Carolyn: Max was really disappointed that Dylan didn't take to basketball,
Then Dylan announces that he likes football better. I feel problems coming on here.
I'm sure it's pretty obvious at this point that football symbolizes Michael, basketball symbolizes Max. So yes, problems could be on the horizon there.
This is a most unusual group to hang out........just waiting for the explosion!
I think I specialize in writing "unusual group hang-outs" at this point.
Sara: Maybe just maybe Isabel can and will turn a new leaf??
It's so frustrating with her, because it's clear that there
is some part of her that would like to make some changes. But she never really makes them.
And I appreciate Kyle's effort in taking Tess out but I see where she is coming from. Maybe dinner next time. Or bowling...you know, something that isn't a bar.
Yeah, that kind of backfired on him. They weren't ready for a club/bar date.
Thanks for reading and leaving feedback!
Today's update is a little lengthier, as I couldn't find a good place to end it.
Part 38
By the time they got home that night, Maria wasn’t walking so much as she was dragging. She slumped against Max, barely managing to put one foot in front of the other, and he kept one arm tightly wrapped around her waist just in case her limbs gave out on her.
“You hit it pretty hard tonight,” he remarked, feeling bad that he hadn’t paid closer attention.
“I know,” she groaned as he practically pulled her through the living room. “I’m gonna regret it tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you are.” He smiled fondly, remember their teenage years together. Every night had been a party, usually a pretty wild one. Sure, it had been reckless as hell, but he wasn’t going to deny that he’d enjoyed it.
“I just wanted to be . . . twenty-two,” she whimpered. Then she started humming that annoying Taylor Swift song by the same title, mumbling afterward, “I hate that song.”
He got her into the bedroom and helped her lie down in the bed. He took her shoes off for her, and she curled up on her side, eyes closed, clutching at the pillow.
“You comfy?” he asked.
“Mmm,” she murmured.
“You just wanna sleep in your clothes?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Alright then.” He grabbed the blanket off the foot of the bed and covered her up with it, promising her, “I’ll be in later.” He kissed the side of her head, then turned to leave the room.
“I’m sorry, Max,” she squeaked out suddenly.
He stopped and looked back at her. “It’s alright,” he assured her. So she’d gotten drunk. That was fine. Just because he didn’t drink anymore, that didn’t mean she couldn’t.
“I’m really sorry,” she repeated, her voice muffled against the pillow.
He frowned, unable to understand why she was apologizing so much when she hadn’t even done anything wrong.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Elementary kids sure as hell enjoyed school. It was like they didn’t even know that Christmas break was coming—or rather
winter break, as the politically correct term was. Or maybe they
did know, and the promise of Santa giving them presents if they were good was enough to keep them in line. Whatever their motivation, Michael was impressed.
As the holiday break started to draw closer, he found his own energy level starting to drag. He loved his practicum, but he was ready for a change. Working with Jake next semester would be challenging, but it would keep him on his toes. And maybe next year it
would work out for him to coach the football team again, from the start this time rather than just the last two games. He missed his team.
Perhaps it was
because he missed them that he found a reason to drop in on basketball practice after school Monday. Many of the same boys who had played football were giving this less entertaining sport a shot, too. He knew Dylan was, because Maria had mentioned it. And she’d also mentioned that Max was coaching them, which was . . . interesting.
He found an inhaler in the hallway he was leaving and noticed that MM was written on a masking tape label. He knew right away that it belonged to Melvin, who, despite his absolute inability to do anything athletic, was playing basketball with Dylan and Luke and the other kids who actually
would spend more time out on the court than on the bench. Knowing that Melvin was a spaz and might actually need his inhaler at some point during the practice, Michael took a detour to the gym.
He’d expected it to be loud, because basketball wasn’t exactly a quiet sport. There was the bouncing ball and the squeaking sound of the shoes on the floor, and . . . and Max as the coach. For some reason, he’d anticipated walking in there to find Max yelling at the kids the same where their old football coach had. But much to his surprise, and perhaps even to his disappointment, he had their full attention. They were all watching him, trying to mimic his movements as he demonstrated how to shoot a free throw.
“Now it’s all about the wrist,” Max said as he caught sight of Michael coming towards him. Momentarily, he looked distracted, but then he just continued on. “You don’t wanna chuck the ball forward or anything. You want your wrist to be like a spring.”
Michael rolled his eyes.
Fucking basketball. This sport was such a load of crap. Football was brutal and intense, and that was why America loved it.
One of the kids spotted him and exclaimed, “Coach Michael!” and that was all it took to get everyone distracted. They stopped listening to Max and started waving at Michael and saying hi to him instead. He loved that, really.
