Over You (16 page)

“Oh,
that’s
what this is,” Zach says, raising his foot to show where it got stuck to his sole in the Hugo blizzard.

“Wouldn’t you have kept it?” Max asks desperately.

“Go on.”

“He said he loved me. And he introduced me to his family. I mean, how thinking-about-the-future is that?”

“So future,” Bridget agrees.

“And I don’t really have a family, not like that, so it was kind of like crack.” She looks up at the riveted faces. “Then he invited me to be his date for New Year’s Eve at their Cape Cod estate. I bought a dress. I told my mom a lie. I had it all planned out.”

“What happened?” Phoebe asks.

“He was playing the final match of the season, the championship game. I was sitting in the sports pavilion, away from the rah-rah, but where I had a good view of the field. I’d dragged one of the wingback chairs over to the window. They must not have seen me there—”

“Who?”

“Elizabeth Dow Pendergast and her friends.” Max can barely bring herself to say the name out loud. “They wanted to get out of the rain—their fleeces were getting damp. I heard them come in to watch. I should have said something—stuck my hand out and waved. But I didn’t. They started talking about the New Year’s party at Hugo’s house, describing their boring dresses, their grandmothers’ jewelry—and I got so excited, imagining their faces when they saw me on his arm in my backless H&M Cavalli. Then Elizabeth said Hugo. Said Hugo the same way it sounded in my head. Proprietary. I couldn’t even make out the rest of what she was saying yet, it just felt like the icy drizzle on the windows was running under my skin.”

“What did she say?” Bridget asks.

“‘Max doesn’t know about Hugo and me yet, poor thing,’” Max says, imitating Elizabeth. “Then her friend goes, ‘Elizabeth, you’re so patient, I don’t know
how
you stand it.’ And she says, ‘Well, he
promised
to dump her before the party. He said he’s wanted to for
ages
.’”

Phoebe and Bridget grab each other’s hands.

“Oh, M,” Zach murmurs in sympathy.

“That’s so messed up!” Bridget exclaims.

“I can still hear the sound of the chair hitting the ground as I leapt up, but I don’t remember doing it. I just remember seeing the door handle, needing to get out of there—then seeing him off in the distance. Running in the rain across the slick field. Without cleats, it was like skating. People were laughing at me. The ref was blowing the whistle. But I couldn’t stop. I slammed my hands into his chest. ‘You want to dump me?’ I screamed. He tried to step back, he was mortified. Not by himself—by me. He was ashamed of me. I lunged forward again, but I slipped—the grass was covered in goose shit. And down I went.”

The room is silent.

“That is so much worse than snotting,” Bridget whispers, awed. “You lived to tell the tale and did not just move to another country to take up knitting.”

“He never even said a word—”

“And was that the last time you saw him?” Phoebe asks.

“Because you dropped out at Christmas.” Zach does the math.

“Right.” Max nods slowly.

“You just held your head up high and walked right out of that blowhole,” Zach confirms.

“Yes,” Max says as she runs her palms down her thighs, her exhausted brain debating saying more. She takes a deep breath, stands on unsteady legs, walks herself to the front window, and lifts it.

“But, oh my God, if that’s the last time you ever saw him—” Phoebe waves her palms at her chest in excitement.

“Yes …” Max says, somewhere between a statement and a question.

“Um, hello!” Phoebe jumps up. “That means there’s a solution!”

“What?” Zach asks.

“Max needs her Moment!”

“Oh, snap, she’s right!” Zach jumps up.

“Wait, you didn’t you have your Moment, Max?” Bridget asks, the confusion returning. “But you invented it, right?”

“I did. But, actually, not until after.” The cold air washing over her, Max turns to them as if seeing them all for the first time. “What do I do?”

Zach claps. “Phoebe, rolling white board! Bridget, you in or you out?”

“Oh.” Bridget wipes off her hands. “So in.”

