Maxine

by Claire Wilkshire

  How unlike Maxine not to have brought a large bag crammed with work, things to read, lists of tasks. She always takes work wherever she goes, just in case, and yet this time she has none, and it’s been at least partly deliberate. She will sit. She’s been to a meditation workshop at the Y and she will sit and tolerate herself— hell, maybe even accept herself, ha!—for thirty minutes, that has been the idea. Thirty minutes of her uninterrupted self, without running screaming from the vehicle. It may be possible. She’s too tired to work, anyway.

  What would Frédérique see? Maxine looks beyond the glass in front of her face. The streetlights are impressionist paintings, gobs of yellow dots fading to black at their outer circumferences. Out the driver’s side window a shrub wags up and down on the wind, branches extended sideways like arms. It bobs, a child in a Jolly Jumper, a clump of underwater seaweed. Frédérique would notice none of this. Frédérique would not be here, are you kidding? She would not, would not sit here in a car, in the dark, with every fraction of a degree of heat in her recently feverish body being sucked out through the soles of her under-insulated all-weather mocs as if she’d stepped on a Dementor by mistake. Frédérique would spurn all-weather mocs—her footwear would not be warmer but would sure as hell look better than all-weather mocs, which don’t even end in a complete word. Frédérique would have taken her footwear somewhere else, and her feet and the rest of her also.

  Where do the other parents wait? Maxine had asked a feeble-sounding Barb.

  Oh I don’t know, they drive away...

  Well, what do you do? You don’t come back home, do you?

  No, it’s not worth it—Barb sounds faint.

  Barb, I need to know. Where do you go when he’s in his lesson? What am I supposed to do after I’ve dropped him off?

  Oh, I don’t know...

  OK, don’t worry about it. Try to get some sleep.

  Maxine has been wondering—where would Frédérique be?— when answers suddenly flood through her, warm and light and numerous. Frédérique would be striding through Bowring Park, just down the road—wind and rain and all, she’d have some expensive boots in the trunk (it would be her car, not someone else’s) and her body would be moving, pumping, breathing along the paths in the dark—purposeful, determined, exhilarated—or, on the other side of the road, she’d have found the cafeteria at the mental hospital and be shaking water from her hair on the way to the coffee machine, where she’d strike up a conversation with someone, a patient, on whom she would focus her full and considerable attention, her penetrating gaze, for a shortish time. She’d recognize the humanity behind the illness and feel, however briefly, the full poignant force of—actually, though, she’d probably have found the young, dark-haired and soon to be comfortably rich psychiatrist. He’d be sitting at a cafeteria table and she would make him laugh. He’d laugh his pleasant laugh and feel it wasn’t entirely pleasant enough, not sonorous enough; he wasn’t witty enough— he’d feel that somehow she drew him up to a higher standard, that if he spent more time, most of his time, with Frédérique, he would be a fuller, more exciting, passionate, charming human being, all he needed was to be in her presence, to have her smiling at him like this and then asking a question and waiting silently for his response—he would rip open his tan Land’s End chinos and—no, no he wouldn’t— he would, for her, muster the best response he possibly could to her question—what was her question?—he opens his mouth to speak, he says Rapatapata. Kyle’s knuckles on the rain-smeared glass: Maxine, it’s locked!

  Gail has arrived at suppertime with boxes of Chinese, unannounced and most welcome. She goes throughMaxine’s cupboards until she finds a small blue pottery bowl, and in this she arranges the packages of soy and plum sauce. She sets the bowl on the table where Maxine is putting out some cutlery. The cubes of pork are orange and bumpy, with chunks of fresh pineapple. Maxine can feel the insides of her cheeks preparing for the sweet gooey sauce.

  Want me to give some to the fish? A little bit of broccoli?

  It’s got gravy on it. I don’t know if he can eat that.

  Are you kidding? How often does it get Chinese? It’s probably over there in the bowl right now saying Yes, oh please. Gail breaks off a tiny piece of broccoli floret and slides it onto the tip of her chopstick.

  No. You might poison him.

  I thought you were going to get rid of it anyway, what happened to that? You don’t want to be bringing water to room temperature and scrubbing off the castle every week, do you?

  Well… Maxine gazes down the hall toward the living room, where the fish bowl sits on a small table.

  Well what?

  I kind of got used to him.

  Gail raises an eyebrow: So, we’re talking, what, laziness? Fish by inertia?

