“Hello, Mrs. Markham!” Max calls out a little too enthusiastically. He veers toward her, and Mom’s head jerks up and she smiles, but her eyes stay glazed and distant.
“Jackie?” She perks up, turning to where Max stands, not seeing me at all.
“Mom … It’s Max.”
She stands and takes a step closer. Max’s eyes stay glued to her legs. Of course they are. She may be deluded, but she’s half-naked, and beautiful.
“Mom!” I clear my throat. “This is Max. Max Gordon. My boyfriend. You know him.”
Max looks at me, confused, and I seriously think I’m going to have a heart attack. I look back to Mom and squeak out, “Mom, please”—and her eyes catch mine, and something clicks. My breath returns.
“Of course,” she says, nodding.
She closes the book in her hand, drops it on the chair. The cover is white, a paperback with orange and red squares. Black title. On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. She’s been reading it for weeks. The pile of envelopes flashes through my head: Jean-Louis Kerouac. Return to Sender. I haven’t asked about my name yet. I can’t bring myself to do it.
“Max Gordon,” I say again. “You remember Max, Mom, right?”
“Of course I do; don’t be silly,” my mother says, more assertively now. “Did you tell me he’d be here?” She holds out a hand to shake his, tugging at the hem of her robe with the other like she’s realized she’s not dressed appropriately, but it’s not like there’s more fabric to go around.
“No, he wasn’t planning to stay … We fell asleep … We had let the butterflies out and the TV was on, so…” But I don’t bother finishing because it’s not like she cares. Her eyes snap to mine, so I add, “His bike is outside. I was sure you’d see it.”
“Right,” she says, focusing on Max. “Well, I’m so pleased to see you again, Maxwell.”
Maxwell? She calls him Maxwell like she’s morphed into some modern-day Amanda Wingfield, the mother in the play I first read in Hankins’ class, the one that led Max to asking me out. The Glass Menagerie, it was called, about this girl Laura who has a really bad limp from some disease she had as a child. So, she’s basically a recluse, and all she does is listen to old records and play with her prized collection of glass animals.
Max had immediately volunteered to read the part of Tom, Laura’s brother, who works in a factory but dreams of being a poet. Raj Thakur was reading for Jim, a work friend of Tom’s who comes for dinner and who the mother, Amanda, hopes will fall in love with Laura. At first you think there’s no way he will, and anyway Amanda keeps flirting with him, but the two of them do actually go to Laura’s room, and they hit it off, and even end up slow dancing, but it turns out Jim is engaged and the whole thing only gets sadder from there.
Anyway, when Hankins announced we’d be reading the play aloud in class, I was shocked when Max volunteered to read for Tom. Like everyone else, I figured Max Gordon was in class because he thought he could fly under the radar in some mindless elective. But it was the opposite. Max would volunteer to read aloud for every play, every sonnet, and he seemed to know half of them by heart. And when I got picked to read for Laura, well, that was in February, and after that, everything between Max and me had escalated.
But now Max stands in my living room ogling my mom, and he’s picked up the book, and they’re suddenly going on about Kerouac and how brilliant he was, and so Max seems way more Jim than Tom Wingfield, and all I want is for my mother to shut up, and Max to go home, and this whole nightmare with my mother to be over.
Part II
The courtship dances of some male butterflies
may appear aggressive, but they are merely intended
to drive competitors away.
MID-MAY
TENTH GRADE
The last of the late buses pulls out of the circle revealing no Max, no dirt bike, just a vacant front lot with the sun flooding down onto the concrete, bleaching its already-faded gray to near bone white. Only the ring of baby poplars the school’s Sierra Club planted last year on the center mound offers any shade, casting shadows onto the white, an occasional breeze making their leaves rustle up and dance, before falling still.
I walk to the stone wall where I always sit to wait for him, and peel off my sweater and drape it across my bare thighs, letting the warmth spread down my shoulders and back. It’s seriously hot for this time of year, at least in this unshaded spot.
I glance at my phone, but there are no texts. It’s almost 3:00 p.m. Max should have been here ten minutes ago. Sometimes I get tired of feeling like he forgets I’m alone here, friendless, waiting on him.
Or maybe it’s better that he’s late, leaving the school grounds mostly empty, and fewer people to witness his public displays of affection.
The heavy steel doors burst open releasing the cavernous darkness of inside into the sunlight. Probably a lingering teacher, still gung ho on being present and available after school, even though all the clubs are basically over.
My stomach sinks when Aubrey walks out with Meghan and Niccole. They’re huddled together talking and laughing like co-conspirators.
That used to be us.
If they short-cut to the exit, they’ll keep their distance, but if they stay with the curve of the walkway, Aubrey will pass right in front of me.
She doesn’t turn, but I know she sees me. Maybe I’ll call out, be the one to break the rules of whatever this dumb game is we’ve been playing. Try to be friendly. After all, it’s partly my fault, all this weird distance between us. I’ve been too caught up with my own stuff—Mom and Max and everything. And my feelings were hurt when Aubrey first started spending more time with those girls and ditched our planned spring elective schedule to have more classes with them than me. And not just Hankins’ class, but Forensics instead of Environmental Studies. Suddenly they all had five classes together and Aubrey and I only had two. Both of which those girls are also in. So, I backed away, latched on to Max. Maybe more than I should have.
“Hey, Aubs!” I call softly, before I can overthink it. But they’re already past me, veering off the path, and by the time I call her name a second time, more loudly than before, they’ve reached the end of the driveway, the two metal gates that cars can’t slip through after a certain hour, but bodies easily can. “Never mind,” I add without waiting. “Have a good night.” Only then does Aubrey turn and give me a halfhearted wave.
“Oh, hey, sorry! I didn’t see you there,” she lies. “We’re studying for Stout’s test if you want to come.”
My heart does this little flip at the possibility, but my brain knows better. She’s being polite. There’s no way she wants me to join. Even if she does, the other two girls don’t. They make it clear, Niccole leaning in to say something, then throwing her head back in an exaggerated laugh, and Meghan tugging at her arm.
I cut my eyes up to the blue sky, the white puff clouds drifting by. No need to go where I’m not wanted. Besides, Max will be here any minute. So how come tears spring to my eyes?
“Thanks!” I call. “But I’m good.”
At that, Niccole laughs a second time, and Aubrey slaps her arm, and then they’re in motion again, the occasional burst of laughter drifting back like a knife in my direction.