Over You (21 page)

“You don’t have lotion on, do you?” he asks, pulling up his jeans.

“Not anymore,” she says coyly.

“Okay, just ’cause certain drugstore lotions can discolor French cotton.”

“Um,” she says, still not sure if he’s kidding. “I don’t think I’m wearing anything—staining.”

“Cool. Listen, help yourself to a shower. I just need to email in a paper.” He drops down at his desk chair and opens his laptop. “Today’s gonna be a little crazy, and I don’t want to forget.”

“Oh?” Max asks.

“Yeah, the last permit came through on the Tribeca project and the launch party’s tonight. The last bit of fun, then it’s all hard hats and sewage lines.” Hugo makes a face like he used to on the rare occasion he had to take the Greyhound home from school. “You gonna take that shower?”

“Yes.” She crosses to the marble bathroom, her eyes bugging when she sees a box of tampons sitting on the toilet tank.

“There’s a bunch of my sister’s shit in there so you should be able to find everything you need!” he calls.

“Right,” she says to herself as she turns on the rain shower. The water feels amazing. But as Max steps under the pounding spray all she can hear in the pulsing silence is Ben asking her out for a real date—

Max turns off the water, wrapping herself in an ankle-length bath sheet as she hears Hugo in the living room paying the delivery guy. She pads out to find him dropping the foil take-out containers on the mango wood dining table. “Not bad digs for a freshman.”

“Yeah, I wasn’t slumming in campus housing when we have this place,” he says. “Kirsten has the other room, but she’s never here. I don’t know—I probably have a dorm somewhere—there’s some guy out there who’s stoked to have a single. That’s kind of charity, right?”

“Just keep telling yourself that,” Max says drily as she walks over. “I’m just surprised—I really thought you hated New York.”

“I hated my parents’ New York. The stuffy galas. The dismal Harvard Club dinners. Now that I’m here on my own, I love it. The people, the mess, the energy.”

“Me too! I’m really impressed you did it. That must have been no small fight.”

“Yeah.” He nods, his eyes wandering to the sideboard. “Put on some music?”

Max scrolls through his iPod, but can’t find the album she’s looking for. “Hey, where’re Florence and the Machine?”

“Ugh, not that shit.”

“But we listened to them all the time,” Max says, confused as she recalls long afternoons studying in his room as she DJed his iPod.

“That was Deacon’s iPod.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Why would you think that was mine?”

“I didn’t realize, between going vegan and wearing a hemp field-hockey uniform, that your roommate was into material possessions.” Her thumb goes a few more ticks round the dial, but she doesn’t see OK Go, or even Mumford & Sons. She sees a lot of rap about Glocks and bitches and some heavy metal about heat and whores. Okay, then.

“Your food’s getting cold,” he says, patting the chair next to him.

A call comes in on his phone, and he lets it go to voice mail, then listens to it, his mouth pinching as he rolls his eyes to the ceiling. “My mom thinks every time she has to be in town I can drop everything for a mother-son day. A little chance for her to give me some ‘feedback.’” He looks over at her, an idea seeming to occur to him. “Hey, why don’t you two have lunch together?”

“Us?”

“Sure! She likes you. Go get your hair done—I’ll have her buy you something to wear tonight—and I’ll meet you guys at the party. You game?” he asks. “I just have a ton to get done.”

“Oh, wow. Okay, great. But I, uh, only have my gown here.” And she’s guessing peacock feathers and Mrs. Tillman don’t seem well matched.

“Check Kirsten’s closet. She’s a little shorter than you, but you should be able to find something. And seriously, take whatever. Like I said, never here.”

Max watches him carve up his egg whites, not able to believe it—not only has she stepped right back into being his girlfriend as if no time had passed, he now wants her to hang out with his mom.

After breakfast, while Hugo showers and dresses, Max rifles through his older sister’s closet. She finds a pair of black slim-cut pants where the gap at her ankle will look deliberate, which she pairs with a white blouse and nubby Chanel blazer. Kirsten’s feet are a little bigger than Max’s but she finds a pair of red ballet flats and stuffs the toe with tissue paper. Of course Kirsten doesn’t have any makeup, but Max’s lips are still red from the impact of Hugo’s and she hopes being out in the cold will flush her cheeks. When she’s done Max looks in the mirror and thinks that, minus the racy flash of ankle, she looks like one of the mothers at St. Something’s.

