Leave it to Max (Lori's Classic Love Stories Volume 1)

by Lori Handeland

  She left the room without waiting for his answer. Which was good, because he wasn’t going to give her one. If she could ignore questions, then so could he.

  Max had to see Garrett Stark again. Even if he did end up grounded for life.

  Chapter 7

  Again turned out to be the next day. Usually school sucked and Max hated it. But after breaking his arm he’d been a hero with his tales of the cemetery followed by a trip to X ray.

  Just showed how much difference a day could make. One day a hero and the next he was back to being weird Max, the wussy, or any one of a hundred other names. Kids were mean, and some were meaner than others.

  Someday he’d be bigger and stronger and smarter than all of them, and then they’d be sorry. Unfortunately, not today.

  Even his teacher spoke sharply. “Max, quit wool-gathering. I’m over here!”

  All the other kids snickered. Max gathered a lot of wool. It wasn’t that he didn’t understand what was going on in class. It was just that what was going on in his head was a whole lot better.

  When lunch recess came and Sammy, his best and only friend, snapped, “The only reason you got that cast anyway is ’cause you’re such a spasmoid,” Max decided he needed school as much as he needed bigger feet.

  He walked off the playground when no one was looking and went to make a new best friend.

  *

  The un-book was better than ever.

  After Garrett perused his single page, he lit a ceremonial fire, and as it burned he contemplated dancing around the ashtray. If he thought dancing would help, he’d do it. But not even the usual rituals worked these days, so why start a new one?

  The only thing that did help was Max, and Garrett figured he had as much chance of seeing his son as he had of finishing the book on time. But he left the back door open anyway, just in case. After all, the kid seemed to have a knack for turning up exactly where he wasn’t supposed to be.

  Garrett wandered into the dining room. He’d planned to burn the coffin, or at the very least haul it outside and chop the thing into firewood. But when he put his hands on the wood, he suddenly had the first good idea he’d had in days.

  A tablecloth and a vase would make Andrew’s joke into Garrett’s. He still needed to figure out suitable retaliation for this “gift,” but pretending the coffin was a table would be fun. Andrew was so single-minded, he probably wouldn’t get it, which would only make things funnier for Garrett.

  As if on cue, the phone rang. Sometimes Andrew could be downright spooky, and he didn’t even try.

  The phone had been ringing on the hour since 8:00 a.m. that morning. His agent was getting nervous. Garrett had no doubt that sooner rather than later he’d have a houseguest he didn’t want. What better way to greet Andrew than with a coffee table that doubled as an eternal resting place? Garrett was going to need the latter as soon as Andrew found out the truth, anyway.

  He started laughing, and then he couldn’t stop. Hysteria did that to a fellow. Maybe if he hid inside the coffin, Andrew would never find him.

  Garrett stopped laughing and swiped at his eyes. That wasn’t a half-bad idea. Not the hiding, but the getting inside.

  New places and new experiences often gave him new ideas. If lying in a coffin wasn’t a new place and a new experience, he didn’t know what was. Garrett ought to get a doozy of an idea out of this.

  He approached the wooden box, more captivated by his crazy concept with every tick of the clock. What would it feel like to lie inside?

  Garrett hadn’t felt such a sweeping need to know in quite a while—that blessed niggling of nosiness that kept him writing hour after hour, day after day, until he uncovered all there was to know in the dark depths of a story and laid the secrets out for everyone, including himself, to examine.

  “Well, hell, now I’ve got to do it,” he said as he opened the lid and climbed in.

  The coffin had been built for a corpse of years past—when men didn’t top six feet. Garrett’s knees kept the lid from closing completely.

  “Not quite my size, Andrew. So sorry, old chum.”

  The laughter bubbled up again, but he squelched it. He wanted to absorb the experience. Somehow, someday, in some future book, he’d need to know what being in a coffin felt like, and he might never get another chance to lie in one if he didn’t do it now.

