by Kate Meader
I try to absorb what she’s saying. What she’s not saying.
“He was confused, in a lot of pain.”
“I don’t blame you, Charlie. Since you came to us, you’ve been his mission. It’s hard to compete with the bond you two have.”
I can’t think of a word to say that will make this better. Children often blame themselves for divorce, but how often do parents blame their grown children?
“He’s not been the same since his retirement, Donna. He’s been at a loose end, and I think he just needs to figure that out. When he was working his ass off, he didn’t have the time or resources to indulge a midlife crisis. Now he’s having it, twenty years late. It’s just a phase.”
I refuse to believe it’s anything more. I stand and place an arm around her shoulders.
“I’ll talk to him. I didn’t before. I was too furious.”
“At Frank or Max?”
“At them both!”
Donna picks up my plate from the table, then heads to the trash.
“I was eating that.” It’s halfhearted, and Donna’s expression agrees.
“Whatever your father has done, this is not Max’s fault.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. This is Max’s bread-and-butter. He’s never seen a marriage he doesn’t think would benefit from his interference. He planted ideas in Sully’s head.”
Donna frowns. “Sully and I had problems long before your Max came along.”
“He’s not my Max.”
“Oh, no? Then why are you so mad at him?”
Because I love him. Because I feel betrayed. I have a million other reasons I don’t get a chance to list in my head because Donna has said something crazy. I rewind, trying to reckon with the revelation that just emerged from her mouth.
“Did you just say Max has been helpful?”
“Yes. He sent a car.”
“What do you mean he sent a car?”
“To pick me up and take me down to his office. To the Punch Palace.”
I put a palm to her forehead. “Are you having a stroke?”
She swats my hand away. “No. He wanted to let me know how Frank was doing—like I cared—and then he gave me a chance to be angry at him in a safe environment.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She opens the freezer and takes out the mint chocolate chip Breyers. We don’t bother with bowls, just dig in with spoons.
“They have a punch-bag thing with Frank’s face on it. Max says he uses it to let his clients release their pent-up aggression.” She whispers, “It felt really good to punch him.”
“Max?”
“No, Frank! Well, fake Frank. Then I had tea with Max and Lucas. They served Milano cookies, the orange-chocolate ones. Lucas is going to help me set up a Tinder account. Did you know he’s British?”
Milanos? Tinder? The Punch Palace?
What the hell is going on?
“So, don’t be mad at Max. He’s just trying to help.”
Max Henderson has helped enough. God knows my childhood wasn’t perfect, but growing up with Donna and Sully, I witnessed happiness. Not textbook, no-raised-voices, Betty Crocker happiness, but fights and Monopoly and Cubs games. Donna taking me to buy my prom dress, and Sully teaching me all the tricks to poker. The sly looks they’d share when they managed to make an impact on me or when they thought I wasn’t looking.
It wasn’t a picture-perfect love, but real love in all its many shades. When Max claimed my version of marriage was unrealistic, that it required people to suck up the pain and become shadows of themselves, I knew he didn’t understand at all.
Love can bring pain, but the rewards are so much greater. Max doesn’t want to put in the effort to make it real. He wants it to look like it does in one of those old movies he’s obsessed with. Silver-lined romance where the end is a foregone conclusion.
Max wants it clean and served up to him fully formed and perfect. I need a man who recognizes that love takes work, that a relationship might be a fixer-upper.
I won’t settle for less—and I certainly won’t settle for Max.
* * *
—
Nathan places a grande iced mocha on my desk and steps away slowly.
I look up, then down. “Uh, thanks?”
“How’re you doing today?”
“Fine.” Terrible. I’m worried sick about Donna and furious at Sully. It’s been three days and he still hasn’t come to his senses. Why do I have to be the adult here?
Nathan sits on my desk. “Penny and I think that maybe you should go over there.”
“I already did, remember? I polished off a bottle of cabernet at your place last night and let your wife make soothing noises.”
“No, to Max’s. That is where both your current problems reside after all.”
I bristle at the mention of him. “Max Henderson isn’t a problem. He’s not even on my radar except for the fact he’s aiding and abetting a fugitive.”
“A fugitive? What a lovely attitude toward marriage you have.”
“Oh, shut it.” I pick up the iced mocha and take a healthy drag. “And thanks for this. You’re a nice man.”
My phone rings but of course it’s not who I want to hear from. I answer, then ten seconds in wish I hadn’t. When I hang up, Nathan is staring at me with concern.
“You look like someone just did a Jewish wedding dance on your grave.”
I don’t answer while my mind races for a solution to the problem just dumped in my lap. Two minutes later, Nathan is in the know and we’re both racking our brains. That’s when it hits me, then floors me with horror.
I shoot off a text before I can overthink it.
Can you give me your mother’s phone number?
Just as I’m wondering if the smiley face emoticon is too much, Max responds: Ratting me out to Susanne? Not cool.
I laugh reluctantly. Then my heart seizes with pain.
