Maggie 6-12 (Patreon)

While Maggie blow-dried her hair, she watched Jessie in the mirror, laying on her bed and pretending to read. She was back in her dorm room, walking back to campus after waking alone with Cole, showering here on the second floor, coming back to find Jessie awake now but not talking to her.

She brushed and blow-dried underneath her mane, working the fine hairs at the back of her neck. She applied some mousse and brushed her hair straight back from her face, revealing her sterner expression this morning. Stood and braided her hair, eyes flitting over her shoulder to watch Jessie toss and turn on the bed, rolling around and occasionally looking sideways at her. She got her hair tightly braided, curled in a bun at the back of her head. Applied some makeup. Not too much, just enough to highlight her important features. She dressed. Put on a black skirt, black leggings, black loafers. Oxford cloth button-down and then a cashmere sweater over top of that.

She liked what she saw in the mirror. This was no-nonsense. The highlights in her hair were gone. Underneath her clothes that shaggy muff she used to sport was shaved down and smooth. Things were a lot different than they were a month ago. She liked what she saw in the mirror. To the reflection over her shoulder she said, “You’re really not talking to me?”

Jessie was waiting for her to say something first because she no longer ignored her. Soon as Maggie spoke she dropped the book and sighed. A conversation had been working over in Jessie’s head and she couldn’t wait to talk about it.

Jessie said, “What makes you think I’m not talking to you?”

She turned, put an elbow on her dresser, said, “Jessie ... The fact that you’re not talking to me.”

Jessie set up and tossed her book to the foot of her bed, said,” I know. I meant of course I’m not talking to you. Wouldn’t you think that?”

“Sorry you walked in on that.”

“I am too.”

“You know it’s okay?”

“That’s what you say.”

“I’m telling you that it’s okay.”

“You’re saying that Max knows? Seriously?”

“Max knows.” She didn’t say it quietly, she stated it as fact.

This was more perplexing to Jessie. Her eyes darted around the room and her head shook as she tried to say something. She wagged her hands with frustration. Finally she said, “You’re engaged to Max.”

“I am,” she said as she crossed between the beds and sat on her own. Behind her still lay the scraps of paper where Jay had torn up her beautiful drawing. She smoothed her skirt and clasped her hands in her lap, facing Jessie.

Maggie kept her gaze Jessie grew uncomfortable, finally saying, “I just never thought you were like that. I didn’t think you were that kind of girl. I thought I knew you.”

“I thought I knew me, too. I didn’t think I was that kind of girl either. But here I am.”

“Here you are,” Jessie said and Maggie got the feeling she meant it as a defiant insult but it flopped. Jessie realizing, Maggie thought, that there really wasn’t much for her to be mad about.

Maggie said, “I should’ve put the bandanna on the door. Cole and I hadn’t intended for that to happen yesterday. I was studying.”

“Yeah,” Jessie said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. Her body posture was relaxing, and she leaned back on her hands behind her.

“Max is good to me,” Maggie said. “Cole is good to me, too.”

Jessie said, “It’s okay. I guess it’s fine. You all know what you’re doing, I just happened to walk in on it. And I’m having trouble dealing with it.”

Maggie said, “I understand. I’m telling you nobody’s getting hurt here.”

Jessie inhaled, her wet eyes looking out the window at the gray morning sky. “Okay,” she said.

No, Maggie, you never thought of yourself like that. She’d always seen girls like this growing up. When she was the wallflower who stood at the side of the room, the Asian girl who got perfect grades and went home to play her cello every night, she admired girls like this. Looked at them with wistful longing. To have so much power over others ... boys, and even other girls ... it was an incredible feeling. She never thought she would be this kind of girl. Now that it was here she wondered how long this girl had been living inside her.

Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her skirt and she excused herself from Jessie who nodded and bit her lower lip. She got off the bed because she didn’t like the bed anymore anyway, stood looked at the screen and saw the smiling face of her brother, his name superimposed below.

“Ken?” she whispered.

She slipped out of the room and walked into the quiet hall. There was a group of students gathered at the stairwell having a loud conversation, so she turned right and headed toward the couches where there was only one student reading quietly on an iPad. She leaned on the corkboard blazed with notices pinned to it. She answered, said, “Ken?”

“Hi, Maggie,” she heard his tinny voice say.

Ken never called. Sometimes they would email but it wasn’t often. Given yesterday’s traumatic events, and the rift between her and Max she assumed that helpful Max had called her brother to let him know she’d been terrorized. She said, “What’s going on?”

Ken said, “Just calling to see how you are.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m doing great. How’s it going in San Diego?”

“It’s great, Maggie. Look, I know we don’t usually talk, but I’ve been thinking about you.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”

“I see. Did Max call you?”

There was a long pause, and she heard his cheek rub against the microphone. He said, “Max? No.”

“Max didn’t call you last night?”

“What would he call me about?”

“Never mind,” she said, feeling an easiness spread through her shoulders. She said, “It’s good to hear from you.”

“I’ve heard about your postgrad endeavors.”

“Carol talking to you?”

“Kind of. I think she’s proud of you. It’s more like bragging, but in the way that’s supposed to make me feel bad about myself.”

She giggled, covered her mouth, and her eyes teared up inexplicably. She said, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’m proud of you. It’s a little abrupt …”

“I guess. I think it’s been lurking inside me for a long time.”

