the couch. ON THE COUCH!

Before secretly reading an uncomfortable essay in Layla's
Seventeen
magazine a month before, I would've thought this was s-e-x on the c-o-u-c-h. But now I knew that it wasn't. They were just wrapped in a sleep hug. But it was still bad, bad, bad. And there next to the couch was our dad and he was mad, mad, mad.

Dad was red-faced and yelling at Tiffany and the boy to GET UP. But they didn't budge because popular teenagers sleep in a near comatose state because their brains are filled with nothing. Tiffany was probably dreaming about dance team nothingness and the boy was probably dreaming about football nothingness and it is hard to yell teenagers out of this deep nothing sleep.

So I shook them. I yanked Tiffany's arm. “Tiffany, WAKE UP! WAKE UP!”

Tiffany yawned. “What?”

The boy pulled her tighter and now Dad was even more furious. If there was ever a time for a miracle to wake his legs up, IT WAS RIGHT NOW.

Dad screamed, “GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!” This time the boy heard him and he jumped up, ran out the door, and peeled out of the driveway.

Tiffany picked up the blankets and sauntered down the hall. “God Dad, calm down. We were just sleeping.”

“Come back here, young lady!”

Tiffany kept walking.

Uh-oh.

“I'm serious, Tiffany!”

She went into our room and slammed the door.

Oh no, she didn't.

OH YES. SHE. DID.

I didn't think Dad was freaking out enough, so I unlocked his wheels and pushed him down the hall. “You can't let her get away with this, Dad!”

He waved my hand away from his chair. “Stop it, Maggie.”

“Mom would go after her!”

He held his wheels. “Mom's not here. Now push me back to the living room.”

“But Dad . . .”

“NOW, Maggie.”

I wheeled him back and for a long time, we sat in silence. I didn't get it. Why weren't we yelling? Why weren't we handing out serious punishment? Why weren't we calling Mom?

“What are we doing, Dad?”

He kept a steely focus on the hallway. “We're fighting a war of attrition.”

Cool! We were wearing down the enemy by trapping her in a room with no phone, no food, no access to the
outside world. Man, Dad was so smart. He knew that eventually, even a fox has to come out of its hole. To arm our defense even further, Dad showed me the ransom he was holding in his chair: Tiffany's makeup bag. Ha. Amazing. She wasn't going anywhere. Tiffany hadn't left the house without makeup since birth.

After an hour passed I had my doubts, but on hour two, his plan worked. The door creaked open, and quiet long-legged footsteps tiptoed down the hall. When Tiffany turned the corner, she found Dad and me with our arms crossed, waiting for her.

Dad spoke first. “Well hello, Tiffany.”

I echoed him like a corporal to a captain. “Well hello, Tiffany.”

“Okay, Maggie. You can go to your room now.”

“No way, Dad. We're in this together.”

“Go. Now.”

Fine. FINE. I walked to my room and pretended to shut the door. When the coast was clear, I snuck back and hid behind the couch. No way was I going to miss this. This was going to be good and I needed to hear every detail. It wasn't every day that Law of Mom rule forty-five
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was broken.

“I don't know what the big deal is, Dad,” Tiffany huffed. “We were just sleeping.” What an idiot defense.

Dad let out a deep breath. “There's no way you're spooning
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with boys on my couch under my roof.” Well played, Dad. Well. Played.

“It's not fair. Layla's boyfriend is over all the time and you never yell at her. She's your favorite!”

Amazing. Not only was this a good argument, it was totally true. In Dad's eyes, Layla could do no wrong. When Layla came home from spring break with blond hair, Mom freaked but Dad just sighed, “Well, blondes do have more fun.” When Layla failed geometry, it was the teacher's fault. When Layla needed money, he always opened his wallet. But when Tiffany wanted money he always asked, “What for?” And when I wanted money, he always said, “No more candy, Maggie.” Layla was the favorite and we all knew it.

“This isn't about Layla. It's about you.”

Tiffany burst into tears. I almost felt bad for her. I put myself in her shoes.
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I thought about Clyde and me on that couch. Hugging our guts out while watching a documentary about whales because we're thoughtful and adorable. I thought about our mansion and our Porsche and the 2.5 kids we would have according to the last
game of MASH I played. And then I had a mini panic attack and reminded myself, “Career first, Maggie. Love second.”

Dad wheeled over to Tiffany and tried to console her. “I'm just worried about you, honey. I see so much of myself in you, which is good because I'm really cool, but bad because I've done some really uncool things. I don't want you to make the same mistakes I made.”

Whoa, that was heavy and Dad never got heavy. Where had it come from? I racked my brain. Was it a Dylan lyric? Maybe an early Springsteen rarity? I couldn't come up with anything. I decided it must have been a Dad original.

Tiffany was too Tiffany to understand what he meant so she unleashed the line she'd fed Mom many times before. “I just want you to love me for me, Dad.”

Dad wasn't buying it. “You can't use that on me. I invented that in, like, 1968.”

Tiffany sobbed some more and I think Dad was getting sick of it because he changed the subject entirely. “Did I ever tell you about Patty Applegate?”

“N-n-n-n-no.”

Dad time traveled and this time he went back to when he was Tiffany's age. Apparently, Patty Applegate was the head cheerleader when Dad was on the football team. It was the beginning of his senior year and he had a real shot at quarterback. But then he started seeing Patty
and got distracted and by the first game, he'd missed too many practices to even be considered for quarterback. And the worst part? Patty dumped him a week later for the kid who did make quarterback.

