“So I can call you, dummy.” He tries to kiss me again, but I turn my head.
I’m feeling a little woozy, and the beer hits me full force when I lie down. I ask myself if I would have given George my number if I weren’t so drunk. I probably wouldn’t have let him kiss me either. But surely Sebastian will call now. Guys always call as soon as another man is interested. They’re like dogs: They never notice if you’ve changed your hair, but they can sense when there’s another guy sniffing around their territory.
We’re back in Castlebury by mid-afternoon on Sunday, but my theory proves wrong. Sebastian hasn’t called. Maggie, on the other hand, has. Several times. I’m about to call her when she calls me. “What are you doing? Can you come over?”
“I just got back,” I say, suddenly deflated.
“Something happened. Something big. I can’t explain it on the phone. I have to tell you in person.” Maggie sounds very dire and I wonder if her parents are getting divorced.
Maggie’s mother, Anita, opens the door. Anita looks stressed, but you can tell that a long time ago she was probably pretty. Anita is really, really nice—too nice, in fact. She’s so nice that I always get the feeling the niceness has swallowed up the real Anita, and someday she’s going to do something drastic, like burn down the house.
“Oh, Carrie,” Anita says. “I’m so glad you’re here. Maggie won’t come out of her room and she won’t tell me what’s wrong. Maybe you can get her to come downstairs. I’d be so grateful.”
“I’ll take care of it, Mrs. Stevenson,” I say reassuringly. Hiding in her room is something Maggie’s been doing for as long as I’ve known her. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to talk her out.
Maggie’s room is enormous with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides and a closet the length of one wall. Nearly everyone in town is familiar with the Stevenson house, because it was designed by a famous contemporary architect and is mostly comprised of glass. The inside of the house is pretty sparse, though, because Maggie’s father can’t abide clutter. I crack open the door to Maggie’s room as Anita stands anxiously to the side. “Magwitch?”
Maggie is lying in her bed, wearing a white cotton nightgown. She rises from beneath the covers like a ghost, albeit a rather churlish one. “Anita!” she scolds. “I told you to leave me alone.” The expression on Anita’s face is startled, guilty, and helpless, which is pretty much her usual demeanor around Maggie. She scurries away as I go in.
“Mags?” I caution. “Are you okay?”
Maggie sits cross-legged on the bed and puts her head in her hands. “I don’t know. I did something terrible.”
“What?”
“I don’t know how to tell you.”
I can tell, however, that I’m going to have to wait for this terrible revelation, so I sit on the padded stool-y thing Maggie uses as a chair. According to her father, it’s a Swedish-designed ergonomically correct sitting contraption that prevents backaches. It’s also sort of bouncy, so I bob up and down a bit. But then I’m suddenly tired of everyone else’s problems.
“Listen, Mags,” I say firmly. “I don’t have much time. I have to pick up Dorrit at the Hamburger Shack.” This is true, sort of. I probably will have to pick her up eventually.
“But Walt will be there!” she cries out.
“So?” Walt’s parents insist that Walt have an after-school job to make money for college, but the only job Walt’s ever had is working at the Hamburger Shack for four dollars an hour. And it’s only part-time, so it’s hard to see how Walt will be able to save enough money for even one semester.
“That means you’ll see him,” Maggie gasps.
“And?”
“Are you going to tell him you saw me?”
This is becoming more and more irritating. “I don’t know. Should I tell him I saw you?”
“No!” she exclaims. “I’ve been avoiding him all weekend. I told him I was going to see my sister in Philadelphia.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you get it?” She sighs dramatically. “Peter.”
“Peter?” I repeat, slightly appalled.
“I had sex with him.”
“What?” My legs are all tangled up in the Swedish sitting device and I bounce so hard the whole thing falls over, taking me with it.
“Shhhhh!” Maggie says.
“I don’t get it,” I say, trying to detach myself from the stool. “You had sex with Peter?”