Maxine (4 page)

Oh. Hi.

Hi Maxine, great day, isn't it? How are you? Barb gestures with her free hand, waggling some shawl-tendrils toward the sunny sky.

Fine, thanks. Um, you?

Good, good, I wonder if I could come in for a minute, just a quick minute. I don't want to take up your time!

Maxine makes a genuine effort not to let despair register on her face as Barb wriggles nimbly through the tiny porch, protecting the shoebox with her body as if Maxine might try to knock it out of her hands. Inside, she sets it on the battered coffee table and removes the lid.

Pumpkin loaf. Ground flax in there, for your Omega-3s. You were looking a bit pale yesterday. A slice of that with a nice cup of tea and you'll be bouncing off the walls!

Um, great. Thanks. That's really nice of you.

The tea is good any time, Barb says pointedly. She has red hair without much grey in very straight bangs over green eyes; at the back it's pulled into a short ponytail. Barb is small and wiry, and the overall effect is Anne of Green Gables at fiftyish. She bends over and plucks from the box a plastic container with five or six tea bags. The gauze seems normal but the twiggy stuff inside looks as if Barb scraped it up off the side of the path at the Botanical Garden.

Oh right. I'll...I guess I'll put the kettle on.

That would be nice.

Barb calls out chitchat from the living room as Maxine fills the kettle and locates a clean spoon: Dave's better and back at work; Kyle is exceptionally bright but he doesn't always pay attention in school so the teachers don't always notice; she hasn't had any consulting or bookkeeping work to speak of but there are some possibilities on the horizon and in the meantime they're redoing some of the basement so she can set up her office down there.

Maxine closes her eyes. Sun pouring in through the kitchen window warms her cheek.
I feel... SHE feels, that is—she, Frédérique, feels—like a fruit, a fruit that has sat in a bowl... She feels like a ripe plum that has dozed all morning in a silver bowl in a patch of sun on the counter.

She breathes a wide, regretful breath and shuffles over to the cupboard for mugs. Although in the back of her mind a small voice wonders what will become of the plum, Maxine does not allow this thought to be articulated. The plum gets chewed.

Barb Larsen perches on the edge of the couch, sipping from a Garfield mug. Gail has told Maxine to get rid of the mug, but Maxine refuses to throw away something that is perfectly serviceable just because it happens to have Garfield on it. It's not the mug's fault. There is no room in the world, Gail maintains, for household items possessing this level of stupidity and ugliness. Gail has threatened to drop it out the kitchen window, so it could plummet past old Mr. Jenkins' kitchen window below and smash into lots of small pieces. Fortunately, Barb is oblivious to the Garfield debate. She has a look that suggests she's about to embark on a challenging topic, a look that provokes in Maxine a queasy claustrophobia. It occurs to her that she could possibly run back into the kitchen, fling open the back door, and climb down the fire escape. It would be a weird thing to do, granted, but not impossible. Maxine hesitates. She hovers for a moment over the computer chair and then resigns herself to normalcy. She flops heavily down.

So, Barb says, it's been a week. A week today. I feel so badly. About what happened.

Oh, it's just one of those things, says Maxine. I feel bad too. She's squishing her lower lip between her thumb and index finger. I shouldn't have let him out of my sight. She gulps the rest of her tea.

Yes. But I should have been available for you to reach, I should have been there. It was inexcusable—Barb is leaning so far forward that Maxine fears she might pitch face-down onto the floor—I didn't know it would happen, Barb says. You have to make choices. Barb is in close to Maxine now, staring at her, green eyes topped by that blunt fringe of hair.

Of course you didn't know it would happen. That's not your fault, Maxine says encouragingly, rolling her chair back just a touch. Anyway, it's all over now! She wonders if standing would be too pointed a gesture.

Barb turns her head away and pulls the elastic out of her orange ponytail. She gathers her hair in one hand, gives it a vicious wrench, and snaps the elastic back on.

Some things, Barb says, there's no good way of dealing with. She seems to be hesitating. She glances out the living-room window, toward her own living-room window in the white house across the road. She gets up slowly, rubbing her palms down the front of her jeans.

