Geoducks Are for Lovers (15 page)

The two of them reach the others gathered on the beach. Gil has joined Ben on the log. A wet and sandy Biscuit happily chews on a stick at Gil’s feet. 

“No more speeches from me,” Jo whispers in Maggie’s ear. “Know I love you and I want you to be happy. I also love Gil.” Jo kisses her cheek.

  Maggie is overwhelmed by her friend’s love. She hadn’t realized how much she misses all of them. Her eyes water with a few tears, so she looks down at the driftwood. 

Stacked next to Gil are six wishing rocks. They are perfectly balanced from large to small. He sees her looking at them and smiles. 

She smiles back. “You found wishing rocks?” she asks even though she knows what they are.

“Yeah, I thought we could all make a wish with them. Or you could hoard them for later.” He winks.

Quinn and Selah stroll over to the group. 

“No one is hoarding my wish,” Quinn says and takes the top rock.

“How does this work again? Do we rub three times and a genie pops out?” Selah picks up a rock.

“Ha ha, no. You close your eyes, make a wish, and throw it into the water. Some people try skipping them if they are flat enough.” Maggie grabs a rock.

“What do we wish for?” Ben eyes the rock in his hand.

“Anything you want. But you can’t tell or it won’t come true.” Maggie walks over to the water. Her friends join her, each holding their own rock. 

“Like birthday wishes?” Ben sounds skeptical as he tosses and catches his rock.

“Like all wishes you want to come true, Ben. Where’s your faith?” Jo asks.

Gil throws his rock into the water first. It skips with three bounces before disappearing. 

“That was quick,” Ben observes.

“I know exactly what I want to come true.” Gil smirks.

Maggie hears the splashes of the other rocks. She is the last to make her wish. Closing her eyes, she kisses the rock before throwing it into the cold water. 

“What did you wish for, Maggie May?” Gil asks.

“Oh, I’m not telling. I want this one to come true.” She winks at him.

Fifteen

Ben makes the short drive into downtown Coupeville following Maggie’s directions. After parking in the shade and leaving the windows open for Biscuit, they stroll down the main street, which cannot escape being called quaint with its white clapboard storefronts. Sitting directly on Penn Cove makes this the best place for the famous mussels of the same name. 

Maggie directs them to her favorite tavern. The wood walls are decorated in a medley of photographs and island trinkets. The most stunning decoration is a large bison head over the doorway to the bathrooms.

They pile into a red Naugahyde upholstered booth surrounded by picture windows overlooking the water and a rock-strewn beach below.

“Always nice to know exactly where your food comes from.” Ben points out the window at the floating mussel farm.

“Unless it’s a hamburger, then no thank you,” Jo says.

“Seeing your steak before eating is so
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
”
Selah shakes her head in disgust. “Those lobster tanks always freak me out. I want to liberate them all.” 

“Didn’t Quinn do that in college? He liberated something in the dining hall,” Ben says.

“What was it? A big banner was involved, I remember.” Gil says, stretching his arm behind Maggie’s shoulders in the booth.

“You old people and your lack of memories. It was a Cesar Chavez project. I was protesting grapes.” 

“I swear lettuce was involved,” Maggie adds, enjoying Gil’s closeness.

“I thought lettuce, too,’” Selah muses.

“Wait, maybe you’re right,” Quinn admits. “It all had to do with migrant workers and apartheid.” 

“Kind of a stretch, don’t you think?” Ben asks.

“Everything in 1989 was about apartheid and Free Nelson Mandela,” Quinn explains.

“First, the Berlin Wall came down, and a few months later, Nelson Mandela being freed, those were heady times,” Ben adds.

“Don’t forget Bush 41 in office, setting up for the Bush dynasty, and W,” Gil says. 

“Such a history professor,” Quinn comments.

“Politics have never been my area of research or teaching.” 

“Politics are everyone’s area,” Selah interjects.

“Let’s not have the politics conversation.” Maggie attempts to keep the peace.

“Oh, Maggie, we’re not going to remind Ben about his love for Bob Dole in ‘92.” Gil teases.

