You Dropped a Blonde on Me (45 page)
So what the hell?
Here’s what the hell. You. Blew. It. And now you’re sorry and you want to take it all back.
Boo to the hoo, honey.
“Can I ask you something, kiddo?” Max and Connor sat on her mother’s back porch, side by side in rocking chairs, watching the early-autumn sunset.
“You can always ask.”
Max nudged his shoulder with hers. She’d been thinking about this question for the last two weeks, while she battled her insecurities over Campbell, and she planned her next move with Finley. “I’m serious.”
He grinned while he texted Jordon. “Sure, Mom.”
“Do you think I’m weak?”
“Weak? You mean like do I think you eat enough Wheaties?”
“No. That’s not what I mean at all. I mean, do you think I’m not doing everything I can to get what’s fair for you without creating a bigger gap than already exists between you and your father?”
Connor’s mouth twisted at the mention of his father. “Not really. I just think you’re doing what you do best.”
“And what’s that?”
He looked up at her, setting the new cell phone she’d just purchased for him aside. “Am I gonna be grounded if I tell you the truth?”
“Nope. Shoot straight.”
Connor didn’t look convinced. “You’re really sure?”
Max patted his hand for reassurance. “Shoot. What do I do best?”
“Try to keep everyone happy. I think you’re doing what you’ve always done with Dad. Smoothing things over to keep him from freaking out. Letting go of the stuff that bothers you so you won’t have to argue. Dad knew you did it, and he used it against you. You used to do it all the time.”
Maxine nodded with despair. There was no denying she’d done whatever it took to keep Finley pacified.
“You’d make me clean up my toys so Dad wouldn’t trip over one and flip out because his day was always so much longer and harder than everyone else’s. You used to give me that ‘hush your mouth’ sign with your finger over your mouth behind his back to give me a heads-up not to push him too far. You used to distract him when he was mad and ready to fire someone at the dealership over something really lame, like one of the mechanics not calling him ‘Mr. Cambridge.’ You did stuff like that to keep him happy. But I don’t get one thing. Why are you still doing it?”
“Doing what?”
“Keeping him happy. Pretty soon you won’t be married to him anymore—it’ll be Lacey’s job to do it. I don’t really care about Dad’s money or how much he pays for child support and all the other crap. I don’t care that he’s being a jerk and refusing to pay for college. I’ll get a scholarship or something. I don’t even care if we live here with Grandma until I graduate. But I kinda think you did a lot of things for Dad that if you were someone else, he’d have had to pay for it. That should mean something, shouldn’t it?”
A tear stung her eye. Shame washed over her in ugly waves of reality. Not only had she walked on eggshells with Finley, she’d made Connor do it, too. “But those were things I did out of love, Connor. Not because I hoped to be paid for them someday.”
“And this is how he pays back that kind of love? That’s pretty twisted. If he wanted a divorce because of Lacey, fine, but did he have to treat you like you were garbage when you were always nice to him? Cut you off like he was never married to you?”
If only it were all that simple. It was so classic. The timeless story of a bitter divorce. “I have to admit, I never believed your dad would go this far. I’m sorry, Connor,” Max apologized. “I’m sorry I didn’t see what I was doing to you while I tried to keep your dad happy.”
His broadening shoulders shrugged. “Then don’t do it anymore. Even if you go down, go down swinging.”
Max absorbed his advice for a moment, still astounded at how astute Connor was. There was so much she wished she could’ve hidden from him, protected him from. In hindsight, she realized, she hadn’t been aware she was making him walk on those eggshells with her because she’d been too busy working at keeping everything together. “And who taught you that motto?”
He smirked before rising to slide open the glass doors that led to the house. “Grandma. She said she taught you that, too.”
Yeah. Yeah, she had. “Ever wonder why I don’t listen to her?”
“For the same reasons I don’t listen to you,” he joked. “She’s your
Mom.
”
Mom.
”
Max smiled. Yeah. That she was.
“Joseph Arwin speaking.”
“This is Maxine Cambridge, Mr. Got My Law Degree From A Bubble-Gum Machine U,” she said into her cell, smiling when she imagined the look on Joseph Arwin’s face at her snipe.
“
Excuse me?
”
Excuse me?
”
“You heard me. It’s Maxine Cambridge. I’m calling to fire you.”
“Fire
me?
”
me?
”
She nodded to herself with a smug smile as she turned onto the highway. “Yep. I knoooow. You’re so surprised, right? I mean, who would want to fire a lawyer as fine as yourself? One who’s fought to the bitter end for me while he ran my credit card up to the max and didn’t do a damned thing for me but tell me it was all my fault I was going to be left with no money? Crazy, right?”
His sigh was long and aggravated. “Mrs. Cambridge, is this another frantic call about a situation you created yourself? Something I can do nothing about?” His condescending tone chapped her ass.
