The Right Fit

Chapter 28

Maxine blinked and a pile of empty Winkie packages came into focus. She was lying on the bedroom floor with one of the old sweaters under her head like a pillow, wedding invitations were strewn around her. Her fingers were still curled around her phone, now long dead. A headache prompted her to replay last night.

When she’d come into the room for the face cloth, she panicked at the mess of invitations on the floor. She’d been so preoccupied about Antony making it through the snow storm, she’d completely forgotten to clean up her earlier mess. Then she heard the front door slam.

Maxine raced to the kitchen and saw the invitations on the counter. She called him right away, but her fingers were shaking so badly she dialed the wrong number. The second attempt went straight to voice mail.

“I’m not engaged,” she’d blurted out after the beep. “We broke up months ago. Please, Antony. Call me.” She hit the stop button and dialed again, but this time the message would not come on—he’d turned off his phone. For the rest of the night she kept hitting the redial button until she fell asleep.

Maxine read the clock on the bedside table, it was mid-morning. She couldn’t remember what day it was. Friday? No wait, it’s Saturday. Antony flew home last night.

Dusting Winkie crumbs off her shirt, she crawled over to her phone charger and plugged it in. There was one message waiting for her.

“Maxine? It’s Beverly. Are you all right? You were scheduled to work today. Just give us a call as soon as you can. I hope everything is okay. Bye.”

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Maxine called back immediately; giving the excuse she had the flu and had slept through her alarm. She ended the call with a promise that she’d be all right to make her next shift.

For the rest of the day, Maxine moved about the apartment like a sloth, her fully charged phone in her hand the whole time. When the phone finally rang, she thought she was hallucinating when she saw his name on the caller ID.

Ace.

“Antony? I’m not engaged. We broke up. I haven’t even seen him for six months.” She paused to take a breath. “Please, come over.”

“You still have invitations. His ice cream.”

Maxine’s mouth opened, but only a creaking sound came out. How could she explain the hold Johnny still had over her for reasons she didn’t fully understand herself.

“Why?” Antony’s voice was hard.

“I…I don’t know.” Maxine put a hand to her stomach. “Please, come over,” she repeated.

“You love him?”

Impossible to answer in one word.

“We can’t be together if you love him.”

“I can’t do this over the phone, Antony. I need to see you in person.”

He let out a long sigh. “I’m going to Chicago. Maybe this is good…to be apart. I’ll call when I’m back.”

The next two days passed in a blur. Maxine went to work at the spa, hiding dark circles under her eyes with layers of makeup. Beverly, sweet and intuitive, had ordered gluten-free vegetarian pizza for lunch for them to share.

She tried to convince Maxine to go to yoga class with her after work. “It connects your body and mind,” she said.

“So does pizza,” Maxine said. After she ate the last slice, she took a taxi to Carmine’s. He was waiting for her on the antique settee with a pitcher of gin fizz cocktails. The floor lamps were on, creating a cozy glow in the store.

“I’m so stupid,” she said, for the hundredth time. “Why didn’t I clean the invitations up?”

“Why didn’t you throw them out?” He rolled his eyes.

“Johnny represents a chunk of my life. I can’t pretend that it didn’t exist.”

“It’s not about amnesia, honey.” He took a drag from his electrical cigarette. “It’s about letting go of the past.”

“Said the man who sells vintage clothing.” She pushed herself off the settee and roamed the racks, letting her fingers brush against the fabrics. Velvet, tweed, silk, mink…the textures sent tingles up her arm. She craved his touch. A horrible hollowness blew through her. She may never feel him again. The cruel reality of it all hit her hard. The tears she’d been fighting the past few days burst out of her.

Carmine came to her side and hugged her, the ice cube in his drink clinked against the side of the glass. He let her finish, then offered his handkerchief. Carmine always carried one.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing to the red strapless dress in front of them. “I think the universe is telling you something.”

“That I share the same measurements of a famous drag queen?”

“Ambrosia Dellagio had this great quote he would always leave with the audience right before his finale. ‘Live with the expectation that you deserve to be happy and you’ll make choices that result in happiness.’”

Maxine stiffened. “That’s what Johnny did. He took whatever he wanted to make himself happy, regardless of how much it hurt me.”

Carmine finished his drink. “Do you really think that if Johnny hadn’t had an affair you’d still be together?”