My phone rings and it’s him. Nathan is watching, and I figure I can’t let the man who hurt me bother me in front of a good friend, which is why my greeting is fifty times more cheerful than the situation warrants. “Hi there!”
“Charles,” comes that beautiful drawl that catches somewhere deep and soft inside my chest. “What’s going on?”
“I have a problem and I don’t want to alarm James and Gina yet. I think your parents could help.” But not you. I don’t need you.
“Want to tell me more?”
No. But I do want to ask him how he is, how my father is, even how Cujo is. I want to know how I can get past the pain that’s singeing every part of my body.
“Not really. It’s nothing you need to be concerned about. If you could just give me your mom’s phone number, I’ll be on my way.” Cheer levels through the roof here.
Nothing but silence on the other end of the line.
“Max?”
He sighs, resigned. “Sure.”
* * *
—
“Charlie!”
Mrs. Henderson grabs both of my hands and steers me inside her beautiful home. She’s wearing a sun hat and a man’s button-down shirt over jeans, with the sleeves rolled up. I suspect it’s her husband’s and that seems strangely adorable and not a little sexy.
“Thanks so much for meeting with me at such short notice. I’ve made so many calls and with just two days to go—”
“It’s fine! I hope no one was hurt in the fire.”
“No casualties.” That call I received that forced me to co-opt Max? The ballroom at The Peninsula is out of commission after a fire ripped through it overnight. This is basically every wedding planner’s worst nightmare. No venue? No wedding.
But then I had a bright idea.
Susanne leads me through the house, not making any small talk that I’d probably rudely ignore anyway. She knows what I want. We step out onto the patio.
Max is sitting there at a wrought-iron table, sipping what looks like lemonade and looking like the lord of the manor.
My heart leaps in joy at seeing him. Dumb heart. “Did you take a helicopter here?”
“Just a better driver than you, Charles.”
“With the sun, you’ll need a tent,” Susanne says, as if the fact Max is here in the middle of the work day is completely normal. “No one wants flies in their hors d’oeuvres. But the ceremony would probably work in the garden.”
Calling the Henderson lawn “the garden” is like calling Adele “a girl who can hold a tune.”
“Max said you maintain this yourself, Mrs. H.” I insist on talking about him as though he’s not here. Even when I hear him move behind me, step closer, his male spice my drug and my downfall, I try to focus on my most pressing problem.
“Oh, my sons think I’m mad, but it makes me happy. And we have to do what makes us happy, don’t we?”
I nod. “So, you’re okay with moving the wedding here?”
“Of course. Nothing would make us happier.”
Phew. “James and Gina don’t know yet. I wanted to present it as a fait accompli to soften the blow.”
“I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner, but then this wedding has all happened so fast, and I usually don’t interfere in my sons’ lives.”
The look she gives me says she’s about to break that rule. “I’ll be in the kitchen. Pop in and say goodbye before you leave, Charlie.” She enters the house, leaving me with Max and my heart in turmoil.
“Thanks for giving me her number.”
“Least I could do.”
“Of course, The Peninsula won’t charge for the space but it’s easiest if they still handle the catering. They owe us big-time so it won’t be a problem to have them do it all here instead. I’ll even get them to lower the price. And I already talked to the other vendors—oh, the celebrant! I need to make sure it won’t be a problem for him to switch locations.”
I’m babbling, but this is my reputation on the line, and my planner brain is being torn in a million different directions at once. My heart’s not doing so well, either. With the contracted time frame, James and Gina aren’t getting married in a church but the pastor, an old family friend, was to conduct the ceremony at the hotel.
Hand only slightly shaking, I extract my phone.
Max puts his palm over my knuckles. That touch both soothes and kills me a little inside. “I already called him. He’s fine with the change of location.”
“You did?” I couldn’t look at him before and now I can’t look away.
“When you hung up after getting what you wanted from me”—he gives a cheeky grin—“I gave it a few minutes then called my mom to get the scoop. I figured you’d have a lot on your plate, so I phoned the one other person I know is integral to the show.”
“Oh. That’s very kind.”
“I’d do anything for you. You know that.”
Do I? Of course he means as a friend. Maybe we can get to that point one day. I suspect Max would make a better friend than a lover or a husband. He’d confide in me about his latest conquest and I’d laugh and laugh, commiserating with the poor woman, and thanking my stars I’d had such a lucky escape. Oh, the fun we’ll have when that day comes.
He shifts his body so he’s close enough to make me dizzy. “How’s Donna?”
“Kind of seesawing. It’s been quite the change for her.”
“Change is difficult. The most difficult thing we have to endure, really.” He stares at me with a breath-robbing intent that does its job expertly.
“I-I heard you invited her in for tea. I also heard you have Mission Impossible–style masks on hand as some sort of therapy?”
“Told you, Charlie, I do all I can to help my clients heal.” He winces. “Not that Donna is a client, but I want it to be clear I’m not taking sides. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m on your side.”
