On Maggie’s Watch – Chapter One
Rebel without a Peanut Allergy
“Wash your hands and say your prayers/’cause Jesus and germs are everywhere!”
Maggie Finley smiled and rolled her eyes, “Tell me you did not just make that up, Julia”
“God no. I heard it on that country western music station. One of those Judd girls said it. But, it’s perfect don’t you think?
Sitting in a wicker chair with her hand on her seven month shelf-of-a-belly Maggie said, “You can’t use that slogan at a catholic church. It’s blasphemous.”
Julia shoved a blond strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand and said, “No it’s not. It’s the perfect marriage of hygiene and religion. If you’re going to be on the food safety committee, sweetie, you’ve got to start thinking outside of the box.” The two women sat surrounded by markers, poster board and water bottles on Julia’s sun porch. The only place in her house not occupied by her two son’s wet swimming trunks, plastic action figures and shoes without laces.
“I didn’t ask to be put on the committee. You volunteered my services. Besides, the parish doesn’t want a full scale movement against bacteria. They just need someone to make a poster for the pancake breakfast with bullet points. You know, don’t bring desserts with peanuts and don’t cough on the forks.”
“You don’t know what they want because you didn’t come to the first meeting.”
“From what I understand, the first meeting was Bingo night.”
“I love Bingo night. It’s all about comfortable shoes, a good marker, and the potential of winning a canister of caramel corn. We talked about bacteria at the break.”
“You’re right, that sounds so official. How could I not want to be involved?”
“Look Maggie, Home & School needed help for the fund raiser. You wanted to get involved. As I remember you said,” Julia sat up straight and linked her fingers Yin/Yan fashion in front of her resembling a Quaker ready to give an oration, “I want to use my energies for the betterment of the community.”
“I did not look like that,” Maggie said smiling and irritated at the same time. “I do want to get involved but I was hoping for something a little broader than taking a stand against germs and tree nuts.”
“Don’t underestimate the tree nut. The tree nut will be the death of us all.”
“You’re a big bratty kid, Julia”
“A bratty kid with saggy boobs,” Julia said, adjusting herself. “No offense Maggie but I don’t need your help.” Pointing to her poster she said, “Look my peanut has tiny shoes and he’s walking toward the exit with the hand sanitizer bottle.”
Maggie stood and gazed past the wooden, backyard play-structure with plastic yellow slide into her friend’s neighborhood. The houses, all as if from the same family, had similar features with only slight differences. A plastic playhouse here, a feeble Arbor Vite privacy hedge there. All seemed to invite in the American Dream without promising too much individuality or too much success. The American median. Biting, a nonexistent hangnail for the hundredth time she said, “I need something to keep me busy. To distract me. I can’t stop thinking about Ella.”
Suddenly uncharacteristically serious Julia moved to her Maggie’s side, “You’ve had a really, hard couple of years. Why don’t you try to relax? Just take care of yourself.”
The shadows under Maggie’s eyes seemed to become more noticeable with the mention of the last twenty-four months. “That’s what I’m trying to do. Take care of myself while keeping busy.”
Julia placed a strong arm round Maggie’s shoulder and touched her forehead to her friend’s temple. “You don’t think an immunology think tank will help you, huh?”
“No. I don’t think so. I need something that makes me feel safer. Helps me to obsess less about this baby’s safety.”
“What about Martin?”
“What about him?”
“Is he helping?”
“If working is helping than yeah, he’s helping like a fiend.” She puffed a disgusted laugh. “Every time I bring up Ella, the funeral, or being afraid he looks like I poked him with a sharp stick.”
Julia sighed, “Sometimes I dream about poking my husband with a sharp stick, but I’m afraid the poking would become a stabbing motion and the next thing you know I’d be sharing a cell with Lorena Bobbit.
“Oh, she’s not in jail. I saw her on Oprah this year.”
“God bless her.”
“I just want to know that moving home was the best thing for us.”
“Your moving back has been the best thing for me.” Julia squeezed her friend closer and dropped her arm.
“Are we going to the book signing tonight?”
“Yeah, definitely, but that’s not enough to distract me either.”
Julia sighed and said, “Okay, let me think. Could you go work at the food pantry or help the DNR get rid of the Ash Borer that nasty bug eating all our trees, or better yet, the neighborhood watch.”
