Surfacing by Nora Raleigh Baskin Page A

and he was.
    The darkness of late fall pressed against the car windows, but inside, it felt cozy, the engine vibrating steadily, the blowers warming the air. Nathan kept his eyes on the road, but he reached over, feeling for Maggie’s hand. When he found it, he gave it a squeeze and held on.
    Maggie told him, “The bread was delicious.”
    “I knew you’d win.”
    “How do you know? How do you know I didn’t just lose and eat it anyway?”
    “Oh, everyone heard already. Tweets and texts, you know. But thanks. I’m glad you liked the banana bread.”
    “With chocolate chips.”
    “Why not?” Nathan smiled.
    They turned onto Maggie’s block and Nathan swung the car into the driveway. Maggie watched. He took a moment, then shifted into park; another second and he cut the engine. When he turned to kiss her, Maggie was already there. She let her face, her lips, her body, melt into his. It was part fatigue, part excitement, but another part life — living, being alive, being connected — and she wanted more. She wanted it more deeply. She wanted it to last, to obliterate everything that came before and maybe after.
    Maggie groped Nathan’s body, keeping her eyes shut as if blind and only seeing for the first time. She reached inside his shirt and drew a map. She let her fingers slide across his chest, his shoulders, the dip of his belly, the shadow of parts hidden below, touching every surface, absorbing him, trying to attach her skin to his, trying to heal his wound with hers. Nathan groaned softly and did not protest. Instead, he responded in kind, and with urgency and gentleness, and that night, Maggie found it all easily beautiful, and she understood immediately why this had not worked before.
    Maggie watched the world change around her, simply because she had been changed, and it made her happy. It was as if the edges had softened, the hardness of the Formica desks, the harshness of the fluorescent lights in the ceiling, the sharp voice of her history teacher.
    Maggie sat, content in a way she had never felt before. She had separated herself, truly marked a break from her parents, from all those in charge. She had joined the ranks — not of the adults, per se, but of those just a bit older than her. The secret they had once kept was now hers, too. The images in movies, in love songs, those hidden messages and innuendos, they spoke for Maggie. They sang for her now, too. Even if no one else sitting in history class knew it, which, of course, they didn’t, Maggie had waged a private revolution and won.
    “As soon as you have finished, you can give me your paper and you are free to go,” Mr. Green, the history teacher, announced. Several kids stood up right away and filed toward the front of the room.
    The girls’ swim team was not boys’ basketball or football or even lacrosse, so news of the impending championship was not spreading across the school like wildfire, nor was it on the tip of anyone’s tongue, other than those of the girls themselves. But it had been announced over the loudspeaker in the morning, and some of the teachers followed girls’ sports.
    “Good work yesterday,” Mr. Green said when Maggie dropped her paper on his desk. “You’re going to the state semifinals, right?”
    Maggie nodded.
    “Well, you worked hard. You deserve this.”
    Maggie blushed, her cheeks warmed. “Thanks, Mr. Green.”
    Whatever Meghan Liggett had been so closely inspecting in the grass in front of her condo no longer seemed to hold her interest. When Leah dove into the pool, Meghan looked up.
    “I think I am going to go down the slide now,” Leah called out to Maggie. Loudly — she said it too loudly, and Maggie knew exactly what her sister was doing.
    She wasn’t sure which was making her more angry, her sister’s naughty behavior — after Leah had just reprimanded Maggie and told her to sit on the stairs — or her apparent infatuation with the snobby neighbor girl.
    Loudly, Maggie responded, “No,