To the Max

by Julie Lynn Hayes

  Chapter 5

  An Exercise in Optical Illusions

  “I’M VERY glad that you’re seeing Amy again,” Juliet fairly purrs as she sets our mimosas on the breakfast table. She wears some weird kind of burgundy hostess gown which could double for one of the costumes from an off-off-off Broadway production of Romeo and Juliet, with long trailing sleeves and a train you could trip over: enter Lady Capulet, perhaps with Mercutio dancing attendance. Or a trained chimp, take your pick.

  Richard and I are merely there for breakfast, though occasionally we do spend the night. Juliet stopped trying to put Richard in a separate room years ago after I reminded her that he and I had been sharing a room under her roof almost from the time we met until we bought the cottage. Mothers and their malleable memories, the older they get, the more revisionist their history becomes. Mother has also given up on getting us to be discreet in front of the B-O-Y, as she so delicately spells it out to us, ever since Diana told her to step into the twenty-first century, please, the B-O-Y probably knows more about sex than the lot of us put together. Richard snickers, while I try not to laugh, but it isn’t easy. Leave it to my mother to get to the heart of any matter, never mind his knowing that I’m a werewolf, but heaven forbid he find out I’m gay.

  I haven’t said a word about Amy to her. Why would I? So I can only infer that the lovely Rachel has been talking to her. Is that some big surprise? No, not really. “Mother, I am not seeing Amy, and you know it. Never was.” I give her one of my looks: the reality check glare. “Hello? Remember Richard? That bloke sitting next to me? The man I wake up with every morning? News alert: gay werewolf here, not het.”

  Juliet merely laughs at this. She ruffles Richard’s hair as she passes by him, and he pinches her ass, which makes her squeal while I roll my eyes at them both. It’s not that Juliet doesn’t like Richard; she adores him, actually, and thinks he’s a lot of fun. But he’s just not acceptable as my life partner. Maybe temporarily, but not permanently. Like he is a phase I’m going through, one that I’ll get over, especially if she pretends the bond between us doesn’t exist. Well, this temporary bond is more than twenty years old and shows no sign of breaking, but then, neither does my mother. What can I say?

  I attempt to change the subject, sipping at my mimosa before I attack the delicious-looking French toast she has placed on the table. That woman is a good cook; I’ll give her that. I like to think I inherited her ability. I get no complaints from Richard, anyway. “Are you seeing anyone lately?” I know the answer to that, but at least it might distract her from her matchmaking efforts. No sense in having a preliminary bout before the main event, after all.

  “Maybe.” She smirks mysteriously, taking her place across from me. It’s just the three of us, Jackson long ago having gone to school and Diana doing God knows what in another room. I look at her piercingly, not having expected more than a perfunctory “no.”

  “Good for you, Juliet,” I hear Richard say, “you should go out more, show the world what a sexy beast you are.”

  I can only glare at him, but that doesn’t work as he isn’t looking at me. Damn, mothers aren’t supposed to be sexy, they’re… well, they’re mothers. I aim a swift kick at him, but he’s too fast for me, anticipating my movement and moving his endangered limb first. “Grow up, Max,” he chides me, showing off for my mother’s benefit.

  “Calm down, Max. You’ll be the first to know if and when there’s something to tell, I promise. Now, about Amy.” Damn, she’s a persistent little bulldog, isn’t she? I try not to groan too loudly but only manage to sound like I’m whimpering instead. Much better.

  “Don’t give me that look, Maximillian, and quit whining!”

  Jeez, am I forty or fourteen?

  BY THE time Richard and I arrive, they are there already, waiting for us in a booth set back in the corner, which suits me just fine, I guess. Richard keeps a possessive hand on me at all times as we squeeze into our side of the padded booth, and then proceeds to completely squash me by sitting almost on top of me. But his point is made, and I let it lie. In fact I rather enjoy it; it makes me feel very much wanted, and for a change, he is the jealous one.

