The Right Fit

by Daphne Dubois

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Antony couldn’t remember who brought the beer, but the locker room was full of cases being ripped open as bottles were passed around. Marc stood on a chair, hoisting the trophy above his head. Beer sloshed over the brim, raining down on Marc’s head, already wet with sweat. His smile was infectious, he was ecstatic, bursting with energy.

  Antony could feel the vibrations of excitement through the floor, the whole locker room was buzzing. They’d won the President’s Cup, in overtime.

  Marc Laurent scores!

  The roar from the stands had been deafening. Antony watched from the bench as Marc won the title for the team. That’s my big brother. The swell of pride was overwhelming, but even greater was the sense of relief—a scout had come to watch tonight.

  At twenty, Marc was set to be one of the younger players to be picked for the professional draft next month. It was something his parents had been investing in and grooming him for since he took to the ice. As a kid, Marc skated circles around everyone else his own age. Words like ‘phenom’ were handed out regularly.

  No one could touch him; he was in a league of his own.

  Antony followed behind, not as good, but good enough to make it to the Quebec Major Junior League with him. Their parents had put every cent they made into hockey. But the whole family knew—hell, the whole town knew, Marc would be a hockey star one day.

  And that day was finally around the corner.

  Still, Marc treated Antony like an equal, taking the time to help him practice on the skills he needed to develop.

  “Why so intense?” Antony had asked him once, doubled over and breathless from the tedious drills. “You going to pros, not me.”

  “You’re my backup. I don’t trust those Russians.” He’d winked. “I want my brother on my team.”

  Antony looked away, embarrassed by his brother’s inflated belief in his abilities. Secretly, the idea of playing with Marc on a professional hockey team was terrifying. The thought of having his life consumed by the sport he loved as a kid but now resented, gradually grew from being tolerable to almost cripplingly depressive.

  Antony wanted to keep playing, but not every day, like he’d been doing for the last three years in the major junior league. Now he was ready for a life outside the rink.

  They lugged their gear bags over their shoulders as they made their way outside. The parking lot was almost empty, Marc had kept the party going in the locker room, making toast after toast. The girls lined up outside in the hallway, took another half hour of their time, getting autographs and pictures with Marc. They were always beautiful; full lips, perfect hair, and smelling like flowers instead of the sour odor of the hockey locker rooms. Marc was everyone’s favorite. Antony watched as more than a few phone numbers got tucked into his gear bag.

  Their parents had left earlier, promising to get a feast ready back home.

  “Smell that little brother?” Marc tilted up his face to the winter sky, the stars quickly being erased with black clouds. “A future of unparalleled success awaits.”

  “Finally. I’m tired of you riding my coattails,” Antony teased, he turned and waited for Marc to open the trunk of the car. All Antony wanted to do was go home and sleep undisturbed, until it was summer.

  “You too, oui?” he said, giving him curious look. “We’ll always play together.” Marc patted his pockets then pulled out the keys. They jangled and dropped to the ground, lost in the snow for a moment before Antony found them with the tip of his stick.

  Marc swayed on his feet. “Maybe we wait and call cab?” he suggested quietly.

  Antony calculated the time they’d have to wait. “I’ll drive,” he said, hooking a finger into the key ring.

  “You sure?”

  “Oui,” Antony opened the trunk and tossed in his gear and stick. He could feel Marc sizing him up. “I only had few beers,” he said.

  “Oui, but you’re cheap drunk.” Marc dropped his gear on the ground along with his stick and folded his arms in front of his chest.

  Antony wondered if they would have to fight this one out like they did when they were younger. Like wrestling puppies, their mother had described them. Their father had spent more than a few afternoons patching up holes they’d left in the walls as a result of their goofing around.

  Antony shifted his weight in the snow, a numbness had begun to crawl up his calves. “Can we go home, please?” he asked. “Or do we have to wait for more fans to come by and get their tits autographed?”

  Marc blinked back at him, his expression unchanged. “D’accord,” he said, making his way to the passenger side. “You drive.”