“Great. Get us some cookies, markers, Kleenex, water, stress balls, corn chips, power cords, take-out menus, and grid paper.” Zach whips off his blazer and rolls up his sleeves. “Ladies, the time has come! Everything this company believes in, has been striving for and building, hangs in the balance if we can’t get Max, of all people, over Hugo Snottybottom the Eight Hundredth.” He strides to her and spins her around for a dip before lifting her back into a hug. “We are making a Moment! Not just
a
Moment—
The
Moment! The Moment to end all Moments! Let’s make someone regret his entire existence!”

Just around this time, Ben is walking under the streetlamps of Max’s block, second-guessing his half-baked plan to deliver a baby present and say he must have dropped the card. What seemed plausible a few minutes ago now just seems borderline stalkerish. He has become a crazy guy carrying a bunny blanket down the street to get a teenage girl to open her door.

He just wants to see her face, see if she’s mad at him for texting un-friendly things. Or maybe she’s gotten a boyfriend since they hung out. Why didn’t he just kiss her?

He pauses one stoop down from hers, willing his feet to turn around—let it go. She’ll text him back. Or she won’t—and it was finished before it began. Then he hears her laughter. And other people join in. She’s having a party? He walks closer and that’s when he sees in the slice of room visible through the parted curtains, Max with her hair loose, burying her face in the shoulder of some guy with his back to the window—just like she had with him. He makes himself stand there long enough to see Max step back with her palms going to cup the guy’s cheeks, her expression one of unmitigated gratitude.
Great,
Ben thinks with a sinking heart,
I missed my moment
.

A
week later, thanks to the support of Zach, Phoebe, and Bridget, Max is starting to feel like her not-sobbing-in-a-heap self again. She realizes this while walking through the corner deli on Thanksgiving morning, her arms laden with last-minute items her mother forgot, when it occurs to Max that the entire candy display isn’t calling to be inhaled. Glad to no longer be craving an IV hookup to fried chocolate, she turns the aisle—and practically walks into Ben.

“Hey!” Max exclaims, her smile returning. She runs a smoothing hand down her hair, quickly trying to remember if she brushed her teeth after breakfast, or even looked in a mirror before leaving the house. “Wow, how are you? I haven’t seen you in fo-ev-ah.”

“Hey, uh, fine.” Expressionless, Ben keeps his chin locked on the canister of bread crumbs balanced on a quart of heavy cream atop the carton of eggs in his arms.

“Last-minute stuffing crisis?” Max lifts her own buttermilk and eggs. “Where’d you find the bread crumbs?”

“Third aisle. By the cereal,” he says, but makes no move to go with her.

“Cereal? That totally goes against standard grocery store code. Bread crumbs go with bread.”

“It’s a deli, so …” He stares past her.

“Right.” She nods, thinking he’s being weird. “How’s work?”

“Busy.”

“Oh.”

“And you’ve been busy, too, right?” he says, his voice tinged with accusation before he seems to hear himself. “I mean, I hope things are cool and whatever.”

“Of course.” Then it hits her. He sent the last text—she was on her way to say hi at the club when Hugo derailed her—and she never followed up, left him hanging. Shit.

“Well, I have to get these home,” he says.

“Hey, look, about the other night—” She scrambles, not sure what to say. “I was going to text you back—”

“But you got a better offer. It’s cool.”

“No,” she says, surprised. But he’s already moving past her. “Okay, later, I guess.” Max watches him walk to the register without a glance back and then makes herself continue on to the cereal aisle. WTF? Okay, no, it’s good this happened. Seriously, how well does she really know Ben Cooper? Maybe he’s
not
the guy who gives great banter and looks adorable in a tux, maybe he’s really the guy who gets totally pissy the first time she a tiny bit blows it, in which case, way better to know that now, before anything happened, before bubble baths. Here’s what she doesn’t need: another guy with the capacity to make her feel like she’s sitting in goose shit.

She scans the colorful boxes until she sees the canister she’s in search of and then finds herself just standing there. Or maybe he’s this really great guy who put himself out there and didn’t get a response and is now legitimately pissed. Guys are so confusing! She looks over at the pile of bananas. It’s so clear which fruit are good and which ones are rotten. You can see it before you make your investment. Why can’t boys be more like bananas? Why do you have to put your heart out there before you find out you picked a bad one?

