“You got fired?” Maxine stared at her baby brother, holding an ice pack to his right eye.
He and Stuart showed up at her apartment shortly after she arrived home from her shift at the spa. Earlier, she’d sent a text to Westley asking if he wanted to go by Carmine’s to help sort out a new shipment of boxes from Manhattan.
Stuart came in and made himself at home, passing Maxine and opening one of the kitchen cupboards. “Do you have any of those little Ritz crackers with the peanut butter in the middle?” he asked.
Angling Westley to sit down on the couch, she asked him. “What happened? And how did you get fired?”
“Your ex-boyfriend,” he murmured, “…or whatever he is.”
“Antony?” she breathed. “He was at Henry Roman’s? He knows you work there! Did he really need a suit that badly?”
“He came to see me on purpose,” Westley said, peeking from under the ice pack.
“And he punched you?” Her stomach dropped, imagining Antony’s massive fists raining down on her brother. Still, it didn’t make sense.
Westley lowered the bag, his right eye was slightly swollen, and there was a trace of color on the edge, but it was nothing like the violent shiner Antony once showed up with.
A creep of a blush started to grow from the collar of Westley’s white dress shirt. “No, I kind of tripped and fell into the corner of the cashier’s desk.”
“Actually…” Stuart leaned against the kitchen counter chewing; his hand was inside a box of crackers. “He bounced off Antony’s massive chest muscles and ricocheted into the desk.”
“Why were you there?” she asked him.
Stuart shrugged. “I always shop on my lunch hour.
And good thing too, Westley almost killed himself.” Westley’s shoulders dropped. He turned to Maxine.
“He walked right up to me and started trying to explain his side; he said you were the one who pursued him, not the other way around.”
Maxine felt her mouth drop open.
“And he kept saying how much he loved you.” Westley shifted his weight, wincing. “I guess I was so mad at him for hurting you, I charged at him without thinking.”
Blowing out the air from her cheeks, Maxine leaned back, brushing shoulders with her brother. “What happened after you got the black eye?”
“Your ex-lover was very apologetic,” Stuart explained. “And then he bribed us with hockey tickets.” “Which we didn’t take,” Westley said. “That would have been gross, like we were selling you or
something.”
Stuart stopped chewing. “We weren’t supposed to take the tickets?” He dropped his gaze and stayed quiet while he put the crackers back in the cupboard.
Maxine studied her brother’s profile. He looked so much like their late father. “Thanks for trying to save the family honor,” she teased, trying to lighten the mood. “I’m sorry you got fired for fighting, though.”
“I wouldn’t call it a fight.” Stuart sat down at the dining table, reached for one of her Cosmopolitan magazines, and began to flip through the pages. “More like a mosquito trying to irritate a T-Rex.” He looked up and gave Maxine a quizzical stare. “Personally, I don’t see the problem. Antony has to have sex with you to do well at hockey. Therefore, Antony Laurent has to have sex with you…a lot. See where I’m going with this? What’s the downside, again?”
“Do you mind?” Westley interrupted. “She’s my sister.”
Maxine ignored Westley’s embarrassment. Every time she heard Antony’s name it felt like someone was wringing out her heart. “It wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “It was going to end badly with both of us hurting. I wasted four years on Johnny. How could I keep seeing Antony knowing he’d lied to me to about this?” She’d repeated the reasoning over and over inside her head, but it didn’t quell the pain. “Besides,” she added, “I’m hardly puck bunny material.”
Stuart snorted then asked in a more serious tone. “Did he actually say he has to have sex with you in order to score goals? Because unless you’re sneaking over to his place, he’s been doing fine without your magic vagina these two weeks.”
“That’s it.” Westley stood up and swiped the magazine from his hands. “No more Cosmo for you.”
Maxine stayed quiet. She knew Antony was doing well, in fact she’d been secretly keeping track. Part of her wished he’d do badly, somewhat captivated with
the idea that she had some sort of celestial power over him—but obviously she didn’t.
Still, breaking up with Antony was what she had to do in order to secure her own happiness. However, in this case, securing her own happiness meant suffering through the pain of a certain future break up they would have. Better to be miserable now, she reasoned, than an absolute disaster later. Antony was supposed to be her rebound, but he ended up being so much more. That was the big risk, having her heart broken again. It scared Maxine how much she missed him after only knowing him such a short time. Imagine what it would be like after half a year?