  There is already a bottle of wine on the table, and I notice Amy has chosen a vintage I am particularly fond of, a blush Zinfandel from one of the Hermann wineries. As if she is atoning for something or apologizing in advance. Or just wanting to get us drunk. Which shouldn’t take too long, after having the mimosas at breakfast, I have to admit that Richard and I are feeling no pain and are almost giddy, having driven all the way down Highway 70 blasting the Starland Vocal Band over the speakers of my Monte—yes, I still have my ’76 Monte Carlo, and it is in mint condition—singing together about the wonders of afternoon delight. As if we were trying not to think about the coming ordeal. Or perhaps making plans for afterward.

  Rachel wastes no time in pouring some of the pretty pink liquid into our glasses, and I am not slow about drinking it down.

  At first there is a bit of an awkward silence. You know the kind: where everyone is waiting for someone else to say something inflammatory or stupid. Rachel’s eyes are keeping busy, ping-ponging back and forth among the three of us as if she is afraid that World War III is about to break out. Amy’s own eyes are cast down toward the table, but I can see her watching everything surreptitiously, stealing glances from the corner of her eyes, and Richard is amusing himself with the salt shaker, making rather a mess so that I am forced to slap his hand and give him one of my “looks” while I try not to giggle at the same time. (That would tend to dilute the message.)

  Amy breaks the silence, her voice soft and tremulous as she begins to speak, her brown eyes fixed soulfully on me, to my intense discomfort. “It’s really good to see you again, Max.”

  There is a small cough beside me.

  “You, too, Richard, of course,” she adds, but is it sincerity or an afterthought? “How is your photography going?”

  “Going well,” he says shortly, my man of few words. “How’s your acting career?”

  I feel the breeze from Rachel’s leg as she reaches out and kicks him. He acts as if he doesn’t feel a thing while I attempt to move on.

  “So, how did you come to be a writer?” I have such a way with words sometimes, it boggles the mind. I think so quickly on my feet—not!

  Amy ignores my pathetic attempt at whatever it is I am trying to do and delves into the heart of the matter with her usual tact and grace. “Before we go any farther,” she begins in her soft-spoken voice, “I want to apologize for the way I acted at the Tribune the other day. That was very rude of me and very uncalled for, and I’m sorry. To both of you.” She makes a point of including Richard in her apology, and Rachel beams at us both like a poster child for global harmony. I can’t fathom why she likes Amy so much, but this isn’t the time to dwell on that.

  Amy reaches out one hand, lays it gently atop one of mine, which I have heretofore been using to drum “Afternoon Delight” on the tabletop, before Richard territorially snatches it from her grasp. “Sorry,” she mumbles as her cheeks rival the wine for its rosy shade, and Rachel glares indignantly at my lover. I don’t remonstrate with him, though; I merely squeeze his hand and allow him to retain mine. We are in this together, and I feel the need to show him that I am on his side.

  “Thank you, Amy.” I try to be gracious and forgiving, ’cause I honestly have no wish to fight with her. The wolf is the aggressive one, not me, and I try not to give him free rein if I can help it. I have enough to do to keep Richard in check at times; I don’t need the added stress.

  “I guess you know that things didn’t work out for me, acting-wise that is. The soap and everything,” she continues, haltingly, as she reaches for her wine, downs what is left in her glass, then takes the bottle, and replenishes her courage. She looks so delicate and fragile that I am brought to mind of a baby chick I saw when I was just a young impressionable boy. It had been accidentally flung from the safety of its nest, perhaps by
an overly rough wind, before it was ready to face the world, the poor bird’s skin so thin that I could trace the lines of its veins just beneath the surface, little protection from the harsh realities of life. Despite the best combined efforts of Juliet and myself, the poor chick didn’t make it, and its poor lifeless body haunted my dreams for months.

  “I’m glad, though, in a way, ’cause it’s given me the chance to come home. Home to the people I care about. Home to start a new life.”

  Rachel smiles into the breach. “We’re glad you did, Amy. It’s good to see you again.” I wonder to myself if Rachel is really that naïve. Or am I just being cynical? Should I bury the past and move on? It’s not like Amy possibly really wants me still, regardless of what Richard thinks. I am just not that memorable. I know better, and I am not egotistical enough to think that I can inspire that sort of devotion, especially as I have never encouraged it.