“And that guy wasn't even half as good looking as me,” Dad said. I wasn't really sure what kind of lesson he was trying to teach here but Tiffany seemed to get it. And Tiffany doesn't get anything. She can barely work the hair dryer.

Tiffany promised no more boys in the house and Dad promised no more embarrassing freak-outs.

“Okay, Maggie. You can come out now.”

Busted. I tried to cover my tracks. “Oh hey. I lost a pen. Thought it might be under here.”

Tiffany gave me the evil eye. “Oh, really. Did you find it?”

“No, I didn't. But I did find a boy back here. Is he yours?”

Tiffany looked like she might murder me.

Dad held up his hand. “That's enough, Maggie.”

Just as Tiffany and I were about to get into it BIG TIME, headlights flashed across the wall. Yes! Mom was home! I headed for the door, but Dad cut me off.

“I'll tell her what happened, Maggie. Why don't you just go start on your homework?”

“I don't have any homework. I did it all on the bus. Can't I greet my hard-working mother at the door because I love her?”

“No.”

He was on to me. So I sidestepped his chair.

“AND I need to tell Mom something really importa—”

He stopped me again. “I'll get the door. You go do something else. Something useful.” Whatever.

I waited for Dad to open the door but when he did, Mom wasn't even there. It was Layla! And she was mid-lip-lock with her boyfriend, Bobby. Ha! Amazing!

Layla finally came up for air. “Oh hi, Daddy. I was just coming in.”

Bobby wiped Layla's lip gloss off his mouth. “Hi, Mr. Mayfield. It sure is good to see you aga—”

Dad yanked Layla inside and slammed the door.

Layla lost it. “Daddy! What are you doing?”

“Go to your room! Everyone go to their rooms!”

Tiffany refused to go to our room if I was in there and Layla had to get something out of Bobby's truck and I desperately needed a juice box. Everyone was screaming when Mom opened the door.

“Hello? I'm home! What's going on in here?”

Dad yelled, “Everyone stop!” And then he made Mom push him into the garage.
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I imagined what happened next was Dad filling Mom in on what terrible people Tiffany and Layla were turning out to be. And he probably told her I was the only daughter with any common sense and they should send me to a really fancy college
because I never ever disappointed them. But when Mom wheeled Dad back in, I got sent to my room and this time I actually went because Mom walked me there. Where was the trust?

Layla and Tiffany stayed in the living room and I heard a lot of mumbling followed by what I assumed was “Yes ma'am” and “Yes sir.” When Mom opened my door, she almost knocked me and my ear out.

“Okay, Maggie. It's your turn.”

Wait, was I getting in trouble?

I sulked into the living room and sat on the couch with my back turned away from the enemies who said they were my parents. I mean how could I know for sure if they were my real parents? I didn't have any concrete proof they weren't Russian spies. So what if they couldn't speak Russian. Maybe they were THAT good.

Mom made me turn around. “Maggie, we know that you have a lot of opinions. But when it comes to parenting, you have to leave it to me and your dad.”

“I didn't do ANYTHING.”

Dad shook his head. “Listen, Mags. You have to trust that I'm doing the right thing. You chiming in only makes matters worse.”

Trust him! You had to be kidding me. I liked the guy, sure, but trusting him was questionable. He'd tricked me too many times. Like my first bike ride without training wheels. He SWORE he was right behind me and he wouldn't let go of the seat. And sure, I should've
questioned how a guy with a cane was running. But still, he said that he was and I believed him. And then I fell and I cried and he said he was sorry but sorry didn't cut the ketchup.
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So let's just say his track record with trust was spotty at best.

I wanted out of the living room so I promised to mind my own beeswax. But my fingers were crossed in my mind, so the promise didn't count.

We all went to bed kind of angry, even Layla, and she usually smiled so much it was annoying. But when I went to brush my teeth, she closed the bathroom door in my face. And she was never mad at me, mostly because she barely knew I was alive.

I crawled into bed, closed my eyes, and couldn't stop thinking about how my sisters just didn't get it. Boys were stupid. Well, all boys except for Clyde. And then I couldn't stop thinking about the good old days when Mom was always around. She maintained a certain level of order that I not only followed to a T, but respected to a T too. And so did Layla and Tiffany. Sure, getting to know Dad more was great and all but I always figured I would get to know him eventually. Like when he moved into the White House when I was president and I put him in charge of the rock 'n' roll archives at the Smithsonian.

I just wanted to go back. Back to how it used to be.

The next morning, Mom woke me up extra early to go get the last-minute staples for our Thanksgiving feast. We had to beat the crowd to the store and I was happy to spend some quality time with her. Plus, someone had to make sure we got extra jumbo marshmallows for the sweet potatoes and not just the regular jumbo kind. I got a cart and Mom navigated the store fearlessly. She's the Magellan
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of grocery stores. We found everything we needed in less than ten minutes, checked out, and loaded the overflowing bags into the back of the car.

When my seat belt was buckled, I decided it was safe to get something really important off my chest. “So what's up with you and Dad?”

Mom looked overwhelmed. I could tell she was running through a number of possibilities in her mind but finally she just asked, “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why did you guys totally freak yesterday?”

“What are you talking about?”

I opened the marshmallow bag, put one in my mouth, and mumbled, “Evewyone has wost it. Waywa and Tiffany have wost it too.”