Catch of the Day (Gideon's Cove #1)(73)
“Malone? Oh, thank God you’re home.” It’s Chantal. I freeze, midcrouch.
“What are you doing here?” Malone asks. Their voices are as clear as if I were in the same room.
“Damn it, Malone, you’re not going to believe this.” I think Chantal may be crying, and a strange sense of apprehension pins me to where I squat. “Do you have a sec? I need to talk.”
“Sit down. What’s the matter?” he asks. I hear the squeak of springs, a rustle.
“I’m pregnant.”
The air is sucked out of my lungs. Chantal is pregnant? And she’s telling
“Oh, Christ,” Malone says. “Oh, honey.” Chantal bursts into tears.
The realization hits me slowly, their voices fading to a background undertone.
Chantal is pregnant. And Malone…
“How far along?” Malone asks, his voice coming back into reception.
“Just a couple weeks. I don’t know what to do, Malone. This is the worst”
My vision swims, my hearing fades, and my hands are clenched over my mouth. I’ve never fainted before, but this must be close. A couple of weeks.
A couple of weeks ago, Malone and I were sleeping together. And, apparently, he was also sleeping with Chantal.
I don’t realize that I’ve left my spot under the window until I grip the cold handlebars of my bike. Without making a sound, I push it robotically down the road. When I reach Water Street, I climb on and ride to my sister’s house.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself over and over, the wind biting my damp cheeks. There was nothing real between us anyway.
But it seems that there was, because I’m crying so hard I can barely see.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THERE’S A MESSAGE on my answering machine when I finally return to my apartment the next afternoon. I’ve been hiding at Christy’s, and yes, I told her the whole story. She and Will fed me, let me put Violet to bed and opened a good bottle of wine. I slept in the guest room and went straight to the diner this morning.
The light on the answering machine blinks, waiting to tell me the big news. It takes me a minute to push the button.
“Hey, Maggie, it’s Malone. Uh…thought we were getting together tonight. Call me later.”
Really. He thought we were getting together. Not when another woman is carrying his child, that’s for damn sure.
I flop down in a chair and hug a worn throw pillow to my stomach, my eyes hard. Chantal made no bones about the fact that she found Malone attractive. That she’d put the moves on him before. And she mentioned something about him having a crush on her once, long ago. Or more recently, as the evidence indicates. Yes, God forbid that Chantal doesn’t get a man. Every damn male in town is required to adore her, aren’t they? I clench my teeth hard, willing the lump in my throat to dissolve.
The edges of the throw pillow are frayed, the material thin from years of use. I really should make it a new cover, but why bother? In fact, as I look around my cramped little apartment, impatience rushes through me. Why do I have all this crap? Does anyone really need six TableTop pie tins? So what if they’re collectibles? Suddenly, I hate collectibles. Collectibles. Why not just call them what they are? Old junk. Why own them? To collect cobwebs? If that’s their purpose, they’re doing an excellent job.
I jump up, grab some garbage bags and newspaper and start wrapping with a vengeance. I should have a yard sale. Or bring this crap to an antiques dealer. Suddenly, I want to have a spartan, clean living space. Just floor and futon, Japanese style. Or Swedish, maybe, with just a streamlined dresser for my clothes.
And clothes! I practically leap into the bedroom and rip open my bureau drawers. How many sweaters do I really need, anyway? About a third of them are my father’s cardigans, which I’ve stolen over the yearsmaybe he’ll want them back. And God, look at how many stained T-shirts I have. Working in a diner is no excuse. Surely I can afford clean shirts. When I dribble gravy or coffee on them and can’t get the stain out, into the trash they shall go. Maybe I should have T-shirts made up for the diner. Yes. That’s what I’ll do. That will eliminate the question of what to wear every day. Just a black T-shirt with red writing. Joe’s Diner, established 1933, Gideon’s Cove, ME. Perfect. The summer nuisance will love them.
Ruthlessly, I stuff half a dozen shirts into a trash bag, vaguely noting logos of places I’ve been, sayings I thought were cute. Stupid cluttering crap. I barely pause at the blue rat, stuffing it with far greater force than necessary into the giant black trash bag. Good. Bury it. Stupid cheap thing.
After Skip traded me in for a classier model, I moved in here, renting the place from some summer people who had bought it as an investment. When Gideon’s Cove failed to be the new Bar Harbor, they sold it to me for an affordable price, and Dad and I overhauled the place and found Mrs. K. as a tenant. It was so safe here, so cozy and tiny. But now it seems crowded and stuffy, just as my mind is crammed with memories of my romantic failures.
Skip, of course, is at the head of the class. But there were others, too, before Malone, before Father Tim. A couple of years after Skip was Pete, a very nice guy from a few towns over. We dated for a year, practically living together at the end. When he asked me out for dinner one night, I imagined that he was going to pop the question. And I imagined myself saying yes. We were very solid, very content, I thought. It wasn’t a huge romantic love, but I thought it would last.