Over You (14 page)

Max counts to a safe ten before springing back to her feet to see Bridget earning her first woo-hoos from the crowd. She watches Taylor lean in to hear Phoebe better when, with a well-practiced flip of the wrist, Phoebe “accidentally” douses him with tomato juice.

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Here let me help you!”

Max has to grin as Phoebe pats him down with the cocktail napkin she had concealed in her hand, spreading a dollop of olive tapenade across his chest like spackle. “Oh my God, tapenade! I’m so sorry! Where did that come from?” she asks as Taylor looks down in horror. “I’m such a klutz. It must be my new medication.”

“Please, stop. It’s fine.” Taylor tries to back away as Phoebe ensures the mess is good and rubbed into the white cotton.

“The men’s room is that way,” she says, innocently pointing toward the DJ booth.

Flustered, he takes off, trying to hold his stained, wet shirt off his chest.

“Target on the move! Target incoming!” Phoebe calls into her mouthpiece, and Zach drops to his break-dance spin, the prearranged sign to Bridget. As Zach pops and locks, Bridget nods to acknowledge she’s seen him and takes a deep cleansing breath, setting her intention like Max taught her.

Max watches Taylor push through the last Bebe-clad body and come face-to-face with—

“Bridget?” Max hears him ask through Bridget’s wrist mike.

“Oh, hi,” she says in a tone both friendly and nonchalant, keeping her eyes focused on her turntables.

Taylor’s palms spread to cover up his ruined shirt. “You spin?”

“Uh-huh.” She puts a finger up to pause him as she shifts songs.

“I couldn’t even get you to go to a club.”

“Please. You always wanted house. I’m more acid jazz. Have you heard the new Pink Shirt track?” she asks, referring to the most recent song Taylor downloaded, info she has courtesy of Zach’s iTunes hacking.

“Just bought it.”

She shakes her head to indicate she can’t hear him, although Max knows she can. “What?!”

“I just—never mind. Wow. Well, you look … and the beats … and the … wow.”

She holds the headphones away from her. “I’m sorry! I can’t hear you!”

“You look great! Can I call you sometime?”

“Sorry! Too loud!” She smiles and shrugs, then puts her headphones back on, her tongue slipping between her teeth as she concentrates on the next track.

With a small wave, Taylor nods as he retreats backward into the crowd, getting bumped by those who are dancing with abandon to his ex-girlfriend’s spin. He tries to cover for how awkward he feels, not because his shirt smells like a salad and looks like a first-grade art project, but because the girl who’s been turning a dazzling focus on him since they were
doing
first-grade art projects together suddenly doesn’t seem to see him anymore. And he doesn’t understand why this bothers him so much.

Max throws her fist in the air as she watches a crestfallen Taylor return to the couch where his buddies stand around, nodding their heads to the beat. Taylor points to the men’s room and walks away. She allows herself to look at Ben, dressed in a black button-down and narrow jeans, his hair artfully mussed.
He looks bored,
she thinks with a surprising spike of relief. She strains on the tips of her toes to see as he drops to the couch, pulling out his phone. He types something, and Max—feeling a flicker of jealousy—finds herself glancing around at the other girls nearby to see if he’s writing to someone he chatted up while she was focused on Bridget. He stares down for a long moment before hitting the screen. The phone in Max’s pocket dings.

“Bear misses you. P.S. Making me write this. P.P.S. Very bad breath.”

Max smiles and types back without letting herself think about it. “Bear should partake of baby toothbrush.” She looks back after sending the text and watches with satisfaction when Ben laughs as he reads his phone.

Her phone pings again. “Bear has strong opinions about hygiene—can’t be reasoned with.”

“Only because Bear does not know joys of bubble bath.” Max hits SEND and watches. Ben grins and then lifts an eyebrow. He twists his mouth and types quickly. He looks around for a minute, and then two.
Hit
SEND
, Max thinks.
Send to me
. Ben bites his lips and presses the phone.

Ping. “You should teach him.”

