Page 13 of Playing for Keeps in Starr's Fall
“He’s really good,” Ben explained. “His KD is insane…” Maggie had no idea what a KD was, never mind what qualified as insane, so she just nodded.
“We’ve been invited to dinner at our neighbor Laurie’s place tomorrow night,” she said in as casual a voice as she could manage. “Do you remember we met her back when we came at Thanksgiving? Laurie Ellis. She runs that little pet store, Max’s Place.”
“Huh… okay…” Ben mumbled, his gaze still on the screen. Then the penny dropped with a thud, and he swiveled to face her. “It’s just you going, though, right?”
“No, Ben,” Maggie replied gently. “I thought we should both go. We were both invited.”
A look of trapped terror came over her son’s face as he pulled the sleeves of his sweatshirt over his hands in what had become something of a nervous tic. “Mom…”
“You know what we agreed,” she reminded him quietly.
Another proviso—that he would try to make friends in Starr’s Fall, even if he was doing online school. Ben shook his head, more of a reflex than anything else. Maggie understood his fear. For months now it had just been the two of them, hiding away from the world. It was hard to come out of that. Hard to know even how to be.
“Like I’m going to make friends with some middle-aged mom?” he said with an attempt at a sneer.
“I’mthe middle-aged mom,” Maggie pointed out. “Laurie is only in her twenties, and as far as I know, she’s not a mom. Besides, you can make friends with anyone, Ben.” She stopped, not wanting to point out that his success rate at making friends with kids his own age was pretty poor.
Ben turned back to the screen and resumed clicking, this time with a morose sort of concentration.
Deciding not to press for an actual acceptance, Maggie walked to the fridge and opened it, surveying its paltry contents for something to make for dinner. She should do a proper grocery shop, she thought with a pang of guilt. Fill the fridge with all kinds of good things. She wanted to have the will as well as the energy to do that, to dolotsof things like that—make soup and knit blankets and write flowery messages on handcrafted cards—but right now it all eluded her.
She thought about Laurie’s kind housewarming gifts which she’d left downstairs. She glanced back at Ben, who was once more engrossed in the make-believe world of RainQuest, and she suspected that at the moment it felt like a safer place than Starr’s Fall.
Changing locations, Maggie reflected, did not mean you actually changedyourself. Your feelings, your fears, your weaknesses… they all remained depressingly the same. Had she really thought she’d suddenly, magically become a sort of cheerfully capable and socially confident business-minded woman, simply by moving to Starr’s Fall? Or that Ben would suddenlynotbe an antisocial, game-obsessed teenaged boy with scars on his wrists he still had to hide?
She closed the door with what would have been a slam if not for the soft sucking noise of the fridge’s suction liner.
“Ben,” she asked, “do you want a cookie?”
No reply.
Maggie headed downstairs for the plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies. Maybe she’d eat them all herself, and she’d binge-watch a few of her favorite episodes ofIs It Cake?while she was at it. Some things, it seemed, really didn’t change.
5
“So, no date tonight?” Laurie asked teasingly as she kissed Zach’s cheek. He handed her the hand-tied bouquet of winter jasmine he’d bought in Litchfield and she murmured her thanks.
“Nope, no date,” he replied breezily. “I’m taking a break.”
“What he really means,” Jenna informed Laurie as she unzipped her parka, “is that there are no more eligible women in the entire Litchfield area.OrTorrington.”
Zach strolled over to the kitchen table, keeping his smile in place. These kinds of jokes never got old with the good citizens of Starr’s Fallorhis sister, he reflected sourly. It was amazing how easily some people were amused, Jenna included.
“I’m sure you’ll find the right woman one of these days,” Laurie remarked diplomatically as she put the jasmine in a little pottery jug. She slid him a smile full of warm-hearted affection. “Won’t you, Zach?”
“Here’s hoping,” he replied in the same breezy tone.
“Well, he’s certainly found a lot ofright nowwomen,” Jenna remarked, her joking tone not without the faintest touch of acid.
Zach’s smile slipped as he gritted his teeth. He and Jenna had been coolly polite with one another ever since their argument four days ago, and that wasn’t how they usually operated, mainly because Zach always kept up a jokey, devil-may-care attitude to alleviate Jenna’s control-freak tendencies. But having her make that kind of pointed remark when they were already not quite getting along felt like a bit much to take, especially when they were with company.
“Since you don’t go on the dates with me,” he remarked in what he hoped was a pleasant tone, “or ever discuss my dating life with me, I’m not sure how informed you are to make that assessment of my motivations.”
Both Jenna and Laurie gave him the sort of startled look that made him feel like he’d just burped or farted. He knew he didn’t normally push back like that, but lately he’d been getting pretty tired of the status quo. Maybe it was meeting someone new, and seeing how Maggie and Ben Parker were starting their lives over in Starr’s Fall. Could he do that too, even if he’d never left?
“Just saying,” he finished with an easy smile. Max had come to sniff around his sneakers and Zach scooped him up in one hand and deposited the little dog in his lap, grateful for the distraction.
“So how is our newcomer settling in?” Jenna asked Laurie. “It was nice of you to invite her to dinner. What’s her name again?”
