His voice brought me right back to when I’d first known him. It had always affected me like a shot of adrenaline. He didn’t look exactly the same; he was thinner. He was more fit than he’d been, but I had liked him the way he was before, a little bulky, not fat, but solid.
“It’s good to see you again, Max,” I said with all the courage of a stout rum. Good to see him? It was great. It was as if his presence brought back every happy memory I’d ever had. But he was cavalier and distant. He acted as if I were almost a stranger.
Had I expected more? How could I have expected more?
“Well,” Marion said, “now that Max is here, I guess it’s time for dessert.”
“You didn’t wait on me?” he asked. This was an expression a New Yorker would use. Some of the Boston in him, even some of his accent, was gone.
“We were so full. We were waiting for dessert anyway,” Lindsay said.
We took our seats in the dining room, all of us, except for the boys, who had gone upstairs to play. Max was guided to a chair at the foot of the table. Heather and Lindsay sat on either side of him. Winnie and I were relegated to chairs nearer Charles Sr., who sat at the table’s head. Winnie looked sour. I could tell she was annoyed to be exiled so far away from our special guest, but I was relieved.
“So why have you come back to Boston?” Heather asked.
“I’m here for Thanksgiving.” Max stated the obvious, which allowed him to give an answer without really giving one.
She colored. “But Charlie says you’re looking for a house.”
“I am.”
“What they want to know, Max, and let’s just get it right out on the table with those pies, is do you have a girlfriend?” Marion asked.
“Mother!” both girls choked.
Max smiled. He had a few lines around his eyes. His hair was still thick and still that sandy color that looked greenish in certain lights and brought out the green in his eyes.
“Lindsay wants to be a writer,” Heather said.
“Heather. He doesn’t want to hear about that,” Lindsay said.
“I do,” he said. He had developed a way of giving whomever he was talking to all of his attention. I’d heard that this ability was usually found in movie stars and politicians.
Heather cut Max a piece of pie. Between Heather and Lindsay he was supplied with pie for a solid hour and he ate every piece that was put in front of him.
“Well, I’m not a very good writer, not yet,” Lindsay said.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Max said. “Would you like me to read something?” He was more generous than I was. Of course, he had different motivation. Lindsay was particularly pretty when she cocked her head and smiled at him the way she smiled then.
“I couldn’t think of asking that. I couldn’t take your time,” she said.
“I don’t mind.” He ate a forkful of pumpkin pie. “I’ll be staying with my sister through New Year’s. I’m taking a long vacation and I’d be happy to read something.”
Lindsay put her hand to her chest. “Oh my God, you are the coolest.”
She swung her long red hair. I wondered if he would have been so quick to read something by a chunky girl with bad teeth.
He finished his pumpkin pie and Lindsay supplied him with a piece of apple.
“Charlie, when are you free to go looking at houses?” Max asked.
“Any time, Max. I’m at your disposal.” That was Charlie’s business voice. I’d heard him use it many times. “We could go tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, then. What will you girls be doing tomorrow?” Max asked.
Winnie, from the end of the table, said, “Jane and I are going shopping.”
“You are?” Charlie said. “What for?”
“Christmas, silly. Never too soon to get started.”
Max had been addressing Lindsay and Heather, but Winnie wanted to get into the conversation, so she took the only opening she could get.
“We might drive up north to go skiing for the day,” Lindsay said.
“You never told me that,” Marion said. “I thought you’d be here.”
“I just thought of it.”
“I think you should stay home,” Marion said. “I don’t get to see you girls nearly enough.” They came home at least twice a month, sometimes more.
“And you’re not such a great skier,” Heather said. Lindsay shot her a look.
“Why not spend the day writing?” Heather asked. “You have the whole day.”
“Yes, that would be fun.” Lindsay’s enthusiasm was forced, and when she thought no one was watching she gave her sister a dirty look.
“Tomorrow night Lindsay and I are meeting some of our college friends at a club in Boston. Why don’t you meet us there,” Heather said to Max.
“Why would he want to do that?” Charlie asked.
“It sounds fun,” Max said. “What time are you going?”
“We’ll be there at ten,” Heather said.
“That’s a little late for an old guy like me.” Max winked.
“Come on. We’ve read all about you. You go to all the best clubs in New York,” Lindsay said. That was an understatement. He had a reputation for being the biggest womanizer in Manhattan. The Literary Lothario.
“So I’m found out. I guess I’ll have to come.”
“Don’t forget,” Lindsay said. She put her hand over his and looked into his eyes.
The whole display was nauseating under any circumstance and I might have left the room to vomit, but I was on my seventh rum and cider and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stand up.
I had never wanted to believe Max’s reputation. Magazines and newspapers aren’t always right. It could have just been a publicist’s way of getting him extra attention.
Watching him now, with his eyes boring a hole right through Lindsay’s head, I wasn’t so sure. He had definitely changed, but there was no way of telling how much.
Fortunately, dessert went on until late, and by the time the pies had been decimated, I could walk without falling over. Max had barely looked at me all evening. The few times our eyes met, we both looked away. Max was the first to leave, so at least he didn’t see me hobbling drunkenly over the flagstones on my way back to the house.
The children had already fallen asleep, so they stayed behind with their grandparents.
Winnie let me lean on her as we walked across the field. She gave me an odd look.
“Jane, I think you’re drunk.”
“Yes.”
“You hardly ever get drunk. I can’t remember the last time you were.” She paused. “That Max Wellman is quite the ladies’ man,” she added.
“That’s what they say.” My ankle twisted, but I didn’t fall. It was dark. We should have brought a flashlight.
“I thought you said you knew him,” she said.
“I did.”
“He said he would barely have recognized you.”
We were going up the walk when I tumbled into the shrubbery. I started to laugh and couldn’t stop. Winnie and Charlie reached down to help me up, but each time they pulled me up, I fell back.
“Jane, I think you’re hysterical,” Charlie said, but he was laughing, too.
“You’re battering our bushes,” Winnie said.
I let them pull me from the hedge and help me upstairs. I remembered dragging the drunken Bentley up the stairs that first night with Max. I had no sympathy for Bentley then. I couldn’t understand an Evan Bentley who felt, at thirty-five, as if his best days were behind him, but then I hadn’t even tried.