Max stares at her glowing screen as the music throbs around her. She looks over at Ben. She realizes her heart has sped up. That this boy makes her heart speed up.

“Max?” Phoebe asks in her ear, and Max realizes she has inched out from behind the column. “Bridget’s set is ending. You coming down to see her off?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“Oh my God!” Bridget throws her arms around Max as she bursts into the storeroom, where Max is waiting with an open Gatorade for her. “You’re a genius! I mean, you described it and described it and outlined it and gave me the play-by-play, but it wasn’t until I was standing there and he looked so dejected and I felt so …”

“Cool,” Zach finishes her thought as he comes in behind her and closes the door. “You were. And now you see he’s so …” Zach prompts for the inevitable Phase Two of The Moment. Where the shit-colored glasses of rejection are lifted and the client sees her ex clearly, remembering finally that he had pepperoni breath, was a dick to her friends, or merely hated
The Hunger Games
. She is Over Him.

“So?” Bridget repeats, seemingly not sure where Zach’s going with this.

“Lame, egotistical, short?” he offers up some popular suggestions.

“Oh.” Bridget tilts her head to the side, replaying The Moment. “No. I just felt sad for him.”

“He didn’t suddenly look different to you? Less celebrity, more real person?”

Bridget shrugs. “He’s still just my goofball Taylor. Sorry!” She slaps her forehead. “Not
my
!”

“Anyway,” Zach resumes, “I vow he will speak of you, Bridget, with nothing but reverence till his dying breath.”

Bridget passes back the empty Gatorade bottle. “When he dumped me, I cried so hard I—”

“Accidentally snotted on his shirt,” the three finish the sentence for her.

“Projectile-snotted. I thought I was going to have to move to Guatemala and change my name to Bernice.”

“And now,” Max says, “you’re the feather in his cap—the coolest thing he will
ever
get close to and he knows it.”

The door to the storeroom opens, and Shannon and Lindsay burst in, squealing. “Okay, you crazy kids.” Zach corrals them. “A town car is waiting for you upstairs. Time to celebrate at Stanton Social. A table is reserved for your dining pleasure under Max’s name, and then the car will take you all home.”

Bridget grabs Max’s hand. “Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“My total pleasure. And we’ll see you tomorrow after school for your Closeout. Okay?” Which is always done in Max’s apartment, rather than some magical Manhattan spot. In Max’s mind this is like the moment the Wizard of Oz presents the long-awaited heart to the Tin Man, and it turns out to be a simple clock on a chain, the very accessibility of it making it powerful. After the VIP treatment, Max concludes the program with a basic treat—her favorite local cupcakes and a glass of milk. In ending with something clients can always do for themselves, Max underscores that the answer was inside them to begin with and therefore can’t be taken away on the next guy’s whim.

Bridget nods before heading into the celebratory night she has so richly earned.

“So what up?” Zach asks as Max collapses on a carton of Jim Beam, twisting open her own Gatorade. “I may be permanently deaf in my left ear.”

“Sorry. Sorry. I’ve never known anyone in an ex’s circle before—I thought that was going to blow it.”

“Max,” Zach says with a knowing smile. “Bridget’s done, and that guy up there—”

“Ben.”

“Is adorable.”

“Well, that’s a big, fat whatever. I’ll catch him the next time my mom sends me out for onesies,” she says, not ready to discuss if Ben is adorable or not. Something about Bridget’s Moment is niggling at her. “Listen, can you guys pack this stuff up without me?”

“Of course.”

“I just need to get some fresh air—I think I’m getting whatever the Axe equivalent of Legionnaires’ disease is. I’ll meet you on the sidewalk.”

“Will you buy me a pretzel while you’re out there?” Zach asks, unplugging the curling iron.

“Totally.” She grabs her jacket, but pauses, turning in the doorway. “And you see that I can totally get this job done? That, minus some regrettable screeching, I’m totally fine? A professional you can count on? A leader you want leading?”

“Go!” Zach points out the door.