I guess I should let you work.

The loaf, says Maxine, jumping to her feet and smiling, That was so kind of you. I really appreciate it, she says, picking Barb's shawl up from the arm of the couch and flapping it open like a matador.

Maxine closes the door behind Barb, locks it, and draws the chain. She almost sprints to her desk.

3

december 2002

f
  
rédérique was trying to write, but a colleague kept wandering into her office. “How goes it, Frédérique,” he would say, leaning toward her so that she could see the green of his eyes... She could see far too far into his crazy emerald eyes... She felt dizzy, as if she might tip forward into the ocean of his grey-green eyes and be dragged into the icy—

“Sorry, Charles—I'm busy.” Frédérique pushed the door shut with her foot, forgetting him the moment it closed. This would be an important paper. She did not see exactly how she would reach the end of it but she had every confidence. She could hear the applause that would follow her presentation. She imagined herself wearing something long and swishy. It would swish when she smiled and turned to acknowledge a question.

Maxine is thinking about herself in the third person, partly because it's Monday and on Mondays you are supposed to be at your most virtuous. But she tries to do it somewhat often anyway. She reaches for a piece of fruit and thinks, Frédérique reached for an apple. This is practice. She can't call herself Maxine in the novel, that's why she has called her main character Frédérique. She could not, for example, should the need arise, write,
And then Maxine jumped into bed with him
. That's just not appropriate. It feels unseemly. You need a different name. As soon as you have another name, it's all right. It's fiction then. Everyone will realize you are making it up.

Policing your thinking is hard, though. It's not just the third person. Maxine also tries to think only in complete sentences. Her mindscape is taken up with third-person sentences about Frédérique—these she pictures in italics—and the random and illicit bits that bounce up and have to be shushed and shown the door. Maxine doesn't know where these bits come from. Certainly not her.

Maxine reaches into the fish pellet package, singing to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Fishie, fishie in a bowl, Die and God can have your soul. Here you go, buddy.
Bon appétit
. She cleans the bowl out every weekend. Rinses off the plastic fern. Maxine never wanted a fish but she won't be responsible for one dying of neglect.
Frédérique shrugged and tossed a pellet into the murky water.

It's usually not a good idea to let people know what your goals are. That's what Maxine thought before the Time Management Workshop. You can't go telling people you want a thing to happen because (a) it's dangerously revealing of yourself and (b) it will almost certainly never happen. Wanting things is, generally, imprudent. Maxine has made some concessions. She's decided what her goals are, and told Gail some of them. She's let the odd one slip here and there in conversation. Soon she'll be sprinkling her aspirations around town with a view to creating opportunities. Gail knows about the novel of course. It's a limited-time offer, Maxine says. If it's not finished when her money is, so what. She'll get back into the workforce and take up scuba diving instead.

Gail had looked skeptical about the scuba diving. She knows Maxine pretty well, having turned up in the next row of Mr. Snow's homeroom at fourteen, and she knows Maxine lacks the temperament of the underwater adventurer. Gail's father's previous posting had been in Germany, so she didn't do things the way everyone else did, but she didn't seem to notice the sniggers and the whispers when Mr. Snow made her stand up. Mr. Snow said Well, Lahr, that must have been a fairly unique experience, and they all had a good look and then Gail said Yes and sat back down. Gail didn't know you couldn't wear the same shirt two days in a row even if it wasn't dirty, but it's no fun tormenting people who don't give a rat's ass, so that was short-lived.

Maxine sits at the computer, frozen, unbreathing, in the pounding silence that follows the doorbell. There's a lengthy pause. When she hears footsteps leading down and away, Maxine breathes and starts typing again. Barb would like to tell her something but Maxine doesn't want to know what it is. For a second she pictures the whole door, the window, mail slot, doorframe, all covered in layers of duct tape.

Look, Gail, these people are insane. Oh, I'm using that satsuma bubble stuff you gave me, remember? It's really nice. Anyway. It's almost every day. Sometimes several times a day. I don't want to go out—they'll see me coming home and know I'm in here. It's been, what ten days now? Just a sec.

