by Julia London
Boyfriend? So it was that official? How could his dad have a girlfriend and not have told him? How was he just hearing about this? And moreover, why was he so disturbed by it? He couldn’t make sense of his own emotions.
“I don’t know this for certain, but I think she doesn’t like the idea that I have a boyfriend when she doesn’t. You know how that is,” Evelyn said. “I mean, not you, obviously, because I imagine you are dating all the time. Just look at you—very handsome! But in general. What do you call that? Do you call it jealousy?”
“I’m not a psychologist,” Max said. His dad shot him a look.
“Yes, but isn’t it all the same, the brain sciences?” she asked, as if Max wasn’t certain what sort of brain scientist he was.
“Oh, this came out perfect,” his dad said as he pulled a dish from the oven. “I’m going to put in the popovers now. They won’t be as good as yours, though, Evie.”
Another stunning development. Max had never known his dad to bake. And she had a nickname. Yeah, okay, this was fucking official.
“I’ve been making them a really long time. Can I help you, Toby? Do you want me to do something?”
“Could you toss the salad?”
“I’d be delighted!” She took her wine around to the other side of the bar and picked up the salad tongs.
They were puttering around like they’d done this a million times and Max wanted to demand an explanation. How long had this been going on? Why was it a secret? Where was it going?
He might have demanded, too, had the knock not sounded on the front door. In the backyard, Hazel began to bark.
“I’ll get it,” Max said, and walked out of the kitchen. He made his way to the front door, still the door they never used. Were they going to start using it now? Even that irritated him.
Max opened the door. And stood, paralyzed, unable to speak.
He couldn’t say which of them was more shocked—Him? Or Carly?
Seventeen
For the second time in her life, Carly’s mind could not process what her eyes were seeing. She could not comprehend why Max was standing at the door of her mother’s new boyfriend’s house. He should not be here. He didn’t know her mother. Oh hell—was she at the wrong house? Had she been thinking about him so much that she’d accidentally driven to his house? She leaned back and looked at the house.
This was not Max’s house.
She heard a dog barking, and she knew that bark instantly. That was Hazel. The barking dog was Hazel, and this was Max, and this was definitely the address her mother had given her to meet her new boyfriend. What were Max and Hazel doing here?
Max wasn’t smiling. He looked stricken. Sick, almost. Stunned. Like a man who had been caught red-handed. Like a man who had seen something awful or had done something awful.
And then it hit her—Max didn’t look that way because he’d murdered anyone. He looked that way because he’d been caught with their parents.
Carly’s mind said no, but when she tried to say it, it came out in a shriek. She whirled around—to do what, she didn’t know—but Max caught her by the hand before she could run screaming into the street.
“Carly,” he whisper-shouted. “Wait. Wait.” He made her turn around, then quietly shut the door behind him.
“Did you know?” she whisper shouted back at him.
“No, of course I didn’t,” he said, frowning. “I didn’t even know my dad was seeing someone until yesterday. And this?” he said, gesturing wildly to the house at his back. “Tonight? I had no fucking clue. I’m as shocked as you are.”
She began to shake her head. “This can’t be happening, Max. It can’t. This is a freaking disaster!” She shook her hands as if she’d burned them, trying to shake this off. She tried to see around Max, certain her mother would come barreling out that door at any moment. “What are the odds?” She lunged for him, grabbed his shirt in both fists, and shook him. “What are the odds?”
“I would say infinite.” He covered her hands with his and gently pried them from their grip of his shirt.
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know how long or how serious—”
“Oh God,” Carly said, and slapped a hand to her forehead. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“It’s serious, Max!” She was almost levitating with anxiety. “That’s why I’m here! Because my mother very casually announced to me a couple of days ago that she and some guy were going to run off to Vegas to get married!”
“What?” Max looked back at the house. He suddenly grabbed Carly’s elbow and marched her out to the drive, away from the house and any ears. “What did you just say? Why didn’t you tell me? Seems like something you might have mentioned when you were telling me about your family.”
“Because you don’t know her, and, honestly, my mother says crazy things all the time. She’s a little out there.” She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Fuck.” Max groaned. He looked back at the door.
“We have to make them promise they won’t,” Carly said. “That’s the best thing to do, isn’t it? We just go in there and tell them this isn’t happening, and—”
“We can’t,” Max said. “Jamie is in there and he’s already met your mother. I can’t do anything to cause a scene and set him off. We need to think about this.”
Carly could feel the blood draining from her. “My mother has met your brother?”
“Apparently,” he said. “We need to talk to them about this . . . but preferably away from Jamie and this house.”
“What are we going to do, just sit there and act like everything is okay?” she asked, gesturing wildly to the house, bouncing up and down on her toes in distress. “This can’t happen, Max! I mean for so many reasons, right? Right?”
“I know, babe,” he said softly, and squeezed her shoulder.
Shoulder squeeze notwithstanding, he did not sound confident. How could he be? This was insane, and of course it would happen just when this relationship between her and Max had started. This really wonderful relationship that was so good and pure and so full of hope and wonder. The real deal. The falling in love. All of it. Her mother really had a knack for ruining everything. “What are we going to do?”
