Discreet by Nicole French

8

The bonfire was visible from the road when I pulled up in front of the Forsters’ old rambling farmhouse off Muzzy Cove that had been serving as an inn for the last fifty years or so. Lucas, his parents, and his younger sister, Katie, lived in a smaller house in the far corner of the property, leaving the inn and the rest of the five acres primarily to the guests. But considering how much time I’d spent in front of the big fire pit that lit up the grassy lawn leading to the lake’s edge, the whole place still felt as familiar as a second home.

I stood outside my car for a moment, listening to the laughter echoing from the beach. Doubt piled back in. How would they react, seeing me eight years after I broke their son’s heart? What kinds of questions would they ask about why I’d returned? Which ones did I want to answer? My appearance would make a splash. Was that what I wanted right now?

“Maggie? Is that you?”

I swung around to find Linda Forster, Lucas’s mother, rounding the corner of the inn with a basket full of linens.

“Hey, Linda,” I greeted her warmly, reaching to take the basket from her. I accepted her kiss to my cheek.

“Lucas said you were back in town. We were wondering if you were going to drop by to say hello,” she said. “I’m just taking these back to the main house to launder. The kids are all at the pit if you want to join them.”

I nodded. I wasn’t getting out of this now.

As she walked me toward the lake, Linda chattered about some of the new updates Lucas had done to the inn since starting to take over from his dad.

“You know that Don and I are making the move down to Arizona next year, right?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t. I knew you were retiring, but I didn’t know about the move. Good for you guys, though.”

“We found a little place up north in the desert we like. We’ll come back here for the summers when it gets too hot down there, but it was time. We’ve been squirreling away our pennies since the kids were in diapers.” She sighed, looking out at the lake. “We love it here, but it’s time to pass the place on to the next generation. Lucas is gonna do well with it. ’Specially if he can find a good partner to help him run it.”

She gave me a knowing look, and I kept my gaze squarely ahead of me. Some things never changed. How many times had I heard suggestions of marriage from Linda, Don, half the people around the lake, when Lucas and I were just seventeen? Now I had been home for less than two weeks, Lucas and I weren’t even involved, and I was hearing it again.

“Look who the cat dragged in!” Linda announced as we approached the fire pit. She took the basket from me, nodding at the group sitting in camp chairs and overturned logs around the big fire.

All eight or so people stopped their conversations. Lucas, who had previously been engrossed by a very pretty blonde woman on the other side of the fire, jumped up eagerly to give me a hug.

“Hey, Mags, you made it!” He pulled me in and pressed a quick kiss to the top of my head.

I waited, woodenly, until he finished the awkward embrace. It felt overly familiar, considering the context of our last conversation. But then again, that could have been due to the beer on his breath.

I pulled at the hem of my skirt, which, while not super tight or anything, did only come down to mid-thigh. I wrapped my oversized fleece jacket around my torso and looked out to the crowd. “Hey, everyone. Thought I’d come by and say hello.”

Their greetings were first cautious, then effusive. John Hawkins, Lucas’s best friend, got up to give me a hug before introducing me to his wife, Alex. Katie was also there with her boyfriend, along with a few other people I remembered from high school. Lindsay, the blonde girl Lucas had been chatting up when I arrived, shot nasty glances at me from time to time, but otherwise everyone welcomed me into the circle while Lucas offered me a chair by the fire and a beer.

“Just a water,” I said, ignoring the curious looks from the others when I turned down one of the cans of Natural Ice from the cooler.

“Still dry, huh?” Lucas asked as he handed me a bottle of water instead.

I took it and shrugged. “I’m just thirsty.” Though I never came out as completely dry or anything in high school, I never drank much either. Lucas knew why, and so did John and Katie. The others didn’t press it.

“When did you get back, Maggie?” Katie asked after she’d come around for an awkward hug.

“About ten days ago.”

“Where were you?” Lindsay had a voice like a dart as she scooted toward Lucas, who sat down a bit closer to me.

I cleared my throat. “Um, New York.”

“Maggie is an amazing musician,” Lucas told her. She didn’t seem impressed.

“What kind?” Lindsay asked, as she looked me up and down. “Rap? R&B? My mom always said that kind of stuff was basically just medicine for the devil. That’s why I like working at Curly’s, you know? All they play is country music.”

“Oh my God, Lindsay, what planet are you from?” Katie joked, tossing a balled-up napkin across the fire at her. It caught in the flames and quickly burned up.

Lindsay sniffed. “Well, you know, when you really listen to the lyrics, it’s true. It’s all about sex and drugs. Nothing else.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” jeered Katie’s boyfriend, Scott, followed by a pinch at Katie’s waist that made her shriek.

I smiled thinly and took a long swig of my water. “Well, I didn’t really perform that kind of stuff. Most of what I did probably sounds like country, maybe folk. Kind of in the middle, like Neko Case or the Avett Brothers.”

“Country?” Lindsay gawked. “You?” Her gaze traveled up and down my person.

I shrugged. “Why not?”

She looked like she wanted to tell me exactly why someone who looked like me shouldn’t be singing anything like country music, but instead, Lucas put a hand on her knee and pulled her into a different conversation about the latest superhero movie.

