Maxine (13 page)

No.

Groaner. Can we have another beer, then? It's almost one-thirty. I might fall asleep and stab myself in the eye with the peeler here.

In fifteen minutes we can have another beer, to keep us awake.

Right. Let us not have an unscheduled beer.

And then we start the mains.

I hope you asked for a shitload more money for the short notice.

Just a
tiny
bit thinner than that, OK?

Oh yeah. So anyway, sometimes I notice that he's just kind of there, you know, not really moving and I realize he might not have eaten for a few days and I think oh shit, and I feel really, really bad—

God, is he anorexic?

Not Kyle. Bluebird. You know, the fish they gave me at work, at the going-away thing. So I tip the bowl a little, to make the water swish from side to side, to see how he moves, because if he just swishes like a leaf in the gutter then you know it's all over. I'm dreading that, seeing him gone floaty, I'm holding my breath—but then he comes up to the side of the bowl looking all hopeful—

Hopeful?

Yeah, his little fins get going and he looks kind of...expectant...

Puh-lease.

And I think Oh thank you thank you, I will drink less beer, I will stop swearing, I will feed him regularly, thank you.

Man, you
are
nuts.

I just don't want it to be my fault, you know, if he dies.

When
it dies, Max.

OK, when.

Maxine is lying on the couch, on her stomach, glaring at what would be today's chunk of writing except that she hasn't written anything today, so she is glaring at some other piece of writing which she knows should be today's and isn't, and she is full of furious thought about this and the fact that she has put on more than ten pounds in the last year and a bunch of her clothes don't fit any more, and her novel is a piece of crap, when Kyle knocks and stomps in. Fat clumps of snow drop off his wide jeans with the side pockets and the flannel turn-ups, his coolest pants, and melt on the floor. She doesn't look up.

Hi.

Hi.

Want to see me build a Spectacular?

Not today, thanks.

OK.

He clicks away for a while. Maxine waits irritably for something to be irritated by. It takes some time but eventually he does speak.

That English thriller contest, the Paris one. Are we going to— OK, listen up. I am working here. I do not want to enter a contest. I am not going to win any contest you can find and I don't want to waste my time preparing for—Oh. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kyle, I really am. I'm in such a bad mood, I'm tired, it's not you. Don't go, please. Come on, buddy. I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to talk to you like that, I'm just tired. Let's go to the bakery. Come on, take your boots off, show me a Spectacular. Come back in, Ky.

It's hard for Maxine to make Frédérique's work interesting. She spends a lot of time marking and doing research. What could be interesting about that? Why is Frédérique doing it? Because of how it makes her feel when she is lost in the world of her research, and when she comes back from it. She feels that this is what she was made to do, and that it is important. It is her skill set. It is what she has to offer the world. Not that she doesn't have a few other things to offer the world as well, but there is much to learn about the process of galaxy formation and she is one of the few who can elucidate this.

Sometimes in a moment of irritation, to compose herself, Frédérique recites names under her breath: Andromeda, M33, Leo I, Leo II, Peg dSph, Cass dSph…

Maxine isn't quite sure how that would be pronounced but she says something like Cass Dussuph, and it works for her. Sometimes in a moment of tension, to calm herself, Maxine recites the names of the galaxies under her breath: Andromeda, M33, Leo I, Leo II, Peg dSph, Cass dSph—

Don't be getting on with that while I'm around, says Gail.

Maxine calls the Larsens' and leaves a message to say she'll be home later if Kyle wants to come over in the evening after swimming. She has almost finished
The High King
now. She was deeply moved when the bard, Fflewddur Fflam, sacrificed the harp he'd played, according to Kyle, throughout the previous four volumes of the series. He broke it over his knee to light the fire that saves the small band of companions from death. What makes this act especially poignant is Fflewddur's cheerfulness, the lies he tells his friends (he didn't want to keep the harp anyway, it's smoke from the fire making his eyes water). Fflewddur's selflessness is unstinting and good-humoured.

If Maxine were to break her harp, she'd make damn sure everyone knew what she was giving up. She wouldn't mean to go on and on about it, but she'd let her suffering communicate itself. Grace has always been for Maxine a bit of a work in progress.

Fflewddur is a figure of fun, but he has real courage. Maxine doesn't know if she has real courage—she's never had to kick off her shoes and dive into the ocean after anyone—but it doesn't seem likely.