He rubbed the stubble on his chin as he thought for several long moments, then announced, “I got nothing.”
“How can you have nothing? You’re a scientist!”
“You can’t expect me to know what to do about this,” he said. “I study the brain, not the heart, and besides, it is my father, and I had no idea, and I am a little freaked out right now!”
“This is a disaster—”
Max took her hands in his before she corkscrewed herself right into the ground. “Okay, take a breath. How about this—we get through this evening and see how much we can learn about their plans. Let’s see how serious it really is. Then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“But . . .” Carly wanted to ask what happened if this was really serious between their parents. But she couldn’t even bring herself to ask because the answer, whatever it was, would be devastating.
Max seemed to understand. He glanced over his shoulder, then put his arm around her and kissed her quickly. “We’ll figure it out. But let’s just get through tonight and then see what’s up.”
There really was no other option at that moment, and Carly couldn’t deny she wanted to know what was up with those two. She nodded. “Okay.”
“Ready?”
“No! But let’s go,” she said. She pulled a bottle of wine from her tote bag and hitched it under her arm, then walked with Max to the door.
Max led her inside, and she walked past dated furniture, through a living room where the drapes had been pulled closed, and into the kitchen. There
was her mother, bustling around as if she already lived there. Her mother looked up and smiled. “Ah, there you are, Carly! You’re only a few minutes late.”
Carly looked at Max sidelong. Their relationship was so new that she hadn’t yet explained her mother to him.
Her boyfriend—Max’s father, God save him—put down his oven mitt, wiped his hands on his apron, and walked around the bar to greet her. His smile was as warm and charming as his son’s, and she instantly liked him. He was shorter than Max. He had a kind face, a thick head of gray hair, and curiously, a missing forefinger on his left hand. “Hello, Carly. Welcome.”
“Hi. Thank you. Very nice to meet you.”
“Toby Sheffington,” he said, shaking her hand. “And this is my son—”
“Yeah, funny thing,” Max said, interrupting his dad before he made the introduction. “Carly and I have actually met.”
“What?” her mother trilled. “Well isn’t this wonderful! It’s already a family affair! I want to hear how you two met, but first, Carly, would you like some wine?”
Carly held out the wine she’d brought. “Yes, please. A bucket of it if you have it.”
Everyone in the room looked at her with surprise.
“Just kidding,” she muttered. But so not kidding. She was going to need a new kind of fortitude to get through this evening.
“So,” Max said, and put his hand to the small of Carly’s back, giving her a nudge toward the barstools. Mr. Sheffington took her offering around the kitchen bar, poured her a glass from an open bottle, and slid it across the top to her. Carly picked it up and took a slug, and as she did, she caught her mother’s disapproving look. She carefully put the glass down.
“So, umm . . . where did you two meet?” Carly asked with as much enthusiasm as she could possibly muster. Which was none.
“At the Austin Canine Coalition,” Mr. Sheffington said. “We’re volunteers there.”
Carly laughed at a pitch that was way too high for her. “My mom went to the ACC and came back with a dog and a boyfriend and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
Mr. Sheffington laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
Her mother did not laugh. One of Max’s brows arched in the silent question of what exactly she was doing. How was she supposed to know? She couldn’t think right now.
Carly’s mother looked at Max and asked, “And how did the two of you meet?”
Oh no. Her mother was going to have to deal with her. “Well,” Carly said, before Max could answer. She picked up her wineglass again. “You remember the dog you came back with that I had to take? He got mixed up with Max’s dog.”
“Oh! Max, does that mean your delightful pup is the same pup someone left at Carly’s house?”
“That’s her,” Max said.
“And did you get Carly’s sad dog?”
“For a time,” Max said.
“This is so much fun!” her mother declared. “Who would think we’d all four meet! This only happens in those Nora Ephron movies, but here we are, and really, doesn’t it make everything so much easier that we’re all acquainted?”
This was no Nora Ephron movie. This was not easier in any shape or form. This was horrible.
“Carly, I understand you’re in fashion,” Mr. Sheffington said.
“Not exactly,” she said. “I’m a publicist for a fashion designer who will be showing in the New Designer Showcase in New York.”
“Max is a brain scientist,” her mother said. “That’s a job that requires a very high intelligence.” Her mother waggled her brows at Carly, which, knowing her mother, was an indication that she thought Carly ought to be impressed with this fact.
“Yes, he, ah . . . he mentioned it.” She glanced at Max for help. He looked terribly ill at ease.
“I hope you like chicken Parmesan and popovers,” Mr. Sheffington said to Carly, and held out a pan so that she could admire the dish.
“That looks delicious,” Carly said. “Thank you for, um, agreeing to meet me, Mr. Sheffington.”
“Call me Toby,” he said genially. “And of course! I am very happy to finally meet you. I know you’re just looking out for your mamma.”
She was not looking out for her mother. She was looking out for the rest of her family, because none of them could trust Mom to not do something head-scratching and crazy. She could have been running off to Vegas with a circus clown for all Carly knew.
“Carly is very attached to her father,” her mother said, apropos of nothing.