“Melvin, lose something?” he asked, holding up the kid’s inhaler.
“Oh.” Melvin’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Michael tossed the inhaler to Max and said, “He might need that.”
“Thanks,” Max said, dribbling the ball with his free hand.
“Are you gonna coach us, too?” Luke asked, sounding hopeful.
If it was wrestling, he might have considered it, but no way could he coach basketball. And no way could he ever or would he ever coach with Max. “Afraid not,” he replied, and then, just to piss Max off, he added, “Sorry.”
A few of them groaned disappointedly, and he almost burst into laughter right on the spot. This was just
perfect. Max was going to have some pretty big coaching shoes to fill.
Jackass.
As if he were desperate to regain their attention, Max said, “Alright, we’re gonna practice some free throws. You get two shots. Who’s up first?”
Michael started to walk away, not surprised that Luke’s hand shot into the air and he was the first one to step up to the free throw line. The kid just had that Kyle Valenti natural athleticism. He was going to be good at each and every single sport he tried. He took his first shot, and even though it bounced off the rim, it was close to going in. Max told him what to fix, then encouraged the rest of the guys to cheer him on.
Before he left, Michael made eye contact with Dylan, just to see how he was doing, to see if he looked like he was having fun. And he did, but he wasn’t volunteering to go next, or even go at all. He didn’t look like he was enjoying this as much as football.
He smiled at Michael and waved, and Michael smiled and waved back at him. If he could have, he would have handed him a football jersey and told him to get back out there on the field where he belonged. And just for the heck of it, he probably would have gone out there and tossed the ball around with him. Just for old times’ sake.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So have you recovered?”
At first, Maria pretended not to know what Michael was referring to. “From what?” she asked.
He sat down next to her, grinning. “Saturday.”
“Oh, that.” She waved it off as if it were nothing. And it really was. “I’m fine. I wasn’t drunk or anything.”
“Are you sure?” he challenged. “Because Max practically carried you out of there.”
She only had fuzzy memories of leaving, so she didn’t doubt the truth of that. But still, she wanted to downplay it. “I was a little tipsy,” she acknowledged, “but Max said I didn’t do anything embarrassing, so that’s good.”
He raised his eyebrows, giving her a look.
“What?” she asked.
“No, he’s right. You didn’t
do anything.”
Her heart started to pound anxiously. What the hell did that mean? “Oh my god, did I say something?” What if she’d been inappropriate? What if she’d said something she wasn’t supposed to say?
“At one point you might’ve . . . told me that I was way better looking than Max,” he revealed, “and way better in bed.”
Her mouth dropped open. “
What?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. And you said you don’t wanna marry him.”
Mortified, she covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my god.” She had absolutely no memory of that. Had Max overheard? He must not have, because he hadn’t said anything.
He kept laughing, unable to contain himself, and that was enough to tip her off that he was lying. “Oh, shut up,” she snapped, instantly relieved. “I didn’t really say that.”
“No,” he admitted, “but I know you’re thinking it. It’s okay.”
“You don’t know anything. Don’t even joke about that.”
“You thought I was serious, didn’t you?” He smirked. “So that means you actually really do feel that way.”
“No, I knew you weren’t serious,” she lied.
“Oh, did you now?”
“Yes. You’re being annoying.”
He shrugged unabashedly, apparently much more at ease than she was when it came to joking about this sort of thing.
“I knew you weren’t serious,” she mumbled again, wishing that were true.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Isabel wanted to talk to Alex after class, but she had to wait, because this annoying kid from the front row stuck around, too, asking for advice on the final portfolio of writing that was due next Thursday. Every time Alex suggested something or told him to do something, he overanalyzed it, and the conversation continued on for five more minutes. Isabel stayed at her desk, waiting as patiently as she could for her turn.
Finally, when it was just her and Alex, she got up and walked toward him, sitting down on the front table. He was slumped in his chair, looking as if that conversation with that guy had just exhausted him.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I know what I’m doing with my portfolio. I think.” She’d tried to get started on it over the weekend, but she’d ended up getting . . . distracted.
“Then why are you still here?” he asked, rubbing his forehead.
“I just wanted to see how you’re doing,” she said.
“How I’m doing?”
“Yeah, you know, with . . . everything.” It wasn’t necessary to say that bitch Leanna’s name, was it?
“I’m fine,” he said, but she wasn’t convinced.
“Are you guys getting a divorce?”
“That’s . . . none of your business.”
She frowned. “I was just wondering.”
“I’m your teacher, not your friend,” he said, reiterating what he always seemed to end up saying to her. “You have to understand that.”
“Well, the semester’s almost over,” she pointed out, “and then you won’t be my teacher anymore.”