  “Smells like wet wood.” His knuckles scraped the side, and he hissed as splinters threatened. “Scratchy. Unfinished.” Shifting against the pain in his spine, he winced. “And hard. Could use a pillow if not a mattress. Not very restful, but the usual occupant wouldn’t notice. If I could get the lid closed, would there be any light in here?”

  Garrett twisted and turned until his knees scrunched in sideways. The lid thumped shut. Something clicked. “Uh-oh.”

  He pushed on the lid. He was stuck, all right. The sound of his heart filled the small area. Was the space actually getting smaller? Or was he getting bigger?

  Now he was hysterical. And hot, cramped, hungry and… He admitted it—scared.

  He put some muscle behind his next push. The top jiggled but held. He slammed his palms against the top again and again. Regardless, the coffin remained firmly shut.

  “They sure don’t build ’em like this anymore.” His voice sounded normal, and that calmed him a bit. Too bad the latch was built better than the body. Sunlight streamed through tiny cracks at the corners.

  “If I were undead, I’d be dead.”

  Garrett stifled the urge to laugh. He had to squelch it or he might never stop. He also had to stop panicking or he might do something crazy. Make that crazier. For a person trapped inside a coffin, any loss of control would be very bad. He needed to think.

  If he could use his legs, he might be able to bust through the top. Unfortunately, he couldn’t because he’d crunched his legs in sideways to fit.

  Garrett had gotten out of sticky situations before. As a child he’d always been into, on top of or underneath something. His father had said his infernal curiosity would get him killed one day. Looked like James, Sr., was right again.

  Panic threatened once more, but Garrett quashed it. He’d survived worse than this. Worse than this had made him thrive. Facing fear was what Garrett Stark did best, mainly because the J.J. inside him was afraid of a lot.

  He wrote about his nightmares so he could own them, then lived life as if there was nothing on this earth that he feared. A lie, but then, Garrett told lies for a living.

  In truth, there was one fear he’d never conquer. His fear of failing at everything that mattered. He’d made a good start at letting that fear own him.

  Livy hated the ground he walked on. His son thought he was dead. The career that gave him the only sense of worth he’d ever known was about to crash and burn. And Garrett had just discovered what claustrophobia felt like.

  Maybe he could use that in a book, too. If he lived.

  “Breathe deep. Plenty of air. Just not enough room.”

  Remain calm. Eventually someone would find him. When the smell reached the street.

  Garrett cursed and slammed his hands once more against the lid, as if it would actually work this time. Pain was his reward. He rocked the coffin back and forth a while, to no avail.

  In the distance, the phone began to ring. Andrew was going to be pissed when Garrett turned up dead.

  “I’m not going to be too happy about it, either.”

  He swiped at the sweat tickling his forehead and only ended up scraping his knuckles along the wood, gaining the slivers he’d merely imagined before.

  “Whatcha doin’?”

  The voice was close enough to make Garrett start. The nervous sweat turned cold.

  “Max?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Garrett’s panic receded. He was no longer alone and in imminent danger of dying. But as the fear ebbed, the embarrassment seeped in. Maybe he should just stay in here and die rather than have his son see him like this.

  He’d
been hoping Max would show up, but he’d had dreams of them doing fun, father-and-son things, so Max could get to know him, come to like him; then eventually Max would love him. But how could a boy ever respect the father he found stuffed in his dining room coffin?

  In the end, Garrett didn’t have a choice. The latch clicked and the lid lifted. Max peered down at him, sweet face scrunched like a dried-apple doll.

  Garrett sat up so fast Max leaped back. The lid of the coffin hit Garrett in the head.

  Max giggled. “Stuff like that happens to me all the time.”

  Rubbing the bump, Garrett got out of the coffin. “Me, too.”

  “Really?” Max’s smile faded and he cradled his cast with his good hand. “I kinda thought once I grew up I wouldn’t be such a loser.”

  Anger made the bump on Garrett’s head hurt more. “Who said you were a loser?”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped. “Everyone. Nobody likes me.”

