“I grew up with an aunt until I was fourteen. Then she died, and I was in foster care till I graduated from high school. Actually, I didn't really graduate. I got my GED at sixteen. I've been on my own ever since.” She said it matter-of-factly, and seemed to have no need for pity.
“Jesus. That sounds like a bunch of bad breaks.” But a lot of the women he knew had histories like that. The kind of women he went out with had rarely had easy lives, most of them had been molested by male relatives, left home at sixteen, and had gone to work as actresses and models. There were few women he knew who had had normal lives, or were debutantes like the ones who went out with Charlie. Maggie was no different. She just sounded more philosophical about it, and she didn't sound as though she expected him to do anything about it. She didn't expect him to pay for implants for her, in order to make up for the fact that her mother had been a hooker, or she'd been molested by her father. Whatever had happened to her, she sounded as though she'd made her peace with it. If anything, she sounded sympathetic to Adam.
“Do you have any family at all?” He was intrigued.
“Nope. It kind of sucks on holidays, but I see my foster parents once in a while.”
“Believe me,” Adam said cynically, “not having a family is a blessing. You wouldn't have wanted to have one like mine.” Maggie wasn't sure she agreed with him, but she wasn't about to debate it with him at two-thirty in the morning. They had been chatting aimlessly for half an hour. And she still believed his call to her had been a booty call, which she thought was just plain rude and downright insulting. She wondered how many other women he had called, and if he would have bothered to call her at all, if one of the others had come to his aid. Apparently, they hadn't, since he was obviously alone, and had been sleeping soundly when she called him.
“Most of the time, I think I'd like to have a family, even a bad one.” And then she thought of something. She was wide awake, despite the hour, and by now so was he. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Maggie, could we talk about this some other time? I'll call you tomorrow. I'll give you my entire family history. I promise.” And with that, she heard a crashing sound, he groaned, and shouted a single word: “Shit!” He sounded like he'd gotten hurt.
“What happened?” She sounded worried.
“I just got out of bed and stubbed my toe on the night table, and the alarm clock fell on my foot. Now I'm not only tired and upset, I'm injured.” He sounded like a five-year-old about to burst into tears, and she repressed a giggle.
“You're a mess. Maybe you should go back to sleep.”
“No kidding. I've been suggesting that for the past half hour.”
“Don't be rude,” she chided him. “You know, sometimes you're very rude.”
“Now you sound like my mother. She always says things like that to me. Just how polite is it to send me tabloid clippings of me looking like shit, or when my clients go to jail? How rude is it to call me an alcoholic and tell how much she loves my ex-wife, although she cheated on me and dumped me, and then married someone else?” He was getting worked up again, as he got back in bed, and Maggie listened.
“That's not rude. It's mean. She says stuff like that to you?” Maggie sounded surprised, and sympathetic yet again. Although he was nearly yelling at her, he realized she was a sweet person. He had realized it the night they met. He just didn't have room in his life for someone like her. He wanted sex, glamour, and excitement. She was none of the above, although her figure was fantastic. But since she hadn't been willing to share her body with him, he had no way of knowing just how much fun it was. She had made him some silly speech about not doing things like that on a first date. And if so, with Adam, there would be no second. And now she was talking to him at nearly three A.M., and listening to him complain about his mother. She didn't even seem to mind, although his call to her had clearly been a booty call. She disapproved of that, and told him so, but she still hadn't hung up. “You shouldn't let her say things like that to you, Adam,” she said gently. Her mother had been mean to her too, and then one night, without saying good-bye, she was gone.
“Why do you think I have a headache?” Adam said, almost shouting again. “Because I bottle it all up inside.” He realized he sounded like a nutcase, and felt like one. This was phone therapy, without sex. It was the weirdest conversation he'd ever had. He was almost sorry he'd answered the phone, and yet not. He liked talking to Maggie.
“You shouldn't bottle up your feelings. Maybe you should talk to her sometime, and just tell her how you feel.” Adam lay in bed and rolled his eyes. She was a little simplistic in her point of view, but she was not without compassion. But she also didn't know his mother. Lucky for her. “What did you take for your headache?”