A couple hours later the stuffed bird is almost ready for the oven and Zach and Phoebe circle the chaise with their phones clamped to their ears. “Thanks for notifying us, your friend is in good hands.” Zach hangs up as Max peels chestnuts for the soup her mom will be serving Peter’s family upstairs at three o’clock. “Max, can you swing an Hour One with a new client? A guy asked her
and
another girl—let’s call her his backup soul mate—to the fall formal last night, ran back and forth until they both put it together when they saw
two
commemorative photo mugs drying.”

Max leans over to check the time on her computer. “Yeah, but it’s gonna be tight.”

Zach points at the newspaper on Max’s desk. “What about having your Moment on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?”

Max shakes her head.

“Please hold.” Phoebe puts her hand over her cell to whisper, “I need Max at one. And I think Max should get an internship with the architect who’s designing the new Tillman building.”

Max considers as she rushes through the last few chestnuts. “Round glasses, a short, wool crepe skirt—thin corduroy blazer—it has potential. But then how would I show him I’m cool with him having a girlfriend?”

“Guys!” Max’s mom calls down the stairs, sending the Ex, Inc. staff into a scramble to cover notes and schedules with splayed cookbooks. Luckily Anne’s voice precedes her by a few anticlimactic beats while she navigates the last steps. She’s wearing yellow lattice oven mitts, which match her straining apron—one of many wedding presents she’s inaugurating today. “It’s nice of your friends to come over and help you cook. I told Max I could do it—”

“But you can’t,” Max says, finishing her sentence and tossing the last chestnut down on her desk. “Okay! Almost done with the chestnuts—next dish to prep?”

“Even
I
can follow a recipe once a year.” Anne hands her the sweet potatoes to peel. “NPR’s doing a piece on how this weekend is the penultimate college push. You haven’t shown me word one of your essays yet, and we still need to pick your safeties. Let’s sit down first thing tomorrow—go over everything. I—oof.” She puts a hand to her protruding belly.

“You okay?” Max asks with concern.

“
Someone
doesn’t like pie filling for breakfast,” she says, placing her hand on her jumping bump. Max stiffens to hear the tone her mother had always previously reserved for her alone. But she guesses she better get used to it. The oven timer beeps above them. She looks at Zach and Phoebe. “If you don’t come upstairs before you leave, have a great Thanksgiving with your families.”

“You too!” Phoebe and Zach say as she waves good-bye and heads back up. They hear the kitchen door click shut.

“What about winning a national women’s rugby match?” Zach suggests without skipping a beat as he pulls Max’s schedule back out. “Very
Bend It Like Beckham
. Maybe with a little Brandi Chastain sports-bra action?”

“Rugby isn’t soccer—I’m not going to make anyone regret anything with a broken nose.”

Phoebe takes the sweet potatoes from Max’s desk and starts peeling them with a Food Network–level of proficiency. “I can’t believe your mom hasn’t figured out that we’re not over here every day just because we love your company—” Phoebe’s head whips up. “I mean, we do, of course, love your
company
and
your
company. You know what I mean.” In fact, if anything, since Max finally came clean with them about Hugo, she’s sensing a bonding at Ex, Inc. that makes Max gratefully feel, for the first time since before boarding school, that she really has a crew again.

“Right back atcha.” Max starts slicing the potatoes. “My mom’s got it in her head that we’re launching an internet dating service for teenagers, and I haven’t disabused her of the notion.”

“She
is
an investigative reporter, right?” Zach asks. Phoebe glares at him.

The bell rings. Startled, they all turn to the window to see Bridget pounding in distress.

Max runs over to unlock the door. “This—this is not the impression!” Borderline hysterical, Bridget pushes past her into the room in her soaked basketball uniform. “This is not haunt-your-dreams! This is, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s why I dumped Bridget! She gets rank and disgusting when she plays! With a mustache! A protein drink mustache!’ Taylor’s ruined my Moment! Stomped on it. Pouf, gone!”