A Mum For Amy

She nodded, and he gave her a quick kiss as he closed the front door behind them. Together they walked toward their cars. Morning sunlight bounced brightly off the vehicles, but the fun had gone out of the day as far as Maggie was concerned.

“Stop sulking,” Will said as he unlocked his car door. “The weekend will be here before you know it.”

Maggie made a face at him. “I hate delayed gratification.”

“It’s good for you,” Will said. “It builds character.”

And with that, he roared out of the driveway.

THREE HOURS LATER, Maggie had already completed two of the three service calls she’d originally scheduled for today. After Will’s unwillingness to play, she’d considered going to the beach alone simply on principle, but, really, what fun was that? Better just to accept the fates that had aligned against her and make some money.

She was just heading for the last job on her list when her cell phone rang. It was Will’s house number, but it was his sister on the line.

“What are you doing?” Lisa asked.

“Working.” Maggie felt sorry for the girl, stuck inside at home on a pretty spring day like today. “How’s the math tutoring going?”

“It’s not. Right after you and Will left, my tutor called and said she had to cancel until tomorrow.”

“Uh-oh.” From experience Maggie knew that Will had two pet peeves in life—people who were chronically late, and people who canceled appointments at the last minute. “Your brother’s not going to like that.”

“He doesn’t know because I didn’t call him,” Lisa said. “But I think he’ll be happy. I cleaned my room and the kitchen and even put away the laundry. I’ve done everything that was on the stupid list he gave me, and now I deserve a reward. Can I go to the beach with you?”

“I’m not going to the beach. I told you, I’m working.”

“But we could go later, couldn’t we? After you finish.”

Maggie shifted a strand of hair out of her eyes. She’d put the top down on her convertible because she loved the feel of the breeze and that seemed to be the closest she was going to get to really enjoying the day. “Will was pretty clear, Lisa. No beach today.”

“But that was before everything worked out the way it did. It’s not my fault my math tutor didn’t come. And I’ve done what I’m supposed to do. If I stay here the rest of the day by myself, I’ll just get into trouble.”

Maggie laughed. “You know that for a fact, do you?”

“I thought you wanted to be my friend,” Lisa said, and her unhappiness came through loud and clear. “Can’t we do stuff together today? Even if it’s work. I’d be a good helper, I swear.”

“I don’t know…. Your—”

“Please. I promise to do whatever you want. Pleeeeeeease.”

Maggie thought a moment while Lisa waited. Since she’d been dating Will, she’d come to understand how important his sister was to him, and Maggie had wanted to become a friend to the girl. If she and Will had any hope of forming a long-term relationship, didn’t she need to get to know Lisa better? And wasn’t it preferable for Lisa to be with Maggie than home alone, doing stuff she shouldn’t?

“All right,” Maggie said, making a U-turn at a gas station. “I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. In the meantime, call your brother and let him know where you’ll be.”

Lisa agreed with a whoop of pleasure.

Because of traffic, it took Maggie twenty minutes to get back to the Stewart house, and she’d no sooner pulled into the driveway than Lisa came running out the door.

The girl jumped into the passenger seat, all smiles, then threw a small duffel bag in the back.

“What’s that?” Maggie asked.

“My bathing suit,” she replied with a mischievous look. “Just in case we get done with work early.”

Maggie grinned. The kid was as opportunistic as she was. “Did you call Will and tell him where’d you’d be?”

“I had to leave a message with his office. He’s still in Pompano Beach.”

“I suppose we can try him later,” Maggie said as she backed out of the driveway.

“Where are we going?” Lisa asked excitedly.

“I’m going to work your butt off. You’ll wish you’d stayed home and watched the soaps.”

“And then maybe the beach?”

“Maybe.”

Maggie caught the interstate, then took the crosstown back roads that led to Key Biscayne, one of the most desirable, exclusive parts of south Florida. Just across the bridge were at least a dozen clients of Go Fish, but they weren’t Maggie’s favorites.

In the sprawling mansions and high-tech condos along the beach there were four-and five-hundred-gallon custom-designed tanks filled with angel rays and harlequin rasboras, living coral and rainbow-colored dottie-backs.

Maggie almost felt sorry for these beauties. Their owners hadn’t purchased them for personal enjoyment. They’d been bought to impress guests and business associates. To make statements about wealth and power. Or maybe just because they were a pretty backdrop for the right furniture. Maggie much preferred dealing with a ten-gallon tank housing a handful of guppies that had all been individually named by the kid who owned them. But she couldn’t deny the reality that the wealthy provided a lot of her income.

Her last stop was for a bi-weekly cleaning of a four-hundred-and-forty-gallon crescent tank that separated a huge foyer from its adjacent living room. True to her word, Lisa helped Maggie cart equipment out of the car to the front door of the ridiculously large Mediterranean villa. They were met by the housekeeper.

“Hi, Mrs. Walker,” Maggie said as she and Lisa entered the house. “Brought a helper today.”

The woman smiled a welcome and disappeared, leaving Maggie to her own devices. Maggie didn’t mind. One thing about service calls to these huge showplaces—the owners were seldom around to get in her way and ask a bunch of silly questions. Besides, she didn’t really like this particular client—a middle-aged guy named Huckabee, with teeth that were too shiny, a tan that looked as if it went all the way to the bone, and a smirky, smoke-frayed laugh that always set her teeth on edge.

“Wow,” Lisa said, as she stared at the enormous aquarium. “They’ve got a lot of fish.”

“Too many,” Maggie remarked as she began to lay towels out on the floor in case she spilled any water on the expensive parquet.

On previous house calls, she’d told Huckabee that he needed to stop buying more exotic fish. She’d explained to him that the fish he had were social creatures, community dwellers, and that in spite of the tank’s size, they were displaying signs of stress from overcrowding. But the man had just laughed. Huckabee was clearly not the kind of guy to take direction from a nineteen year-old woman.

She and Lisa worked for almost an hour. Maggie showed the girl how to check pH levels, how to scrape algae without scratching the acrylic, the best way to move rocks but keep from creating a muddy cloud in the water.

Lisa proved to be a surprisingly quick learner and best of all, she actually seemed to enjoy the tasks Maggie assigned her. She peppered Maggie with questions. She didn’t turn her nose up at the more unpleasant duties, and she didn’t complain. The time went fast, and Maggie felt as though they were really bonding.

“Can you get me about a quart of tap water?” Maggie asked, handing the girl a small bucket. She pointed toward the back of the house. “The kitchen is through that door.”

Lisa nodded and disappeared down the long hallway. Maggie, whose right arm was immersed up to her shoulder in the aquarium, kept mounding rocks in one corner, intent on making a natural hiding place for some of the smaller fish. An inquisitive brown-striped kuhli loach came up to investigate one of her fingers, and Maggie noticed that a tiny portion of its caudal fin was missing.

“Poor little guy,” Maggie crooned to the fish. “Are those big boys beating up on you?”

The fish didn’t let her stroke it—by nature the breed was too shy for that—but she thought it was actually listening to her. It was a funny little creature, one of her favorites in spite of the fact that it looked more like a worm. Long ago, she’d become convinced that some fish really did have distinct personalities, that they could connect with their owners. They weren’t just pretty pieces of living art as Huckabee seemed to think. They needed love and attention. Just like people.

She was glad Lisa had come with her on this call. From some of the things the girl had said, Maggie suspected that she might need an older female in her life. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was a teenager discovering so many new things about her body, feeling her way through the baffling intricacies of womanhood. Maybe tonight, Maggie thought, she should spend a few minutes trying to explain that to Will.