by Cat Mann
Chapter 26
Tantrum
My joints popped and cracked with a stretch when I got up with the sound of Ari’s early morning alarm. I headed straight to the study. My ribs were starting to feel better and I needed to get a head start on the day. I worked first on the project I was involved in for House to Home. We were hoping to land a deal with an art gallery that Aggie occasionally worked with. Andy and I were putting together a big black-tie event to auction works of art from local photographers, Aggie included. The event would be a great big night of drinking and entertainment at the gallery, with photos available in a silent auction. The proceeds were going to help fund the center. I was still trying to nail down the costs from the caterer, the liquor distributor and the gallery owner.
Next, I took out the journal. I had only the last few pages to decipher. The cover was now fully decorated with colorful post-its still needing to be unscrambled. I tucked it under my arm around ten and took the journal next door with me, hoping Max would let me get some work done while he played.
Aggie was waiting at the back door for me when I arrived.
“Ugh! You’re late!” she frowned.
“Sorry!” I looked over at the clock on the oven. I was not late. In fact, I was ten minutes early, but I didn’t feel like arguing with her. I put my journal down on the table and left in search of Max.
His soft breathing was a dead giveaway and I found him quickly, hiding in his closet on the floor under a baby blanket.
“Max, what are you doing?” I pulled the blanket off him.
“Hiding,” he whispered.
“Oh, okay. Well, Aggie is leaving, so you'll have to find another game to play.”
Sticking my hand out, he grabbed on tightly and I helped him up off the floor and walked with him into the kitchen.
“I have to go to L.A. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. If you need anything, call Andy, he should be in his office for most of the day,” Aggie said.
“I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Max and I will be just fine. Be safe on the roads, Aggie,” I said with a smile. Aggie frowned and walked out the door to the garage without another word to either of us.
Max was on his best behavior for me. He was actually really quiet. He sat at the kitchen table and colored while I attempted to decode another word.
After I made lunch, Max settled in for a movie in the living room. He cried and came searching for me every time I left him alone, so I moved my operation to the living room. Eventually Max gave in to his need for an afternoon nap and fell asleep on the couch. I moved him to his bed and really started to concentrate. Max had only been asleep ten minutes when I heard him screaming from his bedroom.
I closed my journal and tossed it on the floor by the chair in the Alexander’s living room. I ran down the hall and threw open his bedroom door. Max was asleep but he was crying and screaming for Ari.
I pulled him into my arms and started to smooth his hair, waking him.
“It’s okay, Max. I’m here, don’t worry. You were just having a bad dream.”
He asked for Ari over and over again. “Max, Ari isn’t home; he’s at work.”
Max’s little lip started to tremble as big fat tears rolled down his cheeks. I pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket and called Ari’s cell. He didn’t answer. I called his work phone and it went to voicemail. Opting out of voicemail, I spoke with Fauna, his assistant, for the second time in the week.
“Thank you for calling baio! You have reached the office of Ari Alexander, Fauna speaking. How may I assist you today?”
“Fauna, it’s Ava. I need to talk to Ari,” I said, nearly cutting off her drawn out spiel.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Ava; he’s in a meeting again. You sure do have bad timing,” she laughed.
“I understand that he’s in a meeting, but I need you to get him now.”
“I’m sorry, but Margaux does not permit her meetings to be interrupted.”
“Fine, let me talk to Margaux. Let her know I am on the phone and that I need to talk to her; she’ll take my call, I’m sure of it.”
“Mrs. Alexander, I don’t think I can do that for you. Margaux has the editor from Vogue in her office. I cannot interrupt her. I am sure you understand – you know Margaux after all, and I need to keep this job.”
“Listen to me, Fauna, if you don’t put one of them on the phone right now, I promise you, you will be fired. So which will it be it, maybe or definitely?”
“One minute,” she said with a hint of attitude in her tone.
“Good choice.”
I was on hold for an eternity before Margaux picked up the phone.
“Ava Baby, I can’t speak with you now. Can you meet me at home tonight?”
“No, I don’t want to talk to you. I want to talk to Ari. Put him on the phone.”
“Honey, he is in a meeting. We’re trying to get things in order for the spring line; this is just a bad time.”
“I don’t care about your meeting and I don’t care about your spring line. I don’t want you around Ari anymore. I don’t want you in our lives. I hate you, Margaux. I know who you are and I’m not afraid of you anymore. I promise I will kill you. Now, put Ari on the phone before I come down there and take care of business right now.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said calmly.
