Margarette (Violet) (14 page)

A week later Tommy and Margarette sit under the
stars. Margarette had seen the doctor on a Monday, and by that Thursday they
knew for sure. She had seen Tommy every day, and spent most evenings with him.

That Sunday there is an eclipse, and Margarette’s
house is empty as usual, so her small patio is a good quiet spot to watch the
skies. The setting is almost perfect except for the blood-sucking mosquitoes.
An old comforter and a few layers of blankets are spread out underneath them.

“You’re perfect,” Tommy says.

“My ears are too big,” Margarette replies.

“So you’re almost perfect
and
you can glide
over the trees.” He pulls back her hair. “Let me see. Oh no. You’re an elf.”

“Am not,” she says, pulling her hair back over her
ears.

His playful reaction seems to be genuine. It’s not
at all what she had prepared herself for. He laughs. “I didn’t know I’ve been
sleeping with a creature of the forest.”

“Shut up,” she says, shoving him, but laughs.

“I’m shutting right up.” He cradles her neck
gently and kisses her. His lips are still new to her, and she enjoys how he
moves them over hers. She kisses him back, and he leans into her until they are
lying down on the blankets.

Tommy seduces her right there on the lawn. She recently
discovered that sex with him could be truly enjoyable when done properly. Lying
down, for starters, and not doing it out of spite were helpful changes. She
likes it more each time and her sexual drive has considerably increased,
possibly a side effect of being pregnant, or just a consequence of having sex.

In truth, she also enjoys his company, even if
only to have someone to talk to. Still, underneath complex layers of
reassurance and pleasure she is withdrawn, resigned to the idea of not really
having any other choice.

After the spectacle with his family a week before,
Tommy did take her out to graduation dinner, which at first was awkward because
both were quiet and thoughtful, trying to read each other’s thoughts. It wasn’t
until Margarette made a poor joke about never buying that brand of condoms
again that Tommy revealed he was thinking the same thing and they finally
started talking.

He had been plagued with the unpleasant thought
that he could not be the father of her child because he had indeed used
protection. This was despite the fact that Margarette had said back in his
house that she had never had sex with anyone else, a fact that quietly pleased
him. He would never admit this to her, but during the two weeks that she
refused to talk to him he had pictured her with Luke Sharp’s kid brother,
Paulie. They hung out sometimes, Tommy knew. And when Tommy had followed her to
the drug store and seen her meet the kid there, he had burned with jealousy.
Despite the sheer unlikelihood of Margarette going out with a guy like Paulie,
Tommy had imagined them together, a dark thought that spawned from his
desperation.

So with as much tact as he could manage, which in
Tommy’s case meant he just flat out asked, he questioned if her relationship
with Paulie was anything more than friendly. Her open denial and casual
dismissal of the kid left little doubt in his mind that she was telling the
truth and that she was indeed pregnant with Tommy’s child. And that he was the
luckiest guy in the world.

His pleasure in the revelation transformed his
previous silence into an animated professing of his feelings for her. She had
been feeling down since the talk with Mr. Gallager, and Tommy’s enthusiasm was
a welcome change. His words lifted her spirits and gave her hope that despite
the awfulness of the situation at least the father of her child wanted her. His
blue eyes shining with excitement combined with a cute stray lock of blond hair
that had fallen over his forehead made him look truly beautiful.

So when he asked to come in once he drove her home
after dinner, she agreed. She didn’t want to face her mother alone, and she
realized she didn’t have to. Not anymore. He took her hand as they walked
together up to the porch in the darkness, but she let go before going in with
the excuse that she needed to look for her keys. As she looked down inside her
purse, he approached her and without a warning took her face in his hands and
kissed her.

The feeling of his soft lips moving serenely over
hers blew her mind. She just stood there, unable to react, her heart beating
furiously against her chest. After a few seconds his tongue parted her lips and
the kiss deepened; then she started kissing him back. She trembled as the
sweetness engulfed her.

They made out for a good minute or two before he
pulled back an inch, his hands still on her face. “I wanted to do that for the
longest time,” he whispered against her lips.

“You should have,” she blurted then, because she
thoroughly enjoyed his kiss. But she chided herself internally for saying it.
It was admitting too much.

Tommy smiled in the darkness and kissed her deeply
again. This time she responded in earnest, even pressing her body against his.
And to her dismay her eyes slowly filled with tears that she forced to contain,
and she thanked the night for hiding them, as she considered the pang of
enjoying her true first kiss after already being pregnant. Luckily Tommy didn’t
notice her flushed face because he was too busy being happy.