I pass over this because I’ve no idea what to do with it. When I manage to fill my lungs again, I ask, “How’s your new roommate? Must be nice to have a dog walker on the premises.”
His look is one of extreme skepticism and so purely Max I almost laugh. “The penthouse isn’t nearly big enough, Charlie. I haven’t given up, though.”
“On getting him out?”
“On getting him back where he belongs. A-And other stuff.” He shakes his head. “Jesus, only with you.”
“Only with me what?”
“Only with you do I revert to that stammering schoolboy. I thought I’d put it all behind me but one look from you and I’m lost again.”
I have no response. Too much has happened. Too many hurts have snuck in and laid siege to my heart. I’m not sure I blame Max for Sully’s behavior anymore, but the situation revealed glaring differences to how we look at the world. Sex and attraction can only keep this ship afloat for so long.
“I should go.” I take a step back, feeling like it’s a mistake. Every one of my instincts is shot through with doubt, but I can’t trust them where Max is concerned. I never could.
“Don’t forget to say bye to Susanne.”
“I won’t.”
Chapter 23
“Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left.”
—Jean Kerr
Max
I throw open the door to Lucas’s office and find Grant leaning over the drafting board set up on one side of the room. Lucas usually has a half-completed jigsaw puzzle in progress, and that’s what Grant is working on now: he finishes inserting a piece, then turns to face me.
Lucas is reading a deposition and barely glances up when I enter. The two of them in here strikes me as a little cozy and I’m feeling rather raw, especially with the news I just heard.
“Plotting behind my back?”
Grant’s eyebrows slam together. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“I think he’s accusing me, mate,” Lucas says, sitting up straighter and grinning. Grinning! “What’s on your mind, Maxie?”
“Oh, I think you know. I ran into Mitzi this morning.”
Lucas’s grin remains unchanged, which means every word Mitzi told me was true.
“Are you seriously telling me you conspired with her to dump Cujo on me?”
“Who’s Cujo?” Grant asks.
“My dog.”
Lucas points. “Exactly.”
I slam the door and hear Sadie call out, “Hey!” She doesn’t like when we act out in ways that might require a call to building maintenance.
“Exactly?” I say to Lucas, though it emerges more like an unmanly shriek. “Exactly? What the fuck does that mean?”
“You said ‘my dog,’ which only goes to prove you’ve become attached.”
“Of course I’ve become attached! There isn’t a square foot of my apartment that hasn’t been pissed or shit upon by that little fucker. It creates a very special bond. What I don’t understand is why you did it. Why have her come up to me in the park while I was with—” I can’t even say her name. I saw her yesterday at my mom’s house, and it already feels like she’s slipped away into my past, a feeling I despise. “Why the hell did you do that and when the hell did you become buddies with Mitzi von Stueben?”
Lucas stands and come around to the front of the desk, a brave and likely foolish act because now he doesn’t have that protective barrier between us.
“Grant, mate, what would you say is our boy Max’s most endearing trait?”
Grant looks me over. “S
olid. Reliable. Never lets you down.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Yeah, yeah, he’s all that, but he’s also a bit…” Lucas flourishes a hand of encouragement in Grant’s direction.
“Set in his ways. Not one for trying new things. Resistant to change.”
Et tu, Grant?
“Yes. Yes, he is.” Lucas folds his arms as if he’s somehow proved something that will convince the judge “case closed.” “So, there I was taking my morning constitutional one fine day in May when I fall into step behind Mitzi and her great arse. I had no idea, mate. I can see why you gave her more than your usual one-and-done. Oh, you’re a friend of Max’s, she says, and before you know it, I’m commiserating with her over green tea, which is shit by the way, about you and how resistant you are to accepting love. Her words. So I’m nodding along, thinking about what I need to do to get the fair Stueben into bed, when she starts banging on about the dog you guys are supposed to raise together.
“That’s when I say, you know what, Mitzi, love, you ought to teach him a lesson. Guys like Max Henderson shouldn’t be allowed to get away with vague promises to jointly raise pets. It’s just not cricket.”
“It’s just not cricket?” I’m incredulous now, or more incredulous than usual around Lucas, which is saying something. “You mean, you suggested to her that she should buy a dog and foist him on me in a public place?”
His grin is proud and punch-worthy. “Now he’s getting it.”
I turn to Grant. “Am I the only person who thinks this is fucking nuts?”
Grant shrugs. “Kind of shook things up, didn’t it?”
Lucas considers Grant with appreciation. “Smartest guy in the room, right here. Ever since you broke up with Becca, you’ve been Mr. Routine. The same bar to meet James on Thursdays. The same restaurants, the same running route.”
“I don’t screw the same woman! How’s that for Mr. Routine?”
“Only so you won’t have to let anyone in. You’re always in control, Maxie. You’re the man with the plan, the guy who fucks and forgets so nothing can crack that armor of yours. Well, that little doggie got in there. And so did Charlie Love.”