  It’s more like…you know how people come into your life and you haven’t chosen them? You don’t really want them there but you end up having to deal with them anyway. Sometimes that’s OK. Sometimes it works out.

  Excuse me, did you say people?

  Maxine grins.

  Max, you’re unreal. Look, open a fortune cookie.

  Maxine’s fork stops halfway to her mouth, with a hunk of pineapple on it: I’m not done yet.

  Just open it. Gail pushes the clear plastic package across the table.

  The cure for grief is movement.Maxine rolls her eyes. Oh, great— I get grief.

  Max, that wasn’t grief, it was the cure for grief. OK, here we go, Wisdom is on her way to you.

  Haaaa. Looks like her flight got rerouted. I wouldn’t make up the bed just yet.

  Pass me another spring roll.

  Pass me another spring roll, please.

  Please pass me another spring roll, dink.

  Frédérique’s phone made its little preeep sound twice and then silence echoed in her office. Moments later, two more preeeps rang out. Frédérique tore off a piece of tape and grabbed her purse. She pushed and twisted the handle of her office door so it would lock behind her. She paused for a moment in the hallway. She looked both ways with her eyes only, without turning her head. Then she groaned and crumpled to one knee. She massaged her ankle, sighed, and pushed against the doorjamb to lift herself back up. Any observer would have had to be watching extremely carefully to notice that as she rested her weight on the wall, her thumb pressed the small piece of tape over the edge of the door and the trim on the doorframe. Once erect, Frédérique tossed her hair back, patted it down, and strode along the corridor with only a slight, elegant limp. The door to the stairwell swung open. Through it Frédérique went, fumbling in her purse for a quarter for the payphone by the stairs. She lifted the receiver, punched in a number, waited a few seconds. “The Chinese Lantern,” Frédérique hissed, glancing over her shoulder. “Twenty minutes.” Frédérique never used elevators. They represented slothfulness. Seconds later, the only evidence of her presence would be a hint of expensive perfume and the clip-clipping of her heels far down the stairs. Twenty minutes later she was biting into a spring roll, strings of bean sprout dangling and glistening. Her tongue reached down and around and scooped them up. Jerome walked in though the heavy wooden doors and closed them behind him. He paused for several seconds before yanking them back open and thrusting his head out. He looked this way and that and then came to join Frédérique. She stood and he wrapped his arms around her as he bent down to take in her fragrance. He put his lips by her ear.

  “The shop,” he whispered. “They broke into the shop. They tore it apart. They didn’t find your package, but I don’t think it’s safe any more.” Frédérique pulled away, gazed adoringly at him for all to see, and drew him in close again.

  “Was anyone hurt?” she murmured urgently.

  “Not badly. A few, just shock.”

  “You can die of shock. We need to get help. Is Barry OK?”

  “Oh yeah, Barry’s fine. I meant, actually...the rabbit. And a couple of the guinea pigs. There was the little hamster but that might be unrelated, he wasn’t looking well.”<
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  Today Karen’s out of town and Maxine has mistimed her run so that she arrives back in her neighbourhood a few minutes after all of St. Simeon’s was unleashed on an unsuspecting sunny afternoon. A multitude of navy-sweatered youngsters clog the sidewalks and the narrow one-way streets are suddenly full of idling Volvos and SUVs. It’s Maxine’s first run in a while. She’s slow and tired now, plodding along, looking for anything to distract her from the fact that she’s not quite there yet, that her legs need to keep moving for two more minutes, that although she could stop, she must not. Up ahead two boys have their coats off. They look Kyle’s age or younger; one holds his knapsack by the straps and he keeps swinging it to the side, brushing it against the hedge, swing and swing again. The idle swishing against branches seems so boylike, so carefree and indicative of spring that Maxine’s back straightens hopefully. Her stride picks up, she considers saying something to the boys, something cheerful and maybe a little comic about sun and youth and freedom from the classroom. She slows as she draws level with them and overhears the boy with the backpack saying to the smaller one: Fuck you, you little fuckin pile of shit.

  It’s still sunny when Kyle arrives and they stand out on the tiny wooden landing with the door to Maxine’s apartment.

  You could put a chair out here, Kyle says. You have room for a small chair.

  So all the people walking by could gawk at me?

  No, silly. It’s supposed to be the other way round.

  I’d feel exposed.