When they finally went in, not only was her mother
still awake, but she actually remembered her conversation with Margarette on
the phone earlier that evening, much to Margarette’s surprise. The
introductions were as awkward as expected, even while Tommy reiterated that he
would take good care of Margarette and the child. Margarette’s mother cried but
she didn’t shout, and then retreated into her bedroom.

With promises to pick her up the next day to take
her to the doctor, Tommy left, but not before he hugged Margarette and
whispered that everything would be alright. Hearing it from him made her feel a
little hopeful. She went to bed glad that the really long, emotional day was
finally over.

***

Mr. Gallager had asked her to start working in two
weeks, so the following Monday, a week after seeing the doctor, Tommy takes Margarette
shopping for work clothes. She will start the following week. She tells him
that she doesn’t want him to spend too much money on her, but secretly likes it.
If his family—his father—wants her to work for him, he should be paying for her
work clothes, she rationalizes. And Tommy’s money is technically his father’s
money, so she doesn’t feel so bad about it.

And Tommy did knock her up, she figures.

She is pretty happy with her reasoning. Tommy
drops her off at her house after shopping and she waves him thanks from the
porch as she opens the front door.

It is jarring at first and she stops at the sight.

Her mother is sitting by the open oven door at the
stove, not moving.

She turns back to Tommy but she can already hear
the departing hum of his engine as he drives away. She drops the two bags of
clothes that she is carrying and rushes to the kitchen, throwing the door
behind her to close it. She reaches for her mother’s back and pulls at the
fabric of her shirt, tipping her sideways. Margarette smells the rotten gas
escaping the pipe. Her hands are shaking as her mother falls limp to the floor;
on her mother’s face is an escaping grin from an otherwise locked stare.

“Mother?”

Margarette pats her mother’s back and quivers as
she starts to cry. Her mother’s arm is twisted behind her and Margarette can’t
move it from under her weight. She shakes the sagging body before her, willing
her mother to be alive. Her mother stirs, as if she had just been sleeping, and
nothing else. Margarette closes the oven door and it slams shut.

“I don’t want to be me anymore,” her mother says,
her smeared makeup making her look like a sad but frightening drunken clown. Margarette
can smell the rectified spirit on her. “Can I be someone else?” she slurs as if
reading from a list in her head. “I’m scared, I’m insecure, I’m ugly; my legs,
thighs, face, eyes, lips, hair, arms, stomach… all I am is a mess of thoughts
and feelings.”

“You can be whomever you want,” Margarette
replies, swallowing back a sob.

“Don’t leave me, Margarette… I would die if you left.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Margarette whispers. And
she knows it’s true.

I’m stuck here forever
.

***

Morning sunlight shines through Margarette’s
bedroom window. She is whispering into her phone. “Did you ever know that if
you had sex in your dreams, you could wake up pregnant?”

The phone hisses like it’s a kitten on the other
end of the phone.

“I don’t mind telling you,” Margarette says. “It’s
good and bad.”

She flips back her hair.

“Yes, good as in better, but he’s been doing it
ever since he found out I’m pregnant. It’s messy… yeah, that too… but it’s not
so bad once you get used to it.”

The girl on the phone is Margarette’s cousin, and
apparently her only remaining friend aside from Paulie. Margarette doesn’t mind
oversharing the details of her sex life with her.

“Five weeks. Well, the doctor says seven; they
count from the last period…. Yeah, I know, it’s stupid.”

The phone chatters away.

She picks up
Comeunion
, the book that Paulie
had given her, and opens to where she left off. It is a book about a love she
had never known. Margarette reads ahead by mistake. She stops and tries to
remember where she left off in the story and reads it to herself like an extended
thought.
The hero, Simon, stabs his hand in the middle of an office board
room, then pulls out the knife and it doesn’t bleed. He doesn’t have a hole in
his hand although it had struck right through. He holds up his hand in front of
the panicked people. There is no blood, but water on the desk. He sits down,
leans back and grins like a magician
.
They ask to inspect the knife.

Margarette wonders about it being possible, as if
it happened in real life. She grabs her switchblade from her desk without
opening it and holds it in her lap as she reads.

A girl’s tiny voice can be heard on the phone. She
is clearly upset.
Are you even listening
?

“Sure,” Margarette says, not sounding a bit
distracted. “You were talking about the thing.”

The voice continues, nonstop, but appeased.

When Margarette has the chance to get a few words
in, she says, “Oh yeah, that reminds me. Guess what… May has to drive me to
work tomorrow.”

Margarette smiles. “Yeah. She gave in.”

The phone cord has a kink in it and Margarette
slowly unwinds it. “I know.”

Mumble mumble
, from the phone.