  “It’s good to be back.” She half-smiles in return. “And it’s good to see that some things never change. There are things that you can actually count on.” I swear she is talking about Richard and me, but I can’t be sure, and I half-expect her to follow that up with a snide comment or question, something to the effect of “Richard, are you still fucking around on Max?” or “Nice hair, Richard. Live in the ’70s much?” Or something similar. Which doesn’t happen, of course. Mr. Paranoid, I am.

  I tell myself I should stop drinking as I pour myself and Richard another glass.

  Richard leans in to me, his breath warm against my ear. “Wanna dance?” he murmurs. I smell the sweetness of his exhalation in the air between us.

  I give him a sidelong glance. “This, my dear sir, is a restaurant, not a dancehall.” For some inexplicable reason that strikes me as incredibly funny, and I begin to giggle like a love-struck adolescent girl, which sets Richard to giggling as well, and we sit there and giggle at one another. Which sets Rachel off into gales of giggles. And then Amy. And before we know it, we are a table full of giggling fools. A mind is a terrible thing to waste, isn’t it? But faster than you can say Titanic, the ice is broken, for better or for worse.

  Another bottle of wine and no lunch later, you would think it’s a meeting of the sentimental claptrap society as we relax and exchange life experiences. Rachel, of course, is chock full of Gary Oldman stories; she keeps us up to date on everything we can possibly want to know about the actor, and maybe a few things we aren’t even wondering about, including but not limited to what films he is working on, his current marital status, and the beauty of his dreamy blue eyes as well as his incredible smile. Richard is not shy about bringing up guess-what-Max-did tales: some of which I have to admit are funny, all of them are true, and nothing I can’t live with, but I don’t care, and I let him rattle on to his heart’s content. Amy talks less than the rest of us, probably because Rachel and Richard between them tend to dominate the conversation. At some point I see that she grabs her cell phone and disappears for a few minutes, returning with a self-satisfied grin on her face, which I simply ignore, although I do notice her whispering into Rachel’s ear. I’m far too wrapped up in Richard to pay any real attention, to be honest.

  He is being so utterly attentive, and I am just eating it up. It’s as if he is determined to stake his claim before Amy and Rachel and the rest of the world. Not that he really needs to, for I am his in every sense of the word. Isn’t love grand? Every so often he simply leans over and kisses my ear, or my cheek, or pats my leg, smiling into my eyes. I bask in the glow of his love and become so wrapped up in him that I forget at times that we are not alone, much less whom we are sitting at the table with, until Rachel’s imitation of a whooping crane calls me back to reality once more, and I blush, and she laughs at me. Again.

  “Hey, there, you two, knock that off and c’mon, we have a surprise for you,” she giggles after a little bit as she and Amy begin to rise, a little unsteadily, from their side of the table. Richard and I exchange glances, not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but we shrug and obediently squirm out of the booth. Am I mistaken, or do I see smiles on the faces of some of the patrons as we pass by? Everybody loves a lover, don’t they? We squeeze between the tables and make our way out of the restaurant…

  …to find ourselves standing on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, face-to-face with a man in full livery, respectfully touching his cap. Behind him, gleaming as immaculately as a young girl’s first communion dress, is a huge white limousine. “Holy shit!” I swear inelegantly.

  “Surprise!” Rachel and Amy exclaim together, both of them pointing dramatically at the limo like they are auditioning to be showcase models on The Price is Right.

  The next thing I remember is the four of us sitting in the back of this limo as it tools around the streets of downtown St. Louis, drinking expensive champagne and singing old Billy Joel songs at the top of our lungs. How do I know it’s expensive? ’Cause the label on the bottle screams pricy, that’s how I know. Mouton Rothschild, I think, although by now I would be more than happy with domestic. The vehicle’s tinted windows allow us to look out, but not others to see in, and we are like voyeurs on a voyage of discovery as we spy upon the local populace. Not that they are really doing anything all that interesting, but I guess when you are blasted, most everything is amusing.

  We crawl along Memorial Drive, caught up in the early rush hour traffic, past the infamous Gateway Arch, which draws our attention. How could it not? That thing is huge.