Westley and Stuart were staring at her. Maxine’s face grew hot. “We had to break up,” she said almost in a surprised tone. “I thought I was being swept off my feet,” she said, more reflectively this time. “And that the fat girl got the cute boy for once.” The burden of her own words dragged down her spirits. She was a victim of her own stubborn conviction, but Maxine was determined not to be anyone’s fool again.
The air quieted.
She excused herself and made her way down the hallway to her bedroom. “We’ll leave for Carmine’s in ten minutes; I just need to check my makeup.”
Once in her bedroom, Maxine sighed and flopped down on her bed. She accessed her messages. With a guilty glance at the closed door, she turned down the volume and pressed the phone to her ear.
“Bonjour, Maxine. Voici, Antony. Je t’aime…et je pense que vous me aimes aussi.”
She closed her eyes, feeling the vibration of his voice tickle the skin on her earlobe. A steady pulse started to buzz the length of her body. She curled onto her side, hugging a pillow.
“Today I buy cilantro for chicken…”
She had listened to the message several times last night and then again this morning. At first, when his name appeared on her phone, a dagger plunged through her heart.
Maxine’s wounded pride and fragile heart were in pieces. She was a wandering mess, barely held together, like a makeshift raft slowly falling apart adrift in the sea. She immediately went for the delete option, but all it took was a hint of curiosity from that little voice way down deep. What could he have to say?
Instead of deleting the message, Maxine listened. And she’d been listening over and over again, hating and yet deliriously amazed at how his voice still triggered the same intense pulsating along every nerve. It was impossible to hang up, she was addicted to the sensual feeling he aroused so effortlessly.
She missed everything that went with the voice. She needed his arms around her, fingers combing through her hair, saying it was all a mistake, a bad dream—just like Pam on Dallas.
Maxine had been stalwart and stoic, refusing to give in, yet, she stayed awake all night, listening to his voice on repeat. Still, she recognized the dangerous game she was setting up but rationalized she deserved this one last treat, this one last moment with him before their lives diverged forever.
He was careful, never once in the message did Antony ask her to call him back or say they should be together. His message was simple: he was hurting and he missed her.
How could they stay together? He had used her, lied to her, and expected Maxine to brush that aside completely because he told her he loved her. And she’d confessed that she used him to get over Johnny. The only thing Maxine was sure of was that she was never going to be anyone’s fool again, and to be loved on her own terms.
She even told him that night at the Bloor Street Diner. “I’ve already been with a man who lied…and the sex was horrible,” she’d said.
But sex with Antony had been fantastic! Maxine still got shivers when she thought of the first time he pushed inside her, just the engorged tip, and then all of him…oh God! It still took her breath away.
And then came the crushing realization that she’d probably never feel that way with any other man, ever again. A tear rolled down the side of her face, nestling inside her ear.
“I…I won’t call again. This is last message. You won’t trust me, and I can’t change what happened. And Johnny is still—”
Maxine braced herself for the last sentence. “I’m missing you.”
“Are you all right?” Westley knocked on the door. “It’s been ten minutes. Do you still want to go to Carmine’s?”
She pushed herself up, letting her feet dangle over the bed’s edge. “I need therapy,” she whispered.
After they dropped off Stuart, it was a silent cab ride to Carmine’s. Maxine’s head was full of Antony, trying to further convince herself she was wise to cut ties. It was like she was on a step program where they give you a chip every milestone you’ve gone without your addiction. She took small satisfactions in every morning she woke, knowing that she’d made it through another night without calling Antony. Maybe someday, she’d be able to think of his name without getting a punch in the gut.
Climbing the edge of dirty snow on the curb, Maxine pushed through the unlocked door with Westley following behind. Only one of the lights by the cash register was on, the sounds of the television echoed from the back room. Maxine thought she could make out Judy Garland singing.
“We’re here!” she hollered, making a mental note to talk to Carmine about not spending all his time watching movies while the store was open. She surveyed the stack of new boxes and went behind the register to look for the inventory clipboard.
“I’m going to see Carmine,” Westley said, his cheeks flushed. “I need to talk to him about something.”
“Okay.” Maxine watched him make his way to the beaded curtain. A glint of red sequins caught her eye. She wandered over to the rack and saw the red dress from Ambrosia Dellagio. There was a small note clipped to the hanger that looked like Carmine’s writing. She squinted to read the shaking lettering.
Westley’s voice cut through the air from the back room. “Max!” he shouted. “Call 911!”