“I know, I know,” Margarette replies, rolling her
eyes. “I think I’m going to move in with Tommy…. Yep. Eventually. Well, I can’t
stay here…. No, Mother’s back at the hospital. They won’t let her go… suicide
watch.”

Margarette’s mother is her cousin’s aunt, and the
other girl rambles on and on about it. It takes some time for Margarette to let
her finish.

She frowns. “I don’t know how I feel about it. Some
feelings just don’t have names.”

She says goodbye and plops back on the bed to read
the book. But she can’t concentrate and after a few minutes she puts it away. She
stands up and walks around the room in a skimpy nightgown, her thoughts on her
mother. This is not the first time Margarette’s mother has been in the hospital;
the first time happened a few months after her father left them.

Margarette always knew that she was stuck. Despite
her social struggles in school, she was never against the idea of college; she
dreamed of being a counselor…. But college was never an option while her mother
threatened to kill herself at the thought of being alone. Margarette is
resigned to her fate. And now this pregnancy might put some distance between
her and her mother but leaves her stuck in this town just the same. She is
truly caught between a rock and a hard place. If she moves in with Tommy… will
her mother carry out her threat? Will she be free of her mother?

She gasps at the dark thought and shakes her head.
She continues to pace.

Tommy shows up after it turns dark, interrupting
her thoughts. He pulls off her clothes and pins her down on the bed kissing her
neck. At first she welcomed the distraction but now she pulls his head down to
her shoulder so he can no longer see her face. The tears fall from her eyes and
she wishes that they stop on her cheeks, but the weight of fluid forces them to
the edge. Her tears drip on his neck.

He asks panicking, “Is this okay? Are you crying?”

“It’s not you, Tommy,” she replies. “I’m way
beyond tears.”

Tommy continues, “You always say things like
that.”

“Do I?” she casually responds.

Maybe
, she thinks. She wants someone who
understands her without having to explain it. She doesn’t know if she likes
him. She really doesn’t know.

Mr. Gallager owns the Five Star Bank, the largest
bank in the small town. He took on the business after his father passed. Tommy was
to be the third heir but Mr. Gallager was presented with an offer he couldn’t
refuse. A national bank kept offering increasing amounts of money to buy him
out until Mr. Gallager let go of his family pride and was forced to accept that
his son didn’t have it in him to run the business. He knew it would only be a
matter of time after the bank was in Tommy’s hands that Tommy would sell and
take all the money that Mr. Gallager had refused. So, he caved. Early in the
year the sale had been finalized, and by the end of the year the bank would be
changing names. Mr. Gallager still manages the Five Star and will continue to
do so until he chooses to retire; that was part of the deal.

But even if the bank sold out, the Gallagers have
a long history in Coyote Falls and they will not be forgotten any time soon.
Everyone knows the Gallagers and respects them. Well, a lot of people talk
trash about them, but everybody quietly admires the richest family in town, no
matter how snide they are.

May drives Margarette to the bank on her first day
of work. As the stately brick building comes into view, Margarette thinks about
how the current generation of Gallagers is nothing but lucky to be descendants
of the original people who worked their butts off. It seems unfair.

You are one of them now
, she scolds
herself. The thought is depressing.

May’s car stops in a reserved spot. The older girl
looks over at Margarette in the passenger seat wearing a new designer dress and
shoes that Tommy purchased for her, and shakes her head. “Follow me and don’t
talk to anyone just yet,” May instructs.

Wandering eyes glare through a thick panel of
glass in front of the bank. Curious employees watch the two women get out of
the car, and follow them discretely with their eyes as they enter the bank.
Older ladies in the break room plain stare at Margarette.

Murmurs reach Margarette’s ears as they walk to the
back of the bank.
Who is the new girl?

You already know who she is
, Margarette
thinks.
And you are nothing but a sea of mindless guppies
.

Mr. Gallager is not at work today so May uses his
office. She provides Margarette with a long list of instructions without pause.
She names each person Margarette needs to know and tells her how to act. Never
walk away from a question, she says. Answer it and move on. Lie if you have to.
Answer the question with certainty even if you’re proven wrong. If proven wrong
continue to argue.

Margarette listens quietly but doesn’t take notes.
May pauses to look for an employee manual and Margarette uses the break to look
around the office. On the wall is a crest with a black lion rampant on a silver
shield. Margarette doesn’t notice the snakes under its claws until she walks
close to it. She squints and reads the words
Mea Gloria Fides
. Of course
she doesn’t understand Latin, but is impressed regardless. It looks important
enough to write a dead language on.

May notices her looking at the crest. “Father
knows all kinds of crap about our family. I’m sure at some point it was
interesting, but I don’t know why he keeps up with it.”