“I don’t know.” But in this moment of stripped egos and exhaustion, Maxine had to admit that on some level she secretly knew they’d never get married, or maybe she’d resigned to a life of mediocrity, thinking Johnny was the best chance she had at happiness. She closed her eyes. “No.”

Carmine squeezed her shoulder. “You’d give that dress curves Ambrosia could only dream about.”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

He puffed again and made an expression of bored misery. “I feel like I’m giving a robot a blow job.”

“That can’t be satisfying.”

For neither one of us, honey.”

****

Six days and three hours, Maxine thought, watching Westley fuss with the camera tripod in her living room. That’s how long it had been since she last spoke with Antony. Her hope was warping into delayed

frustration. She hadn’t even put on new nail polish. The old color from last week was chipped around the edges now.

Stuart repositioned a large fern he’d brought in front of the brick wall while Westley angled the floor lamps. He took a practice shot then looked at the digital camera lens, one hand cupped around the image.

Maxine leaned her elbows on the kitchen counter. Her phone was peeking out of her purse, now piled under all the pre-shot makeup paraphernalia. A dull ache tried to distract her, but she pushed it away. “I like the fern,” she said to Stuart.

“You can keep it,”—he shrugged—“I stole it from my boss’s office.” He spied the romance paperback on the table beside a pile of Cosmopolitan magazines. “Waiting for Fate?” He flipped the book over and read the passage on the back. “Orphaned as a teen, twenty- six-year-old Fate Delaney is struggling to keep top grades in med school, while holding down a part time job. When thirty-year-old, self-made billionaire, Chadwick Williams arrives in Emergency with kidney failure, he puts up a million dollars online to find a suitable donor.”

Stuart stopped reading and began to flip through the pages. “Where are all these hot, young billionaires in real life?” he asked. “I only meet the gray-haired versions a few bacon sandwiches from having a stroke.”

“Is she a match?” Westley looked earnest. “That’s the catch, right? Waiting for Fate—what a great title.”

Maxine looked at her brother. “Wes, you’re such a romantic.”

Stuart frowned at the book. “I’m not sure if their tissues are compatible, but on page one hundred and two, they’re sharing body fluids behind the hospital curtains.”

Westley rolled his eyes.

“Crosby, are you almost ready?” Stuart hollered. He tossed the book to Maxine and said, “It’s going to be crazy if she gets in.”

Westley changed the angle on one of the lamps. “I don’t want to see Crosby making out with some man whore on TV.”

“Man whore?” Stuart perked up. “Maybe I should enter this thing?”

“Stop screwing around,” Westley said, motioning for Stuart to stand in front of the brick wall.

“You’ve only had the camera for five minutes and you’re already Quentin Tarantino.”

“I wish,” he muttered. “I hate my job, my boss is an asshole. He messed up the cash yesterday and I had to stay two hours after closing to fix it. Bastard won’t pay me overtime either because he says the mistake was mine.”

“Sorry, man,” Stuart said. “Is that why you wouldn’t cuddle after the hockey game last night?” he teased.

Westley snorted. “I told you that winning streak would end. Chicago is number one in the Eastern Conference.”

A jolt went through Maxine. “Chicago?”

“Toronto lost the series,” Westley told her.

“Oh,” she said, deflated. The momentary race of her pulse betrayed her indifference, she’d been practicing. She started thumbing through the book, trying to hide her blush.

Stuart said, “When one comes in the store again, page me or something. Did you know that statistically speaking, fifty percent of all professional hockey players are gay or bisexual?”

“Where did you hear that?” Westley asked.

“From my own mouth just now.” Stuart rolled up his sleeve, making sure to keep the folds even. “If I keep repeating it, it might come true. Equal rights I say, why should all the ladies get to hang outside the locker room? I’d make a great puck bunny.”

“What’s a puck bunny?” Maxine asked, glancing up from the novel.

Stuart rolled up his shirtsleeve to match the other side. “Chicks who hang out around the rink to get laid by hockey players.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I’m going to make a smashing puck bunny someday.” He sighed dreamily. “But a high end one with designer clothes, and my own car, and a condo in Miami.”

Maxine was certain that Stuart was living Ambrosia’s life philosophy to the fullest. She put her attention back on the book, reading where the receipt was randomly placed. Someone was giving the female main character advice on love. Hope? Faith? Whatever you call it, it’s never a waste of time to believe that anything can happen.