Eventually, the group fell back into a familiar rhythm, and I had to admit there was some comfort in it. We had been doing this since we were kids, gathering around someone’s fire, at someone’s dock, just shooting the shit and hanging out. The same exact faces, perhaps a bit fuller after almost a decade, were lit golden in the fire. They told the same stories about someone’s dog, or the kid who had fallen out of John’s truck after that one football game. Even the new ones sounded the same.

“I have an idea, Mags,” Lucas said, sometime later. It wasn’t until he nudged me in the arm that I realized he was talking to me.

I shook my head. “What’s that?”

Lucas stood up. “We got a used guitar for the inn—some of the guests like to play it in the common room. I’ll go get it, and you can play for us, like you used to.”

I stiffened. “No, no,” I said as casually as I could, shaking my head. “I’m out of practice. Not really in the playing mood tonight.”

“Come on, Mags. Let’s hear that famous songbird voice of yours. Let’s see if eight years in the big city was worth it.”

It was hard not to hear the bitterness in his voice, and by the way everyone else around the fire fell quiet, they heard it too.

I stared at Lucas for a moment, and he stared at me, his round face suddenly looking heavy, cast with shadow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but didn’t blink.

But I wasn’t going to move on this. “Not tonight,” I said. I turned to the fire and gave a weak smile to the silent crowd. “Sorry.”

“Well, that’s a surprise,” Lindsay muttered to John. “Isn’t that what they all like to do? ‘Sports and entertainment’?”

John shook his head, though he couldn’t mask an embarrassed smile. “Jesus Christ, Lindsay.”

I stiffened. “What did you say?”

Lindsay shrugged and took another long drink from her beer. “Um, pretty sure it was a rapper that said that.” She nudged John again. “My brother loves old-school Jay-Z. I am always hearing that shit.”

“Lindsay, you need to stop talking now,” Katie broke in. “Plus, Maggie’s not even black, are you, Mags?”

I sighed. I didn’t have the patience to do this all over again, reinvent the wheel of my unknown ethnicity, lost even to me. I didn’t need to listen to the hush that would come over the group when everyone remembered what a slut my mother was. The knowing looks that would land on me, as if they could see some slutty genetic instincts emerging on command.

“I’m pretty tired,” I finally said, standing up. “I think I’m going to go home. Have a good night, everyone.”

“Good riddance,” Lindsay muttered, but I was already striding back to my car.

“Maggie. Maggie, wait!”

I didn’t. It’s not like I hadn’t heard a thousand comments like Lindsay’s over the years, whether in Spokane or New York. But I had forgotten what this was like—how, if I wasn’t willing to be someone’s token, I was easily dismissed at gatherings like these, previously only protected by the power of dating Lucas Forster. I didn’t belong here. I never had, even if it was also the only home I had to come back to.

Lucas grabbed my arm and forced me to turn around to face him. “Maggie, I said stop.”

I pulled my arm away. “I just need to go home, Lucas. This was a bad idea.”

“Come on, don’t let one bitchy comment drive you away,” Lucas said. “Lindsay’s just jealous because she knows you’re special.”

I shrugged. I didn’t feel special. I felt broken and awkward and out of place. “I just want to go.”

“Come here.” Lucas pulled me into his big body, and despite the scent of cheap beer wafting off him, the solid warmth of him didn’t feel awful. I softened slightly.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he murmured as he looked down.

And for a second, I looked back. I saw Lucas, who was mostly kind, supportive, even if he didn’t always get it. And for a second, I was comforted by that.

Then he leaned down and pressed a sloppy kiss on my mouth.

“Lucas!”

I turned my head away, but he didn’t stop. Instead, he pressed me into the side of my car, his hands running down my sides as he breathed heavily into my neck.

“Fuck, Maggie,” he groaned. “I missed you. You feel so good.”

“Stop! What are you doing?” I shouted.

“What?” Lucas spat, his upper lip curling as he slurred slightly. “You wanna tell me you don’t feel the connection between us? It’s still here, Mags, you know it is.”

“No, I d-do n-not!!” I sputtered, the stutter returning just enough to make me spout like a tea kettle. “Just yesterday, I was spitting mad at you for calling me a slut!”

“I didn’t call you a slut, Maggie,” Lucas protested. “I said your dress maybe suggested something like it. Honestly, I was just jealous. I didn’t like the idea of other guys seeing your pretty legs in something like that. Something like this skirt too, if you want to be real.” He looked me over again, and this time, the suggestion in his eyes was clear as they drifted over my bare legs. His mouth quirked with a smile that wasn’t nearly as shy as it used to be. “Chicken legs.”

But now I didn’t find the silly nickname the slightest bit funny. Nothing about this was funny, especially not when Lucas leaned in again with the clear intent to kiss me, whether I wanted it or not. Like somehow I was asking for it.

“Lucas,” I said, pressing against his chest.

He didn’t move.

“Lucas!”

He stopped.

“Let me make this very, very clear,” I said, pushing him back again. This time, he moved. “I am not interested in anything like that. Not with you. Not with anyone. If that means you don’t want to help Mama and me out on the property, I get it. We’ll figure out something else. But you and I cannot be anything more than friends. Do you understand?”