Margarette shrugs, unsure whether to agree or
disagree. “So do you work here?”

“Not exactly. I use an empty office when I’m here,
but I don’t work as a teller,” May says vaguely. She scans Margarette’s face
quickly as if looking for something there.

“What
do
you do?” Margarette asks.

“Well, if you must know…. Nothing exciting,
really. I manage some of the charities but I don’t really do much other than
make calls.”

“What did you say you went to school for?”

“I didn’t.”

That put an end to the conversation.

Margarette wants to ask May about Tommy and talk
to her about their childhood, but there is too much anger between them. May is
always sad, the kind of sad that makes Margarette feel sorry for her, and want
to get to know her better. But May is such a bitch, it is nearly impossible.

After another round of instructions May drops her
off with the employee handbook at an empty workstation just outside Mr.
Gallager’s office. The desk has one computer, a typewriter and a pen. From her
chair she can see the main banking area beyond, but she is tucked in a corner.
She feels like that was probably done on purpose.

“Look, I took you here, walked you in like you
were my friend, but I’ve got somewhere to be,” May says. “I told them
everything they need to know. Read that handbook until someone comes by to get
you started. Good luck.”

“Thank you for the ride,” Margarette says softly,
but she really means it.

“Don’t thank me. I had nothing to do with it.”

Oh, but she did.

Margarette stays there as instructed, her head
fixed forward. Her little corner becomes quiet enough for her to hear a ticking
clock. An older lady comes by and introduces herself as Martha, and then has
Margarette type something on the typewriter. It is an archaic typewriter at
best, but it is the only thing the gray-haired woman knows. When Margarette asks
if she can’t just use the computer instead, Martha explains that the computers
were brought in by the new owners, and that they all indeed have a word
processor, but she hasn’t been trained on it yet. Margarette assures her that
she can figure it out, and gets a slip of paper from the older lady with a login
password. She knows how to work a computer. She’s no expert, but no one needs
to be an expert to know how to use a damn computer.

She finishes her one task in less than half an
hour and uses the rest of the time to find information about everyone in the
building, where they live and if they are salaried or not. The computer doesn’t
have access to the Internet but is connected to a local network that nobody yet
has figured out to make secure. Some hours later Mrs. Martha walks by in front
of Margarette’s desk and is happy that Margarette figured out how to make that
old piano sing. It takes Margarette a second to understand that she’s vaguely
describing the keyboard.

Aside from the entertainment afforded by the
snooping, the first part of the day is miserable. She feels people are talking
about her and she wants to meet her other coworkers to satisfy their curiosity.
However, May didn’t introduce her to anyone so she stays put. Nobody approaches
her either, aside from Mrs. Martha.

By eleven she gets nervous when she hears everyone
start talking about lunch. She doesn’t know where to go or what to eat so she
tries to justify why she doesn’t need to eat. But a group of older women headed
by Mrs. Martha drag her along to a deli a few blocks away. The lunch out is meant
to entertain her, but more likely an opportunity to get a closer look at the
new girl. Either way it’s hard to say no to a crowd when they can hear your
stomach grumbling. During lunch they tell stories she doesn’t quite follow
about people she would never know, but at least they don’t talk to her too
much. It is the right balance of “getting to know you” questions and group
distraction. When they get back she spends hours performing remedial tasks like
sharpening pencils.

At 4 p.m. Tommy comes in the front door and sits
in his corner office, just as they discussed the night before, little eye
contact and no smiles. The office doesn’t skip a breath.

Two hours later everyone has gone home, except for
the skeleton crew running numbers for the day. Margarette walks out past Tommy,
out the bank and down the block. Tommy picks her up in his car before she gets
to the stop sign at the end of the street. He doesn’t kiss her, but he looks
excited. His hand brushes against hers and neither retreat. She notices he
doesn’t turn to her house and drives out to the country. They travel on a long
road and she finally asks why.

“It’s a surprise,” he says. And boy, he is right.

He holds out a set of keys with a smile. “It’s a
house! Father gave it to us.”

It’s a good thing that he is driving and not able
to see the horrified look on her face.

“That’s great, Tommy,” she says with a forced
smile. He had mentioned to her last week that he would get his own place
someday, but she thought he meant
rent
a place… and that moving in would
happen much later, after they pretended to meet and fall in love at the bank.

Tommy’s father must have given him a house for
knocking her up. Oh, to be rich.

Must be nice
, she thinks to herself.