“But that doesn’t mean we’re gonna be friends.”
“Why not?” Was that really so much to ask? Before they’d ever gone out on that one ill-fated date of theirs, they had been friends. They had supported and respected each other the way friends did. Why couldn’t they just get back to that?
“Oh, come on, Isabel,” he grunted, gathering up his things. “How many conversations did we have before the start of this semester? None. We’re not friends.”
“But--”
“
Isabel.” His expression was serious, his tone stern as he slung his bag over his shoulder and stood up. “Don’t try to weasel your way back into my life now that Leanna’s gone. There’s still no room for you.”
She lowered her head, falling silent as those words hit her. And they hit hard. She swallowed the lump in her throat, nodded unhappily, and tried to push down that all-too familiar feeling of regret. It seemed as if most of her conversations with people ended this way.
When she got home, no one was there. So she dropped her purse at the door, kicked off her shoes, and sulked into the bathroom. When she flipped on the light, it was almost hard to look at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t straightened her hair this morning, so it was all over the place. Her makeup was smeared, too, because she’d cried a little on the drive home.
She opened the medicine cabinet and found Courtney’s pills, the same ones she’d taken last time. There weren’t many left, maybe just five or six, but she dumped them out into the palm of her hand and stared at them for a while, debating whether or not to take them. Maybe she didn’t have to take all of them. Maybe just a few. Three. Or four.
Her lower lip trembled as she agonized over her decision. She knew that she shouldn’t do this, that she
couldn’t do it every single time somebody said something to upset her. She might not be so lucky this time. But part of her just didn’t care.
But then she remembered Max’s invitation to spend Christmas Day at his house. Her mom was going to be there. Her mom and her brother, and the nephew she hardly knew . . . her family. Maybe they didn’t want her, but she still wanted them.
She put the pills back in the bottle, but even that was still too tempting. So she dumped them into the toilet and flushed them down instead, breathing a sigh of relief once they were gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Oh . . .” Infuriated, Michael squeezed his phone so hard, he thought he might crack it. “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me”
Beside him, Monk was spinning in his seat, trying to keep a pencil balanced on his chin while their uneventful four-hour shift in the dorms dragged on. “What?”
“Every time I take a look at what my sister’s posting on Instagram, I get pissed off. Look.” He pulled Monk’s chair to a stop and showed him the image on the screen of his phone. First there was the sideways selfie Tina had taken to show off her growing belly. Then a picture she’d snapped while Nicholas was kissing her cheek. “And look at these comments,” he ranted, switching to a high-pitched voice to mimic a teenaged girl. “‘OMG, ur so cute pregnant!’” He rolled his eyes at the obliviousness of it all. “‘BTW, u and Nick r gunna be
gr8888 parents.’” It made him want to puke just reading it. “No wonder she’s delusional about this pregnancy. Everyone her age fuckin’ glamorizes it.”
“Yeah,” Monk agreed, trying to get his pencil balanced on his chin again without spinning now. He stopped suddenly, though, and asked, “Hey, do you ever wonder what would happen if we were transported into an alternate universe where men have the babies?”
“No.” But just thinking about it was painful.
“Well, I do,” Monk said. “Those things exist, you know.”
“What?”
“Alternate universes.”
Michael laughed lightly, shaking his head. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
“Nope, just really smart.”
“Well, you go live in your alternate universe; I’ll stay in this one.” He leaned back, stretching, and checked the time on his phone. Only ten minutes later than when he’d last checked. “God, this sucks ass,” he grumbled. “I don’t feel like workin’ right now.”
“Me neither,” Monk agreed. “Luckily I won’t have to do this much longer.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I got another job.”
“Where?”
“Best Buy. I start next week.”
Well, that retail giant was certainly the right fit for Monk. The guy was a whiz with computers and electronics of any kind. “Wait, so you’re not gonna be working here anymore?”
“No.”
Michael slumped, more than a little down in the dumps about that. “Dude, that sucks.”
“Not really. I’ll get paid more.”
“No, for me. It sucks for me.” Whenever he did these partner shifts, Monk was usually the guy he worked with. They got along so well and usually even managed to make the job fun. “Who am I gonna work with?”
Monk shrugged. “Brody will hire someone.”
“Probably someone boring. Not that you’re Mr. Excitement or anything.”
“Screw you, man. I’m a bundle of laughs.”
Michael laughed again, because the truth was, he’d grown to really appreciate Monk’s dull, dry sense of humor. He was going to miss him. “It’s not gonna be the same,” he said.
“No,” Monk agreed. “But if you ask Brody, I’m sure he’ll let you help interview people.”
Michael thought about that and nodded, making a mental note to do just that. If he was going to be stuck with a new co-worker, he wanted a say in who it turned out to be.