“There’s a neighborhood watch?”
“Not anymore. You’d have to revamp it,” Julia said. “It folded. We used to have great potlucks. We’d spend fifteen minutes talking about dog poo pick-up and then Lou Loomis would grill the brats.”
Maggie raised her eyebrows at this new possibility.
Julia started drawing a flipping pancake and shared a look with her old friend. and said, “You’re always complaining about how everything went to pot when you moved away. Now you’re back, here’s your chance. Spruce us up.”
“We do need some sprucin”
“Prevention is the key.”
“I’d be perfect for that. The other day I walked past that abandoned gas station on main. Someone had rearranged the letters on the sign to say, free douche bag here. So I took a bunch of the letters and threw them in one of those huge green dumpsters.”
“Hey, I saw that. Now it says free dog here. I remember thinking ‘oh good a new pet store’.
As if to herself, Maggie said, “Prevention is the key. A neighborhood without crime.”
“You always were afraid of robbers.” Julia smiled at the memory. “You couldn’t sleep over at my house until your mom came and went through the drill. No, there are no robbers in this town. No, no robbers in the next town. All the robbers are in New York City at a robber convention where they learn to take money very quietly leaving the nice people alone.”
“Our streets could be the kind of place it was when I grew up. Kick the can at night, riding bikes during the day. No worries.” Maggie sighed a dreamy sigh and pressed her hands lovingly to her stomach. “Safe.”
“You wouldn’t have to do much. You could resurrect the watch, elect a president and let other people do the work.” She blew the eraser bits away from the penciled-in syrup bottle on the poster and said, “There you have it.”
“Maggie said, “There you have it,” as if it was decided. “No longer a rebel without a cause.”
Julia said, “A rebel without a peanut allergy.”
“Will you be home when I get back?” Maggie sat at the edge of her seat in the van, one hand on the door handle ready to go into the bookstore.
“I should be.”
Martin hesitated just long enough for Maggie’s anger to flare and she said, “Should be?”
“I thought you’d be busy at the book signing.”
“So you were thinking, my wife has a babysitter, I don’t need to get home. Why, Martin? Is it because there’s nothing for you to help with at home if I’m not there to direct you?”
Martin sighed heavily through the phone line. “I didn’t call to fight Mags.”
“Apparently you didn’t call to help either.”
Martin didn’t speak.
“The crib needs setting up, we need baby supplies and the light in the kitchen still needs fixing. Just because I went out for a change, doesn’t mean you can’t work on some things.”
“I can’t do those things alone. How about this weekend?”
“I could meet you at home. We can have a late dinner. Make something for us before I get there. That would be nice.”
There was silence again on the line and Martin said simply, “I don’t like to be home alone.”
The fight blew out of her. An outrage candle extinguished. Softly Maggie said, “Here too? I thought if we moved. Got out of that house.”
“It’s not the house. It’s the quiet.”
Maggie sat back in her car seat and dropped her hand to her belly. “I know. We never even got to hear her cry.”
“No.”
“There should be more noise, I know.”
“Babies should have more of a chance.”
Maggie took a sharp breath in. She steadied her head against the door frame. With exaggerated measure she said, “Talk to me in person, Martin. I’ll meet you at home.”
“No!” Martin cleared his throat, all business now and said, “I’m sorry. I’ll try to get home early tonight. I promise.”
“Don’t do that Martin. It’s not fair.”
“Do what?”
“Retreat.”
“We’ll work on baby things this weekend.”
“Baby things?”
“This baby. The new baby. Let’s move forward.”
Her eyes closed, Maggie sighed and shut her phone. Leaving her van she stood and pulled her maternity top down. She looked through her lashes to the dusky sky and whispered, “Move forward.”
The bells chimed prettily as Maggie pushed open the bookstore doors and breathed in the scent of new books and coffee. She spotted Julia, waiting near the entrance, engrossed in a photography book.
“Check this out.” Julia slid a glossy coffee table book in her direction. “Hot firemen.”
“That’s totally redundant.”
“Totally. Look at this one.” There was a shirtless man, holding a kitten, dressed only in florescent green baggie fireproof pants. He had dirt on his face and his helmet was at a jaunty angle.
“You’re too easy, Julia.”
