Maxine

by Claire Wilkshire

  They’re not just lonely: they’re whiners. No wonder they don’t have any friends.

  Sometimes I think if Barb had more people to hang out with— You keep your distance, Max. If you start letting her drop in for the odd cup of tea you’ll have to move and change your phone number. She’ll suck you into that black vortex of nuttiness and you’ll never be able to crawl out.

  Maxine dips her head down low and sticks both arms out at shoulder level, palms up. Kyle deposits the warm fur on her hand. It sniffs. Maxine turns her head slightly to the left and sees the golden ball scooting towards her face. She ducks and giggles as teeny claws poke through her sweater, scritch across the back of her neck, and along the other arm. Kyle drops a bit of lettuce into her palm.

  Nice work, Edmund! He retrieves the hamster carefully.

  He’s fantastic, Ky. Can I stroke his fur? Hi Edmund. Hi Edmund you little furry gold nugget. He’s really soft and beautiful. How long do you have him for?

  Cody gets back next week so I can have him till then.

  Fabulous. Look I have to take off now, I’ll see you tomorrow, buddy.

  Maxine leaves Kyle to put the hamster away and tiptoes along the hall so as not to wake Dave, who’s having a nap, Kyle said. On the kitchen table, where she left it, is Maxine’s mini-backpack, except that it is unzippered now and Dave’s hand is in it. Her keys and wallet are on the table. Dave doesn’t move for a second and then he picks up the keys and wallet and puts them back in the bag. He fastens the zipper and slides the bag across the table in silence. Maxine picks it up and backs over to the front porch, never taking her eyes off Dave, who shows no expression but bats the fingers of one hand fast against his thigh. With one foot, Maxine feels behind for her shoes, draws them in front of her and slips them on. Dave looks as if he is about to say something, but he doesn’t.

  See you, Ky, Maxine yells suddenly. Dave jumps, and then the screen door is slamming behind her.

  Frédérique picked up her mail from the department office and bought a coffee at the Kiosk. She read a memo in the elevator. From halfway down the hall she could see that her office door was ajar. She could see this from the angle of the strip of light on the floor in front of the door. She had left the door closed but not locked, as she always did. She looked around for the cleaner’s cart and whispered to her boy galaxy, “Who’s that, Peg?” Frédérique approached the door quietly and then walked quickly in. Charles Blackmore, Dr. Quantum Mechanics, three doors down, had a hand in the top drawer of her desk.

  “Oh! Frédérique! What a surprise!”

  “Indeed,” said Frédérique, who kept walking toward her desk.

  Her voice was like iron.

  “I can’t find my internal phone book. I know it’s silly but I have to call—”

  “It’s on-line, you idiot,” Frédérique snarled. She reached over and slammed the drawer shut.

  “Sorry, Frédérique, of course it is, I—”

  She sat and swung her chair so her back was to him. She took a sip of coffee and started typing something into the computer.

  Chuck Blackmore was a nitwit. He was the least of her concerns.

  No wind. Outside Maxine’s kitchen window the branches of trees look frail against dirty grey cloud cover. The branches of these maples don’t stick straight out, the way they can on a pine: they reach thinly upward, dozens of slim branches like hairs, as if God had turned on a hair dryer at the base of each tree and pointed it upward.

  What Gail loves about aerobics. There’s a discussion that could last a while. The Lycra’s definitely part of it. The sweat. She loves the look of that sheen like baby oil all over her face and arms and neck and everyone else’s. It’s pretty sexy.

  It’s hot, Max, she says. Think about it. There’s a reason sex is associated with heat. Cold is not sexy. With an aerobics class you can evoke sultriness in February.

  But what had Gail steaming up her car windows on the way back from the park the other day, what had turned her temporarily against the world, was hiring. Specifically the fact that the gym has hired a new fitness person to take over several of the classes taught by long-time freelancers such as Gail. Part of Gail knows that it makes administrative sense to have one person taking care of a lot of things rather than a checklist of part-timers flitting hither and yon. The other part’s pressing too hard on the accelerator. Maxine notices her own foot pushing down on what would be the brake if she were in the driver’s seat.

