The Hideaway

After dinner and dessert, guests drifted away from the table, some to the back porch, some to the parlor where easels had been abandoned almost midstroke, and a few to bed. When a couple of women grabbed the remaining plates and dishes and carried them into the kitchen, I pushed my chair back and stood.

“I should probably go help.” I gestured to the open door of the kitchen. I picked up a scraped-clean casserole dish and followed the women out of the dining room. If they thought it strange that a woman they didn’t know was helping with the dishes, they didn’t say anything.

As I washed and wiped, I tried to calm my frenzied mind and racing heart, but it didn’t work. Compared to Robert’s charm and swagger, William was substantial and strong. Still confident, but there was no boasting. No bluster. But it was more than that. We’d only spent one afternoon together, and already this man knew me in a way Robert never had. I’d been acknowledged—seen—maybe for the first time. The sensation was dizzying.

Fifteen minutes later, I walked out of the kitchen drying my hands on a towel. William still sat at the dining table, alone. At that moment my heart stilled, calm and sure. He smiled and pushed my chair back a few inches with his foot. Instead of sitting down next to him, I turned toward the stairs and began to climb. More than hearing him on the stairs behind me, I felt his presence staying close. When I walked into my bedroom, I left the door open.

The next morning, I woke with the sun on my face. I’d left the window curtain open to catch the breeze when the room grew warm during the night. I stretched and smiled, remembering, but I froze when William stirred next to me in bed.

Good Lord, Margaret, what have you done?

But then he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close to him. Whispered into my hair. Kissed my neck. Things Robert never did. In that moment, it was easy to forget the previous three years had even happened.

I felt bold. Eager. Yet I was scared to speak, scared to break the silence between us that felt almost sacred. I waited, a complicated knot of tension and contentment in my chest.

A few minutes later, I couldn’t wait any longer. I rolled to my other side and faced him. “I have to tell you something.”

“Mmm?”

“My name isn’t Helen Parker.”

He smiled, his eyes still closed. “I know.”

“What do you mean, you know?”

“I saw you through the window when you first arrived here. You hesitated when Mrs. DeBerry asked for your name. I thought, ‘Now there’s a girl who’s running from something. Or someone.’ Makes sense that you’d give a different name.”

Was that what I was doing? Running? It didn’t feel that way. It felt more like I was arriving.

“So what’s your name?” he asked.

“Margaret.”

“Margaret,” he repeated. Just when I thought he’d drifted back to sleep, he spoke again. “Can I call you Maggie? Margaret’s a little . . . stuffy.”

I laughed. “You can call me whatever you want.”

“Okay, Maggie.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “Remember what I said yesterday about you being in an awkward position? This is what I meant.”

“You’ll have to explain that.”

“It’s awkward because you’re going to fall in love with me. Don’t laugh, just wait—it’ll happen. Then when people hear that you left your husband, they’re going to say you’re getting back at him by being with me. You’ll have to defend yourself to them—prove to them that this is something other than a rebound.” He lay back down next to me.

“I am not going to fall in love with you,” I said, our faces inches apart.

“You’re not?” He moved his lips closer to mine.

“Nope,” I murmured.

He smiled. “Now it’s my turn to tell you something. From the moment I got here, I felt like this was where my life would start. My real life. I’ve done a lot of things and gone a lot of places, but when I arrived here, something felt different.” He reached up and stroked my cheek. “I wasn’t sure what to look for, but then you showed up. I think you’re what I’ve been waiting for.”

Silence stretched between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Rather, it was a space for dreams. For possibility.

8

MAGS

FEBRUARY 1960

William and I quickly became an item. Everyone in the house saw it and no one questioned it. Only Mrs. DeBerry thought it improper.

“Mrs. Parker—or whoever you are—it is ‘Mrs,’ isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“Mrs. Parker, he’s a bum. They’re all bums. They don’t do anything. You’re a young girl. What would your father think?”

“He’d probably be shocked, Mrs. DeBerry. Just like you are. Even I am, a little. But William isn’t a bum. You should know that.”

She shook her head and walked away, mumbling about ladies and gentlemen and indecent things.

William introduced me to his friends as Maggie. He looked at me when he said it the first time, as if asking for belated permission. I nodded. Maggie felt good. It felt light.

A woman in the house, Daisy, lent me some clothes when she saw me adjusting the waistband of my slim skirt. “Here, this will be more comfortable.” She pulled a long tunic dress out of a bag.

I smiled—Mother would definitely not approve. I stopped rolling my hair that day. I let it fall around my shoulders, free and unruly. That night, I shoved my bobby pins, pearl necklace, and foam rollers into a side pocket of my suitcase. I went ahead and dropped my wedding ring down there with them. Lord, it was a sad, expensive little collection.

The days were long, with nothing concrete to mark the passage of time. Most mornings William and I sat among the other guests in the dining room, munching on croissants and idly reading the newspaper. No one had real jobs to hurry off to, so the mood in the house was one of utter relaxation. It wasn’t hard to slip into a routine of ease.

As the painters painted, the sculptors sculpted, and the yogis practiced their moves in the grass, I learned the routines of the house and became a part of them. Since I didn’t have a creative endeavor to take up my time like everyone else, I wanted a job to do—something to make me feel useful and productive.

Starla, the woman I’d seen in the kitchen the first night I arrived, asked me to help with food preparations. She just needed an extra hand to help pull meals together, but I took it a step further. I made a grocery list every few days with ingredients for each meal plus extra items for the house—toilet paper, matches, soap. I organized the pantry by food type and size. I scoured the oven and cleaned out the refrigerator. As a wedding gift, Mother had hired a woman to clean our house in Mobile twice a week, so I rarely had anything to clean or straighten at home. The hard work felt good, and I relished my sore muscles and dirty fingernails.

William and I spent most evenings sitting on the back porch, huddled together on the glider. He’d massage my feet and tell me stories of working in orange groves in Florida and selling his tables and benches from a roadside shack in Asheville. My privileged prior life was sedate and sheltered compared to William’s hard-earned wisdom and tales from the road. I soaked him up, every word, laugh, and touch.

He knocked on my door early one morning before the sun was up. He stuck his head in the room when I answered.

“Come with me,” he whispered, holding up a mug of coffee. “Outside, five minutes.”