When his shift was over, he headed over to Vidorra and knocked on the door to Brody’s apartment. He came right out with wanting to help, and Brody was grateful for it. He told Michael to take a seat on the couch, disappeared into the other room for a minute, and then came back with a stack of applications. “These are the candidates I’ve narrowed it down to,” he said, setting the pile down on Michael’s lap.
Michael stared at it in horror. “
This is narrowed down?”
“Hey, it’s a popular job. I get a lot of applications.”
“Anyone stand out?”
“A few. But if you look through ‘em and tell me what you think, we might be able to narrow it down further. I mean, we
have to narrow it down further, obviously. We can’t interview all these people.”
Michael took one glance at the one on top and wasn’t impressed, so he set it aside. But the next one was more interesting. “Oh, this guy for sure,” he said, handing it over to Brody. “Look at his name.”
“Buster Cherry,” Brody read.
Michael waited for him to get how that sounded dirty, but apparently he didn’t. “
Buster. Cherry,” he repeated slowly, emphasizing each word. “That’s awesome.”
“He’s got a high GPA, too,” Brody noted.
“Wait, not higher than mine, right?” Michael snatched the application back, relieved when he saw that Buster’s GPA was a 3.6. “Okay, we’re good. We can still interview him.” He made Buster the start of his yes pile and took a look at the next one. “Let’s see . . . Brooklyn Lockhart.” He nodded appreciatively. “She sounds hot. We’ll give her an interview.” He added her to the yes pile, cringing when he saw the name on the next application. “Nope, not this guy. I wrestled him when I was a sophomore in high school. He’s a chump.” Another one to the no pile. He quickly sorted through a few more after that, stopping when he got to one
very notable application in the middle of the stack. “Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.
Brody leaned over, asking, “You recognize the name?”
He grinned, intrigued, his eyes locked on the name at the top of the paper, a name that wouldn’t allow him to look away.
Maria DeLuca.
“You could say that,” he said, adding her to the yes pile for sure.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
If only the stereotype that New Mexico was always hot were true. Maria longed for some warm weather as she scraped her car off in the parking lot. The temperature had been cold all morning, but it seemed to have dropped even more because of the cloud cover that had rolled in while she’d been in class. Her windshield was literally frosted over, and before she could drive home, she had to thaw it out. She had her car running now, but the layer of frost was so thick that it was barely melting.
She was struggling to scrape away a particularly thick sheen of ice on the passenger’s side when she looked up and saw Michael coming her way. He wasn’t even wearing a coat, just sweatpants and a long-sleeved black shirt. Either he was trying to look macho and tough during this cold weather, or it really didn’t bother him. He
did tend to run pretty . . . hot.
“Hey,” she said, trying to use her scraper like an ice pick now. “Did you sleep in today?” Class had been pretty boring without him.
“No, Sarah just isn’t feelin’ so well, so I stayed home to take care of her,” he explained.
“Oh.” How . . . thoughtful and sweet. “You’re a good boyfriend.”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and asked, “Did I miss anything?”
“Yeah, actually. He pretty much just laid out everything we need to know for the final.”
His eyes widened in horror. “Are you serious?”
She laughed, amused that grades were such a serious thing to him now. “Relax, I took notes. We can study together.”
He sighed in relief. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” She pushed forward with her scraper, finally loosening up the thick ice. Slowly but surely, it was chipping away.
“Want some help?” he offered.
“Uh, sure. Here, I have another one of these.” She opened up the passenger’s side door, reached into her glove compartment for a smaller scraper, and handed it over to him, grateful for the help.
“I got this,” he promised, jabbing the whole scraper into the ice layer with such strength that it cracked and started falling apart right away.
“So,” she said, halfheartedly continuing to scrape at her side of the windshield, “something tells me you didn’t walk out here just to help me scrape off my car.”
“No, I wanted to talk to you.”
Well, that sounded ominous. “About what?”
He cleared away enough ice so that she’d be able to see out her windshield and said, “Let’s . . .” as he motioned to get in the car.
Happy to get out of the cold for a minute, she climbed into the passenger’s seat and put her hands in front of the heater so they could warm up. He got in beside her, pulling his shirt sleeves down over his wrists.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, worried that whatever he needed to talk to her about was something bad.
“Nothing,” he said. “I just, uh . . . I wanted to give you a heads up that my boss Brody might be calling you today.”
His
boss? She didn’t understand. “Why?”
“He wants to set up an interview.”
It actually took her a minute to remember that she
had in fact dropped off an application to work for the housing department. It had been so long ago. “What?”
“Yeah, he liked your application.”
