informed that her little sister was sucking face with Mateo the divorced army dude. Melia tells Dane, who goes looking for him, but Mateo has already escaped. Dane says to Maggie, You’d better tell me everything, and if you lie, I will never talk to you again.
This doesn’t feel as cruel to her as it actually is. She feels she deserves it. Mostly she doesn’t know how to feel. After Dane goes looking for Mateo, Maggie wonders if it was Mateo’s fault. She decides it was her fault, and then she wonders if it is anybody’s fault. If anybody did anything wrong. She doesn’t feel that any wrongs were done. In Hawaii the age of consent is sixteen. The army’s age of consent is sixteen. She is sixteen. Even legally, they have done nothing wrong. Except that North Dakota’s age of consent is eighteen. These numbers were not present in the bed. Even when she cried, it had nothing to do with numbers.
Dane doesn’t find Mateo at his house. Melia calls their parents. A shitstorm develops from the east. It blows the Dakota winds into the Oahu clam. Her mother, via her sister, makes Maggie get a pregnancy test, plus a full STD panel. Particles of shame blowing in from all directions. Melia screams at Dane, I told you this wasn’t normal! That a girl can’t be friends with an older man!
Dane is red-faced at dinner. Everybody wants to kick someone else in the gut so as not to have to face what they each individually did wrong. Maggie cowers in the corner. She cannot even hold her God to her chest. Her father on the phone is less prescriptive than her mother. But he does want to take it to the army. Everybody wants the army to handle it.
Two weeks of Hawaii are left on the calendar. Daylight stretches on too long. The ocean is terribly nice. The birds are too droll. The sun is out all the time when rain clouds are in order.
But everything back home is ruined also. On the phone, even her friends act mean. Thirty-one? says Sammy. Are you crazy? That’s, like, an old man.
Maggie stops eating. Everybody agrees she should be sent home at once. But she waits out the two weeks because fees are high for changing flights. Maggie’s mother is kind, plugged in. She is present and loving but felled by circumstance. The worst thing in the world is not being able to make a problem go away for one’s child. And at the end of the day some mothers cannot pay to bring somebody home early.
When it’s time to leave, the good-byes are tense. The baby is still beautiful, but even so, the magic in the child’s eyes is glazed. There is a discernible shift.
Back in Fargo, Maggie spends the rest of the summer seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist. They prescribe multiple medications. Mostly she thinks it would help to talk to Mateo. Everybody says, The army will have to decide about Mateo’s fate. Everybody cares so much that she lost her virginity that everyone forgets to care that she just lost her virginity.
She signs the letter to Mr. Knodel,
—Maggie.
She folds it up and tucks it into her backpack. It feels like a bigger part of her than maybe it is.
There are about thirty students in Knodel’s speech and debate class. It’s a sought-after class that only upperclassmen are allowed to take, so it has the air of being a privilege. Sometimes it can feel like a ski weekend.
Knodel stands at the front of the class and orates for a few minutes at the start, then the students split off into groups to research and discuss their topics.
Maggie sits through the class feeling nervous, but Knodel sends her a few nice smiles and the thought settles on her, like a warm blanket, that he is the only possible confidant. Basically, handing him the letter will be like inducting him into her circle of trust, which isn’t exactly a circle but a dot right now. Handing him the letter, and letting him know her, will be just the thing she needs to stop feeling like a pariah.
When class is over she takes her time getting her things together. Waiting for the other kids to leave Knodel’s class is always tricky. There are lots of lingerers. Everybody likes talking to him. He remembers everyone’s game days and you feel cool when he singles you out. It makes sense that a few