Over You (8 page)

She’s just reaching for her mug of tea when she scrolls all the way down to the bottom of the page, where he’s posted pictures from orientation.

And she sees Hugo Tillman grinning in front of the library with the other freshmen.

Oh.

My.

God.

He’s not just visiting.

He going to NYU.

M
ax pulls upon an age-old female strategy—yelling at herself like a steroid-pumped drill sergeant: “GET A GRIP! STOP BEING PATHETIC!” Which has the same effect that yelling at oneself always does; in addition to Max feeling her future threatened, she dually feels like total crap for feeling it. But come on, it’s
massively
unfair! And as much as she tells her clients: “Focus on fair, get nowhere,” Hugo Tillman could both be accepted into and afford to attend any happy place on the planet and he’s going to hers. It’s not fucking fair, and she’d say it to fair’s face.

By the next afternoon, Max has worn holes in her tights pacing the floor.

“Yallo!” Zach’s loafer appears on the third step.

“
How
, Zach? How did we miss this?” Max follows him as he walks to his desk. “It wasn’t on his Twitter or Facebook? Seriously, I need you guys to talk me through this oversight.”

“Okay.” He stares at her evenly as he unwinds his scarf. “You first.”

“Look,” Max says, faltering. “Can’t you just work on this like I’m a client?”

“You mean, can’t I just work on this like I’m your employee?”

“No. Yes.”

“And here I thought I was your best friend,” Zach says, the sea-glass look returning full force.

“Okay!” Phoebe calls from the top of the stairs as if she’s mid-conversation with them. “Guess who interviewed Hugo Tillman? Me!”

“You
what
?” Zach and Max spin to her as she jogs down, apple cheeked with her achievement.

“At lunch.” She fills them in as she tosses her bag down. “I cold-called him saying I was from
Hounds and Yachts
magazine—”

“That’s a thing?” Max interrupts.

“It sounded like a thing.” Phoebe shrugs off her coat. Zach and Max give an acknowledging head tilt.

“And he just talked to you?” Zach’s incredulous.

“I used my cockney accent. The publicist hasn’t released the NYU angle because they’re, quote, waiting on that. The family’s trying to present his image as youthful, but not young. Anyway, he’s doing the five-year accelerated combined BA and MBA at Stern and living off campus. He had a long-haired dachshund named Huggins as a kid, and he’s won three regattas and placed in seven.”

“I should have gone to lunch with that publicist.” Zach crosses his arms. “I could have penciled in stubble.”

“He’s going to Stern?” Max drops onto her chair. “We’re going to be in the same business classes together? What next, he’s moving in with my mom?”

“Living off campus.” Phoebe checks her notes. “West Village loft.”

“Why isn’t he going to Harvard?!” Max implores the room.

“How should we know?!” Zach throws his hands up in exasperation. “You want to be a client, Max, but clients give us a
full backstory
. You’re not telling us a freaking thing!”

Max looks from Phoebe’s surprised expression to Zach’s frustrated one and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes. He was a senior. I was a junior. He loved everything about me until suddenly he didn’t. We were together five months almost to the day. I was ousted by a girl so boring it boggles the mind. I left school. Moved here. Started this business. You’re up to speed.” She does not share how he shivered the first time their shirts were off beneath his scratchy wool blanket.

“That’s all you’re going to tell me?” Zach asks, forcing Max back to the present as Phoebe powers up her computer. “You left me ten voice mails last night. You were—”

“Thrown.” Max swipes her flat palm definitively through the air. “I was thrown. We were missing pivotal information, which we now have,” Max rushes. “I’m not about to start wandering the West Village in a nightie and mumbling to strangers about what could’ve been, Zach. I just need a little booster. Just like we did for Trish Silverberg when her ex tried to take over the film club! Remember, he’s entitled not to love me, but he’s not entitled to mess with my happy place.”

“Okay, fair enough,” Zach says as he turns on his computer.