“Max!” Hugo calls. “You ready yet?”

“Coming!”

She finds him in jeans and a blazer at the front door, already ajar. He does a double take when he sees her.

“What?” she asks.

“You look like Kirsten.”

“Is that a—I just thought—lunch with your mom.”

“No, right, can’t exactly send you in there in your red boots.” He laughs to himself as the buzzer rings. “Okay, that’s the car to take you to her hotel. Come on.”

She grabs her clutch and follows him to the elevator, where they ride down thirty stories. She’s waiting for him to take her hand, take her face, even push the emergency break and just—take her. But he doesn’t.

“Okay,” he says, walking briskly out the lobby like they do this every day, like this is just who they are, which is better, Max thinks, than swooping kisses and quick passion. This is forever. “See you tonight.”

Seated beneath the gilt ceiling of the Waldorf Astoria, Mrs. Tillman picks up one of the strange tiny silver implements on the side of her plate and starts to poke her lobster salad. Max peers down at the array of things beside her own plate that look like buttonhooks and nose-hair trimmers and tries to figure out which one she is supposed to use on the escargots Mrs. Tillman insisted she try.

Max glances again at the empty chair across from them, the little rosette of raw tuna congealing as it awaits Mrs. Tillman’s friend’s arrival. “So, Maxine,” Mrs. Tillman says warmly. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again. What a—treat. Are you at university this year?”

“I’m applying now.” Max gamely takes hold of one of the shells with the tongs the server handed her and picks up the buttonhook.

“And did you run into Hugo at an alumnae event?”

“No. Something at the High Line,” she says vaguely, not sure the details of the benefit will sound glamorous to her or distastefully gauche in their flashiness. “Do you know it? The new park.”

Mrs. Tillman gives a barely perceptible shudder, the idea of meeting in a park seeming to conjure Max playing a guitar in front of an open case for spare change. “Oh, yes, well, I suppose that is the thing about being down here—you could cross paths with
anyone
. Not like back at home, where the community is culled somewhat. I still have
no idea
why Hugo’s father insisted he give up Harvard for this.”

“It was his father’s idea?” Max asks, trying to keep her voice from cracking.

“Yes.” She pokes her salad. “The board is obsessive about this whole notion of becoming a twenty-first-century company, and Hugo Senior wants to keep them happy, prove that the family can stay at the helm. Little Hugo doesn’t really have a say in the matter.” She touches her pearls.

“Oh,” Max says, knowing if he were here right now he would be clenching his jaw at his detested moniker. Did he lie to her this morning—or just not set her straight?

“There she is.”

As Max replays her conversation with Hugo she realizes the woman crossing the restaurant looks familiar. Despite being twenty minutes late, she doesn’t rush past the starched tablecloths and elaborate centerpieces. “Vivian,” she addresses Mrs. Tillman. “Apologies. The traffic in this city is appalling.” She unnecessarily touches her headband to straighten it, as if she came in a convertible.

“Sloane,” Mrs. Tillman greets her in return. “You remember Maxine from school?”

“No, I can’t say that I do. Were you in Elizabeth’s class?”

“Which Elizabeth?” Of the three in her class, the two the year ahead, and the four the year behind.

“Maxine,” Mrs. Tillman says simply, “this is Mrs. Dow Pendergast.”

Suddenly the bread sticks in Max’s throat like sand. “So nice to meet you,” Max rasps as Sloane seats herself with no mention of Max as Hugo’s girlfriend forthcoming. Max takes a sip of water. “I was one class under. How is Elizabeth?” She forces herself to ask, because she knows that’s as required as getting these slugs down. She hopes the answer is “married to a pygmy and living in Papua New Guinea.”

