But Maggie saw the color creep up Allison’s neck. “I like Nick,” she said. “He seems to know a lot about renovating old houses, but he wants to give me an estimate before I make a decision.”
Allison’s eyes widened. “I should hope so. Don’t let him take advantage of you.”
What a strange thing for her to say. “I’m a very good judge of character and I can’t see him doing that.”
Pencil-thin eyebrows arched beneath the pink mask.
“It’s true,” Maggie said. “I can tell he’s honest, but for some reason he’s not happy.” And although he was about as good-looking as a guy could be, he didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence when it came to women. In spite of her track record with men, she’d like to think she could fix that. “You know, I envy you.”
“Me? Why?” But Allison did not sound surprised.
“You’ve been in love twice. Well, twice that I know of.”
“Are you saying you’re interested in Nick?”
“No! I just met him. All I’m saying that being in love twice, first with Nick and then with John…do you know how lucky that is?”
Allison suddenly seemed preoccupied with the cuticle of one perfectly manicured nail. “Are you saying you’ve never fallen in love?”
“Oh, yes, I’ve fallen in love, but I’ve never been in love with anyone.”
Allison looked up at her. “There’s a difference?”
“Of course. I’ve fallen in love twice. Three times if you count sixth grade, but I don’t. I’m pretty sure I was too young. But I fell seriously in love when I was a senior, with a boy who didn’t even know I was alive.” Her insides startled her by contracting unexpectedly. Nick reminded her of that boy. Jeremy… Hmm. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten his name.
“And the second time?”
“The second time was when I moved into my own apartment and became friends with the guy across the hall.”
“But?”
“Just when I started to think he might fall in love with me, a woman named Debbie moved into the apartment down the hall. Six months later he asked her to marry him. So although I’ve fallen in love, I’ve never been in love with someone who loved me back.”
“That’s an interesting distinction. I’ve never thought of it that way.”
Yeah, well, Allison had probably had dozens of boys—and men—fall in love with her, so the odds were that she was bound to love some of them back.
Maggie sighed. “Someone fell in love with me once, in high school. He was so sweet and I did everything in my power to fall in love with him, but nothing worked. I even begged my mother to cast one of her spells on us, but she said a love spell would only work if love was destined to be. In my case, she was sure it wasn’t, and, of course, she was right.”
“Your mother does love spells?”
Watch what you say around these people, Maggie.
Aunt Margaret? Is that you?
Allison was watching her, waiting for an answer.
Now that she’d blurted the stuff about love spells, she couldn’t think of a way out of it. “Yes, she does. But apparently there’s nothing she can do to help me. I have a habit of falling in love with the wrong men. Not bad men—” she hastened to add “—just men who don’t fall in love with women like me.”
“And what kind of woman are you, Maggie Meadowcroft?”
“Me?”
Watch what you say around these people.
“Well, let’s see. I have a tendency to leap before I look. I always have good intentions, but sometimes I rush into things and they don’t always turn out the way I planned.”
There, that sounded safe enough.
“You’ll fall in love someday, Maggie, and when it happens, it will have been worth the wait. But—” she studied her cuticle some more “—just a word of advice. You mentioned falling for the wrong ones. Nick’s one of them.”
Maggie jumped down from the stool and started to clear things off the kitchen table. “I’m sure you’re right.” She wanted to say, “Give me a little credit.” She might be impulsive, but she always learned from experience. Nick Durrance was definitely one of the many, many men who would never fall in love with her.
But she could be curious, couldn’t she?
She decided to change the subject. “Nick said Aunt Margaret was his English teacher. Were you in her class, too?”
Allison seemed to relax a little. “Yes. And trust me, she could have told you stories about Nick Durrance.”
“Really?” Note to self. Find out what Aunt Margaret thinks of him now.
“Miss Meadowcroft loved Shakespeare,” Allison said. “Of course, you probably know that.”
“Yes. Hamlet was her favorite. Whenever she suspected I was up to something, she’d say ‘Maggie Meadowcroft, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.’ It was years before I understood what that meant. I used to imagine Denmark filled with piles of rotting garbage. Kind of like New York one summer when the garbage collectors were on strike.”
Allison gave her an odd look. “I doubt that Nick ever tried to figure out Shakespeare. He spent more time in detention than in English class. Or any class, for that matter.”
That opinion seemed grossly unfair. Shakespeare wasn’t for everyone. Just like not everyone could renovate a house. “He must have been good at something.”
“Nick was very charming in those days and he didn’t take anything, or anyone, seriously. Not even himself. From what his sister tells me, that hasn’t changed.”
Everyone had strengths and positive traits. Maggie couldn’t tell if Allison had ignored her point, or if she just didn’t get it. She decided to try a different line of questioning. “You mentioned his family. What are they like?”
“You haven’t heard of the Durrance family?”
“Hmm. No, I don’t think so.”
“I thought you used to spend summers up here with your aunt.”
“I did, but she wasn’t into…” Gossip. “Um, she made a point of not talking about her students.”
“That makes sense. Nick’s father was a judge and so was his grandfather. Everybody assumed Nick would go into law, too. He was at the top of the class when we were freshman, then overnight everything changed.”
“How strange. What do you think happened?”
Allison
