Lee Mckenzie - The Man for Maggie

“There’s nothing to tell,” Allison said a little too quickly.

“Does John know you dated him?”

“Of course. We all went to high school together.”

“I see.” What would Nick have been like back then?

Oh!

Aunt Margaret had a whole collection of Collingwood High School yearbooks upstairs. “When did you graduate?” she asked casually, applying an even layer of the strawberry mask to Allison’s forehead.

“It seems like so long ago. We just had our ten-year reunion. Of course, Nick didn’t bother to show up.”

Interesting. That meant he was about four years older than she was. She smoothed the mask over the rest of Allison’s face.

“What’s this stuff made of?” Allison asked. “It smells good enough to eat.”

“Well, it is edible. I really believe that what we put on our bodies is as important as what we put in them.”

Maggie set the container in the sink and filled it with water. To be totally effective, the mask should stay on for fifteen minutes. She set the timer for ten. She could hardly wait to get Allison out of here so she could go upstairs to find that yearbook.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“These kitchen chairs are pretty unforgiving. I’ll have one of those nice adjustable, reclining chairs in the spa.”

Allison smiled. “How did you come up with this idea?”

“I’m not sure, exactly.” She climbed onto a stool and hooked her heels on the top rung. “I’ve wanted to do this for as long as I can remember but I couldn’t afford to rent a shop in New York.”

“Did you live there all your life?”

Maggie nodded. “Yes, my whole life. My mother lives in the Village. My father was a musician and she is a…” How would Allison react to the truth? Only one way to find out. “She does readings.”

“Oh. You mean, she’s a writer? A poet?” Allison actually sounded interested.

Maggie shook her head. “She’s a clairvoyant.”

Silence. “I see,” she said finally.

Maggie very much doubted she did, since she couldn’t imagine Allison ever consulting one. “She’s very good. She even helped the N.Y.P.D. solve a missing persons case.”

Allison perked up a little. “Oh, now that is amazing. I’ve heard about people who can do that. I’d love to meet her sometime.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will. Gabriella hates leaving the city but now that I’m living here, she’s bound to visit once in a while.” But try as she might, she couldn’t imagine her outlandish mother and her straitlaced neighbor having anything in common. “Tell me more about you and Nick…and John, of course…when you were in high school.”

But apparently Allison didn’t want to reminisce. “Are you really going to hire him to renovate this place?” she asked.

“Would it cause problems for you and John if he’s working here?”

“Not at all. Don’t be silly.”

But Maggie saw the color creep up Allison’s neck. “I like Nick,” she said. “He seems to know a lot about renovating old houses, but he wants to give me an estimate before I make a decision.”

Allison’s eyes widened. “I should hope so. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”

What a strange thing for her to say. “I’m a very good judge of character and I can’t see him doing that.”

Pencil-thin eyebrows arched beneath the pink mask.

“It’s true,” Maggie said. “I can tell he’s honest, but for some reason he’s not happy.” And although he was about as good-looking as a guy could be, he didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence when it came to women. In spite of her track record with men, she’d like to think she could fix that. “You know, I envy you.”

“Me? Why?” But Allison did not sound surprised.

“You’ve been in love twice. Well, twice that I know of.”

“Are you saying you’re interested in Nick?”

“No! I just met him. All I’m saying that being in love twice, first with Nick and then with John…do you know how lucky that is?”

Allison suddenly seemed preoccupied with the cuticle of one perfectly manicured nail. “Are you saying you’ve never fallen in love?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve fallen in love, but I’ve never been in love with anyone.”

Allison looked up at her. “There’s a difference?”

“Of course. I’ve fallen in love twice. Three times if you count sixth grade, but I don’t. I’m pretty sure I was too young. But I fell seriously in love when I was a senior, with a boy who didn’t even know I was alive.” Her insides startled her by contracting unexpectedly. Nick reminded her of that boy. Jeremy… Hmm. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten his name.

“And the second time?”

“The second time was when I moved into my own apartment and became friends with the guy across the hall.”

“But?”

“Just when I started to think he might fall in love with me, a woman named Debbie moved into the apartment down the hall. Six months later he asked her to marry him. So although I’ve fallen in love, I’ve never been in love with someone who loved me back.”

“That’s an interesting distinction. I’ve never thought of it that way.”

Yeah, well, Allison had probably had dozens of boys—and men—fall in love with her, so the odds were that she was bound to love some of them back.

Maggie sighed. “Someone fell in love with me once, in high school. He was so sweet and I did everything in my power to fall in love with him, but nothing worked. I even begged my mother to cast one of her spells on us, but she said a love spell would only work if love was destined to be. In my case, she was sure it wasn’t, and, of course, she was right.”

“Your mother does love spells?”

Watch what you say around these people, Maggie.

Aunt Margaret? Is that you?

Allison was watching her, waiting for an answer.

Now that she’d blurted the stuff about love spells, she couldn’t think of a way out of it. “Yes, she does. But apparently there’s nothing she can do to help me. I have a habit of falling in love with the wrong men. Not bad men—” she hastened to add “—just men who don’t fall in love with women like me.”

“And what kind of woman are you, Maggie Meadowcroft?”

“Me?”

Watch what you say around these people.

“Well, let’s see. I have a tendency to leap before I look. I always have good intentions, but sometimes I rush into things and they don’t always turn out the way I planned.”

There, that sounded safe enough.

“You’ll fall in love someday, Maggie, and when it happens, it will have been worth the wait. But—” she studied her cuticle some more “—just a word of advice. You mentioned falling for the wrong ones. Nick’s one of them.”

Maggie jumped down from the stool and started to clear things off the kitchen table. “I’m sure you’re right.” She wanted to say, “Give me a little credit.” She might be impulsive, but she always learned from experience. Nick Durrance was definitely one of the many, many men who would never fall in love with her.

But she could be curious, couldn’t she?

She decided to change the subject. “Nick said Aunt Margaret was his English teacher. Were you in her class, too?”

Allison seemed to relax a little. “Yes. And trust me, she could have told you stories about Nick Durrance.”

“Really?” Note to self. Find out what Aunt Margaret thinks of him now.

“Miss Meadowcroft loved Shakespeare,” Allison said. “Of course, you probably know that.”

“Yes. Hamlet was her favorite. Whenever she suspected I was up to something, she’d say ‘Maggie Meadowcroft, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’ It was years before I understood what that meant. I used to imagine Denmark filled with piles of rotting garbage. Kind of like New York one summer when the garbage collectors were on strike.”