“Andromeda,” said Frédérique. “Andromeda, M33, Leo I, Leo II, Cass dSph—” She was wading though the wreckage on her study floor. There were file folders dumped out, photographs of stars, class lists. Papers all over the place. And then something that wasn't one of her papers. A photograph of her, but not one she recognized. Black and white. Taken from a distance away, with a good lens. Not the best angle. She was half-turned away from the camera. You wouldn't necessarily have recognized her. My hair looks good, Frédérique thought. Not a photograph she owned. Not one she'd known anyone was taking. A car door slammed in the parking area at the back of the building. Frédérique picked up the phone and punched in some numbers. “Jerome,” she said. “Jerome, I need you to do something for me.”

Maxine works by the window. It's Reading Buddy Day. He was going to come and get her. She could just show up. She could gatecrash Reading Buddy Day and say all kinds of smart and interesting things about
The High King
and the children would be impressed and Kyle would forgive her. But if she failed, it would be worse. And more importantly it would be manipulative. At suppertime she sits at the kitchen table, opens a brown paper bag, and eats the whole package of lemon squares. She pokes the tip of her tongue into the lemon curd smushed behind her front teeth and sees Frédérique's disapproving face in her mind's eye: All that sugar—
pull yourself together, bon Dieu.

Frédérique's chief area of interest is the Local Group, the cluster of galaxies which includes our own. She is infuriated by people who know less about astronomy than they let on.

Frédérique used to hoard empty cracker boxes, cereal boxes, pasta boxes, and tape them together to make rocket ships like the one that would take her up there.

Maxine has got as far as the introductory page of a basic guide and has learned from it that the universe, the totality of everything known to exist, extends as far as the strongest telescopes can see, which is to say about ten million light years in all directions.

Frédérique stamped a red suede shoe: “Billion, you moron!”

Actually, Maxine thinks it might have been ten billion light years. She has become sidetracked by ignorant speculation about the universe, about what happens or doesn't beyond the reach of those very strongest of telescopes. It's easy enough to think about remote vastness—it's what's close to home that's tricky.

Gail: I have a theory about why you aren't interested in any available man.

Me too. There isn't one. Except the guy in the pet shop, and he's nice but I decided not to get a dog after all.

Do you want to hear it?

Um. I guess.

Well, you could be—I'm not saying you are, now, it's just an idea. It could be, maybe, that really the person you have a repressed desire for—very repressed, you know, really repressed, probably totally—is, well, someone you know. Someone, maybe, like...you know, me for example. Only I'm not available, so you screw up on purpose so you don't have to—what? Oh haha. I said it was only an idea. Shut uuuuuup. Yes, very funny, here I am trying to be helpful—Yes, OK, hilarious, look, shut up, you little frigger.

On Saturday Maxine and Gail are giving blood and then Gail will make them a proper lunch. Themargaritas are so good when you've given blood, Gail says. Maxine hasn't tried to give blood for fifteen years or so—since she was fresh out of high school, wandering past a walk-in donor clinic at the mall. She'd watched the nurse squeeze her middle finger until the tip was all fat and purple, and she'd felt the needle stabbing in. She came to, flat on her back on the floor near the photo booth, with smelling salts drilling her sinuses and a little halo of nurses' faces peering anxiously into hers. She could hear a boy calling out: Mom, Mooommmmm, look, she's dead, Mom, look!

Three people's lives, you'll save, Gail told her. It's really fast— ten minutes and they'll have it all sucked out of you. Then again, if you don't want to save three lives, if you couldn't give a flying frig about the youngsters coming out of car accidents with their legs dangling off and hardly a drop left in ‘em—

Shutupshutupshutup,
please
shut up, Maxine had said, and now she is called into a small room and given a long form and a pencil. She checks boxes having to do with numerous drugs she hasn't taken and symptoms she has not really experienced, except that by the time she gets to the end of the list she's feeling somewhat dizzy and nauseated, as per questions seven and twelve. And then there is the second part, a series of alarming questions the nurse asks her directly, and she can hear herself answering in a quick, high voice.

Pardon?

Have you during that time had unprotected sex with an intravenous drug user or anyone whose sexual background you don't know?