That was great, she supposed, but also . . . unexpected at this point. “I applied right after I moved here, like back in August,” she said.
“Well, you didn’t get the job then, but now . . . you’re in the running, so . . .” He shrugged. “Just thought I’d let you know. I mean, I don’t even know if you still
want the job.”
“Well . . . from a financial standpoint, yes. I know, it’s just part-time, but I feel like, if I have a job, Max won’t have to work so hard.” The only reason why he painted people’s houses was so that they had enough money coming in to get by without much worry. “I mean, I didn’t plan to go without a job as long as I have, you know?” She’d filled out dozens of applications for dozens of different places right when she’d gotten to Carlsbad. But waitressing jobs were the only jobs that had wanted her, and she just . . . she just couldn’t do that again.
“But?” he said, obviously sensing her reluctance.
“But . . .” There was a lot to consider, and the biggest consideration of all was sitting right there next to her. “Obviously back when I applied, I had no idea you worked there.”
He made a face. “So you’re gonna turn down a job just ‘cause of me?”
“No, not necessarily.” She was definitely willing to keep her options open. “It’s just that . . . this complicates things for me.”
“Why? We already have class together. We see each other all the time.”
“Yeah, and if I get this job, we’ll see each other even more.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“No, not for me.” She immediately regretted saying that, because it made it sound like there was a problem. And so far, there wasn’t.
“For Max?” he assumed. “Are you worried about what he’s gonna think?”
Of course she was. She had asked Max to put up with so much these past few months, and he’d gone about it agreeably and willingly. But what if this just pushed him past his breaking point? “Well, aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned about Sarah?” she snapped.
“No, ‘cause I talked to her about it last night. She knows it’s just another . . . weird coincidence.”
Maria frowned. When did all these intersections of their lives stop being coincidence and start being . . . something else? It scared her that Michael was becoming such a big part of her life again, and it scared her even more that the thought of this job . . . excited her.
“I have to talk to Max,” she said. There were definitely good, logical reasons for her getting a job like they had originally intended. There were ways that it would benefit him. “But if it makes him uncomfortable . . .”
“He should suck it up and get over it,” Michael grumbled. “If you’re willing to get a job just to make things easier on him, he should be grateful.”
Maria shook her head, knowing it wasn’t that simple. It never was when Michael was involved.
“I’ll finish your car here,” he said, picking up the scraper again. He got out of the car and continued his work on her windshield.
She sat for a few more seconds inside, then got back out. But her mind was not focused on that frosted-over window anymore. “Michael,” she said.
He stopped what he was doing and looked across at her.
“Don’t pull any favors for me,” she told him. “If I do this interview and get this job, I want it to be based off of my own merit, not your recommendation.”
He stared at her incredulously and flapped his arms against his sides. “So what, I can’t even put in a good word for you?”
She shook her head decidedly. “No. I wanna earn it.”
He looked her right in the eye, and a slow, confident smile crept to his face. “You will,” he said, and then he continued scraping the ice away.
She picked up her scraper and resumed doing the same. It started to come off easily now, because at this point, it was melting.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Max gripped the edge of the kitchen counter, wishing Maria had given him a little time to relax rather than just springing this on him right upon his return home from work. On the one hand, he was happy to hear that she might have a job in the works, but on the other hand . . .
“Max, say something,” she begged.
He wasn’t trying to be standoffish. He just needed a moment to contemplate everything. “What do you want me to say?” he said, turning around, forcing a smile. Even though he wasn’t upset, it
did sort of seem like he was becoming fate’s ultimate punch line here.
“I just want you to tell me what you’re thinking,” she said softly. “And just be honest.”
“Honestly . . .” He shrugged. “It is kind of weird how all these things keep happening. He was Dylan’s coach, and he’s your classmate, and now he’s gonna be your coworker?”
“Potentially,” she reminded him. “I don’t even know if I’ll get the job.”
“No, you will.” He believed in Maria. If she did in fact score an interview, she’d make the most of it. And he’d be happy for her, because he didn’t want her to ever have to waitress again. He knew how much she hated doing that, and she’d done it for so long already. Too long.
“But I don’t have to take it,” she insisted. “If you don’t want me to . . .”
“No, it’s not . . .” He wasn’t about to forbid her from doing anything. In the end, it wasn’t his decision to make. “If this is what you want, then I support you. You know that.”
“I just . . .” She sighed. “I feel so bad. I feel like, these past few months, you’ve had to be
so understanding of
so much.”
He nodded, not about to dispute that. The whole semester had definitely tested him and maximized his patience. He’d had to trust her more than ever before. But then again, wasn’t that the least he could do? After all, despite the numerable horrible things he’d done, she’d still learned to trust him again.