Maxine holds the phone up and slides her head down under the water. She gives a quick wriggle to get her hair wet and up pops her head again like a seal's, shining and dark. She wipes off her ear and cheek with a towel and puts the phone back.

Are you there? Well I know they've had a hard time for Chris-sake, I
caused
their hard time...Ga-yull! I don't want to be their friend. She is always pushing...Why don't they go hound the shit out of someone else?... She called at seven-thirty the other morning to ask me over for lunch. OK. You're right. If she comes tomorrow I'll just say I'm busy, that's all... OK. Yeah, see you then. OK, Gay, bye.

On Tuesday Maxine wakes up feeling mildly queasy and by three-thirty she's lying on the couch with a hot water bottle, a blanket, a notebook, and a glass of diet ginger ale. The doorbell rings and her heart flaps up into her spine like a neurotic bat. She makes a small noise which is a combination of rage and misery.
Barb, I'm going to have to ask you to stop coming over and phoning and putting things in my mail slot. I demand that you—Barb, if you won't leave me alone, I'm afraid I'll have to kill you.
Maxine rubs her eyes and pushes the blanket off. She's not going to be polite any more. She's going to speak her mind. She sits up but the door is already open and Kyle hops in grinning, two computer games in hand.

Hi, he says, stepping out of unlaced boots and draping his puffy black coat on a hook, where it rests for a second or two before sashaying gracefully to the floor. Thanks for letting me come over. Want to see
Supreme Domination
?

Kyle's excitement rolls into the living room like an energetic and good-humoured fog. He's wearing sweatpants and a baggy red-and-blue striped turtleneck, and his cheeks match the red of the stripes. He settles himself in the computer chair, saves Maxine's file, and clicks it off the screen with the assurance of an expert.

Um. I think I'll watch from the couch, Maxine says weakly. She lies back down. Does your mother know where you are?

Yeah. Hey, are you sick?

I have some kind of bug today, yeah.

Oh, Kyle says. The smile on his face falls away. I'm sorry to hear that. He says this with the formality of a handshake. And then, slowly: Do you want me to go home?

No, Maxine says, just as slowly and without conviction. No, as long as you don't mind if I just have a rest here. She tugs the blanket back up over her shoulders.

Great! Kyle beams at her. I can't play these on our computer at home. It's like really old. Mom bought me the games but she didn't read the system requirements. And she doesn't want to get a new one because she thinks I'll spend all my time on it. So if you're not using yours then that's perfect!

She hears nothing from him for half an hour except the odd exclamation.

Kyle, she says eventually. Kyle. Kyle?

Pardon me? He swivels round.

Kyle, you're sure your mom knows where you are and it's fine, right?

Yeah, I told her you said I could come.

Ummm, I said that?

Remember, you said I could come after school some time, and there was the basketball tournament at school all last week, and on the weekend I went to Cody's house and a birthday party AND swimming and yesterday there was something. Oh yeah, band. So today is a good time. His cheeks are slightly rounded and his feet are longer than you would expect. He's not quite a little boy but nowhere near a man. An adolescent-in-training.

Ah. Gotcha.

He turns back to the screen and clicks quickly.

Mom wasn't sure if I should come. She thought I'd be bothering you. He smiles with indulgence at the absurdity of this thought. A small pause while he negotiates a difficult key sequence, then he stops clicking and swivels slowly toward her, as if a sinister possibility were dawning: Am I bothering you?

No, Maxine says, and she sounds surprised only because it's true. No, you're not bothering me.

He looks as if he's talking to the screen, leaning into it and twisting his upper body to effect a complex multi-click during which he says, I could probably come back in a few days if you like.

By Thursday, Maxine has bounced back from whatever bug it was. She needs to work for one more hour before Karen shows up to run. Later she'll be going to the writing seminar Gail made her sign up for, and then she'll call Gail to see if she feels like going out for dessert. Going out occasionally is OK. It's gathering material. If Maxine goes out tonight, though, she'll have to wait longer next time. Her money will last to the end of the summer if she's careful, and by then the novel will be done or abandoned, but either way there will be no going back.