After only about a mile, Tommy pulls up to a cute
little blue house. He’s excited as he shows her the small but modest space with
new hardwood floors. It has a bright, white kitchen with yellow accents. Two
bedrooms and a little office where she already sees some of his stuff loosely
shoved into a corner and a half-opened box.

When he gets to the master bedroom the hairs on
her neck stand up. He has a new queen-sized bed covered with soft-looking blue sheets.

She stops in the doorway not wanting to enter, but
he stands next to her, cornering her where there isn’t a corner, forcing her
forward into the room without a touch. There is a master bathroom off to the
side and she goes in to see it, but Tommy doesn’t go in with her.

“It’s cute, Tommy,” she calls, and turns back
around to face him.

“It’s yours.” He pulls off his collared shirt and
throws it at the foot of the bed, wrinkling it. He advances to her and takes
her hand, bringing her back into the room, close enough to him that she feels the
late rays of sunlight coming in from the window reflected off his skin. He
doesn’t say another thing, but his arms reach around her, pulling her to him.
He lowers his lips to hers.

There should have been music playing or some sound
other than the softly creaking floors, but he doesn’t even have a clock radio
yet. Her heartbeat quickens as he kisses her more urgently.

She is shaking inside, an uncomfortable feeling
tricking her body into a rush of sensations. The idea of living with him makes
her nervous. She wants to hold on to that thought and address it, but the
feeling is pushed to the back of her mind as his tongue demands her attention.
His hands caress her back and she feels the situation is beyond her control. He
is quick to be physical, overwhelming her, and she finds it difficult to be
herself. He is beautiful to her, and deep down she does not have a real reason
to stop him. So she lets him.

Tommy guides her to the bed and leans into her,
forcing her to lie back on the blue sheets. He fondles her breasts through
layers of clothes as he kisses her. She is wearing a thick bra so she feels
only the pressure. He pauses the kiss to undo her zipper; her dress becomes
loose and he pulls it over her head with her help.

He stares at her in her underwear, looks into her
eyes and smiles. His smile melts her reservations, and she can’t help but smile
back. He pulls his undershirt off quickly in an effort to keep her from feeling
bare. Her small hands glide over his chest and she doesn’t mind being there
with him anymore. She feels one of her shoes slip to the floor and lets the
other fall after. Tommy sits up and unbuckles his belt and finishes undressing.

He climbs on top of her and slides a blanket over
them. At first he doesn’t move, but just stares at her, both her legs on either
side of him. His fingertips glide down her belly and stop over her waist. He
pulls the elastic on her panties and slides them completely off. He looks down
at her bra, then at her naked body. She is beautiful, but frozen in the bed,
motionless, barely able to whisper.

“Tommy….”

“You’re so beautiful. I can’t believe how lucky I
am.”

She watches him as he eases himself into her and
she gasps under his pressing weight. He glides in and out of her to his
pleasure, and despite her earlier reserve she becomes physically excited. Her
eyes tell the story that she wants it to end quickly, but his head is low and he’s
unable to read them. He’s forceful and strong and a soft perspiration gathers
on his skin. Her stomach tightens as he rocks up and down, pressing her body
against the bed.

He pulses and she feels the glide in a way she enjoys.
Her hand digs into his back forcing him deeper into her, and she feels him
struggle to sync her new course. His feverish focus takes her to a higher realm
of pleasure, and the reasons she had to dismiss him culminate in one powerful reason
to keep him. She starts to come in a way that makes her believe in him. The
strength he possesses forces her to accept that living alone is too hard to
sell. This is much, much better….

“Tommy. I’m… I’m going to come,” she whispers into
his ear struggling to find the air.

He kisses her neck and says, “Me too,” and pushes
deeper, faster into her.

Her body tenses and she stops breathing as the quivering
in her body takes over and she glories in the sensation that is manifesting
inside her. Her mind is blank, there is nothing but the waves of pleasure, and
if she doesn’t start breathing soon she may die in his arms. She finally
orgasms beautifully, and it lasts ten wonderful seconds, while he keeps going.
Her breath soothes as he begins gasping for air, finding his release, squirting
deep inside of her.

Coming down from her high she closes her eyes and
wonders why he couldn’t just pull himself out. Then again, it’s not like she
could get more pregnant. She doesn’t say a thing and he remains inside her,
their chests pressed together, racing hearts pulsing in sync. The simple
pleasure of sex represents a dirty thing to her, and yet this is the most
comfortable sex she has ever had with him.

She thinks about doing this every night. It is hard
for her to imagine Tommy and her like this forever, but she knows she doesn’t
have much of a choice. She knows he likes her, but her fear keeps her from
giving him her heart, from fully opening herself to the experience. Because there
is a chance he may change his mind, and make her child a bastard.