  You’re supposed to be the watcher. They lean on the railing and look down at the melting snow. Across the road something moves in the window, maybe a flick of curtain, and Kyle turns and heads inside. Grownups—he says, flopping into the computer chair, affecting world-weariness—All they do is work. And go to the liquor store.

  Maxine can hear from the lack of swivelling that he’s waiting, monitoring her reaction. She’s bent over untying her sneaker and doesn’t turn around. I know, she says in the same mildly disgusted tone. They’re soooo boring.

  Maxine unlaces her other sneaker, slips both of them off, and heads to the front porch with them. If you get too bored anytime, over there—she’s sending this message over her shoulder, setting the sneakers neatly on the rubber mat—You c’mon and visit me. Doesn’t matter, you know, if it’s nighttime or whatever. She straightens and turns, and Kyle swings his chair away from her, clicks. Ky, they’re a bit stressed right now, hey? It’s work, it happens, it’ll blow over. She puts a hand on one of his shoulder blades and rubs a few friendly circles.

  Yeah. Oh look, there’s the Sydney Opera House.

  How do you know that’s what it is?

  Duh. Maxine, I think everybody knows what the Sydney Opera House looks like?

  12

  june 2003

  kyle has asked her to come and so here she is, late, hustling in through the door of the Salvation Army Temple and paying two dollars for her seat. The first child is already singing I’ll be your candle on the water, a girl younger than Kyle, with stern glasses and a pink T-shirt dress. Maxine sits quickly without trying to find the Larsens in the crowd. Here’s my hand so take it. Absurdly, Maxine feels as if the girl is speaking to her. The voice is small but clear and firm. Her hands don’t look strong enough to pull you to safety unless you were perhaps a baby bird. A steady, tuneful little voice in the cavernous space. I know you’re lost and drifting. Alarmingly, Maxine has a sense that someone understands. Her eyes prickle. She gives her arm a hard pinch and studies the program. The next two children play violin, a sound like pain, and Maxine regains her composure. Are all the non-violin parents, she wonders, trying not to stick fingers in their ears? Are they thinking, There but for the grace of God? Then there’s another singer, and when a trumpet player’s father shifts in front of her she sees Kyle two rows ahead, Barb beside him, and Dave next to Barb. Dave’s blond hair is cut short at the back and his neck’s burnt a pinkish brown. One beefy arm rests on the back of the pew, his elbow behind Barb, hand at the back of Kyle’s head. Every now and then his head turns toward Kyle but Maxine can’t see his expression. He ruffles Kyle’s hair, strokes the back of his head.

  When his name is called, Kyle stands and looks quickly around. Pssst, says Maxine, and Kyle turns, and she winks, and he smiles, and then he’s up sitting beside his guitar teacher, the two of them strumming together, singing “Four Strong Winds.” Next to Maxine a girl strokes her teddy’s fur with one finger in a gentle flattening and tidying way. Don’t worry, the girl seems to be telling her bear, I’ll take care of you.

  After Kyle plays, Maxine gives him two thumbs up and several more children perform and then they are in another room with sandwiches and potato chips and those chocolate squares that have pink and green mini marshmallows in them and paler bits that look like straw but are probably coconut. Kyle is off at the drinks table—he isn’t usually allowed pop—and Maxine stands stiffly with Barb and Dave. She is not Auntie Maxine, not a godparent, nor an old school pal, not a girlfriend. Why is she hanging out with Kyle? Because it happened that way, she thinks. Because he was brought to me.

  Kyle approaches them with a cupcake in one hand and a glass of lime Crush in the other, slopping the Crush onto industrial grey carpet tiles without noticing, humming “Four Strong Winds.”

  Why am I here? Because he wanted me to come.

  Dave bends down and kisses the top of his son’s head. More green Crush slides overboard.

  You were great, said Dave.

  They’d driven out past Sooke and kept going to the National Park and stopped, overlooking the Pacific, on the highest point they could find. Trees and bush sloped down to the waterline. “Your instinct,” Frédérique told him, “when they’re after you, is to hide, to make yourself small, like a guinea pig, crawl down inside the shavings, burrow away and cover yourself up and close your eyes. But you need to do the opposite. Get up. Get up high and look. See them—every car, every hiker—before they see you.” She reached under the seat and took out a bag containing a bottle of white wine in an insulating roll and two small sake bowls. She filled one bowl and handed it to him. “You’ve been amazing. I don’t think I’d be alive but for you. Cheers.”