“What?” Carly’s laugh was strangled. “That’s not true, Mom.”
“Oh, I think it is, my love.”
And what was it with this my love business? Where had that come from? What ever happened to Carly Jane, or just you?
“Food’s ready. Go ahead and take a seat at the table,” Mr. Sheffington said. “Jamie!”
Carly heard a commotion, and a man came hurrying down the hallway in a manner that reminded Carly of the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. She was taken aback by how much he looked like Max. His hair was lighter than Max’s and his chin covered in the stubble of a healthy beard.
When he saw Carly, he stopped in his tracks and stared.
“Jamie, this is our friend Carly,” Max said.
“Oh, hey!” Carly said, and pointed at his shirt. “The dog show!”
Jamie looked down at his shirt. Then up at her. “Dog show,” he agreed. And then he abruptly turned, went to the back door, and opened it. Hazel bounded in and made a beeline for Carly.
“Hello, Hazel.” She was glad for something familiar, and she slid off her stool to greet her old friend properly, grateful for the opportunity to hold on to something for a moment.
“Loyal dog,” Jamie said. “Intelligent and loyal.”
“Oh, she is, she is, she’s such a good girl,” Carly cooed to Hazel.
“You’ll need to wash your hands now,” her mother said. “Bathroom is just there.” She gestured to a door.
As if she was twelve. Carly shot her mother a look and went to wash her hands.
When she returned, they gathered around the table and passed their plates so Mr. Sheffington could heap chicken Parmesan onto them. Carly noticed Max wasn’t eating much, but picking at his food. He was laser focused on their parents. He looked as serious as she’d seen him yet—like he was assessing Evelyn and Toby together, trying to make sense of it. Jamie, on the other hand, dug right in, with no regard for anyone else or any table manners. He ate loudly. Max smiled sheepishly at Carly.
“Slow down, there, Jamie,” Mr. Sheffington said. “This isn’t a race and it’s not good for your tummy to eat so fast.”
“Loyal dog, loyal Dad,” Jamie said through a mouthful of salad.
“You know it,” Mr. Sheffington said cheerfully.
Carly wondered what that meant, but neither Max nor his father seemed curious.
“So, umm . . . Mom said things are . . . progressing with the two of you?” Carly asked carefully.
Her mother laughed. “Things are more than progressing, aren’t they, Toby?”
Mr. Sheffington chuckled, and for some reason, he picked up his wineglass and tried to toast Max’s beer. When Max didn’t take the bait, he did it anyway, reaching long to tap his wineglass against the bottle sitting on the table.
“This is all really new to me,” Max said. “Mind if I ask what progressing means?”
“The thing is, Max,” his father suddenly interjected, “you’ve been really busy with your work and your research and all, and I thought, well, I’ll tell him when the time is right.”
“Oh.” Max put his fork down. “Is the time right? Because I don’t know if you would have told me if I hadn’t stopped by.”
“I think the time is definitely right, don’t you, Toby?” Carly’s mother asked.
Max and
Carly exchanged a look of dread.
Mr. Sheffington was looking at his plate. “Toby?” Carly’s mother said, and leaned forward so that she could look him directly in the eye.
Mr. Sheffington suddenly sat up. He smiled at Evelyn, grasped her hand, and then turned to Max. “We’re in love.”
“Loyal Dad,” Jamie said. “Intelligent and loyal. Loyal Dad.”
Mr. Sheffington didn’t seem to notice Jamie, but Max did. He put his hand on Jamie’s arm and gave it a soft squeeze, then let his hand drop. “Congratulations,” he said quietly to his father.
“Thank you.” Mr. Sheffington was beaming so hard that Carly’s heart began to pound in her chest.
“We are so happy,” her mother said, and then, to Carly’s horror, she leaned over to Mr. Sheffington and kissed him on the lips.
“Loyal Dad!” Jamie said, his voice rising.
Mr. Sheffington laughed sheepishly. “It’s okay, Jamie,” he said. “We’re just fooling around.”
“I’ll say,” Carly’s mother murmured, and blushed.
“Jesus,” Carly whispered. She wished she could crawl under the table and curl up next to Hazel.
Her mother said to Max, “I know this is all very sudden. But, as I explained to Carly, sometimes you just know things. Wouldn’t you say that is true from a brain perspective?”
“Mom,” Carly said. “What does that even mean, ‘from a brain perspective’?”
“I think Max can tell us, sweetie.”
Max looked at Carly. She didn’t know what she would call that look in his eye, but she felt it reverberate through her. It was a mix of horror and defiance and a little are we being punked confusion. He shifted his gaze to her mother. “I’m not sure I follow, Evelyn. What I can tell you is that the biology of love is basically a lot of neurochemicals moving around in you.”
Her mother laughed as if she thought Max was joking.
“There are dopamine pathways that mediate your preferences, and then, of course, vasopressin and oxytocin kick in and release into your hypothalamic nucleus,” he said, fluttering his fingers at his head. “That’s a very generalized statement, and, of course, it’s a little more complicated than that, but you could say love is merely a chemical reaction. Think of it like . . . an allergy.”
