Maggie Sweet by Judith Minthorn Stacy Page B

anything in the world,” I said, not missing a beat. But after we hung up, I realized I hadn’t even thought about going to the opening. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go. I was just so out of the habit of going anywhere, it never came to me to think that I could go. I’d never gone to see her at the That’lldu. Steven had had a hissy fit the one time I mentioned it, so I dropped it. But Palomino Joe’s was the biggest thing that had ever happened to Mary Price. I couldn’t let her down again.
    Later, it hit me, Jerry would probably be at Palomino Joe’s, too. Just thinking about that made the spring cleaning go completely out of my head. I’d pick up the bottle of Windex and suddenly it was time to start supper. At night I’d wake up thinking I was about to smother. Sometimes it got so bad, I’d have to get up and walk the floors. Other nights, I’d just lie awake for hours, listening to the strange pounding of my heart. Every heartbeat seemed to say, “This is it , Maggie Sweet, this is your life. This is it , Maggie Sweet, this is your real life.
    Thursday it came to me that with my feelings so stirredup over Jerry, I had to make Steven go to Palomino Joe’s with me. I needed him glued to my side so no one could forget, even for a minute, that I had a husband—that I was a decent married woman.
    That evening, the minute my courage was up, I barged into the den and blurted, “Steven, why can’t we ever go out to someplace fun?”
    He looked at me like my hair had turned green, and said what he always said, “You always want to do something we can’t afford.”
    I started to remind him about the cemetery plots he’d bought, without a word to me, but I didn’t have the energy. “You never once took me to see Hoyt and Mary Price at the That’lldu. Now they’ve had a big break. They’re the featured act at Palomino Joe’s Saturday and I want to go.”
    Steven snorted. “So that’s it. You know I wouldn’t set foot in a place like that. It’s a waste of time and money. Besides, I don’t even like country-western music.”
    I started to say, I don’t like historical meetings, tombstone rubbings, fund-raising banquets, or mahogany paneling. But I didn’t say anything. I just stared at him.
    He tried to go back to the papers he was grading, but when he saw I wasn’t going anywhere, he sighed, took off his glasses, and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “What’s the matter with you? You’re in the strangest mood lately. I heard you out there talking to yourself.”
    “I wasn’t talking, I was singing. I use to sing all the time. Listen, Steven, Mary Price and Hoyt are my friends and Palomino Joe’s is completely respectable.”
    Steven just rolled his eyes and sighed.
    “If it was Theo Bloodworth asking, you’d go in a heartbeat,” I rushed on. “Now it’s my friends. I want to go. We could have fun. Lord, Steven, don’t you ever want to do something fun? Does life always have to be the same old same old?”
    “Life is the same old same old. I thought you knew that by now. We’re not going and that’s all there is to that. Next thing you’d want a new outfit; the expense would go on and on. Besides, I’m tired. I plan to rest on Saturday,” he said.
    “But this is only Thursday. The opening’s not ’til Saturday. How can you plan to be tired in advance ?”
    He put his glasses back on and rattled his papers. “I can’t talk to you when you get like this. I always rest on Saturday. You know that. That’s just how I am. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.” Then he went back to his papers like everything was settled.
    I stood there for a minute watching him, feeling all dead inside. Steven was only forty-eight years old, but he was the oldest man I knew.
    When I got back to the kitchen, I thought, well, you just rest then, Steven. But just because you want to lie down and die doesn’t mean I have to lie down next to you.
    Then I picked up the phone.
    “Mary