“Who are you right now?”
“I don’t know.” My mom pauses to stare at a hummingbird that’s landed on the branch of my orange tree, its tiny wings fluttering frantically. “But whoever this person is,” she says, tugging on her Lycra tank top, “she needs a new dress to wear to dinner!”
I reach over and impulsively hug her. Thank you, I think. Thank you for making this wish come true.
“What’s up with your mom?” Max asks as he comes in the door from his run a few minutes later, having just passed her as she was leaving. His wet hair and the sweat dotting his face reminding me why we don’t run together—we’d tried once, but his pace had been too intense and my lungs burned as I barely spit out the words I need to stop now or I might die.
I fill Max in on my mom’s date as he makes his favorite power smoothie—beets, blueberries, ginger, apple juice, banana, coconut, and kale.
“Good for her,” he says when I’m finished, pouring his concoction into a tall tumbler.
I frown slightly as I watch him take a long drink, remembering the one time he talked me into trying it. As he pulls out his iPad and starts reading the latest news, I debate whether to ask if Courtney had reached out to him after I talked to her yesterday. I knew if I walked out of the kitchen now, got ready for work, and left the house without bringing it up, he wouldn’t either. It had been hard enough for him to tell me about Courtney’s kiss, and he would probably do almost anything to avoid talking about it again. But there was a nagging feeling deep in my belly and I had to know if she’d respected the line I’d so clearly drawn in the sand.
When I’d returned home Monday night, I’d been too emotionally drained to bring up the conversation that I’d had with Courtney. All I wanted to do was curl up beside Max, to lose myself in the joy of having him there with me again—not wanting her to occupy any more space in our minds than she already had. But as I stare at him now, the elephant in the room palpable, I know we can’t avoid it any longer.
“Max?”
“Yeah,” he answers without looking up from his iPad.
“So I talked to Courtney.”
He squeezes his eyes shut before quickly reopening them, the slight flexing of his forearms and straightening of his upper back telling me he was nervous about what I was going to say next.
“And I told her that our friendship was over.”
“And how did that go?” He looks at me for a brief moment, then quickly turns back to whatever he was reading.
“She took it pretty hard. Which is interesting, considering what happened. Seriously, what did she think the outcome was going to be?”
“It’s for the best,” he says definitively, and gets up to make coffee, turning his back to me.
“I agree—I just hope she realizes that.” I let it hang in the air. But he doesn’t say anything as he dumps the grounds into the cone.
“Did you hear from her last night?” I ask casually as I pour myself a glass of orange juice. “After I spoke to her?”
I think I see him pause for a moment as he grabs the pot by its rubber black handle. “Nope. Not a peep.”
“Okay. I just thought she might send one last text or something. You know, to say good-bye?”
I watch as he puts the carafe under the faucet and fills it with water, his face registering nothing. “I don’t think I’ll hear from her,” he says with finality. “Except at work, of course.”
My expression hardens slightly at the mention of them working together, and then, as if sensing my apprehension—that I’m not sure it’s as simple as he’s making it sound, especially when I think of Courtney’s tears in the car yesterday—Max adds quickly, “I’m sorry about what happened, Kate. But you’re just going to have to trust me. Okay? I promise that nothing like that will happen again.” He leans in and kisses me softly. “Okay?”
I nod, deciding that I need to let go of the last of the uneasy feelings that are fighting so hard to break through to the surface. I think of Ruby and her observation that I keep switching my path. Was this what she was talking about?
? ? ?
“There you are!” Magda hisses at me as I walk across the soundstage at exactly eleven o’clock sharp, wondering why she’s acting like I’m late when I’m actually thirty minutes early.
“You okay?” I ask.