Maggie

"You gonna eat that?"

I looked up from my newspaper and saw George eyeing my half-eaten bagel. "Uh, yeah."

He relaxed his shoulders and sat back. "It's been sitting there untouched for four minutes and thirty-two seconds."

"You were timing my bites?"

"No. Yes. I'm kinda hungry."

"Go buy your own then," I said, returning to the article I was reading.

He sighed. "I don't want a whole bagel, though. I'm not that hungry."

I chose to ignore him. I've known George for over twenty years, and, in that time, he'd changed very little. He was quarterback of our high school football team but smoked a lot of pot back then. Okay, we all did. However, George was overindulgent in the strictest sense of the word. I'm convinced he still hits the bowl at least three times a day, even while at work. And he was still one of the most clueless people in my small circle of friends. It makes me wonder why I continue to hang out with him. But, at times, I enjoy such predictability. It keeps me sane.

"You hear about Maggie?" he asked.

I immediately stopped reading. Maggie. My ex-girlfriend. She and I had it real good for a very long time. Until that last year. To say it had something to do with my little drunken act of infidelity during Harlan's wedding was an understatement. She felt so betrayed, and ended things between us after a year of trying to forgive me. And she stayed true to her word about not wanting to have anything to do with me. Ever again. That was almost a decade ago. I tried to convince myself that I'd gotten over her. One failed attempt at a relationship after another since my time with Maggie have all but proven that I indeed had not.

In fact, on more than one occasion, even to this day, I found myself longing to make contact with her, to reconnect. That we still lived in the same city, and the potential of running into each other, made it impossible to ignore such desire.

And now, the mere mention of her name in casual conversation had stoked feelings that laid just below the surface. Amid the throngs of people in this loud cafe, a singular thought permeated my brain. Maggie.

"What's up with her?" I asked, trying to sound indifferent. After all, everyone else believed I'd moved on. Or, at least, I gave them that impression every chance I got. Although, I didn't think Half-Baked here would've noted my tone of voice one way or another.

"She's dead."

I felt my heart stop, and suddenly experienced one of those life-flashing-before-my-eyes kind of moments. Except it wasn't my life that filled the rapidfire picture slideshow in my mind. It was Maggie's life. Her life while she was with me. "What?"

"Yeah, I found out a couple of weeks ago from Kate," George said, almost nonchalantly. "Apparently, she took a nasty fall off of a rock face at Sisters. Died three days later at Legacy. Very sad."

I stared at George, mouth agape, suddenly finding it difficult to form sentences, let alone words. "What...What? You're just telling me this now?"

He had a surprised look on his face, as if I'd just accused him of snatching the milk bottle from a crying baby. "What? You broke up a long time ago."

"Yeah, but...what?"

"Dude, I was just making conversation. Sorry I brought it up. Geez."

Just making conversation, said my insensitve idiot of a friend. The picture slideshow in my mind continued, although, this time, at a pace slow enough for the images to imprint themselves more deeply into the gray matter that acted as my brain. There was a picture of Maggie in her favorite sundress, the red one with little yellow flowers on it; of her eating those spiced almonds that only Planters could make; of her re-reading Kerouac on the couch, her legs draped over mine, as I caught a game or two on TV; of her at her first rock climbing lesson.

The slideshow then lingered on a photo of me, down on one knee, holding up a ring I'd traded some stock options for to purchase, an expression of unbridled elation dancing on Maggie's face, as she repeatedly said "yes," tears streaming down her reddened cheeks. It was a week before we left for Vegas to attend our friend Harlan's wedding. She told me that night how she would wear the ring so that the rock was hidden under her finger. She didn't want to take away from Harlan's fiance's big day by having our mutual friends notice the ring, which would've elicited a bevy of congratulations. We had been the perfect couple. College sweethearts. It was a matter of time before we took the next, inevitable step. Everyone expected it. And they would've been thrilled.

A snippet of John Cougar Mellencamp singing "Wild Nights" broke me off my reverie, and George got up to take the call outside, as it was too loud in the cafe. He returned after a minute. "Listen, man, I gotta go. It's Kate. She's got some sort of emergency at the house."

Saved by the ring tone, I thought, and decided there was no point in me allowing my anger at George to remain. He will forever be an idiot to me. And I couldn't necessarily fault him for that. "Okay," I said.

"Oh, and sorry about Maggie. I mean the way I just blurted that out. And, you know--"

I shook my head. "Don't worry about it, man. Go ahead. Kate's waiting."

At that, George gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder, turned around, and left the cafe. Around me, the crowd of thirsty, noisy cafe patrons continued their inane conversations about hair appointments and dinner parties and Jersey Shore.

I sat there, staring at my half-eaten bagel, as thoughts of Maggie continued to swim inside my head-- of her dinking coffee; of her putting on her running shoes; of her smiling. Smiling at me. She smiled a lot.

Until that last year.


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