“But I do think it would be good,” she said. “I mean, I wanna be able to help out with money, and it’s not like I’d be swimming in cash with this job, but at least it’d be something. Maybe you could spend more time at home and not have to work quite as much.”
“Yeah.” That
would be nice. For the past couple months, he’d been putting in around fifty hours of work per week, and now that he was coaching basketball, too, he felt the strain.
“And it’s not like I’d be working with Michael all the time,” she went on quickly. “I mean, I know he works alone a lot, so it’s not like we’d always be--” She stopped abruptly when her phone rang, glancing down at the number. She didn’t say anything, so Max automatically knew that was either Michael himself or his boss.
Maria picked up the phone and answered it. “Hello?”
Max bent down and took off his construction boots. He hadn’t even had time to get out of his work clothes. All he really wanted to do was get in the shower, because today had been hard work.
“Yes, this is she,” Maria said cordially, so clearly it wasn’t Michael. The rest of her conversation was fairly standard, with her pretending not to have known in advance that she was going to be offered an interview. She set it up for the next day during the afternoon, and when that was done, she very politely said, “Okay, I look forward to it. Thank you,” and hung up.
Alright, so this is happening, Max registered. It was fine.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked him.
“Yeah.” It was a job, so in the end, it was a good thing.
“Are you
sure?” she asked again. She really still sounded like she would back out on the whole thing if he asked her to. So in a way, it was tempting to do just that.
“
Yes,” he insisted, refusing to be insecure. As weird as all of this was, he could deal. From the moment Michael had charged out of that office at school and started beating on him, the reality of Carlsbad had shifted gears. He’d known then that it wouldn’t be exactly what he had pictured, and he knew it now. But it didn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, he was the one Maria came home to. He was the guy who slept with her, in more ways than one, and the guy who was raising a child with her. So when it came right down to it, he had nothing to worry about.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Michael noticed Maria was wearing his sweatshirt again. Normally, he would have teased her about it a little bit, but he was too eager to find out if she was going to be one of the candidates he was helping interview today.
“So did he call?” he asked right as she sat down in her usual spot in the back row of the room.
“Who, Brody?”
“No, the pope.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, he called.”
“So are you doin’ the interview?” He really hoped so, because he was looking forward to it.
“Yeah,” she said. “I talked to Max about it, and he’s fine, so . . .”
So you got his permission, he thought bitterly, hating that she wouldn’t do it if he told her not to.
“I’m kinda nervous,” she admitted.
“Relax,” he told her. “You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t have the best track record with job interviews.”
“Hey, if I got hired, it can’t be too hard.”
She smiled. “Yeah, but you’re, like, this superstar of college. What’s your GPA again? 3.7?”
“3.8,” he corrected readily.
“See?”
“Yeah, I’m pretty fuckin’ awesome,” he boasted, stretching out, yawning. He started envisioning what it would be like to work with Maria then, her taking Monk’s place on the double shifts, and his yawn transformed into a grin.
“What?” she said.
“Ah, just . . .” He didn’t want to get her hopes up when she hadn’t yet gotten the job, but it was hard not to. “Don’t you think it’d be kinda fun to work together?”
“It’d be weird,” she mumbled.
“Weird but fun.” He smirked, wondering if he could convince her to do chair races with him like Monk used to.
“I just have to get the job first,” she said, squirming in her seat a bit. “I’m actually starting to get really nervous.”
“Relax. Brody’s a nice guy,” he assured her. “
Not intimidating.”
“So I just have to impress him then?” she said. “He’s the only one who’s gonna interview me?”
“Yeah.” He kept his mischievous grin in check, just because he knew there was a possibility she’d freak out if she knew he got to interview her, too.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“So, Maria, on your application, you listed responsibility as the most important workplace skill,” Brody recounted as he and Michael sat with Maria in the plush chairs outside the elevators at the Vidorra suites.
“Yes,” Maria said, nodding.
Michael gave her a prodding look. She had to say
more, even though Brody technically hadn’t asked her a question.
She interpreted his look quickly and added on, “Because . . . you have to be responsible for everything, whether it’s showing up on time or making sure you do a good job while you’re on the clock, or even owning up to a mistake if you make one. Because that’s bound to happen.”
“Right,” Brody said, jotting down a few notes.
Michael pretended to write some stuff down, too, then asked the next question on the list Brody had printed off for him. “Give us an example of how you’ve demonstrated responsibility in your own life.”
“Um . . .” She hesitated momentarily.
Come on, Maria, he thought, hoping she didn’t get hung up.
This should be easy for you.
“Well, obviously as a college student, I have to be responsible enough to study and get projects and papers done on time.”