Max was crying uncontrollably by now and I could hardly understand what she was saying on the other line.
“Put him on the damn phone!” I yelled.
“I’ll go ahead and conference us in,” she said.
I heard a few beeps then I could hear a ton of people talking and Ari’s voice booming over all of them. I was on speakerphone.
“Ari,” Margaux said sweetly, interrupting the meeting through the phone.
“Yes?” I could hear him say to her.
“You are on with Ava.”
“What? Ava?”
Max was going nuts. I tried to pick him up and calm him, but it wasn’t working.
“Ava, are you on the phone? Is everything ok?”
“No, everything is not okay. Can you not hear the crying going on in here? Look, I’m sorry to interrupt, but you told me to call you if I needed anything, and I need you to come home. Like now.”
“Ava, I can’t leave. We’re launching this line in six days.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, but it didn’t work.
“I don’t give a damn about that line, that place, Margaux, or that meeting! I need you to come home right now!”
Ari picked up the line, taking me off speakerphone.
“What’s going on, Baby?” His voice alone was so soothing and helped take the edge away from an impending anxiety attack.
“I have a bad feeling. And Max won’t stop crying for you, and your mom’s gone completely nuts and she’s been gone in L.A. for hours. I don’t trust Margaux to be around you anymore and I need you to come home.”
I gasped for breath.
“Ok, Ava, take Max over to our house and I will be right there.”
“Thank you,” I said, a little more severely than I meant to.
“Sure, Baby, I love you. I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you, too.”
After a hasty raid of Max’s closet, I grabbed some pajamas and a change of clothes. I put his shoes on and took him home. He was still crying but not hysterically. He just had warm, wet tears streaming down his face. I kept telling him that Ari was fine and he was coming home.
Back home, I sat Max up on the kitchen counter, brushed the hair off his forehead and saw a little smudge of dirt there. Grabbing a washcloth, I got it wet and washed his face. Max wrapped his little fingers around mine. His hand was trembling. Whatever he had dreamed had really scared the wits out of him.
“Max!” I looked down at his dirty fingers. “You’re filthy! When is the last time you had a bath?” He just stared at me with his big, wet, brown eyes.
“Ok, come
on, maybe a warm tub will calm you down and then, by the time you are done, Ari will be home.”
He nodded. I grabbed his bag and took him to Julia’s bathroom (since Ari’s and mine had no tub). I ran warm water and then, from the linen closet, hauled out bubble bath, tub toys and towels – all the stuff we had picked out at the store together.
Max was completely filthy. His hair had sand in it and the bottoms of his feet were smudged with dirt. Max gave me a tiny smile as I shampooed his hair.
“You’re a beach bum!” I teased as I rinsed and re-washed his hair.
The bath seemed to help take Max’s mind off Ari for a bit so I watched him play in the tub with a little plastic pirate ship and some action figures. I got him out once his fingers turned to prunes and wrapped him up in a big towel.
“Ari?” Max asked as soon as I dried him off. I picked my phone up off the sink.
“Give him fifteen minutes, Max, and if he isn’t home by then, we’ll call him. But he promised he would be home, so don’t worry.”
Little tears started to pool up again in his eyes and spill over onto his cheeks. I wiped them away as fast as I could and pulled his tiny pajamas on, the ones Ari had gotten him for Christmas. The shirt had a surfing dinosaur on it and the pants were fleecy and soft. He looked like a miniature version of Ari with his wet hair sticking up in tufts. I carried him to our bedroom and grabbed the gray hooded sweatshirt I always found comfort in and wrapped it around him like a blanket.
We went to the living room and waited. I put Max on my lap and he laid his little head on my shoulder while he cried. Moments later, the garage door rumbled and I started to breathe a little more easily.
Ari walked in through the door and came straight to us in the living room.
“Hey,” he said with a worried look on his face.
Max’s head perked up when he heard Ari’s voice. He pushed himself down off my lap as fast as he could and ran across the room to Ari. The uncontrollable crying started again, but I think they were tears of relief. Ari scooped Max up in his arms and held on to him tight. Max placed his little hands on Ari’s cheeks and held his face like that, looking Ari straight in the eyes for a solid minute before putting his head down on Ari’s shoulder.
“What on earth is going on?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I went to your mom’s this morning to watch Max and found him hiding in a closet. She complained about me being late and I was actually early, then said she would be in L.A. all day, then walked out without saying goodbye or even looking concerned that Max was upset. Max took a nap then woke up in a panic crying for you. I called baio but no one would let me speak with you. Every time I call baio no one will let me speak to you. I think I may have fired your assistant, so you might want to call her later tonight.”
