Max nods as he takes a long drink of his water, the color slowly returning to his pale cheeks. He really wants this to work with me.
“Well I’m not exactly doing cartwheels over here . . .” I pause, trying to block out the image of Courtney sitting on the edge of his desk, waiting for her chance to lean in and make her move. “But I’m glad you told me. You have no idea how much it means that you were honest.” I smile, my eyes locked with Max’s, feeling like I’m seeing the man I fell in love with for the first time in a long while. I remember just yesterday how my own words had sat silently inside of me when I was too afraid tell Max the thoughts that swirled around in my head. “I think the lesson learned here is we need to communicate better.”
Max reaches his hand across the table and covers mine. “I agree . . . and I’m sorry.”
“For what? You told her no. You stopped it.”
Max starts to say something, then forcefully clamps his lips shut, reminding me of a puppet.
“Courtney is the one who should be sorry!” I say a little too loudly, and an elderly couple at the neighboring table look over sharply.
We both reach for a piece of warm garlic bread that the server has just set on the table before running off again, us chewing, me waiting for Max to agree, Max’s brow deeply furrowed—the way it does when he’s thinking hard. And I know he wants to choose his next words carefully. “She crossed a line, for sure. But we can’t put it all on her. Like I said, the lines of our friendship had been temporarily blurred. I blame myself for maybe leading her on unintentionally. And I’m sorry to you—and to her—for that.”
Max’s confession sends a shiver through me as I realize how clueless I had been last time. He told me nothing had happened between them before he called off the wedding and I believed him. In fact, I can’t shake the nagging feeling that somehow me knowing about their “relationship” this time around seems to have fast-tracked it. That Courtney kissed him because she could feel that I was checked in, that I wasn’t going to let him go.
“I want you to know that I’m sorry too—”
“You? For what?” He arches an eyebrow.
“For not making us a priority. For planning the wedding instead of our life.”
“Thank you for saying that, but honestly, I’m going to say something weird here and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way . . .” He pauses, waiting for me to promise I won’t.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“I can’t get rid of this weird feeling that this needed to happen. You know, for us to make it.”
I think of Ruby and her declaration that things weren’t quite as simple as I wanted them to be. Maybe this is what she had meant—that the status of all things in my life would have to first get messy in order for them to get better.
“I think it did too.”
I watch Max as he relaxes his shoulders and lowers his gaze to study his menu, feeling the tension in my neck and back fade away. I wait for a few minutes, pretending to scan the specials—the lobster ravioli, the gnocchi with sage and butter cream sauce, the filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes—knowing I still need to broach one more subject. “So,” I say delicately. “We should figure out what we’re going to do about Courtney. Obviously some things need to change.”
Max’s brow creases, a desperate look overtaking his face. “Kate—I can’t get her fired.”
I chew on my lower lip, thinking of the wish I’d made, realizing now how poorly I’d handled the power I’d been given, acting like a mean girl on the playground who uses her social status to push down her classmates.
“I’m not suggesting that! She earned that job—and from what you’ve told me, she’s a natural at it.”
Max presses his lips together and nods slightly, not wanting to give Courtney too much of a compliment, even though I can tell he would under other circumstances.
“But, my friendship with her is over,” I proclaim, shocking myself a little as I take my memories of her and shelve them in a box in the corner of my mind—the late nights after work when we’d grab a drink at a dive bar on Sunset just to shake off the day; the times we’d laugh so hard I’d swear I was going to pee my pants; when she found me crying in my office after my mom had told me that the clock was ticking down and I needed to find a man, not leaving until I’d promised her ten times over that I was fine.
I wait for Max’s reaction, but he doesn’t offer more than an attentive stare. “And yours will be too, right?”
He exhales loudly, running his fingers through his hair. “How do I do that? With her working at my office now?” He rubs his temples. “Even the past two days have been awkward, me avoiding her like the plague.”
“You obviously have to be professional, but no more concerts, no more champagne parties in our kitchen.” I raise an eyebrow.