On Maggie's Watch
Chapter One
Rebel Without a Peanut Allergy
“Wash your hands and say your prayers/'cause Jesus and germs are everywhere!”
Maggie Finley smiled at her best friend and rolled her eyes. “Tell me you did not just make that up, Julia.”
“God, no. I heard it on that country western music station. One of those Judd girls said it. But it’s perfect, don’t you think?”
Sitting in a wicker chair with her hand on her seven-months-pregnant shelf-of-a-belly Maggie said, “You can’t use that slogan at a Catholic church. It’s blasphemous.”
Julia shoved a blond strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand and said, “No it’s not. It’s the perfect marriage of hygiene and religion. If you’re going to be on the food safety committee, sweetie, you’ve got to start thinking outside the box.” The two women sat on Julia’s sun porch, surrounded by markers, poster board, and water bottles. It was the only place in her house not occupied by her sons’ wet swimming trunks, plastic action figures, and shoes without laces.
“I didn’t ask to be put on the committee. You volunteered my services. Besides, the parish doesn’t want a full scale movement against bacteria. They just need someone to make a poster for the pancake breakfast. Something with bullet points. You know, ‘don’t bring desserts with peanuts and don’t cough on the forks.’”
“You don’t know what they want because you didn’t come to the first meeting,” Julia pointed out.
“From what I understand, the first meeting was Bingo night.”
“I love Bingo night. It’s all about comfortable shoes, a good marker, and the potential of winning a canister of caramel corn. We talked about bacteria at the break.”
“You’re right, that sounds so official. How could I not want to be involved?”
“Look Maggie, Home & School needed help for the fund raiser. You wanted to get involved. As I remember, you said” – here Julia sat up straight and linked her fingers together in front of her, Yin/Yan fashion, resembling a Quaker ready to give an oration – “I want to use my energies for the betterment of the community.”
“I did not look like that,” Maggie said, smiling and looking irritated at the same time. “I do want to get involved, but I was hoping for something a little broader than taking a stand against germs and tree nuts.”
“Don’t underestimate the tree nut. The tree nut will be the death of us all.”
“You’re a big bratty kid, Julia.”
“A bratty kid with saggy boobs,” Julia said, adjusting herself. “No offense, Maggie but I don’t need your help.” She pointed to her poster and said, “Look, my peanut has tiny shoes and he’s walking toward the exit with the hand sanitizer bottle.”
Maggie stood and gazed past the wooden, backyard play-structure and plastic yellow slide into her neighbor’s homes. As if from the same family, they all had similar features with only slight differences. A playhouse here, a feeble Arbor Vite privacy hedge there. All seemed to invite in the American Dream without promising too much individuality or too much success. The American median. As she bit a nonexistent hangnail for the hundredth time, she said, “I need something to keep me busy. To distract me. I can’t stop thinking about Ella.”
Suddenly uncharacteristically serious, Julia moved closer to Maggie’s side. “You’ve had a really hard couple of years,” she said. “Why don’t you try to relax a little? Just take care of yourself.”