“Ava, not only did you try to fire my assistant but you cussed your grandmother out, threatened her life and told her that you didn’t want me around her anymore. Then you threw a fit in the middle of my meeting.”
I closed my eyes for a minute and bit at my bottom lip.
“I didn’t know what else to do, Ari. Do you know how frustrating it is to be here, feeling vulnerable, listening to that Fawn somebody or other tell me no, you cannot talk to Mr. Alexander? Max thought you were dead or something. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, Fauna will get over it. I gave her a few days off. Margaux doesn’t expect anything more from you than what you gave her and the people in my meeting are used to your grandmother’s behavior, so no harm, no foul.”
“Are you mad at me?” I peeked at him from under my lashes.
“Absolutely not,” he looked down at Max who still had not let go of him. “Obviously, something is going on and you and Max are a million times more important to me than that stupid job.”
“Ari, what’s wrong with your mom?”
He frowned and the crease in his forehead appeared.
“I don’t know. Fauna called me on my way home to tell me that my mom had dropped by the office to talk. I tried to call my mom on my way home but she didn’t answer. I’ll call my dad in a while to see if he knows what is going on with her.”
I got up and walked behind Ari and peeked at Max, whose head was still resting on Ari’s shoulder.
“Hey Buddy, are you feeling better now?” Max gave me a small smile and I kissed his forehead. “I told you he would come home.”
Ari sat on a stool in the kitchen with Max while I made dinner. Rory and Julia came home a little while later, followed by August and Collin. I felt as though I hadn’t seen August in years even though it had probably been only two days. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him.
“What’s gotten into you?” he wiggled away from my grip in fake disgust.
“Nothing. I just miss you.”
“Well, please don’t get me all wrinkly,” he tsked.
I playfully tried to shove him away but he held on to me, and hugged me back.
I pulled out some more ingredients from the fridge and made two huge lasagnas, a salad and an Italian loaf. We all sat down together and ate. Max sat on Ari’s lap, refusing to let go of him for even a second.
After dinner, Ari called his dad while I found a kid’s movie on Netflix that Max could watch.
With a handful of spare blankets and pillows, I made Max a little bed on the couch and we all lounged around and watched the movie with him.
Ari was on the phone for a good hour with his dad, which was unusual. Andy came over all the time in the evenings to hang out so I just assumed he would hang up the phone and walk over; he must have still been tied up at work. I noticed Ari from the corner of my eye; he put down his phone, pinched the bridge of his nose and walked toward the French doors by the patio. I snuck away from the living room unnoticed and walked with him out onto the sun porch. He seemed to be distraught over something.
“They think her cancer is back,” he said matter-of-factly. “That’s why my mom has been so moody. She doesn’t want anyone to know yet, but I guess she hasn’t been feeling well. She saw a specialist in L.A. today and they should get the test results back in a week. Dad said she went to baio, right after I left, to tell me about the cancer. Apparently, she was pretty unhappy to find me not there.”
“Oh, Ari, I am so sorry.”
He pulled me onto his lap and we sat together and cried.
“I told my dad we would keep Max for now until she is feeling better. He’s going to bring a bag of Max’s things over tomorrow before work.”
“Ok,” I agreed with a bit of apprehension over keeping Max. We sat like this a little longer until I heard Max start to cry for Ari. We got up and went into the living room. Rory was holding Max and bouncing him around in the air but it wasn’t really helping. Max still cried, his tears mixed in with his laughter. Ari caught him mid bounce and Max reached over and stretched his arms until he could clasp his hands behind Ari’s neck. I could tell he was getting really sleepy.
Ari got Max to calm down again and carried him into our room. He lay Max down on his side of the bed and tossed him the two-headed teddy bear we had sitting on our bedroom chair. Max giggled and I kissed him goodnight. I gave Ari a kiss and turned to leave.
Ari grabbed my hand and spun me back around.
“No, if he is going to be here for a while, we are going to make this work. I promise to wake you up if you start to scream.”
“Ari, I don’t know, he is already freaked out enough as it is and I don’t want to make matters worse.”
“Ava, stay with me,” his eyes searched mine, pleading.
After some hesitation, I agreed to stay. Ari slept between Max and me and couldn’t have been the slightest bit comfortable. Max and I both used Ari’s chest as a pillow and he had his arms stretched around us both, holding on tight.