“So where are we with everyone?” As they commence their updates, Max’s eyes drift to her photo of Cate Blanchett as Queen Elizabeth. She thinks there is something noble about putting aside her own crap and diving headlong into this persona of “fineness.”

As the week wears on, Max tapes up a picture of Chancellor Merkel next to Cate to remind herself that great leaders put on brave faces for their populaces. How would a war work if platoon commanders started sobbing—and they must be totally tempted—the minute they heard gunfire? Be the change you want to see in the world—even if you’re now questioning if that change is possible, you know, for everyone.

On Saturday afternoon, Max is trying to feel inspirational as she waits for Bridget in the understated armor of her Lululemon jacket, standing clear of the tourists sightseeing before the Halloween Parade. In contrast to their boisterous enthusiasm, Bridget is easy to spot. She walks over to Max in a gray sweater and leggings a half pace slower than the crowd.

“Hi,” she says as if the syllable takes enormous effort.

“Okay, put some floppy ears on you, and you could go as Eeyore.”

The corners of Bridget’s mouth don’t quite turn all the way up, but they look like they’re considering it. “Taylor and I have gone trick-or-treating since we were kids. It was our holiday. Look, I’m showered. I’m dressed. I’m trying.”

Max puts her arm around her. “I know. And today we’re going to take that to the next level. Come on.” Max steers her across Broadway through a gaggle of girls emerging from their dorm, their night of party-hopping starting early.

“Naked is not a costume,” Bridget says, her hands whipping up.

“Right?” Max concurs.

“I mean, hello?” Bridget looks back over her shoulder at the fishnet-cloaked ass cheeks. “How is it appropriate to be outside dressed like you’re headlining a strip club?”

Max laughs as she points to their destination a few doors down. “Right? Where’s the creativity?” Bridget smiles back as Max holds the glass door to the industrial foyer. “Okay,” Max announces, “here we are. Molinaro’s Gym.” Max presses for the elevator just as the stairwell slams open and a guy who looks like Taylor at twenty blows out, skateboard in hand. Bridget’s face goes slack again.

“Bridget?” Max beckons her into the car.

“Yes?”

“Okay, let’s take a little victory lap.” Bridget looks questioningly at her as the door slides shut. “Tiny. The size of this elevator.” Max extends her pointer fingers at shoulder-height. “Yay,” she whispers before putting her hands on Bridget’s shoulders. “That minute on the way in here when you were smiling about slutty Halloween costumes? That was your window of euphoria. It may not feel like much. But it’s a start.”

The elevator pings, and they get off onto the gym floor. A boxing ring sits in the middle, surrounded by sweaty guys sparring in head protectors. The man behind the counter nods to Max, and she leads Bridget straight into the women’s locker room—a makeshift space behind a curtain the management had to add a few years ago when they discovered a clientele demanding an outlet for this new “girl power.”

“Boxing?” Bridget asks skeptically while they take off their jackets. “Really? Taylor doesn’t love me anymore, I projectile-snotted on him when he told me, but I’m going to hit a bag of sand, and that’ll make it all better?”

Max pulls out a set of gloves and a roll of cloth. “Hold out your hands.” Max carefully mummifies Bridget’s knuckles and then slips on her gloves. “Pink—cute, right?”

“Ma-ax,” Bridget says, her Eeyore intonations returning.

“Come on.” She leads Bridget out to the large bag dangling from an exposed I beam in the ceiling. “Okay, stand with your feet apart, right one slightly in front, bend your knees a little. This is your power base—you’ve just lowered your center of gravity, making you harder to knock down. This is what the program is all about—making you harder to knock down.”

“Next time,” Bridget adds.

“Next time,” Max concedes.

“There will never be a next time,”
Bridget wails.

“Bridget! No crying in boxing. Okay, face the bag, pull back with your right arm, and punch.”

“Punch?” Bridget asks disbelievingly, her arms hanging limply at her sides.

“Punch!”

Bridget taps the bag.

“Bridget,” Max asks patiently. “How you feelin’?”

“Like that elephant isn’t just standing on my chest, it’s taking a crap.”