“Going!” Max makes her way to the stairs, tugging the pins from her hair. She rounds the last step to a club at full throttle. The bass moves through the soles of her heels and into her hips. And after the week she’s had, she really wants to dance. Why not with Ben? Why not? A quick dance while Zach and Phoebe pack up. His bear wants her to teach him about bubble baths.... She maybe wants to teach his bear about bubble baths....

The only way to reach Ben is to cut across the packed dance floor. She begins to force her way through. Max tries to catch Ben’s eye, but he’s obscured by the masses of hair extensions and waving arms. She is about to make it to him when she’s suddenly staring directly into the clavicle—and then face—of Hugo Tillman. His scent, amped by the density of the crowd, almost takes out her knees. She feels her lower jaw drop. She should say something, do something—he is all of a few inches from her. “Hu—”

His eyes, and only his eyes, register his recognition, and then with clear deliberation, he turns away from her with a flat expression and pushes in the opposite direction into the crowd.

It feels like the music has stopped, and a spotlight has whipped across the floor to illuminate her, and she is naked and not in a good way. That did not just happen. But it did.
Jesus, Max, CLOSE YOUR MOUTH! CLOSE YOUR MOUTH!
She struggles to retain her balance on her thin heels as a drunken guy dances into her. She turns, pushes, shoves, and elbows her way out until she reaches the stairs to the exit. She tries to walk calmly, but she’s pretty sure she is running up the main staircase. Yup, nothing graceful about how she is gripping the railing and pulling herself up the steps three at a time.

She stumbles onto the street, past the bouncer and the waiting clubbers, hugging her bare arms across her chest pointlessly against the cold.

M
ax is not thinking anything concrete, any words or phrases that she can nail down. She’s not even sure how long she’s been sitting here in the dark. It must be very late, or very early, because cars don’t seem to be passing outside her window anymore. The sound of the carriage clock ticking from her bookshelf … the orange glow of the power strip light from under her desk … it all feels like sensory information is traveling a great distance to reach her. Somehow she got home, unlocked her door. Her keys are right here on the floor. And now she sits on the edge of her chaise, hands on her knees, back straight. It feels like a vehicle has just hit her. But like, just. Like those movies where the actor looks sideways with a dumbfounded expression, and then the screen shows the truck or train or whatever’s speeding toward him and then—
bam
. Max is at point of contact, right before the slow-motion impact sends her body flying.

That
look on his face
. That
nothing
. Even more scorching, the obvious decision he made to
do
nothing. She darts her gaze around every surface in the dim light—her desk, her dresser, her bed. Where to go? What to do to dodge the hit? If she could just hold her breath and keep from feeling this, from letting it land. She can’t bear to move and begin the next second because it means acknowledging that this one has happened. She makes herself stand up, still in her coat, one hand pulling at the other. She should eat chocolate, take a Valerian, blast Pink. But instead she is walking to the stairs, as she secretly knew she might someday. Her fingers are fumbling for the switch on a nearby lamp. She is lifting up the board, taking out the box, and sinking to the floor to devour the memories she has denied herself for months. Max knows that looking at these pictures is the gateway, that within minutes of pulling out her Hugo mementos she will be listening to their songs. This will lead to full-on sobbing. But she doesn’t care. She’s raw and helpless from this fresh rejection. Without a card on her wrist with a number to call, the trajectory is inevitable.

The following day, just after lunch, Ben opens his school’s second-floor bathroom door. “Tay?” he calls, moving down the stalls. No feet. He’s about to leave when he hears a moan from under the row of stainless-steel sinks. Ben crouches to find Taylor lying on his back on the linoleum, a bloody paper towel clutched to his nose. “Someone hit you?” he asks. Taylor shakes his head. “Then why you ditching English?”

“My nose bleeds when I’m—” He cuts off.

“When you’re what?” Ben asks. “Dude, Mr. Gamble is looking for you.” Ben takes advantage of being out of view of teachers to scroll his phone, looking for a text from Max. Still no word from her since their bear-based exchange last night. Before Taylor flipped out and jetted. And then that girl he recognized from Model UN cornered him. “I said you had food poisoning from the sloppy joes.”