“Things are good with you and Max?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Things are good between me and Max.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I think your Max might be a good guy.”

“Yeah, my Max is a good guy. He’s got his problems …”

“Hey,” he said.

“What?”

“This is kind of hard for me to say.”

“What is it?” she said, brow lowering. Ken never broached things that were difficult to say.

“Remember when we were at home two weeks ago?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Yeah, I know I know you do. I’m just setting the scene.”

“Okay …”

“Listen. I think the world of you. I think you’re awesome. And I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“I saw you and Max and Cole together. In the music room.”

She winced, a stinging heat wave up her back and her neck, coming over her cheeks. She cupped a palm over her brow. Hold on, she whispered and she made her way to a couch across from the iPad reader and practically fell on it. Weakly, she said, “You did?”

“It’s okay. I kept it to myself.”

“I don’t know what to say, Ken.”

“Don’t say anything. I absolutely don’t want to talk about it. It’s why I called though.”

“Because you don’t want to talk about it?”

“I just want to make sure you’re doing the right thing.”

“I don’t know what to tell you—what right thing?”

“I want you to go to law school, Maggie. I want you to do it for the right reasons.”

“I’m going to law school for me, Ken. Nothing to do with mother, nothing to do with father, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Nothing to do with Cole?”

She hesitated, the silence drawing long and thin between them. She said, “I might not even go to Harvard.” Though she knew that was a lie.

Ken was quiet for a while too, then he quietly said. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

She said, “Ken?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you … after you saw us did you erase any videos?”

“The security system?”

“Did you?”

“What do you think?”

She nodded and ran her tongue over her molars. “Thank you,” she said.

Ken said, “Listen, Maggie, I have to get going. I got to meet some guys—”

She glanced at her watch, said, “Shoot, I have to go too. I have an appointment.”

Ken said, “I want you to know that even though I don’t talk to you often, I think about you every day. You can call me anytime, maybe you and I should lean on each other a little bit more.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

“You take care. Say hi to Cole for me and give Max a hug too. Tell him I called.”

“I will,” she whispered.

* * *

Her appointment this morning was on the fourth floor of Winslow Hall. She’d taken the stairs and now passed the wide spacious windows looking down over the soccer field. Players out there today kicking around balls in groups of four, dressed warmly but still in shorts. Then she was past those windows into the dim old corridor.

Straight ahead where the hallway turned she saw the black door to office 418. Under the number it read: Prof. Carmichael. She opened the door without knocking and entered. It was a small office, the size of a pantry, an elderly woman with red-rinsed hair and reading glasses on a bead-studded chain turned and said, “You’re Ms. Becker?”

Maggie approached the desk and told her that she was. The woman told her Professor Carmichael would just be a few more minutes. She took a seat, eschewed the philosophy journals gathered under a table lamp at her elbow. Noted, though, that his name was featured on the covers. Her stomach began to twist again. All the resolve and power she’d woken with this morning starting to have second thoughts now. This was crazy. Crazy but it needed to be done and there was something in it that lit a spark—a couple of swipes of a striker knife over flint. A fire waiting to catch.

The truth was she should go to the police. But proving a crime was impossible. Was it a crime to be mad at your girlfriend? That’s what they would ask her. There was plenty of evidence that she had behaved in many ways that would make a man mad. Jay had technically committed no crime other than property damage. It wasn’t even her shirt he destroyed. But the drawing ...? Oh, God, she wanted that drawing back so bad. In the end, despite the enormous frantic fear of death he had forced on her, he hadn’t hurt her. Not physically. His words had pummeled her brutally, however.

The door behind the woman opened and she saw Professor Carmichael with a beaming smile. “Ms. Becker,” he boomed, and held the door and gestured inward toward his office with a flourish.

She rose, straightened her skirt, fought the urge to reciprocate with a smile. Today was not about smiles. She passed below him and entered his wood-paneled office, a well-appointed corner unit and to the right she could continue watching those boys play soccer if she wished.

Professor Carmichael said, “I was so glad to see that you had called. I’d hoped you would. When I saw your name on the list this morning I asked Isabel to put you down today. I have a class in half an hour but I really did want to talk to you. Please have a seat,” he gestured toward the one that sat across from his desk and he went around and plopped himself in the leather swivel on the other side. It squeaked with his weight. He was a big man, even bigger than Jay. Dressed as she’d seen him that day at Drillfield in Brattleboro. Tweed coat, tailored shirt with French cuffs, a flash of satin braces under his jacket.

He said, “Well now, what have you been considering postgrad?”

Maggie sat down, and put her hands together in her lap, chin lowered, gaze on Prof. Carmichael. She said, “I’m not here to talk about what I want to do after graduation.”

“You’re not?” he said raising one eyebrow, still smiling.

“No, Professor Carmichael, I’m not here for that at all. I know what I’m doing next year.”

He smiled wider, said, “And what is that?”

“Harvard Law. I take the LSAT in January.”

Professor Carmichael beamed, made the gesture of applause without actually clapping his hands, and leaned forward in his chair. “I’m so glad to hear that, Margaret.”

“I am as well. I’m looking forward to it,” she said grimly.

He studied her for a moment then he said, “What can I do to help you?”

“I’m here to talk to you about Jay.”