  Little cow, says Gail. She looks, oh, maybe senior elementary.

  Is there any chance she won’t want to teach your class, or won’t be able to?

  No. I mean, just because I’ve been teaching that course for ten YEARS, just because I have seen the gear come and go, the strap-on weights, balls, the Reebok pump, you name it, while she was still in her high chair. Drooling applesauce. Also she looks like that dentist, you know, the malnourished sour-looking one Ted has the hots for.

  Bummer.

  Yup.

  It’s true that there are other classes, other gyms, but Gail says she doesn’t want to have to go looking for other gyms. She wants her class—there’s a core of regulars who come year in and year out—in her slot.

  Maxine has been a few times. She’s watched Gail disappear into the room off the gym and emerge hauling a trolley with the electronic equipment, watched her pick up the headset. Some instructors refuse to wear the headset, but you could tell from the way Gail adjusted it and, when it was on properly, straightened with a little bounce and smile, that Gail considered it an essential part of the equipment, a mark of distinction.

  Although Gail claims she only does it so she can eat more, it’s just a bit of fun on the side, not her career, not her life, it’s like being into birdwatching or whatever—in spite of all that you can tell she’s in her element. She seems actually to enjoy the sessions, especially when the clientele starts to flag during the abs workout, some of them flopping and lying flat in defeat, meanwhile Gail’s doing the precision up and downs like she’s got a built-in hydraulic system, bellowing Three more—two more—five more! Don’t die on me, you wimps!!

  Maxine hears a seagull and before she opens her eyes she knows she has a moral obligation to report to Barb that her husband is a purse-forager. This knowledge covers her like a smelly blanket she can’t push off. Her eyelids look yellow inside: it’s morning. Maxine refuses to open them. She might still go back to sleep and wake up, later, with everything changed. It might be dark. Dave might never have stuck his stupid paw in her daypack. Or she may feel on her second waking a sense of detachment, a lack of personal involvement. She could think, Ah, it was nothing, or, Let them work it out.

  Maxine rolls onto her back, distributes her weight evenly, breathes down into her abdomen. It’s the kind of thing you need to know about your husband, if you don’t already. Maybe Dave is a kleptomaniac. Maybe there is something else the matter with him, something that could affect Kyle. If Barb already knows, then Maxine won’t be revealing anything new and awful, and if she doesn’t, well, Maxine’s loyalty lies with Kyle, and by extension with Barb, over Dave. On the other hand, the thought of initiating any conversation with Barb, let alone this particular one, whisks into Maxine’s mind images of a train pulling out of a station, a train with Maxine’s smiling face in the window, a hand waving beside the face: bye-bye! It’s true there are no trains, but she could get a bus somewhere. Maybe she could borrow Karen and Theresa’s place around the bay for a week and by the time she came back she’d have forgotten all about it.

  Kyle in his black down jacket clomps down the steps, one arm up to protect his face from blowing snow, and inserts himself sideways into the narrow space between the snowbank and the side of the car. He opens the door as far as it will go, which is not very, and shoves his backpack into that opening, shove, shove, shove until it disappears. He wriggles in. Now Dave, in his long coat and overshoes, runs down the stairs, head lowered, and scrunches himself into the driver’s seat. Inside, Dave pulls off
his toque and fluffs up his hair, one hand on either side of his head, in go the fingers, one rapid flick backwards, and then the car starts.

  They haven’t even turned the corner when Maxine is pulling on an old green jacket and sprinting across the road. Prickly snowflakes drive sideways into her eyeballs. She takes the steps three at a time and huddles under the overhang at Barb’s front door.

  It could of course be none of her business. Who is she to be telling Barb what her husband is like, as if she didn’t already know? Who has known Dave the longest? It’s possible—very unlikely but possible—that Dave had a legitimate and benevolent reason for rootling through her bag. And if he did, he’d have realized it would be impossible to explain, which would be why he hadn’t even tried. And it wasn’t money. He hadn’t taken money; he’d left her wallet out on the table while he searched for something else. What if Barb didn’t believe her? What if she took offence and told Kyle he wasn’t to come over anymore, told him Maxine had passed on evil lies about his father? The door opens.