  Antony looked at the gear bag left on the ground. He gave the bag a quick kick with his boot, then hefted Marc’s equipment into the back of the car.

  The first few minutes of the drive were in silence and then Marc said softly and with great astonishment, “Do you really think I’ll get to autograph someone’s tits someday?”

  Antony turned to his brother and the serious countenance was enough to make them both burst out laughing.

  “You’re pig,” Antony said.

  “It came out of your mouth, mon frère! Who are you thinking of, hmm? Whose tits do you want to autograph?” He jabbed him in the shoulder.

  The wheel moved out of his loose grip, the car swerved on the snowy road. “Fuck!” Antony said, righting the direction.

  Marc laughed and turned toward the back seat. “Half those girls tonight would have taken you around back of arena, no problem.”

  “Don’t be crude.” Antony’s pulse was racing, he blinked a few times. How many beers did he have? The numbness had settled in his feet completely. He pushed his foot down on the gas and the car quickened. They’d be home in ten minutes.

  “Be careful.” Marc grunted then unbuckled his seatbelt reaching for something in the back. “Sometimes those girls are crazy. Patrick has a stalker.”

  “Patrick has herpes.”

  Marc snorted as he slipped back into his seat. An open beer was in his hand. “Great to have my own driver.” He tipped back the bottle and took a long sip.

  The car grew quiet again; the only sounds were the swooshing of the wipers against the cloud of thickening snow flurries. “I can’t believe it’s going to happen,” Marc’s voice was full of awe, like when they were kids watching hockey on Saturday night. “I’m going to be in the pros.”

  Antony watched his brother, staring out the windshield, smiling like he was watching his future play before him, one success after another. “I’ll be able to take care of everyone,” he said. “Dad can retire, I’ll pay off mortgage, buy them condo in Florida…”

  Marc’s voice changed again, no longer full of anticipation, but humble gratitude. “Je dois te remercier, Antony. Merci. If you weren’t by my side, I’d never made it this far.”

  “Ne sois pas stupide.” Antony felt the blush creep up his neck. His hands were sweaty with sudden embarrassment. “You have the talent.”

  “Mais, vous allez le coeur, but you have all the heart.” He leaned closer and Antony could smell beer on his breath. “You made me realize why talent is important. I’d be loser like Patrick, using my time to score with chicks instead of practice. You keep me in line.”

  Antony continued to stare at his brother, unprepared for the outpouring of appreciation. “I’m proud of you,” he said. “I’ll always be proud of—”

  “Argh! Shit!” Marc’s face warped into a scream as he grabbed for the wheel.

  Directly in front of them a curve appeared, dangerously sharp. Antony hadn’t been watching the road. He spun the wheel, but swerved on the icy surface. They were already off the road and airborne before Antony knew what was happening.

  Everything was smooth as the car breezed through the air, then the sickening dip of the hood as they began to topple downward. There was a crush of a thousand fists and then nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

/>   Marc moaned, lying crumpled on the upside down hood of the car. His face was covered in blood. “Mes jambes…I can’t feel my legs.”

  Antony was upside down, still buckled in his seat, his eyes bursting with pressure. He wasn’t sure how he managed to get them both out, but Antony dragged his screaming brother from the minivan and partway up the slope. A haphazard trail of red stained the pristine snow. At the top of the steep embankment above them, a flash of lights slowed, stopped, and then voices called out to them.

  “Ici! Ici! Down here!” Antony had Marc in his arms, both of them covered in blood.

  “I can’t feel my legs,” Marc said, starting to shiver.

  “Tu vas bien. You’ll be okay. Hold on.” Antony had his eyes trained on the silhouettes making their way down the hill.

  “No,” Marc grabbed Antony’s collar and pulled him closer. “I was driving. Tell them I was driving.”

  “Stop it!” Antony started to cry. “You’re all right.”

  Marc tilted his head back and looked at the sky. “I can’t feel my legs,” he repeated. “Mes jambes…mes jambes.”

