How could she not know

Maggie was taking a writing class online. Her husband had laughed a lot about that. “What good is that going to do you,” he asked her. “Find a job or come home and clean the house. I shouldn’t have to fund another dream for the woman who never finishes anything.”

By that point, Maggie had stopped listening to him. These days, she simply couldn’t pay attention to every insult he threw at her, each little barb calculated to undermine her. Maggie imagined herself as a pin cushion, or perhaps one of those trout fishing hats. All those little shiny hooks and feathers, lures and beads, worn as an undermining cap. She could sell the undermining cap on Etsy for other men who wanted to browbeat their wives. Effective Diminishing 101.

Maggie moved on from those thoughts to the matter at hand. Her assignment was to write a short piece with the phrase, 'Oh my god, I know that person.' She was sitting at the table in the sunroom, her mother's favorite room, windows on the one side showed the ocean, fading now into the dark horizon. Windows on the other side showed streaks of orange red and gold sunlight. There would always be a shadow of her mother for Maggie when she was in that room.

Late roses, petals brown and pock marked from the salty northeast wind, tapped gently on the oceanside windows. Beyond them were the yard and the ragged line of the bluff, and beyond that the ocean and sky. Fall brought a change in the quality of the light. Shadows seemed darker and longer, their outlines crisp. On the edge of the lawn, privet branches stood out against the sky, somehow ominous. She would have to have a light soon, Maggie thought. Day’s end came earlier and earlier as the island descended into fall.

Maggie watched as someone appeared on the bluff path. Maggie followed her bobbing hat in the next yard over, to the gap between the hedges, and into her yard. “Oh my god,” Maggie said out loud because she did know that person. It was Sydney, Sydney for god’s sake.

Maggie stood up because Sydney had turned and started toward the front steps. Sydney.

The woman knocked and Maggie was unmoored in time for a moment. Because it wasn’t Sydney. It was Sydney as she was thirty years ago. A breathtaking beautiful girl whose golden hair shimmered in the late afternoon sun. Sydney had brown eyes and a slight cleft in her chin, a strong face that could have graced magazine covers. But it never did, Maggie thought, and wondered why.

Not-Sydney had the same straight hair and golden brown eyebrows arched over deep brown eyes. She was slender, willowy, long tanned legs in faded Khaki capris. “May I help you,” Maggie asked the not-Sydney on the other side of the screen door. She didn’t ask her in, not yet.

Not-Sydney was looking for Carrie, the younger of Maggie’s nieces. The two of them, Maggie imagined, must cut a swift and brutal swath across any group of eligible men. Or women. Maggie shook her head slightly, bringing herself back. “Carrie isn’t here,” she told not-Sydney as she opened the door to let her in. “She’s back at school.”

Not-Sydney looked beautifully awkward (unfair thought Maggie) for a minute and said “I’m here for the weekend with my grandmother. I thought I’d see if she was on island.”

Maggie shook her head. Not-Sydney, whose name was Chloe Charles, exchanged the back and forth with her of summer people who knows who. Maggie asked who Chloe's parents were but she didn’t recognize the names. “Did they come here when they were younger?” Maggie asked.

Chloe shook her head. “This is my grandmother’s place,” she said, “and mine. They like to travel." Chloe shrugged her shoulders in a whatever gesture. “I thought I would like it off-season,” Chloe said, “but it makes me kind of sad.”

“Do you need anything?” Maggie asked her.

Chloe sighed and said, “No. Just lonely I guess. My grandma goes to sleep so early these days, and I don’t really know anyone who stayed on.”

Stayed on after the summer, Maggie thought. Maggie of course had always stayed on after the summer, the minute she was able. Her friends, disreputable as some of them were, the workmen and dealers and town drunks, had stayed on as well or never left.

They said goodbye, and Maggie put her hand on Chloe’s arm. “It’s just a weekend,” she said, “with your grandma. I’m sure you’ll manage it. Hold-“ she started to say, and Chloe paused, polite, on the doorstep. Maggie shook her head and gave a little wave. And Maggie thought hard at Chloe Charles to hold onto every minute she had with the old lady.

Maggie looked at the ocean, and thought about the swath she and Sydney had made through the boys of summer back then. Sydney, dancing on the lawn, her shirt half unbuttoned so Maggie could see the delicate perfection of her collarbone and just the beginning round rise of her breasts. They swam after midnight, came home damp and giggling, and went down front to the beach to keep the party going. They walked on paths of prickers and rough grass, the smell of bayberry heavy in the air. Maggie remembered Sydney swinging off the last few steps of the beach stairs, a bottle of Veuve Cliquot in one tanned hand.

Maggie could put on music now and no one would be here to watch her move along the bluff, waiving her arms, holding her face to the autumn sky. She could drink champagne on the porch and fall asleep under the big dipper. She could.

She wondered where Sydney was now. If she had escaped the push/pull of being beautiful, offered everything for all the wrong reasons. She heard bits of family news through the years, she heard that their house was sold. She didn’t know if Sydney married or if she had kids. But here, now, she asked herself, how could she not know? Running in the surf hand and hand, or calling to her best friend through the summer dark, Maggie would not have believed it. Not know Sydney; how could she not know.

Maggie thought of Chloe Charles, and sent her a silent prayer to feel and live however she wanted for as long as she wanted. Be recognized, she prayed, be known. And Maggie watched the dying light through the screen door, wondering why she herself had thrown away everything she loved to become someone she didn’t even understand.