Max clucked her tongue into the phone. “You know, funny that. You
can
do something about it. You just want more money to do it. It took me some time, but then I figured it out. If I’d gone to a
real
lawyer in the first place who can, based on his reputation, legitimately charge two hundred and fifty bucks an hour for some actual work, I would have been much better off. But silly me, I went cheap, and you know what they say about champagne wishes on a beer budget, right? Yeah, I got the six-pack, pal. But no more. And just an FYI. If, instead of just shuffling papers for the last year and telling me your hands were tied, you’d have done something more than charge my credit card to pay for your mai tais with the fancy umbrellas at the Tiki Lounge, I might have had more money to pay for an attorney who would have at the very least gotten me some decent child support and fought for my son’s college education—which he’s entitled to. So hear this! You’re fired, and if you see your face on a billboard off the Jersey Turnpike with a big X over it that reads ‘Want A Divorce That Doesn’t Rip You A New Asshole? Don’t Call Him’—you’ll know it was me!”
can
do something about it. You just want more money to do it. It took me some time, but then I figured it out. If I’d gone to a
real
lawyer in the first place who can, based on his reputation, legitimately charge two hundred and fifty bucks an hour for some actual work, I would have been much better off. But silly me, I went cheap, and you know what they say about champagne wishes on a beer budget, right? Yeah, I got the six-pack, pal. But no more. And just an FYI. If, instead of just shuffling papers for the last year and telling me your hands were tied, you’d have done something more than charge my credit card to pay for your mai tais with the fancy umbrellas at the Tiki Lounge, I might have had more money to pay for an attorney who would have at the very least gotten me some decent child support and fought for my son’s college education—which he’s entitled to. So hear this! You’re fired, and if you see your face on a billboard off the Jersey Turnpike with a big X over it that reads ‘Want A Divorce That Doesn’t Rip You A New Asshole? Don’t Call Him’—you’ll know it was me!”
Max clicked off the phone with satisfaction, throwing it to the passenger seat, her cheeks red, her eyes blazing defiance in the rearview mirror. Wow, when a princess sucked it up, it felt Goddamned good.
Her chat with Connor last night was the final straw in a string of straws that should have broken the camel’s back long ago. For all the good she’d taught him, she’d also taught him to be a pacifist.
To sit back and let everyone else rule your kingdom while you pretended everything was okay. While you wrung your hands and relinquished what you could control, leaving the outcome of your life to a man who shouldn’t be allowed to control a car radio.
Well, no more. No more sitting quietly in the corner, hiding behind her greasy hair, only peeking out occasionally to see the world pass her by, and letting Finley and anyone else she’d allow take advantage of her.
Not another minute of placating, pacifying, fucking peace-making on Finley Cambridge’s behalf.
Cheesy lawyer disposed of?
Check.
Cheap, bloodsucking leech of a husband due for a bashing?
Up next.
And it was only nine o’clock in the morning.
Max Cambridge didn’t want to be a Cambridge anymore, but she’d be one for as long as it took to make Fin’s marriage to Lacey impossible or until she’d waited so long, Lacey wouldn’t be so young and nubile anymore.
Straightening her navy blue blazer, Max pulled into a parking space and marched into Cambridge Auto, heading straight for Barbie in the circular reception area. Her face, blank but beautiful as ever, took on a whole new expression when she caught sight of Max.
Fear.
Max smelled it. As much as it would bring her great pleasure to sink neck deep in it, that wasn’t what she was here for. “Tell Finley I’m here,” she demanded, ignoring several looks from Cambridge Auto employees. “Oh, and tell him I promise to keep my fists to myself.” She winked.
The blonde waffled, her lips moving, but only a stutter coming out. “He—he said he can’t be—dis . . .”
“Disturbed. Yeah. He says that whenever he’s in there, banging some poor, unsuspecting just-barely-over-the-legal-limit blonde. So press that button on your phone and tell him to put the ‘monster’ ”—she nodded at the memory—“yeah, that’s what he used to call it, tell him to put the ‘monster’ away. The woman who really wants to be his ex-wife is here, and she’d be happy to sign those divorce papers the cheap bastard sent her, but she won’t do it until he talks to her.”
Bodacious babe headed for Fin’s door, knocking on it with worry lining her face and a trembling lower lip. “Mr. Cambridge, you have a visitor who—who . . .”
The door popped open, Fin poked his head out, his line of vision zeroing in on Max. “Maxine.”
“Finley,” she drawled, stunned at how relaxed she was. She held up the divorce papers, waving them like a white flag. “I think we have to chat.”
He straightened his already ramrod straight tie. “Talk to my lawyer.”
“But don’t you want me to sign these papers?” she cooed, taunting him.
A glimmer of the kill twinkled in his eye. He motioned a hand for her to enter.
She brushed past him, shocked the bottle of Pepto-Bismol she had in her purse wasn’t screaming her name. There wasn’t an iota of a rumble in her stomach. No acid reflux, no jitters, no cold hands and crashing heart.
Just dead resolve.
Fin closed the door behind her, making his way around his desk. A desk so big, Max had always considered it a phallic symbol of the power he liked to show everyone he had.
And it was a good representation. He
was
a big dick.
was
a big dick.
Finley eyed her with that cold amusement he’d cultivated over the years. “What do you want, Maxine?”
Her return smile was just as cold. “Out. I want out. If I have to be married to you for one more second, I think I’ll crawl right out of my skin.”
He tapped an impatient pen on the surface of his desk as though she bored him. “So sign the papers and save your skin.”
“May I use your pen?” she asked, syrupy sweet, sitting at the edge of his desk. “I don’t have one of my own, but I know how you hate to share, you know, anything. Like houses and furniture and
mon-ey
.” Max rubbed her fingers together.
mon-ey
.” Max rubbed her fingers together.
Rolling his tongue in his cheek, Finley handed her the pen without a word, but the tic in his left eye exposed his irritation.
She fanned herself with the papers, putting the pen behind her ear. “You know what, Fin?”
“What, Maxine?”
Ohhhh, his teeth were clenched. Nice. They were at DEFCON level 2 and she’d only asked to borrow his pen. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what a shitty person you are. What a crappy, lying, cheating pig of a husband you were, too.”
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