“You’re just saying that because you knew me in high school.”
“Everyone knew you in high school.”
“Very funny. God look at those abs.”
“Doesn’t Steven have abs like that?”
“I haven’t seen Big Steven’s abdominal muscles since, well, I’ve never seen Big Steven’s abs.”
Maggie shut the book and grabbed Julia’s elbow “Come on. Let’s go get a seat.”
“My painters kind of look like that.”
“They do? I guess that’s good because they are sure taking their time getting your house done.”
“Come over and see for yourself. They take off their shirts around one.”
“Coo, coo, ca-choo Mrs. Robinson. You’re kinda creeping me out.”
“I’m kind of creeping myself out. Steven’s out of town so much now we hardly ever park the bus, if you know what I mean. Mostly that’s okay but occasionally I get the urge.” Julia elbowed Maggie and leered.
“You are a juvenile.”
“You are a prude.”
“Who’s watching the boys.”
“Daphne the neighbor girl. I can’t stay long. She maybe runs the hurdles in high school but she’s no match for my boys.”
At the book table in the back of the book store Maggie and Julia mingled with the other, mostly female readers, waiting for their favorite author to come out. Maggie picked up a hardcover, lifted it to her nose, breathed in the scent. She looked at the author’s photograph and tucked it under her arm. She lifted another and said, “Did you ever read this one?”
“That’s the one with the kidnapping in it, right? I just couldn’t. I heard nothing bad happened to the kid but I was pregnant with little Steven and Mikey was a toddler. I couldn’t bear even the thought that kidnappers existed in the world, let alone read a story with one in it.”
“It was a good book.”
“Grabbing Maggie’s arm playfully she said, “You know how it is when you’re pregnant. You kind of lose your mind with horror and possibility. I was completely obsessed with washing my hands; a kidnapper was fear beyond the realm. When bacteria is your terrorist a kidnapper is like a nuclear war.”
“If you kill all the bacteria there’s always peanut allergy?”
“Just another kind of kidnapper.”
Taking their seats a few rows back from the front Maggie said, “I’ve been doing some research on Neighborhood Watches.”
“What’dya find out?”
“There’s lots of great information online. Like safety tips, Things to watch for. How to create a safety net.”
Julia shrugged, “It’s not like we’re the nexus of crime here in Elmwood. I mean what are we really talking about here?”
Maggie floundered a little, trying to think of a recent crime, something to validate her fears, her needs for safety. “I don’t know I’m just getting started.”
It’s not like we live in the big city where there’s sex offenders everywhere. Besides, these days, you can check online for those.”
“You can find sex offenders online?”
Mavis said, “Yeah, but I doubt we have any here. If I were you, my first order of business would be those skateboarders on the post office handicap ramp.”
Absently Maggie said, “Skateboarders?”
Those kids scare the crap out of me. Especially the one with the huge grommet in his ear. I’m afraid they’re going to crash into me and break my hip.”
“Who are you kidding? If they hit you, Julia, you’d break their arm. When did they put sex offenders online?”
Julia waived her hand, “I don’t know. Who cares?”
“I don’t think I want to check for offenders.”
“Talk about creepy.”
Maggie shuddered. “I definitely don’t want to know.”
“Listen Mags, you don’t have to dredge up crime to have a watch. Send a few emails. Pretty soon you won’t have time to round up all the peanuts in the county and wrap them in latex, you’ll have a newborn.”
“I can’t even think about it.”
Julia frowned and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could give sex offenders a peanut allergy? Then all you’d have to do is put a peanut in your child’s pocket and mothers could rest easy.”
In bed, the lavender coverlet pulled to her chin, Maggie stared at the ceiling. Martin, oblivious, snored next to her, his hair a mix of frizz and curl. She swallowed hard. A series of remembered movie scenes paraded across her thoughts. Masked men, frightened children, unlocked doors. Maggie pushed herself out of bed and grabbed her robe from the hook behind the door. She rushed through the house checking locks, sliding window clasps into place, pulling a shade down. She touched her hand to her belly and removed the water pitcher from the fridge and took a long sip directly from the spout. Maggie waited for the rush and tumble of limbs inside. Reassurance.
Glancing around she silently moved to her office and stared down at the dark screen of her computer. Tentatively she touched the mouse and the machine came to life.