“Oh, good. Enjoying Princeton. She wasn’t sure she’d like it as much as Yale, but in the end it was all about cutting down her commute time into the city.” Sloane gives Vivian a knowing smile.
Elizabeth isn’t coming in to go shopping,
Max thinks,
and she definitely isn’t all about the food. She’s coming to see Hugo
.

She’s his princess
.

After a blessedly brief lunch, the remainder of which centered around horse breeding and the Boston Symphony, Max enters the hair salon with Vivian, still feeling the blood swoosh in her ears. Okay, maybe he was seeing Elizabeth—but that was before he saw Max. Before the perfection of last night.
Hugo doesn’t tell his mother anything,
Max reminds herself, trying to think rationally.

Max decides better to wait until after the mani/pedi, the facial, the blowout, until Hugo sees her tonight in all her glory again, done to the nines, his eyes locked on her with that look of hunger and adoration. As soon as she’s sure of her footing, she’ll ask.
Why pull me back into your life, your
bed,
if Elizabeth is already in it?

As the limousine ferries them downtown to the party, Max thinks,
This is so not the nines
. This isn’t even done to the sevens or fives. Max wishes she could give one last glance at her appearance in her compact, but since the chances that she’s grown makeup or Blake Lively waves since she and Mrs. Tillman were ushered directly from the salon to the backseat of the town car are slim, what’s the point? After four hours at Kenneth, she and Mrs. Tillman have emerged looking exactly the same as when they went in, except, perhaps, with clearer pores. Max smoothes down the front of the shapeless silk sack dress, trying to give it a waist with static cling. She crosses her ankles, not able to believe she’s still wearing the ballet flats. Max tried to suggest swinging by the Saks shoe department, but when Mrs. Tillman said, “Oh for God’s sake, who’s going to be looking at your feet?” Max let it drop. That is such a not–New York thing to say.

“You look lovely, dear,” Vivian addresses her for the first time in an hour.

“Thank you. And thank you for the dress,” Max manages. “I love it.”

“My pleasure. Kirsten doesn’t let me shop for her anymore, and it’s so fun picking out things that are youthy.” Yes, so youthy, this borderline maternity dress. “And,” Vivian adds, “it’s a much better look than those things you used to wear, if you don’t mind my saying.” She reaches across the leather divide and squeezes Max’s hand, perhaps unaware of her words’ sting. Her “feedback,” Max thinks, grateful she actually hadn’t had more opportunities to get to know Vivian last year—as she had once hoped. “So, dear, where are you applying to college?” She pulls her hand back to smooth her velvet jacket.

“Actually, NYU,” Max says, so glad to finally have the road forward be obstacle-free.

“I beg your pardon?” Vivian coughs into her hand.

“Would you like some water?” Max picks up one of the tiny bottles in the armrest.

“No, thank you.” Vivian seems to shift her body away from her. “I didn’t realize you had your sights set on going to college with Hugo.”

“It wasn’t like that—didn’t happen in that order—”

“You know, I met Mr. Tillman in college. I was at Radcliffe when the merger with Harvard started. These are very important years for Hugo—making contacts—and impressions.”

“No, of course.”

“Pity he seems so determined to get a rise out of us.”

With a shiver, Max realizes Vivian is referring to her as the car rolls to a stop in front of the aisle of photographers flanking the red carpet. Immediately someone opens the door and extends a hand to Mrs. Tillman, who doesn’t wait for Max, leaving her to walk the carpet alone. She can hear the paparazzi asking each other who she is and is she worth wasting the memory on. She tries to get to the woman with the clipboard as fast as possible. “Max Scott,” she tells her.

“I’m sorry,” the woman says, looking up. “Could it be under another name?”

“Yes, right, I’m Hugo Tillman’s plus one.” Saying it, Max feels the warm rush she has missed all day.

The woman flips to the
T
page and her brow furrows. “Um, I’m sorry, he doesn’t have a plus one.”

“That must be a mistake—I came with Mrs. Tillman—I was in her car—she can vouch for me.” They both look into the party pavilion, but Vivian is gone. Max turns back to the clipboard woman as it starts to snow. “Could you maybe send someone to go find Hugo?”

“I’ll see what I can do—wait here.”