Yep,
Max thinks,
that’s about it
. “Okay, that’s vivid. Now, who made you feel that way?”

The corners of Bridget’s eyes wet. “I lost him. I’m alone and sad because I did something wrong—I don’t know what—I’ve replayed it and replayed it.”

“You’re alone—and you’re not alone by the way—you have friends—because Taylor blew it. Because he was selfish and self-centered and treated a couture girlfriend like she was an Old Navy tank top. You are special. One of a kind! And it’s time to get angry. Punch, Bridget.”

She pulls back and gives a little wallop. The bag doesn’t move.

“Okay,” Max says, “I was hoping not to have to do this.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out the teddy bear Taylor won for Bridget at the San Gennaro festival.

“My zeppole bear!”

“What did he say when he handed this bear to you?” Max prompts, already knowing the answer from Shannon.

“He said he loved me.”

“And?”

“Kenyon wasn’t too far, and even when he went to college he’d come back to visit.” Bridget spins to the bag and strikes with all of her might.

“Yes!” Max cheers her on as Bridget pummels the bag, her rage coming to the surface. She doesn’t notice Max’s own face go red as she thinks back to a similar whispered promise....

“I missed you,” Hugo had said into her bare neck beneath the covers of his bunk bed. “Thanksgiving sucked. Everybody saying the same stupid things to each other. You would’ve hated it.”

“I’m sure,” Max had responded, having no idea. Hers involved a six-hour delay for a three-hour flight to Tampa, a one-bedroom condo, her father’s new girlfriend, who couldn’t cook, but that was okay because, “That’s not what Thanksgiving is really about.” Uh, yeah,
it is
. Three days of dying to get her dad alone—even just for a walk around the complex’s pool. A walk that never came. And then an even longer delay on an even longer flight back.

“What are you doing for Christmas?” Hugo asked between kisses of her ear.

“New York,” she said, hoping it sounded glamorous.

“Oh God, with all the tourists?”

“I guess so,” she said nervously, not sure where she fell on the subject. Her mother had called to proudly share she had just moved into her boyfriend’s town house in Brooklyn, but this would be Max’s first visit to the city.

“You should see Haven,” he pronounced with finality. “You’d get a kick out of it.”

“Who?” Max felt forced to admit her ignorance, hoping it would come off as endearing.

“Our place on the Cape.” Hugo readjusted their position so she lay beside him in his arms. “It’s beautiful at Christmas. Caroling, midnight mass, followed by champagne. Some of the tradition can get a little tedious, but …”

“Mmm, that sounds … perfect,” Max agreed as she wondered if he meant it. She
should
see it, like, she should learn a foreign language or she’s invited?

“You’d love it.”

She would, she was sure of that. She would love a lot of things. “Mmm.” Max repeated the noise in the hopes that it didn’t sound like either accepting an unextended invitation or rejecting a real one.

He put his arms behind his head. “I get it. Christmas is family—ritual, routine, whatever. But maybe you can come for New Year’s?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitating, sitting up, her hands on his bare chest. “Yes!”

She didn’t know then what she knows now, that less than a year later he would just be a stranger—

“He—” Thwack. “Said—” Oof. “We—” Thud. “Were—” Pow. “Soul mates.”

Twenty minutes later Bridget is soaked in sweat—and grinning. “That was amazing,” she says as Max holds out a water bottle. “I never got boxing. Now I
totally
get it. A charge goes up your whole arm. It’s like hooking up.”

“I’ve bought you a ten-class pass so you can come back whenever you need. Plus I got you a DVD to do at home. Even striking air can feel awesome when you put intention behind it.” Max sees Bridget to the elevators and then hangs back with the pink gloves. She is feeling the urge to pummel the niggling uncertainty about her future, which Hugo is triggering. She strides back to the studio, where the bag still sways slightly from Bridget’s fury.

Her phone pings with a text—from Ben, her new friend. “Party 2nite @ Soho House, 10 p.m. If I have 2 be there so do u.” She smiles.