Yipping and barking, he spins in circles. I can see right away he’s less the guard-dog type and more the never-met-a-stranger type. If a burglar broke into Maggie’s place, this guy would undoubtedly lick the would-be thief’s hand and promptly show him to the treat drawer.
“Quiet, Yard,” Maggie scolds, reaching to scratch the dog’s ears until he’s smiling one of those ridiculous canine smiles, long pink tongue lolling, big brown eyes adoring.
“Yard?” Cash asks, and I can tell by the huskiness of his voice that he’s still reeling from that hug.
Can’t say that I blame him. I’m reeling too. But thanks to practice, I’m better at keeping it to myself.
“She named him Yard on account of his three feet.” I motion with my chin toward the dog.
Maggie touches her nose then points at me.
We were always copacetic. I used to think I knew what was in her head before she did.
Cash lets loose with a big belly laugh. The kind I haven’t heard since before the bombing.
Taking a covert peek at the scar above his temple, I curse our commander for scheduling a meeting with me that day. I can’t rightly say whether my being beside Cash would’ve made a difference. I don’t know if I could’ve stopped him from getting hurt. But Idoknow that we’re always better together. A team of two. The dynamic duo.
“Come sit down.” Maggie leads us through her kitchen and bedroom.
I try not to stare at the queen-size bed. If I do, I’ll imagine her there, and since she’s likely to become my best friend’s girl again, that’s about fifty shades of shitty.
Her apartment is three large rooms. The door from the gallery opens to her kitchen/dining room. That leads directly to her bedroom, and her bedroom leads directly to her living room. The three spaces are separated by massive doors that reach to the towering ceilings of the old building. They fold back accordion-style so she’s able to open up the entire place or close it off one section at a time. Right now, the doors are open.
Taking a seat on one of the two sofas she’s arranged in an L, I’m struck by how muchMaggieis in the place. Like her, it’s warm and comfortable. The walls are painted a muted yellow, and the dark, wide-planked wood floors are glossed to a high shine. Colorful artwork (no doubt from local artists) covers the walls, and a dozen turquoise candles of every shape and size burn lazily in the fireplace. Along with the light from a few lamps, they cast the room in a cheery glow.
I laugh when a tabby cat with big golden eyes rides by on a Roomba.
“That’s Leonard.” Maggie’s perched on the edge of a wingback chair covered in seafoam velvet. “He’s a character.”
She’s doing a bang-up job of hiding how much our arrival has affected her. But when she fiddles with the chain around her neck, I know she’s not as calm and collected as she’s pretending to be. (ItoldCash we should call first. Give her a heads-up and time to prepare.) Then she pulls the heart-shaped locket from beneath the collar of her black T-shirt and my thoughts screech to a halt.
She kept it.
My throat is as dry as a desert wind, but damned if my eyes aren’t the opposite. Does this mean she’s forgiven me for going after Cash and leaving her all alone? Or does my desertion pale so much in comparison to his that she doesn’t think there’s anything to forgive?
I glance out the window at the elderly couple sitting on the terrace across the way. Even in the twilight, I can see they’re content. More than content.Happy.
I envy them and wonder if that’ll ever be me.
“Well,” Maggie says as Yard does two quick circles before curling up on the rug beside her feet, “where do we start?”
I look to Cash. He’s sitting on the other end of the sofa. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“I mean, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of either of you in ten years, and now here you are. So where do we start? With you telling me what you’ve been up to since joining the army? With you explaining why you changed your phone number and why you never saw fit to answer any of the dozens of emails I sent you?”
“I answered your email,” I’m quick to interject.
She frowns at me. “Writing once to tell me it was better for us to leave the past in the past and get on with life wasn’t much of an answer.”
Since I have no argument for that, I stare down at my work boots. I could tell her that a day hasn’t gone by when I haven’t thought of her, when I haven’t picked up the phone to call her or opened my email to send her a message. But what would be the point?
I did what I did because I thought it wasright. Because I thought it would help keep her safe and let her move on. It’s taken seeing her again to realize I might’ve been wrong.
“I changed my number and my email address,” Cash says matter-of-factly, “so Rick couldn’t get in touch with me. You know I couldn’t wait to get out from under his thumb. When I saw my chance, I took it.”
“And your chance just happened to be onpromnight?” Incredulity wallpapers her face.
When someone meets Maggie for the first time, they might mistake her soft smile for shyness. But once you get to know her, you realize she’s got a backbone of steel. The girl…uh…woman—she’s a woman now, I remind myself—doesn’t know the meaning of the phrasepull your punches.