  Maxine! Come in, is everything...

  Yes, Barb, there’s no problem, I just wanted.

  They face each other in the dark-panelled porch. Dave’s sneakers are on the floor near Maxine’s feet, next to Kyle’s. Maxine takes a breath.

  It’s the swimming, she says. What time is swimming today?

  It’s at quarter to four, same as usual, but if you’re not available—

  No, no, it’s fine, I couldn’t remember and I’m on my way to the bakery, so—Maxine laughs in a manner that strives for lightheartedness but achieves only hysteria. I’m forgetting everything these days!

  Barb peers uncertainly at Maxine. Come in, she says. Come in and have a coffee. Tea, you like tea don’t you. I’ll make— No thanks, Barb, sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to make sure, have to finish a chapter today, see you after swimming, ciao!!

  Maxine does her best cheery smile and, halfway down the steps, turns and waves. Barb has closed the screen door but stands watching her, so Maxine turns right, whispering curses, gusts of snow like tiny arrows in her face, and makes for the bakery to buy bread she’ll have to put in the freezer.

  If you want a job in this town you can get the weekend paper, go through the ads, circle anything that looks interesting. You can carefully tailor a different version of your CV to each job and do up a nice cover letter and send it all in on time. Or you can spend that time hove off on the couch guzzling Turtles. It’s all the same. If you want a job in this town, you let it be known. Mention it around and hang tight. Be prepared to hang tight for several months. No need to stir yourself, though. The job will come to you.

  Karen said that when Theresa was between jobs—what a silly expression, as if you missed your footing and slipped down the crack between the elevator and the floor—Theresa was in a car accident. A van ran a red at Mayor and Merrymeeting and ploughed into the side of their Corolla. That was it for the Corolla and it could have been it for Theresa but she was lucky, it was all soft tissue—slow to heal but nowhere close to life-threatening. Theresa got herself to the Constabulary a few blocks away. She called Karen to let her know the car was a write-off and she was waiting to give a statement. Next thing Theresa’s mother’s friend was at the Constabulary offering to drive Theresa to the hospital, which was puzzling but appreciated. They were at the lights by the Health Sciences when something occurred toTheresa and she said, I didn’t think to ask, how did you know I was there?

  I called you at home. Karen told me.

  Oh…Why were you calling?

  Nothing, said Theresa’s mother’s friend, not to worry, you see the doctor and make sure you’re fine. Call me in a couple of days.

  What is it, though?

  It’s a job. A job you might be interested in.

  Theresa’s still working there. And because that is the way things happen in this town, and because Gail’s cousin Heather works in a urology office where they’re putting together a few information pamphlets for their patients, and because the doctors want it done but don’t have time to write the pamphlets themselves, and because Maxine is in need of an influx of cash, here she is sitting in a urology office in the new Healthplex in the west end. There’s a massage and chiropractic clinic, doctors’ offices, a natural remedies outlet, and assorted other health-giving sites. And here in the urology clinic waiting room are seven men over sixty, a poinsettia with curling leaves, andMaxine, waiting to receive an envelope full of information about prostates and catheters.

  The portable CD machine plays Elton John and then the Irish Descendants. A man in a biker jacket studies an ad in a magazine. It’s a woman in a gauzy mauve dress on a beach. The bottom half of the photo is sand and the top is ocean and the woman transects them. He surveys the ad critically, bottom to top and back down again, as if he might not be sure whether the exposure is right. He’s not impressed with the beach. He doesn’t even look at the woman the first time. After that he gives her the once over but without unnecessary interest. Then he studies the beach again, licks the tip of his index finger, and flips the page.

  Two of the remaining six men know each other. They know each other from way back.

  How’s Jack doing?

  Jack’s up in Toronto now, driving a cab. Wife left him.

  Did she?

  Second wife.

  Mm.

  What about Edgar?

  Edgar? My God, Edgar. There’s not two like him. Never changes.

  I was talking to Tom the other day.

  Haven’t seen Tom in a dog’s age.