“Not really ‘love’ for Dole. I can admit Clinton was great for the economy with all the banking deregulation he passed.” Ben looks smug. 

“The young Republicans were the hottest guys on campus. Must have been the suits,” Jo muses.

“All ten of them,” Gil reminds her.

“Were there even ten? Counting Ben?” Quinn asks. “Evergreen is a capital ‘L’ Liberal college.”

“Ha ha.” Ben fake laughs. “Yes, more than ten of us. Lots of people who wished they could have voted for Reagan. Curse us for being born too late.”

“You must have been devastated when he died,” Quinn says with a straight face. “Ryan and I threw a big party. It was like a scene from
Point Break
or a Dead Presidents show with all the Reagan masks.”

Jo laughs. “Ben was depressed for a week, walking around moaning about the glory days of the Republican Party. You’ll be shocked to know we both voted for Obama in ‘08.”

Everyone, but Jo and Ben, sits with their mouths agape. His college nickname, Alex P. Keaton, suits him to this day. Fiscal conservative to his core, Maggie still can’t figure out how he chose such a hippie school as Evergreen.

“Thanks, Jo. My reputation is ruined. I just couldn’t vote for Palin on the ticket. Her supersonic, long distance vision super-power scared me. Who can see Russia from Anchorage? She must be a cyborg.” Ben shudders. 

The waitress interrupts Ben. They order a pitcher of Toby’s Parrot Red Ale along with a couple pots of mussels in white wine broth with crusty bread.

“Anyone want some oysters?” Maggie offers. “They’re good here.”

“Oysters, eh?” Gil looks at her and smirks.

Maggie smirks back at him.

“Sure. I love oysters. Let’s get a dozen,” Jo speaks up. 

“None for me,” Selah says.

“No? I’d have thought you would love swallowing the briny goodness.” Quinn pokes her side.

“You would think. It’s a texture thing as much as a taste thing.” 

“Interesting. The queen of pirate smut doesn’t like to swallow.” 

Thankfully the waitress walks out of hearing range during Quinn and Selah’s conversation. 

Maggie rolls her eyes. “Somehow we all get together and we revert to being adolescents again,” she comments, shaking her head.

“Speak for yourselves, I’m the mother of adolescents,” Jo points out.

“Eek!” Selah says, and they all laugh.

Their pitcher and food arrive. The cold beer and icy oysters are the perfect thing to cool down with after the hike and time in the sun.

When nothing is left but bowls of empty mussel shells and small puddles of broth at the bottom of the pots, they roll themselves out of the booth, and walk out into the sun.

Beer at lunch makes Maggie sleepy, so she rests her head on Gil’s shoulder in the back of the SUV and falls asleep almost instantly. 

Feeling Maggie sag against him, Gil gently extends his arm behind her along the seat back, and she snuggles further into his side in her sleep. 

Selah turns in her seat to say something and sees Maggie sleeping. “You two make a cozy pair.” 

At her words, Jo also turns to face Gil and Maggie.

“Are you going to dance around her all weekend or tell her you’ve been pining for her for ages?” Jo asks.

Gil gazes down at sleeping Maggie. “I just got back into her life, I don’t want to scare her away with some grand gesture.”

Selah and Jo look at each other and roll their eyes. “You know she’ll never make the first move,” Selah states as fact. “She has her walls up. You’ll need to break them down, Gil. She’s firmly ensconced here in her hidey-hole like a clam.”

Gil strokes Maggie’s golden-copper hair. Soft curls have come out of her braid and frame her face. Sleeping, she looks exactly like the girl who got away all those years ago. Her soft snoring is endearing.

“Maybe you should start by telling her the truth about how you waited for her to come back from France,” Jo softly suggests.

“And how when she showed up with Le Frenchman, it broke your heart,” Selah adds.

“How do you know my heart was broken?” Gil asks. He didn’t realize how much he wore his heart on his sleeve back then.

“Oh, sweet Gil. We all knew you were in love with her. I think on some level even Maggie knew and maybe that’s why she went to France. She didn’t want to risk losing her best friend. She was in love with you, too, you know?” Selah pats his arm. 