Michael sighed inwardly, disappointed that she hadn’t mentioned Dylan, and how she’d worked two jobs at eighteen years old just so she could handle the responsibility of taking care of him. He wanted to mention it for her, but he’d promised Brody that he would treat Maria just like the other two candidates they’d decided to interview today.
The elevator doors opened, and out strolled Roxie, wearing just a man’s t-shirt and probably a whole lot of nothing underneath. She bypassed the three of them completely and dazedly approached the front desk.
“Oh, Michael, you’d better take care of that,” Brody told him.
He got up, laying his clipboard and interview sheet face down on the chair, and resumed his post at the desk, because even though he was interviewing, he was technically still on the clock. “Roxie,” he said.
“Hey, Michael,” she chirped, twisting her red hair around her finger flirtatiously. “You look so hot.”
“I know,” he agreed. “Don’t tell me it happened again.”
She pouted exaggeratedly and whimpered, “I don’t know why I always lock myself out.”
Because you’re dumb as a fence post, he thought. But he settled for, “It’s a head-scratcher,” instead, knowing that the sarcasm wouldn’t register with her. He gave her the skeleton key card and made a note on her room card that she was having to use it again. One more time this semester and she’d have to pay a fifty dollar fee, but if he was the one on duty when it happened again, he’d probably just let it slide on account of her being a total idiot.
“Hopefully I never lock myself in,” she said, taking the skeleton key from him.
“What? You can’t . . .” Oh, this girl. She was like Peter Griffin from
Family Guy, only . . . thin and hot. “Yeah, don’t do that,” he said, figuring it would take more time to explain to her why locking herself in her room was impossible and that it was best to just go along with it. “Now you know the drill. Bring that one back to me
after you’ve got your real key in your hand. Got it?”
“Okay!” she exclaimed, waving at him. “Thanks, Michael!” She skipped back to the elevator, lifting up her t-shirt to give him a quick flash of her ass before she got on.
“You see, that’s what makes Michael such a great employee, the charisma,” he heard Brody saying as he returned to the comfy chairs. “He’s able to get along with just about anyone.”
“Well, I’ve also slept with that girl,” Michael pointed out, “so that probably helps.”
“Michael!” Brody hissed.
“What?” He motioned to Maria and assured his boss, “She knows.”
“Yeah, I know,” Maria said. “It’s fine.”
Brody sighed and shook his head. “Right. Listen, Maria, Michael did tell me that the two of you have a history, so with that in mind, I hope you understand that I need to ask you a personal question.”
Immediately, she looked worried. “Sure,” she said, smiling shakily.
Just stay calm, Maria, Michael thought.
You got this.
“If you were to get this job, the two of you would work together at times,” Brody said. “Do you foresee your personal relationship interfering at all with your professional one?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” Maria answered quickly. “I know Michael prides himself on this job and takes it seriously, and I would do the same.”
Michael smiled.
Good answer.
“And as for our relationship . . .” she said, casting a quick sideways glance at him. “It’s just a friendship nowadays. It wouldn’t be a distraction, because there’s really nothing else there.”
Brody smiled and jotted down a few notes, apparently satisfied with that answer, but the second part of it made Michael frown. Nothing else there? What the hell? He wondered if she really believed that, or if she was just saying it.
When the interview was over, Brody left to go take care of some business in one of the dorms, and Michael went back behind the front desk to finish the rest of his shift. Maria stayed for a bit, though, and he took the opportunity to confront her about what she’d said.
“Nothing?” he said dramatically. “
Nothing?”
“What? I said we have a friendship,” she reminded him.
“And nothing else.”
“Well, there is nothing else,” she said. “Right?”
“I guess.”
“So why are you mad?”
“I’m not mad.” He supposed that maybe he had just hoped she would at least still feel attracted to him or something. Physically, at least. Because for him, that hadn’t gone away.
“I don’t get you sometimes,” she mumbled.
Yeah, sometimes he didn’t get himself.
In the midst of this whole interview, he’d nearly forgotten about Roxie, but she came back down to the front desk in the middle of their conversation. She had pants on now, which was . . . a shame.
“Oh, Roxie,” he said, “this has to be a new record-long for you. What happened?”
“I got confused,” she said, handing him the skeleton key card.
“Of course you did.”
When she noticed Maria standing there, her entire face took on this befuddled expression. “Wait a minute,” she said as she motioned back and forth between the two of them, “I didn’t know you guys were back together again.”
Maria tensed, and Michael said, “We’re not.”
“Oh.” Roxie’s whole brow furrowed up as her simple little mind tried to figure it out. “I’m confused again.”
“Just go have sex or something,” he suggested.
“Ooh, that sounds fun!” she exclaimed. She pranced back to the elevator and got back on, calling, “Bye, Michael!” as the doors shut.
