Dragonfly by Jaxn Hill

Maggie had never been married. She said she’d been married to her job. She’d never had children, and she didn’t know any more about them than the rest of us did. But she did know about fashion. When she’d spit out the shells of those sunflower seeds Torstein gave her the first day, she also spit out her place in the corporate world, her power suits and six-figure income — but she nevertheless remained a fashionista. When she saw Sully, half dry and covered with powdery beach sand, his old shorts and t-shirt hanging on him half sodden with sea water, she took him in hand. She made him shower at the public stall, dried him off and marched him into one of the chic boutiques on the boardwalk, like Beach Babies or Jovenes Solimar, and bought him swim trunks, khakis, a button down shirt, a sporty windbreaker, a pair of deck shoes and some kind of toddler sunglasses. She combed out his hair, and when she stepped out of the shop she glared at us, daring us to laugh.

We all thought of Maggie as a tough girl. She’d been a commodities broker in her other life, and apparently a really good one who never lost a deal and never paid more than she’d bid. She knew how to dress for success, but we’d never considered she might know how to dress a little boy. We were amazed. You could tell Sully was amazed just to have a shopping bag from a retail store with real clothes in it just for him. Maggie barked at the rest of us, “Just because you go around looking like bums doesn’t mean Sully has to!”

She had curly auburn hair and white skin that she never exposed to daylight if she could help it. She had beautiful brown eyes, a small, snubbed nose and a roly-poly figure. She grabbed Sully’s hand and flounced past us down the boardwalk like a queen on the red carpet with her little jester flying along beside her, looking back over his shoulder to wave his shopping bag at us. Torstein gazed at her bemused and said, “What a woman!” We followed her down the way, and before we were back to the bus stop that night, we were all dressed in khakis and button down shirts with deck shoes. And, for Torstein, his same old electric green coat. Maggie had given up the corporate world, but she hadn’t given up her money-market account and her Gold Card.

She’d bought Sully that sporty windbreaker, but none of the rest of us had a coat except Torstein. The rest of us were starting to shiver because the sun was setting and the breeze was coming strong off the water. It was still 40 minutes before our bus — and Torstein decided we might as well walk, walk the 20-odd miles back to the city.

“It’ll take us 5 or 6 hours even if we go at a good pace,” said this one cool blond guy named Ferdy. “And what about the kid?”

We didn’t have to walk all night, Torstein said. “We’ll stop for dinner somewhere, and get a hotel or something.”

Ferdy hated that idea. He was our money man. When my brother and I first started spending time with Torstein, that’s how he introduced Ferdy: “This is Ferdy, the money man. You got any money, you give it to Ferdy. You need any money, you ask Ferdy.” Ferdy had been at school with Torstein. They grew up together. Apparently he had always managed Torstein’s money for him. He was an accountant, or had been. When he got permanently caught up in Torstein’s Irrresistible Charm, he’d given that up. Now he was our treasurer.

“We don’t have enough money for a hotel,” he said. “You gave a lot of our money to the Humane Society.” Torstein would do stuff like that. He gave away a lot of money. And he didn’t have a job!

“Oh well,” he said. “If Sully gets too tired, someone will give us a place to sleep.”

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