  “I need to go up in the Arch again. It’s been too long!” Amy exclaims. “What about you, Rachel, how long since you been up?”

  Rachel considers her words. “It’s been ages,” she agrees, “probably a few years, at least. What about you, Max? Richard?”

  He and I exchange glances. “Have you ever been?” I ask him, and he shakes his head. “Me either.”

  “What?” The girls seem outraged by our responses. “You’ve never been up in the Arch? You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, why should I? I live here.” The idea strikes me as absurd, Richard also apparently. After all, we’re not bloody tourists. We’re St. Louisans. The Arch is for visitors, not locals.

  “You should go,” Rachel says, and Amy reinforces her words with enthusiastic head-bobbing.

  “Sure, if you say so, maybe someday.” I try to placate her. “How about the art museum? Isn’t that a lovely place?” But they won’t allow the change of subject, to my chagrin. Dammit!

  “No, we have to take you up now!” Rachel insists. “Right now!” Amy seconds her, naturally. And they both look at Richard. I don’t need to look at him myself to know that he has a shit-eating grin on his face and why.

  “I don’t think you’re going to be able to talk Max into doing that,” he says with amusement. Amy, who is in the act of giving the driver instructions to pull into the Arch parking lot, stops and looks at him.

  “Why not?” She looks at me, confusion obvious in her eyes, which is mirrored in Rachel’s. Damn, he has a big mouth sometimes!

  “I am not a tourist, that’s why. Why don’t we do something else?”

  No use, they won’t give up. I sigh and give Richard a dark look, which he is far too oblivious and far too full of liquor to notice. He puts an arm about me, moving even closer to me on our seat, at the same time leaning confidentially toward the girls. “My poor little lamb doesn’t like heights,” he whispers quite loudly. At least I think it’s very loud, and I groan and look anywhere but at them.

  God, what next? The Max-is-a-bloody-werewolf talk? I look out the window, notice that we have stopped for a traffic light, and without thinking it through (a common failing of mine, in case you haven’t noticed), I open the door and hop out, feeling the need for some air. Okay, I’m feeling sorry for myself as well: poor little Max, picked on, as usual. I somehow manage to negotiate Memorial Drive without being killed, and I suddenly know where I am headed: to the river. I walk, albeit a bit shakily, across the Arch grounds in that general direction.

  Once
I reach Wharf Street—sorry, Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard now, isn’t it? Sometimes it is hard to teach an old wolf new street names—I weave my way in between the moving vehicles, dodging them (or are they dodging me?) until I reach the cobblestoned riverfront that is my destination, and I pause to glance into the less than clean waters of the mighty Mississippi, not knowing or caring what those I have left behind are doing or thinking. And as I stand there, watching the barges on their slow journeys down the river, my mind begins to drift….

  Saturday evening, July 1976

  SUMMERS in St. Louis can go one of two ways, either the weather can be incredibly balmy and pleasant, a joy to get out and about in, or it can be like living in a damn jungle, with killer humidity and vicious mosquitoes, some of which have been known to carry off small children. And you can get both types of weather in a single week, a single day, even. One of the more common sayings around here is that if you don’t like the weather in St. Louis, just wait a few minutes, it’ll change.

  For all intents and purposes, Richard moved into my room at my mother’s house within a few days of our meeting. April 12, 1976, if you need the exact date. And yes, I know how anal that is of me to remember the precise day, but I don’t care. And yes, I know that it was very impetuous of me, but that is youth for you. It knows what it wants and goes after it.

  We thought we were being rather clever, too, in not informing my mother right away. Not that I thought she would mind, but it was more like a challenge to see how long we could keep his presence as a member of the household concealed from her. And the answer was not too damn long. She caught me sneaking his laundry in with mine one day (because, of course, I assumed she wouldn’t remember what my clothes looked like and would just accept his as mine) and, taking it from my hand, gave me one of those wise mother looks, you know the kind, the I-am-so-wise-you-are-so-lowly-I-am-such-a-martyr-why-do-I-even-bother looks. But instead of lecturing me, she only said five words. “Max, do you love him?”