“Maybe you’d like being married,” Hank said. “You’ve been going with Peggy for years. Maybe it’s time to get married. You aren’t getting any younger, you know.”
“Or any slimmer,” Maggie said, watching him fork into his eggs.
“I don’t know. The idea gives me the willies.” He looked up at Hank. “You like being married?”
“Yup.”
He shifted his attention to Maggie and grinned. “I can tell you like being married.” He winked at Hank and leaned across the table to him. “Only one thing puts a smile like that on a woman’s face.”
Maggie stuffed an entire muffin into her mouth and chewed. She’d agreed to stay for six months. She’d already been here for five days. That left 179 days. 179 breakfasts with Bubba. It wasn’t an appealing prospect. She swallowed the muffin and washed it down with half a cup of coffee. “I have to go to work,” she said.
“It’s Saturday,” Hank said. “Why don’t you work for half a day, and we’ll go for a drive. I’ll take you up to the top of Mt. Mansfield on the ski lift.”
Bubba looked up from his meat loaf. “You can’t do that. You told Bill Grisbe you’d take a look at his Ford. Hank is a mechanical wizard,” Bubba told Maggie. “And then we’ve got a game against West Millerville.”
“Softball,” Hank explained. “I forgot. Maybe we could go to Mt. Mansfield tomorrow.”
“I thought you were going to Burlington with me tomorrow,” Bubba said. “We were going to take a look at the new press Sam Inman just installed.”
“Oh yeah. It’s a great press,” he said to Maggie. “It’s the kind I want. He’s got a thirty-two inch hydraulic rack-and-cloth press with a sanifeed unit.”
Maggie felt her smile fading. Hank didn’t have the time or the desire for a real wife. That was why he’d hired one. Lord, she was such an idiot. After their wonderful night, now she was playing second fiddle to Bill Grisbe’s Ford. Men!
“Wouldn’t want to disappoint Bill Grisbe,” she said frostily. “And I certainly wouldn’t want the softball team to do without you.”
“Uh-oh,” Bubba said to Hank. “I think she’s mad. I think she’s getting the old ball and chain ready to clamp onto your ankle.”
Old ball and chain? Maggie felt the fire burning in her scalp, felt her temper kick in.
“Listen, Mr. Lard, it’s none of your business what I clamp onto my husband’s ankle. And for your information, your days are limited at this breakfast table. If you haven’t dropped dead from clogged arteries by Wednesday, you’re going to have to make other arrangements to fuel up.” She glared at him. “Got that?”
“She sure gets riled,” Bubba said to Hank. “Must be that book is wearing her out.”
Maggie wheeled around and marched out of the room, shaking her head and muttering.
Hank grinned after her. “She likes me,” he said. “She doesn’t want to share.”
“She sure is changeable…smiling one minute and calling me names the next. She’s unstable, Hank. I’m telling you, the woman is loony.”
Maggie stomped into her study and slammed the door shut. She wasn’t loony, and she wasn’t unstable. She was mad. Mostly she was mad at herself. She’d walked right into this with her eyes wide open, and now she was peeved because it was turning out just as she’d expected.
She threw herself into her chair and turned on her computer. Ignore them, she told herself. Concentrate on your work. Who cares about a silly trip up to the top of Mt. Mansfield.
She cared! She hadn’t been off the farm for five days, and she was going bonkers. She cracked her knuckles and looked out the window. Apple trees for as far as the eye could see. Boring, stupid apple trees. They were always the same. At least her parking lot in Riverside had some activity. Cars going in and out. People taking their garbage to the dumpster. And then twice a week the big garbage truck would come and empty the dumpster. Now that was excitement.
She stared at the computer screen, rereading the last paragraph she’d written. She tapped a pencil against her forehead and pursed her lips.
“Now what?” she said. “Now what?”
She didn’t know. She’d lost her momentum. She thumbed through the diary, but it didn’t inspire her. So, Kitty Toone had become a madam to buy baby cereal.
“Big deal,” Maggie said. “Everybody has problems. Look at me. I’ve got problems.”
By two o’clock she’d organized her sock drawer and her lingerie, she’d written a letter home to her mother, she’d yanked the hairs out of her legs with hot wax, she’d put two coats of bright crimson lacquer on her nails, and she’d gone through two giant bags of potato chips. But she still hadn’t typed anything into the computer.
She was lying spread eagle on the floor, supposedly thinking, but actually taking a nap, when she heard a car pull up in front of the house. She went to the window and watched while Hank’s parents got out and made their way to the door. A surprise visit from her in-laws. They probably came to see if she’d set any more of the ancestral home on fire.
She took stock of herself and decided she looked utterly disreputable in her most comfortable but oldest shorts and faded T-shirt. Her hair hadn’t been combed since before breakfast, and she’d lost track of her shoes. Maybe she could hide in her room, she thought. Maybe Elsie would answer the door and tell the Mallones that Hank was off with Bubba fixing somebody’s broken-down car. Then, hopefully, they’d leave.
She heard Elsie move to the door when the bell rang, and she crossed her fingers. She really didn’t want to face Harry Mallone.
There was the muffled sound of conversation in the foyer, and then Elsie yelled up the stairs. “It’s the Mallones, Maggie. They came to say hello.”
Maggie groaned. She ran an in effective hand through her hair and took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing,” she said, opening the door to her study.
Horatio bounded in. He put his paws on Maggie’s chest and gave her a big, happy slurp on the face. He saw Fluffy sleeping next to the keyboard and did the same to Fluffy. Fluffy reacted with a lightning fast swipe that caught Horatio on the side of the head. Horatio yelped. He regained his footing, raised his hackles, and barked in the cat’s face. “Woof!” Fluffy took off with the dog in pursuit.
Maggie ran down the stairs after them, stopping short when she reached the foyer. The cat was now affixed to Hank’s father’s chest.
Harry Mallone’s face was brick-red, his even, white teeth clenched, his eyes bulged slightly. “This house is a loony bin,” he said. “And I hate cats!”
Helen Mallone patted her husband’s arm. “I think she likes you, dear,” she said. “Remember your blood pressure.” She smiled pleasantly at Maggie. “We were out for a drive and thought we’d stop around to say hello.”
Maggie unhooked the cat claws one by one. “I’m terribly sorry!”
Elsie was still holding the front door open. “I’ve never seen anything like it. That cat just flew through the air to old Harry here. Must have some squirrel in her. She just flew through the air.”
Hank’s pickup rattled down the driveway and stopped in front of the house. Hank and Bubba got out and jogged to the porch.
“What’s going on?” Hank asked.
“Your parents came over to visit, and the cat from hell attacked your father,” Elsie said.
“That cat’s a killer,” Harry Mallone said. “It’s a threat to society. It should be locked up, put to sleep, have its claws ripped out.”
Maggie clutched Fluffy to her chest. “Over my dead body!”
Harry didn’t look upset about that possibility. He raised an eyebrow and said, “Hmmmm.”