  Antony held him closer, letting Marc scream into his chest, his muscles racked with shaking.

  The police and the paramedics arrived at the same time. Marc spoke first. “C’est moi. I was driving,” he said between gritted teeth, trying to hold back the tears. Even amid the disorder and panic, he spoke clearly, making sure the police heard him. Antony held a small gauze to the cut on his forehead.

  As he watched his brother’s body being strapped to a flat board with a neck brace in place, the first inkling life was never going to be the same slammed into Antony as violent and definite as the crash itself.

  A blackness crept in from the periphery.

  “Antony!” A thudding grew louder. “Open the door!”

  The clock on the dashboard was too blurry to read. Marc pounded on the outside of the door, red faced and breathing hard.

  With a groan, Antony grabbed the keys and opened the door.

  Marc wheeled back as he stepped out. “Qu’est ce qui c’est passé? What happened?” he asked. “You were out cold.”

  “Non, just weak.” Antony squinted at his watch. He’d been in the car for ten minutes.

  The blotching pattern traveled up Marc’s neck. “You need hospital. Get checked.”

  “I need to see Maxine.” Antony pushed by his brother.

  “She just left.”

  “She was here? Why did she leave?”

  Marc dropped his gaze to Antony’s shoulder. “To look for you.”

  Ignoring his brother, Antony made his way back up to their apartment. He picked up the phone, still on the hall table. She answered on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” the quiver in her voice surprised him.

  “Uh, car wouldn’t start. Marc said you left. Where are you?”

  “In a cab in the middle of a snow storm.”

  Marc wheeled past him into the kitchen. He began to put away the dishes that had been laid out.

  Maxine started to cry softly into the phone. “He told me things…”

  Antony’s hard gaze focused on his brother.

  “He told me you use me before every game for luck—”

  He closed his eyes. “Please, I need to see you.”

  “—and that you were drinking the night of Marc’s accident and that you were the driver.” She was quiet for what seemed like a hundred heartbeats then she asked, “Is that true?”

  “Je t’en supplie,” he begged again. “Come back. Let’s not do this over phone.”

  There was another pause. “I was hoping you’d say he was lying. That he’s got a personality disorder or something.” The quivering determination in her tone broke his heart. “He’s lying, right? Please tell me he’s lying.”

  He swallowed hard. “Non, pas exactement. Please, I beg you…je t’en supplie!” An ache had begun to grow inside his chest. “I need to see you.”

  “No.” She took a few gulps of air then sniffed. “I’m staying with Carmine. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  After she hung up, Antony charged down the hallway and slammed the door to his bedroom. The picture of him and Marc in their hockey jerseys, taken a few days before the accident, sat on his dresser mocking him. It could have been a picture of two strangers. Antony had no idea what the hell happened to those brothers.

  There was a knock at the door. “Maybe call cab and go to emergency?” Marc suggested.

  A surge of frustrated anger exploded from Antony. He picked up the photo and heaved it at the door. The glass shattered, making a terrific sound. Antony breathed through his nose, wanting to punch the wall as well. There was a shift outside and then Marc moved away, the wheels barely making a sound on the carpet.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Maxine placed the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon on the oak occasional table in front of Carmine and took the squashy chintz armchair across from him. Her stockings were draped across the radiator, still wet from the snow she trudged through when the cab dropped her off a block short because the street was too slippery to turn down.

  Carmine had welcomed her with his usual warm charm and fashionable wit. He’d listened patiently while she sobbed what Marc had vindictively told her, and then when Antony all but confirmed his brother’s accusations.

  Instead of coming up with a story of heartbreak from his past or a quick solution of vengeance, he simply offered her a change of clothes—a long cream sweater and silk pajama pants. He’d turned off his Judy Garland movie and offered to make her something to eat and, of course, drink.

  But Maxine needed to move about, keep her mind from slipping into a spiral of self-pity and offered to cook from them both. Besides, Carmine’s chest cold had rendered him breathless with even the task of getting out of the chair to answer the door.