Lucas didn’t answer for what seemed like an hour. Finally, he pulled his baseball hat off his head and put it on backwards before exhaling, long and heavy.

“You really have changed,” he said, somewhat regretfully. “Yeah, I get it. And you don’t have to worry about the work. I’ll be there on Monday, bright and early. I don’t break my promises.”

Leaving me to wonder exactly what he meant by that, he turned and loped back to the fire. I got into my car and started to drive, taking a left out of their driveway instead of a right, which would’ve been the shorter way back to my place. I didn’t feel like going back to the empty house just yet, knowing I would brood on the dock or in front of the television, waiting to see if Mama would show up or not. Instead I just drove, a little faster than I should have, asking all the questions out loud that I had wanted to say in the parking lot.

“Promises?” I cried into the darkness. “What promises? Did you really think that just because we were high school sweethearts, I fucking owed you something? Did you think that I was supposed to promise you my entire fucking life just because we said words like love when we were fucking children?”

The questions went on, shouted out the window to be lost in the speeding trees. They were questions I couldn’t answer, and yet the answers echoed back to me, known, if not spoken. Because this was a place where people had always thought they owned each other in their small lives. Lucas had been good to me once, but had always thought that he owned me too, in his small, kind way. In that way, he was no better than Theo. So that in the end, he could take what he wanted, and most of the time I’d feel like I had to give it to him. Both he and Lucas had wanted me for a life already set up for them. It hadn’t mattered that I didn’t want those lives myself. And neither man had ever forgiven me for it.

“Will anyone here,” I wondered aloud for the thousandth time in my life, “ever just see me for what I am? What I want to be?”

Just as the question flew past my lips, my car jolted heavily, and the loud flap of deflated rubber jogging on the pavement sounded. There was a screech as I pulled the car to a stop on the side of the dark, deserted road.

“Shit!” I screeched. Some idiot had probably dropped a nail off their truck, and on this dark, unlit road, I had a flat.

With my phone’s flashlight turned on, I crawled out of the car and got down to look at the damage. It was bad. Not only was the front driver’s side tire totally shredded, but the entire wheel seemed bent off kilter. I guessed that even if I could replace the tire, it wouldn’t be drivable. Ten miles from my house, and no ride in sight.

I picked myself up off the ground and glared at the car. And then, I absolutely lost it.

“FUUUUUUUUUUCK!” I screamed, suddenly letting loose at the car with my feet, kicking wildly at the tires and hubcaps. I picked up sticks, pine cones, needles, anything within easy grabbing distance and threw them at my car. “Stupid hunk of junk! What the fuck!”

Just as I was picking up a rock to hurl at the hood, no longer caring what kind of dents would come of my assault, the flash of headlights coming down the street broke through my tirade. I froze, suddenly very aware that I was a brown-skinned woman alone at night on the side of a rural road in a county with a less than stellar reputation with people of color. I’d never had anything that terrible happen to me when I was younger besides a few pullovers and some name calling at school, but I’d heard stories of cops harassing black kids in Spokane Valley. And in this day and age, with tensions as high as they were everywhere, I couldn’t help but be a little scared.

The car slowed as it approached, but it wasn’t until it was almost next to me that I recognized the orange pickup. The fear subsided, but my irritation rose.

Of. Fucking. Course.

Anger and frustration boiled up all over again as the truck pulled over. The window rolled down, and Will’s face, etched with sharp annoyance, appeared.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.

I kicked my foot at the ground, refusing to look up. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

Will just glared. “It looks like you just happened to break down in front of my property. Again. It’s two in the fucking morning, Maggie. Don’t you think this is a little desperate?”

I flared. “Are you fucking kidding me? You think I deliberately ruined both the tire and axle of my car just to lure you out of your creepy Unabomber cabin at two in the morning? Do I look like I have a death wish? How self-absorbed do you have to be?”

Will leaned out of the cab, examined the maimed tire, and had the decency to appear more contrite. He looked at me, and even through my fury, I had to work to ignore the way his gaze seared over my cheeks, my lips, my neck, even my cleavage. But unlike Lucas’s gaze, it didn’t feel dirty. This was something else completely.

“What are you even doing out here at this time of night?” I asked, hating that my voice had grown small.

“I went hiking for the day, and I’m just getting back into town. Were you driving drunk?” Will asked bluntly.

I crossed my arms. “Who the hell are you, the police?”

He frowned. “No. I’m just wondering if I need to put on some coffee while I see if I can get your shitty car working again.”

I opened my mouth to launch another insult at him, but instead I just shook my head. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and it was either accept this asshole’s help or spend the night in the car. “I don’t drink. Water is fine. Or nothing at all.”

At that, Will’s anger broke, and he looked genuinely surprised. “Really?”

“My mother drinks enough for both of us.” I looked away. Tears were rising now, and I was losing the fight against them. Fuck. I just wanted to be…fuck. I really didn’t know. And that was the worst part of all of it.

Will examined me for a few more seconds, then sighed. “Get in,” he said. “You can come inside while I take a look.”