  “A whole bunch of people signed your cast.”

  “The kids thought it was neat for one day, and then they didn’t.” He rubbed his finger across the names. “Mostly nurses and doctors signed. They all love me. Mainly, Mom says, because I keep them in business. But nobody likes me just for me. Except Mom and Rosie, and they kind of have to.”

  “I like you.”

  Max tilted his head and peered at Garrett through his bright, white bangs. “You do?”

  “What’s not to like? You can walk and talk and pee on your own, right?”

  Max snorted.

  Garrett had heard bathroom humor worked with young males pretty well. Looked as though he’d heard right. “And you’re polite.”

  “I came into your house without being invited again. That’s rude.”

  “You saved my life. I’ll let it slide.”

  His eyes went wide. “I did?”

  Garrett nodded at the coffin. “I was fooling around and I got locked in.”

  “That sounds like something I’d do. Why’d you do it?”

  “I wanted to know what it was like. Inside.”

  “Why?”

  “So I could describe it for a book.” Put that way, what he’d done sounded silly. It so often did, which was why Garrett spent most of his time alone.

  But Max didn’t stare at him as if Garrett had slipped a gear. Instead, the boy eyed the wooden box warily. “What was it like?”

  “Not bad. Until I realized I couldn’t get out.” Which reminded Garrett of something.

  He slipped into the kitchen, and returned with a hammer then knocked the offending latch off the coffin. “Why would they put one of those on there, anyway?”

  “To keep the wanderers in?”

  “Wanderers?”

  “Undead. Zombies. Ghouls. Spirit walkers. That stuff.”

  Since Max appeared dead serious, Garrett kept a straight face. He could remember when the surreal had seemed very real—a year ago when he’d last been writing a book. How he wished reality would blur that way again soon.

  “I doubt a latch would be of any use if that stuff really wanted to get out”

  The expression Max turned on him stunned Garrett. A smile of joy, eyes full of adoration—the combination pure hope. What had Garrett done to gain such a reward?

  “You’re not going to tell me there’s no such thing as zombies and the rest?’’

  The boy had his father’s imagination as well as his eyes, and Livy was like James, Sr., more than Garrett would have liked. If he hadn’t planned to stick around a while for his son before, he certainly would now.

  “Why would I tell you that?”

  “Because you’re a grown-up and you’ve lost your angel eyes.”

  “What are those?”

  “Did you ever see a baby babbling to the wall or the ceiling or the air?”

  “I haven’t seen many babies.” Thanks to Livy. She might be mad at him for leaving, but he was getting madder by the minute that she hadn’t found some way to drag him back.

  “I haven’t, either. But Rosie says babies can still see the angels ’cause they only left ’em a little bit ago. Once they start talkin’ and listenin’, they stop seein’ angels. Most babies anyway. Some, like me, still see things that other people don’t.”

  “You get to watch a lot of angels, Max?”

  Garrett could almost hear the kid wondering if this grown-up could be trusted with the truth. Garrett held his breath.

  “Not a single one.”

  Interesting. “What do you see?”

  “Nothin’.”

  Garrett frowned. “But you said—”

  “Sometimes you don’t see with these—” He pointed to his eyes. “You know with this—” His finger tapped his temple.

  Garret knew things there, too, and none of them were real. At least, the way the rest of the world judged truth and lies. Max looked at things the way no one else did. Or maybe the way no one did anymore. But maybe the way they could again. If they knew how.

  That wispy idea Garrett had first heard in the graveyard, then lost, now hovered like a mist over the river at dawn—a teasing lilting presence just out of his reach.

  “When you go off like that, are you knowin’ with this?” Max rapped on his forehead with a knuckle.

  Poof, went that wisp of a whisper.

  At the sight of his son, Garrett couldn’t care less. “Uh-huh.”

  “Can you teach me to be like you?”

  “We already talked about this. I’m still very much un-undead.”

  “I mean, can you teach me not to be afraid of stupid stuff that isn’t there?”

