The Moment Max Forgot Me

by Emily Ann Benedict

  Chapter Two

  We were sitting on a bench in the middle of Central Park, just like we did on every Wednesday of the year since I’d moved out of the neighborhood we’d grown up in together. Max didn’t like me going. He didn’t think it was safe for women to be alone in Central Park. Every week he’d suggest I make a reservation at a restaurant nearby, but Georgia and I both needed those few moments of fresh air after a week of living in New York. It was the only place in the city that didn’t smell like rotting garbage on hot days and exhaust on cold days. I think part of Max’s problem was he didn’t like having to eat lunch alone on Wednesday.

  But visiting with Georgia was my special time, so I always went and I always had a good time. Until the moment she said that.

  I was half way through a hotdog. It promptly got stuck in my throat and left me coughing.

  “Don’t give me that,” Georgia said like she was my mother and shook her head of auburn curls authoritatively. “You’re just trying to avoid my question.”

  I took a long gulp of water. “No,” I said hoarsely. “I’m really choking.”

  “Avoiding.” She leveled her gaze at me. Somehow she always assumed that because she was taller that meant she was older and in charge.

  I huffed loudly and took another sip of water. “In in the first place, I don’t know what you are talking about. And in the second place, your compassion is underwhelming me.”

  “Don’t know what I’m talking about?” she cried and threw up her arms. “Madeline McKenzie, you are head over heels in love with Max and you know it.”

  It was my turn to toss my head back like an authority figure sending the locks I’d long since cut short soaring. Georgia was better at it than me, but I pressed on. “Georgia, you’re being sill—”

  “For heaven sakes, Maddy! Open your eyes!”

  I sat up straight. “That reminds me. I need to schedule Max’s eye appointment. His glasses really need to be changed.”

  Georgia suddenly latched onto my shoulders and shook me. “Stop thinking like his appointment book! You’re a real woman, Maddy. One who’s verging on thirty and spends every waking moment of life working. You haven’t had a date in….in…longer than I can remember.”

  That tinged my cheeks red, but more from anger than embarrassment. What did Georgia know? She married her high school sweetheart. I never even had a high school sweetheart. Pursing my lips in a very apparent display, I yanked myself away from her grip, stood up, and straightened my skirt suit in a dignified manner.

  “Listen, Georgia,” I began, holding my hands out like I was about to officially educate her.

  “Tell me you don’t love him,” she cut in and chocked her head.

  A severe sense of frustration battered itself against my chest. “Why?”

  “If you can say you don’t love him, I’ll know I interpreted all the signs wrong and leave you alone.” She shrugged causally.

  I straighten up. That seemed easy enough. I found it remarkable that she was letting me off so easily, but I was going to take the opportunity. So, I opened my mouth and said, “Max isn’t interested in a relationship.”

  While Georgia smiled triumphantly, I gawked at myself. I honestly intended to say I didn’t love Max, but instead I repeated what I knew his opinion on the matter was. Max was married to his work. I knew that. I was okay with that. Wasn’t I?

  “You can’t say it, can you?” Georgia prodded.

  I wanted to say it. At that moment I wanted to say it desperately. Anything to shut down that all knowing smile she was giving me, but the only thing I could come up with was that sense of frustration butting its head against my insides.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. I think I twitched when I said it, but at least I’d come up with something. But instead of finding relief, a sigh of sadness traveled through me. Georgia’s smile melted into motherly concern.

  “Why don’t you just tell him?” she suggested.

  I was looking down, staring at the tips of my patent pumps, but my gaze was inward. Did I love Max? I’d never thought of that before. No, I’d never allowed myself to think of that before. A twinge of pain touched my chest in response.

  “Can’t you just try?” George continued to press.

  I finally sank back down to the bench. “I couldn’t. He wouldn’t respect me anymore and frankly I don’t think I would respect myself.”

  I couldn’t decide if I was actually admitting to myself that I loved Max or just thinking of this in a hypothetical sort of way. Maybe that was it.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she shot back.

  “You don’t know Max.”

  "I feel like I do from the way you talk about him.”

  Did I really talk all that much about Max? I quickly shook my head. “Well, anyway—”

  “Couldn’t you just hint it to him?”

  At that I had to laugh. “What do you want me to do, Georgia? Drop my hankie as I walk by him?”

  “It worked for me.”

  “You were sixteen!” I made a face at her and she returned it.

  “All I’m saying is—”

  "No more.” I quickly got back up and held my hands in front of her. “The fact that I love Max is really unimportant at the moment. We’ve got a ton of work right now and he probably wouldn’t even notice if I smothered him in hankies.”

  Georgia’s face lit up with an ear to ear smile. It made me feel lost and confused.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You just said that you loved him.”

  The ground felt unstable. I was sure Central Park was experiencing a freak earthquake.

  With a little laugh, Georgia added, “It’s not a bad thing, Maddy.”

  My eyes burned just a touch as I looked back up at her. “Yes, it is,” I replied softly. “Because he’ll never understand.”

  I picked up my purse and spun around. Georgia was calling out for me to wait, but I was making too much headway to turn back now. It’s remarkable how easily I’d adapted to walking in heels. I could practically run in them. And that’s just what I did.

  I made it to the bus stop in a record amount of time and hopped aboard without making eye contact with anyone. I didn’t want them to see that my eyes were swimming. Not that anyone noticed. New Yorkers were blessed with a peculiar peripheral blindness. If something wasn’t in their immediate focus, it didn’t matter. I was grateful for that, but just in case there was some West Coast touchy-feely tourist on board, I kept my head down.

  The whole ride was spent trying to put my feelings back in line. It was like trying to fit every shoe I ever owned into a Tupperware container. But at least my eyes weren’t blurry by the time I stepped off the bus and started the walk to the building our office was in.

  The building was a bit brownstone like. Old in the glorious sort of way. We liked it better than the shimmering towers of cold glass some offices called home. I’d say it had character and Max would laugh and agree.

  Max had been invited to join larger law firms from time to time over the years. He was quite successful and having his name attached to a partnership would have made his career even more illustrious, but he always turned it down. He said he liked things the way they were. That always made me happy. I was a part of the way things were.

  I stood outside of our building and stared up, counting off the windows until I came to the one I knew was his.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I whispered.

  The wind seemed to pick up the words and whip them through the trees over my head, scattering a slight shower of dead leaves on me. I sighed and brushed them off my shoulders. It was time to go back to work. So, I headed up the steps, unaware that tragedy was about to strike my life in such a strange way I wouldn’t be the same person the next time I walked through those doors.