  They took a tiny bungalow hidden in the trees on Malahat Mountain. Cash in advance, one night only, Mr. and Mrs. Donaldson, car by the door. Frédérique leaned over the registration desk and smiled at the young clerk. “No calls, no visitors, please,” said Frédérique, “If anyone is looking for us, I know you will not allow them to intrude on our privacy. You would of course come and tell me immediately, though, because it could be terribly important.” She smiled at the clerk and he got up off the bar stool and stood up straight. He drew air into his chest.

  “I would,” he said, “Of course I would.” She touched his forearm gently, just for a second, enough to graze the soft hair.

  “I knew I could count on you,” she said.

  13

  the result of Maxine’s labour. OK, not a stupendous epic or anything. However, the red column on the bristol board has finally and not by accident but sheer muleheadedness butted up against the top line on the chart. The fact that this has occurred just in time for the e-submission is no accident. She has one day for the final edit.

  Maxine, who has not pulled an all-nighter since the Hamlet paper for Professor O’Dell in first year, plugs away throughout the day and into the night with section-by-section revisions. At eleven pm there’s a knock at the door; by the time Maxine answers, Gail’s car is pulling away but a bag on her doorstep is full of plastic containers of snacks to keep her going.

  At four she pretends it’s morning, which it is, and has a shower. At eleven-thirty (four in the afternoon, Paris time) Maxine hits send. She’s quietly sure she will win. She is experiencing that moment of euphoria that comes with the completion of a piece of writing, the moment during which the writer believes it possible that this could be not just the best thing s/he has ever written, but, remotely possibly, among the be
st things anyone has ever written.

  Maxine ambles around the apartment, giddy with excitement and sleep deprivation, wondering how it would be to tell Gail she has won an international fiction competition and must fly to Paris to collect her prize. She leaves a message at the Larsens’ telling Kyle to call between five and six if he can go to A&W for supper with her, and falls into bed.

  Kyle’s voice on the phone sounds high and young. He’s just a little boy, she remembers with a stab of alarm.

  I can come to A&W, please, and we can take the car.

  Great, Ky. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be ready.

  What do you think Mademoiselle Duchamp is having for her supper?

  Hmm. Not A&W. Snails, maybe. Followed by steak and fries. A glass of red wine.

  What kind of fries?

  What do you mean? Spiral fries?

  No, Max. French fries.

  Ahaha.

  It is without doubt more difficult to continue practising virtue than to begin. Virtue starts out feeling really good but its appeal wanes rapidly. When Maxine turns on the computer one morning and receives the email about the prize, she decides she will tell Gail, her parents, and perhaps one or two other people. Kyle, of course. This is only partly modesty. It’s also the case that Maxine does not actually know very much about the details of the contest, that she has deliberately not inquired too closely into the nature of the organization which sponsors the prize. There were quite a few very specific eligibility criteria, which Kyle adapted to a checklist and printed and attached to a clipboard and went through with her repeatedly. Among them: the novel must be a thriller, must be set at least partly in Western Canada and partly in Paris; it had to be exactly 64,371 words and include a minimum of three references to ouzo; at least one character had to travel on France’s national rail system. The writer had to be between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, to reside in a country in which French is an official language, to have written the novel in English, and to submit, in addition, a favourite yoghurt recipe (non-competitive). In fact, the last time she looked for the contest information on the web, the page wasn’t there any more. Maxine does not wish to unearth at this point any trivial and wearisome pieces of information: that she was in fact the only contestant, that the contest no longer exists, or what have you. The main thing about contests, the only thing, really, is to win them and Maxine has won this one, to the tune of just about enough euros, if she’s got the exchange figured out, to cover her air fare and meals. They put her up for a week in a hotel not far from the magazine’s offices. So it’s a free trip to Paris plus recognition, the latter being the more important to Maxine, at least she thinks so. The words tour de force pop into her head unbidden, as if they had been used in the email, which they weren’t. To have someone— not just someone you don’t know but someone in another country—validate all your hard work by saying This one, yes this one is the best... That is the part she can’t get over. And the sheer joy and relief and validation spill over into Maxine and, as it were, through her, so that by the time she is packing her bag and hunting down her passport and ticket for that evening’s flight, the whole town knows about the award, and real live journalists have called her, Maxine, wanting to know about her book, Maxine’s own book. In fact she is on the cordless to one of them as the taxi pulls up to take her to the airport.