  Tom got diabetes. Not doing too well.

  I seen Fred.

  Fred Tobin.

  Fred Chalker.

  Fred Chalker, that’s right. And Cy Kavanagh, he’s dead.

  Is he?

  A couple years.

  I thought I saw Cy there a few weeks back.

  Not Cy.

  You all right?

  I had a touch of it myself. Just a touch.

  There’s that thing where they scrape it out.

  Mm.

  Maxine has been trying to write in her notebook. Her own writing has not been going especially well. Her electricity bill has sat unopened on the kitchen counter for a week. Whenever Maxine sees it, she looks away the way a dog does when it is disturbed by a human’s behaviour. She has been trying to read the newspaper. It’s hard, with all this talk of disease, of dying friends.

  She feels her shoulders all crunched up and she doesn’t want to hold out a horizontal palm, to assess shakiness.

  What about Bert, Bert Noseworthy?

  Gone.

  Maxine leaps out of her seat and paces the perimeter of the room. Andromeda. M33, Andromeda, M33, Leo I, Leo II, Peg dSph, Cass dSph, why isn’t the goddamn envelope ready? She stops in front of a Doisneau photograph at the far end of the room, a long row of boys peeing. Two of them have very white feet and one of those has a pigeon on his head. Maybe all urology clinics have photos of people peeing. Maybe urologists can buy the poster at a discount. It could be a joke, or a subliminal message. You too can do this.Maxine tries to pull a long, slow breath into her belly but it shudders high in her chest. The envelope was supposed to be ready.

  The thing about death, even an expected death, is that it continues to be a surprise, long after it’s happened. You see the person in the toothpaste aisle and you thinkThere’s X—good old X, been a while, I’ll go and have a word. And then you are shocked to recall that whoever that person is, it can’t be X, because X died a month ago, or three months ago. You blunder through a period of such surprises—Oh! and Oh! and No, wrong again!—before some part of your brain decisively lays a small, ragged bouquet in an imaginary graveyard and you begin to realize that you’re not going to be seeing X any more. This can take a long time.

  Kyle has started talking about himself in the third person. It began with the computer: Larsen the Lethal defeats the enemy again! But today he clicks away at his game and says: Kyle wondered whether Maxi
ne went to the bakery.

  Maxine is in mid-paragraph so she doesn’t answer right away.

  Kyle says: I wonder if Maxine went to the bakery today said Kyle hopefully.

  Maxine says:Maxine was in the middle of her paragraph so she hoped Kyle would go look on the kitchen table.

  If Maxine teases Kyle too much—if something comes out sounding a tad cruel instead of funny, or if he’s feeling a bit too raw for banter, he reaches for pathos. He’s crumbling a blueberry muffin at the Aquarena after his swimming lesson. There’s a smudge of blue under his lower lip thatMaxine would like to wipe off but she leaves him be and fiddles instead with the brown plastic lid of the coffee, trying to get the flippy square to stay open; there’s the stink of chlorine, the unnatural warmth, and whatever she’s just said has sent Kyle into a mini-huff. He gazes past her, pretending to be in a trance, flutters his eyelids melodramatically, and, after several seconds, snaps back to attention, saying Whaaaah? Did you say something?

  It’s so phoney she wants to smile, but that would be crushing, so she reaches over and pats his upper arm and says, Buddy, you’re not even eating that, let’s get out of here.

  Maxine stops into the pet shop before noon and James insists he was about to close for lunch anyway; he flips theOpen sign around and locks up and they have a sandwich near theWar Memorial.

  You know, says James, I didn’t think you’d come by. I’m really glad.

  And Maxine feels glad too because it turns out she and James have read a lot of the same books and have the same views on many things. He is surprisingly easy to have a conversation with; there are nomoments of toe-clenching awkwardness, no silences in which she searches frantically for something to say that could possibly be of interest to another human being. And when they’ve finished and split the bill she walks back to the shop with him and he writes down her email address so he can send her information about a book. She waves at him through the window and the walk back up the hill to home is not at all a disagreeable one.

  Max! There’s been a coup.