Maggie's nightshirt was a white cotton piece with little half moons all over it in yellow. Her breasts, even as she lay there below me on the couch, were so full and breathtaking. I took my teeth and raised her nightshirt up past her slender legs and white panties, until I could see her bra-less beauty, her nipples getting larger and more awake before my eyes. As I brought my mouth down to take one into my lips, the door opened and in walked Harold.
"You fucking whore. I thought we made a deal not to do shit like this unless I was here?" Harold said as Maggie flew up, and hurridly brought her nightshirt back down, stretching it past her knees.
"Maggie, can I talk to Harold a minute alone?" I said calmly, and Maggie ran to their bedroom and shut the door.
"I mean it, Capri, no one-on-one stuff," Harold demanded.
"Well, I was willing to do that, Harry, your way, but since you tried to fuck me while Maggie was at work, I thought the rules had changed. It should go both ways, outta fairness to Maggie. And me."
Harold glared at me. "You haven't told her, have you?"
I stared at him, contemplating pausing a long while to torment the creep my friend had ended up with, using his own fears of losing Maggie. "No. I have not told her. And, I won't, and I wasn't going to fuck Maggie, I was going to do the same thing you had tried to do to me. I was just going to *try to*, but not do it. I would have said the same thing I said to you. We should not do this, because the deal is, all three of us or nothing. Right? Your rules, right?"
Harold looked like he was going to punch me in the face. "You don't like me, do you," he said and his face got redder than hell and he looked dangerous.
"No, I don't, Harold. But, Maggie does. And I just wanted to stay in the spare bedroom and pay you two rent. You slipped in the sex shit and because I had been with Maggie before, I didn't mind the setup. But you went behind my friend's back and tried to fuck me that afternoon, and I don't think that's honest or fair. Not to Maggie, not to me."
"Fuck you, you god damn whore," Harold said in a very evil, quiet voice. "I want you out of here by tonight."
"Ok. No problem," I said and went to my bedroom.
As I began emptying the drawers of my clothes, placing them in the duffle bags I'd come with, I felt no sadness, no anger. I felt a pleading... a pleading for better times, calmer life, and not just for me.
I knew life sometimes had these kind of moments, I knew these moments well, and I knew that I would get through this one as it was not the most impossible situation I'd been in. In fact, it was quite tame in comparison to a thousand other moments.
Tote bags and plastic personal item holders, an old gray backpack, and poetry. I found myself putting my face to the pads of paper, to sheets of unlined white, to smell the pen and ink and old trees. I breathed in that smell deep, and let it promise me the things I knew I could attain, and even the ones I doubted. The peace washed over me, the words I'd written through the years, some pages so old and worn, the edges felt more like cotton sheets than paper.
I sat on the bed with most everything packed; it never took long to get ready to leave, from anywhere. I held the pen in my mouth and ran my hand over the blank notebook page. I heard something smash out in the kitchen, and then I heard Harold cuss, just the word 'FUCK' and then I heard a door open and shut, loudly, and seconds later, another door open, quietly.
I heard Maggie gathering the pieces of a broken glass or plate with a broom. I wanted to walk out there and tell her not to pick up after him, not to clean his world for him, because he was not a good man, and his lies would eventually catch up with him, and Maggie...
...and you can't sweep up lies and dump them in garbage cans, bag them up and put them at the side of the road, like it never happened. You shouldn't, Maggie, you shouldn't be with someone like this when you are so trusting and kind. You should be with a man who would love you enough to not break your dishes and your heart.
But I knew saying these things to Maggie would only confuse her already mixed up mind on matters of Harold. And I knew if I told her these things, she would leave him, and blame it on me on days she was alone, nights she could not fall asleep. She'd have to make her own choices, based on things she already did know about Harold, and not on those she did not. She'd have to be strong through her own being, and not through mine, or leaving Harold would just lead to another Harold.
So, I just wrote my promises to her, my hopes for her, my goodbyes to her, on the paper. In poetry that to this day I can not read with my eyes without feeling my heart burn for Maggie. I knew Maggie had such strength, such wonder and a fierce sense of herself... she would one day figure out her life and her own needs, and I would be there if at that moment in her life she found me again.
I put the notebook in the backpack and went out to get the phone to make some calls to find a place to stay. Maggie sat at the kitchen table, her hands stretched out, her head tilted left, the eye on the side of her face just looking at the fish tank. Bubbles from the filter pooling around the tip of a fake plant, fish swimming by casually, merrily bumping into each other for fish-kisses. I took the phone and brought the long cord into the bedroom with me, closing the door.
As I started to dial my friend Kevin's number, Maggie walked into the room softly. I hung the phone up and looked at her. "Don't go," she said.
"Maggie, I'm not leaving town, I'll be around, we can go out to eat next week, meet for tea at the doughnut shop, after Harold cools down," I replied.
"I need you here, Capri. I can't stay in this without you here," Maggie said, her hands going to her mouth either to stop the words, or to help pull the words out all the way.
"Maggie, you've got to make those choices without me. You can't make me responsible for such big choices. Take time to figure it all out, for you, not because of me," I said.
Posted by nft at May 25, 2004 08:49 AM