For years Gil has thought his feelings were one-sided, so Selah’s words sting. If she’s right, why did Maggie put both a continent and an ocean of distance between them?

“You think she loved me? I thought she figured out my feelings changed and didn’t return them. That’s why she never wrote to me from France. When she came back with Julien the next summer, her attention wasn’t on me.”

“Hmmm, Julien—The French Incident,” Jo muses. “The reason we call him that is because he was an anomaly in her life. I think all the sex did something to her brain.” Selah pushes her sunglasses up on her head. “Sexual awakenings can be powerful things. The brain releases all sorts of happy chemicals, which can easily be confused with love.”

“Sexual awakening? Great. That makes me feel better,” Gil scoffs, her statement bruising his ego, though he isn’t going to confess this to Selah and Jo.

“We’re trying to give you a pep talk here.” Jo gives him her mom face. “You and Maggie were a couple in all ways, but one back in college. You were great together.”

“The universe is setting you up for another chance. Don’t waste it,” Selah says, giving him a pointed look before turning around and telling Ben to stop at a liquor store.

“What this situation needs is more alcohol to loosen things up. I say we drink Jameson tonight.” Selah turns back again, winks at Gil, then puts on her sunglasses.

A night drinking Jameson changed everything between Gil and Maggie one summer night twenty-two years before. 

“The thought of Jameson makes my head hurt.” Jo scowls. “I think I’ll stick with wine.”

Maggie stirs against Gil’s shoulder. “What’s all this talk of Jameson?” She mumbles, realizing she fell asleep on Gil. Wiping her mouth to check for drool, she straightens up. “Sorry if I drooled on you.” She studies at Gil’s shirt for wet spots.

“No drooling. But you did call out my name.” He winks at her.

“I did?” She flushes.
Was she dreaming of Gil? 

“I’m teasing,” he clarifies. 

Maggie straightens her shirt and tries to contain the crazy on her head with her fingers.

“What’s with the Jameson talk?” 

“I had a hankering for some tonight. For old-time’s sake,” Selah says, petting Biscuit, who sits on a towel between her and Jo.

Maggie’s mind drifts back to the last summer night when they all drank too much Jameson. It was the night before she left for France and the year that changed her life for better and worse.

“We should stop in Freeland. Maybe stock up on dinner stuff while we’re there.”

* * *

They go the liquor store first. A few bottles of whiskey are loaded into the back of the SUV before they drive over to the grocery store.

Maggie feels refreshed after her short nap. She grabs a cart as they head into the store. “Let’s divide and conquer. Meet up front in ten minutes?” she asks before heading toward produce with Gil following her.

Green Day plays over the speakers. Maggie starts singing along as she wanders past a man examining watermelons. Gil harmonizes on the chorus.

Maggie meets his eye and laughs. “Can you believe Green Day is playing in a grocery store?” 

“These are sentimental times,” Gil says. 

“When did you get to be so sentimental?” She places a few peaches into the cart.

“Aren’t all people?” 

“I don’t think sociopaths and Cossacks are.” She pushes the cart down the aisle.

“No comment on the sociopaths, but I’m going to go out on a limb and defend the sentimental nature of Cossacks. They probably believe in love, too, otherwise there wouldn’t be small Cossacks.”

“I figured the Cossack armies raped and pillaged to create smaller Cossacks.” Maggie smiles at her deliberate misinterpretation of history to bait Gil.

“I’m being sentimental and you’re talking about raping and pillaging. You have a cold black heart, Maggie May. ” He fakes a grimace.

“I do not.” She pouts. “I’m pointing out historical facts. The fact you choose to sugarcoat and rose-tint history, professor, isn’t my fault.”

Gil laughs at her as they wander down the cereal aisle. 

Maggie grabs a box of Captain Crunch from the shelf. “I used to love this stuff, but it cut the roof of my mouth.” 

Gil puts the cereal in the cart. “That’s cause you shoved handfuls in your mouth straight from the box instead of eating cereal with milk, in a bowl, like a civilized person.”