Further down, there’s a shot of Max surrounded by beautiful women, but not in a cheesy way. Max never gives you openings. He’s like a steamship with massive, iron-clad sides. Your puny little shots ping right off of him as he looks on amused, at ease, a glorious god accustomed to the sparkling waters in which he floats.
It’s no wonder that millions of men emulate Max, strive to be the cool, handsome man of mystery with the world at his feet. Max walks into a party on a yacht and everyone on board scrambles for his attention, competes to offer him his favorite cocktail, ready to smile at his quips, but not too hugely, because you don’t want to be sycophantic!
The security people wave me into an elevator area. I wait alongside a bunch of beautiful people with respectable jobs that don’t require them to wear ears and make animal sounds.
Sweat trickles down my spine.
I shouldn’t have been surprised Max found out I was a delivery cat. Max always finds out everything that is wrong. Everything you want to hide, he finds it and exploits it.
I should be surprised he took as long as he did. That’s what should surprise me.
The elevator doors open and I get in with the group. A few of them glance discreetly at me. I hold my head high.
I go over various self-confidence mantras I have.
Many successful actresses were still struggling in their late twenties and thirties.
Another: You made a choice to reach for the stars, to have a career on Broadway. There’s no shame in doing what it takes. It’s called paying dues.
And when things are at their worst: You have a right to dream.
The lines all crumble as I ride up the elevator. Only Max has the ability to pre-crumble me.
Max’s is the highest floor, but I’m not going to deliver to him first, though in a different building, I would.
The efficiency of delivering up versus delivering down is a raging debate among us Meow Squad delivery cats. I’m a deliver-down girl, especially before three in the afternoon, a decision that has to do with my personal theories of elevator traffic patterns. I’m going against my normal way, partly because I want to make Max wait the longest, and also, I might have to cry afterwards.
So I hit floor five first, in and out of the elevator. Five orders on the sixth floor, mostly sushi; lots of falafels and some wraps to the conference room on seven, nothing else until twelve, and so on.
I deliver in the persona of most wonderful cat ever, but it’s fraying at the edges.
I dispatch food to the twenty-first floor and get back in with my cart. Max is next. I remind myself to breathe. I picture Kelsey’s and Jada’s faces when I check off the first box when they see I’m stepping up for them. And I’ll keep checking off the boxes.
Assuming he makes me deliver his lunch more than once. But he will. Max has no mercy. He never did.
The floor buttons blink. My pulse races.
A lot of successful actresses were still struggling in their late twenties and thirties.
The doors squeech open.
The twenty-fifth floor is a crystal palace of breathtaking views featuring the cool angularity of Manhattan beneath a soaring blue sky. A beautiful woman not in an embarrassing cat squad delivery outfit sits behind the desk.
I suck in a breath. There’s still a chance this is all coincidence, or that somebody else in the building requested me. If this is not a setup personally designed by Max, she’ll take the delivery for him. One of the main things big money does is to insulate you from commoners. “Meow Squad delivery.”
“Go ahead and bring it down. All the way down.” She turns her head to indicate the direction.
With that one command, she shows me that she had instructions to let me through.
Which means Max is expecting me.
She’s still looking at me. Again she does the head motion, or more like a graceful torque. It’s the kind of move I might memorize and fold into my catalog of character details if I weren’t feeling like I was wearing a Lady Gaga-style meat suit on my way to a rabid dog convention.
I head down.
The floor is sparkling white marble and the walls are something white that glows, as though with lights behind; skylights above showcase the blue sky.
All in all, this hallway could be somebody’s idea of what the path to heaven is like. But being that every ten feet there’s a photo of Max Manwhore Hilton looking like he’s Adonis himself, and I’m dressed up as an animal that eats from a bowl on the floor and poops in a box, it’s more like the highway to hell for me.
My neck feels unpleasantly clammy. Sweat is pouring down my back.
I don’t have to go in. I could turn around. I could ditch the cart and turn around. It’s a still free country. I slow my steps, thinking seriously about going back to waiting tables. Except insurance. Flexibility. My friends.
I reach the door and do an acting exercise where I breathe in the feeling that I wish to convey. I breathe in confidence and success.
I’m cool and confident, never doubting the path I’ve taken.
Max is nobody special to me. I barely even remember him from high school.
With trembling hands I knock. “Lunch delivery.” Because I can’t quite bring myself to say Meow Squad.
“Come,” he says, sounding bored.
I push in my cart.
There across an expanse of white marble tile stands a massive desk. And behind it sits Max.
My mouth goes dry. Butterflies scatter in my belly.
He’s typing something onto a laptop, eyes fixed on whatever he’s writing. The light from the screen seems to kiss his cheekbones, brushing them with an imperious glow.
People talk about resting bitch face, but Max has the opposite. He has resting amused-and-confident-god face, the default expression of a man with incredible beauty and wealth and a magnetic presence that people can feel in their bodies when they get within ten feet. Not to mention an uber-cool mythology about himself where he lounges by pools in sunglasses and likes his women hot and his scotch cold.
I stand there flooded with loathing and something else that I don’t have a category for.
He doesn’t even see me.