  To Garrett there wasn’t anything better to be afraid of than what wasn’t there. Like his book.

  “How do you know I’m not afraid?”

  “Are you?”

  He couldn’t very well admit to his son that he was scared of just about everything—love, hate, Max, his mother, the next day, the next page, the rest of his life.

  Loser.

  Garrett’s inner voice was downright nasty sometimes.

  “Mr. Stark?”

  He shook off the voice and smiled at his son. “You can call me Garrett.”

  “My mom won’t like that.”

  Max’s mom didn’t like much these days, which made Garrett wonder. “Is it okay for you to be here?”

  “Until four.” He waved his cast in dismissal of minor annoyances. “Please tell me how not to be afraid. I’ve never met anyone who knew what I was talkin’ about.”

  Garrett had spent a lifetime with no one who understood all the strange yet wonderful things that went around in his mind and flowed onto the page. Oh, Andrew loved how Garrett’s mind worked, but he didn’t understand it, or even care to. As long as Garrett kept using it.

  So how could Garrett deny the entreaty in his son’s voice, his son’s eyes?

  “You say you’re afraid of stupid stuff that isn’t there?”

  “All the time.”

  “But if you think it’s there, then, isn’t it?”

  “No one else knows about it.”

  “Then maybe they’re stupid.”

  Max’s mouth made a little O of surprise.

  “Don’t ever discount the magic of your imagination, Max. It’s a gift few people have and fewer appreciate.”

  “That’s what Rosie says.”

  “I’ll have to meet Rosie.”

  “She’ll like you. Especially the hair.”

  “Your mom didn’t like it.”

  “Mom doesn’t like much.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Yeah.” Max sighed. “Did you ever feel like you were dreamin’ even when you knew you were awake?”

  Garrett loved it when that happened. Those books just wrote themselves. “That’s the best time.”

  “Not when it’s scary stuff.”

  “Define scary.”

  “I feel things hoverin’ just out of my sight. And if I turn around, they’ll be gone. But I’ll hear ’em laughing.”

 
Garret hated when that happened.

  “You know why I write books?”

  “Because you can?”

  “There is that.” Although not at the moment. “I learned that to make a fear go away you have to own it.”

  Max appeared intrigued. “How?”

  “By facing it.”

  “How?”

  The kid never stopped with the questions.

  “If you’re afraid of spiders, pick one up. The dark? Sit in it for a while—it’s not so bad. Coffins bother you—” he winked “—hop on in.”

  “And things that aren’t there, even when they are?”

  “Write about them. Conquer them in a book and they go away for good.”

  “I like to write stories.”

  Garrett resisted the urge to run his hand over Max’s electric-blond hair. How could they be so much alike when they’d only just met?

  “Stories are what I do best.” Max glanced at his cast “Next to fallin’ down, anyways. Does writin’ about what scares you really work?”

  “So far. In a book I’m the god of my own little universe. I can take every nightmare and stomp all over it.”

  “Like Godzilla and Tokyo.”

  “The fifty-foot woman and every man she could find.”

  “King Kong and New York City.”

  “Exactly. Where do you think all those moviemakers get their ideas?”

  Max’s smile started in his eyes, then spread all over his face. “From things that no one else sees.”

  “You’re not weird or crazy. And you’re not alone, Max.”

  The boy slipped his hand into Garrett’s just as he had the first day. “Not anymore.”

  Chapter 8

  “You never called me back last night.”

  Livy shut the door of her office. “Good morning to you, too.”

  “It’s afternoon,” Kim pointed out.

  Livy glanced at her watch. “I didn’t realize I’d been in court that long. Lucky me.”

  Kim leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on? Or do I have to guess?”

  There was no way Kim was ever going to guess this one, and Livy wasn’t telling, either.

  “Nothing’s going on.” She breezed through Kim’s office and into her own, put her briefcase on the table and yanked out what she wanted. She didn’t need to look up to know that Kim had followed. “I had to leave early. People do it all the time.”