  They sat in the warm cozy living room in his apartment above the store, unlit candles were scattered around the living, anticipating a power outage. The wind had picked up outside blowing waves of snow against the glass.

  Carmine used his fork to push the eggs around the plate. “Too bad I didn’t have any avocado,” he said, reaching for his gin and tonic. “It really jazzes up the eggs.” He regarded Maxine from under the soft glow of the fringed Tiffany floor lamp.

  She swallowed a fork full of eggs, not even bothering to chew. The glob slipped down her throat. “What am I going to do?” she asked the plate.

  “You have to let him explain his side.”

  “I don’t think I’ll like his side,” Maxine admitted. “I wanted him to deny all of it, to say his brother was a pathological liar. There’s obviously some truth to what Marc said.” She winced and put down her fork, nauseous at the memory of his words.

  “Mistakes are human,” he said. “It’s better to forgive and to live, then you can live to love.”

  She groaned. “I need real advice, Carmine. Not some generic inscription printed on a fake river stone.”

  “You’re so unromantic,” he chastised. “You complicate things. Make your choices based on your own happiness, it worked for Ambrosia.”

  “I’m not a drag queen trying to sell out the Jazz Club every Thursday night,” she replied. A dull silence fell over the room. The storm howled outside, shaking the windows. “Sorry. I’m rather hateful right now.”

  He began to nibble on a piece of bacon. “I think I need to sell the shop,” he said. “I can’t handle the work load anymore.”

  Maxine felt her jaw slacken. “What am I supposed to do when I need advice? And no one has the connections you do. If you sell the shop it will be turned into one of those Dollar Stores that smell like dusty plastic.”

  He made a face. “What does dusty plastic smell like?”

  “Fake dog shit.” She put down her plate. “I can help more, and Westley, too. Please don’t sell the store.”

  He smiled and a few years came off his wrinkled face. “Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.” There was a th
oughtful pause in his voice then he said, “Do you know what I love most about the store? It’s having someone come in and find that prefect dress—that right fit.” He poked the eggs with his fork again, taking a dainty bite. “Have you ever noticed you always gravitate toward the clothes that are too small? You still have the black Ralph Lauren in your closet, right? How dusty does that smell?”

  “I still plan on losing that thirty…or maybe forty pounds”

  “Why? That red dress downstairs is waiting for you.”

  Maxine tucked her feet under her, leaning into the pillows of the armchair. “What are you trying to say, Carmine? Come out with it, you’ve got your Dumbledore face on. I’m ready for the life lesson.”

  “I’m wondering if you’re using your weight as a mechanism to rationalize your life decisions. You’re not basing your choices on your happiness, honey. You are, in fact, denying yourself happiness because you think you’re too fat.”

  “Too fat for happiness? Sounds like a new nail polish line,” she said, glumly.

  His expression warmed. “Love equals freedom, the freedom to be who you are. If someone is really in love with you, they won’t try and change you. They’re your right fit.”

  The right fit.

  Maxine took one of the cushions and hugged it to her chest. She thought Antony was the right fit, but now she felt like he’d put a stake through her chest, pinning her heart in place, stopping it mid-beat.

  That’s what you get, the small voice from the darkest parts of her heart whispered, for thinking someone like him could fall in love with someone like you.

  ****

  The next morning Maxine yawned under a pile of quilts, the trundle of the snowplow outside had woken her. She blinked at the ceiling a few times, there were tiny sparkles on the ceiling catching the sunlight now streaming through the open drapes. Carmine had mixed the iridescent flakes into the paint.

  “It makes me feel like all my wishes are hovering there, ready to ascend,” he’d told her when she first noticed them a few years ago.

  Carmine was all about the anticipation.

  He came into the living room with a cup of coffee for her. He was dressed and the color was high in his cheeks. She sat up and tried to tuck a bushy wave of hair away from her face. “You’re looking better,” she said, taking the steaming mug.