No! Maxine squeaks, but part of her needs to make sure. Monday, she's thinking, I went though Chapter Three, Kyle came over. Tuesday we did the catering prep—was that Tuesday?—

Your arms, miss. Could you roll up your sleeves, I just want to look at them.

Maxine delivers a clenched-jaw, I-have-nothing-to-hide kind of smile.

Is there, um, do they look OK? My arms?

Maxine feels a slight thickening in her lungs, a pre-wheeze. Andromeda, she thinks, as the nurse turns her wrists gently and scans her arms. M33, Leo I, Leo II—

Thank you, you can roll your sleeves back down now.

Gail is swaying to Cuban jazz, chopping mushrooms at her kitchen counter. Maxine's slicing has at some point in the past been deemed insufficiently elegant. They are both happy with their usual roles, which dictate that Gail should take over all the cooking, while Maxine does drinks and easy little Gail-approved tasks.

Changes have to bemade, Maxine tells her. She rims two glasses with salt and pours margaritas from the blender. I need to make changes.

Gail hums and nods: Go for it, sexy mama.

I am going to do things I wouldn't have done before. Maxine hops up and slides a glass in near Gail's hand.

Yes way. Thanks.

This year, Maxine says quietly. I will do them this year.

The blade of the knife hovers above a mushroom. Gail twists around and gives Maxine a quick look. She turns back, still holding the knife in the air.

What things, Max?

No Kyle. It's been three days now, plus the weekend. It feels like forever. She needs Gail, but Ted's just back from the rigs and they left this morning to ski at Marble Mountain. Maxine sees him going into his house after school again. An hour later he has not come. Maxine has grown used to Kyle. He makes her laugh. She makes him laugh, and that is a pleasure to see. He's nice. He teaches her interesting things. It's a bit weird, maybe, she reflects, but she likes having him around. She's started to think about what he might be up to next year, when Barb's contract is over. She might not see much of him after that. It crosses her mind to buy a bunch of computer games and scatter them like a trail of breadcrumbs between his door and hers. She walks down to Churchill Square and buys a piece of bristol board at the drugstore. She stands in the cookie aisle at the supermarket and pictures Frédérique raising an index finger and saying something stern and dietary. She puts the cookies on the checkout counter and pushes them forward to make room for somebody's tofu. The somebody says, Hi, I think I know you from the pet store? That pleasant, interested face. He's piling up fruit and vegetables, right behind her. It's James. He shakesMaxine's hand. They walk through the sliding glass together, past the sign that says Automatic Caution Door. Gail has said that Maxine must have crossed that threshold one time too many, which explains her Automatic Caution. James and Maxine agree that she'll stop by the store on her next trip downtown. Maxine is about to head toward home when he tugs on her sleeve and she stops.

So. Are you just saying that or will you really come by? James watches her steadily as he waits for an answer.

Well. Maxine shifts a little and then pushes her bangs away and looks straight at him: I don't know how long I'll stay. All that fur.

But I'll definitely come by. OK?

OK. Good.

The trajectory of Gail's business card. Maxine gave a fistful to Barb, Barb reminded Dave several times until eventually he took some to work and left them with the receptionist—this was some time ago—and when Kristina asked the receptionist what caterer the company uses, the receptionist was listening through her headset to her eleven-year-old, home alone and running a fever, and the receptionist brushed her eyes over the desk.

Get yourself some orange juice honey, said the receptionist into the mouthpiece as she reached for the cards on the bulletin board— five of them fanned neatly—unpinned them, and handed one to Kristina, whom she didn't much like so far. I'm going to call Nan and see if she can go over, OK? When Gail asked how Kristina heard of her (which she always does, and keeps a list, and sends chocolates at Christmas to people who've passed on her name), Kristina named the receptionist, who did not appear on Gail's radar, but she made a note of the name of the firm. And so it was that Gail catered a lunch or two and a dinner for Kristina and her superiors, and Kristina, who knew few people in this town, liked Gail and asked her to do a casual brunch, which they planned over coffee, and a few weeks later they went for a walk, and so became mildly, casually intimate without Gail's ever realizing that Dave knew Kristina or that Kristina was his superior or that she had been parachuted in from the mainland to look things over and sort them out, the new broom from away, a temporary, pencil-thin, expensively suited, and highly efficient broom.