“Well, I guess not everyone changes after high school,” Maria remarked.
Michael smirked. No, Roxie sure as hell hadn’t changed, even though most everyone else had.
“So how do you think I did?” Maria asked, sitting on the edge of the front desk. “Honestly.”
Honestly . . . he’d wanted her to do better. “You did alright,” he replied.
“Just alright?”
“Well, some of your answers were a little . . . generic.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Like when you were talking about responsibility. I thought you could’ve mentioned Dylan and how you had to work so hard to be responsible for him.”
“I just didn’t know if I should,” she said. “Anytime I mention that I have a son, you can just see this shift in people’s eyes. It’s like they start to do the math and form opinions about me just because I had him so young.”
“But Brody’s not a judgmental guy, you know?” he said, wishing that he’d given her more advice before she’d gone into this. “He wouldn’t hold that against you. In fact, he’d probably respect it.”
She sighed heavily, shoulders slumping in disappointment. “So you don’t think I got the job?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.” He knew she was his top choice, but not because of her interview.
“Don’t lobby for me,” she reminded him.
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
He was already planning out what he was going to say to Brody . . . but she didn’t need to know that. “Promise.”
After his shift was over, he met up with Brody in Brody’s apartment and made his case. “I’m tellin’ you, Maria DeLuca will work her ass off,” he declared. “She’s used to it. And she is responsible, and she’s easy to get along with. Trust me, she’s the one.”
Brody gave him a skeptical look. “I bet you’ve said that before.”
Well, yeah, he had. In a different context, but . . . “Look, I know I said I’d be unbiased . . .”
“But you’re not,” Brody cut in.
“I tried to be,” he insisted. “But come on, Brooklyn was late, and Buster kind of seemed like a prick.”
“No, I thought he seemed very professional and mature,” Brody disagreed.
“And Maria didn’t?”
He shrugged. “She just seemed nervous.”
“Everyone’s nervous during a job interview,” Michael pointed out.
“Buster wasn’t.”
“No, ‘cause he was cocky.” There, that was the way to spin it. “He acted like he already knew everything. Did you notice that?”
Brody sighed, clearly conflicted. “You don’t think you’d work well with him, huh?” he deduced.
“No, it’d be a train wreck.” Honestly, it wouldn’t have been so bad; Buster hadn’t even
really seemed all that horrible. But he was no Monk, and he was
definitely no Maria. Working with him would be . . . work; working with Maria would be fun. “I’m telling you, Maria’s . . . she’s a really good person,” he pressed on, determined not to let up until he was pretty sure he’d managed to change Brody’s mind. “She deserves this.” He didn’t want this interview to be another in long line of failed interviews for Maria. He wanted her to get this job. Partly for himself, sure, but . . . mostly for her.
“I’ll think about it,” Brody decided, and Michael knew that was the best it was going to get.
That night, while they were in the bathroom getting ready for bed, Sarah asked him about it. “So did she get the job?”
He wished he knew the answer, but it was obviously going to be Brody’s call, and it was still very much up in the air. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s between her and this guy . . .” He trailed off, chuckling. “This guy named—wait for it—Buster Cherry.” He laughed some more, because any time he said that name, it was just hilarious to him.
Sarah gave him a look, like she didn’t hear the same humor in it that he did.
He flapped his arms against his sides, groaning, “Am I the only one who thinks that’s funny?”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Maria stood outside on her small porch the next morning, watching Max and Dylan play basketball in the driveway. It was warmer out today than it had been the past few days, so Max had been eager to get in some extra practice time with Dylan, but he was trying to go about it in a fun way.
“Dribble, dribble,” he instructed as Dylan tried to get the ball around him. “Shoot!”
Dylan jumped, pushing the ball up and forward, and much to Max’s delight, it went through the net.
“Yeah!” he exclaimed. “Alright, look at that!” He gave Dylan a high five, and Dylan smiled proudly. He didn’t celebrate the way he had when he’d caught his first football, though. It was like his passion for this sport just wasn’t quite there yet. And yet was definitely the key word, because it was obvious that Max intended to get it there.
“Good job,” Max said as he retrieved the basketball. “Are you likin’ this a little better now?”
Dylan shrugged wordlessly.
“Oh come on,” Max urged. “You’re gettin’ good. Come on, let’s go again.” He passed the ball back to his son, and Dylan started dribbling it again.
Maria would have watched more, but her phone vibrated in the front pocket of her jeans. When she took it out, she recognized the number as Brody’s and went inside to take the call.
“Hello?” she said, trying not to sound nervous even though she was.
“Hi, Maria. It’s Brody Davis,” he said.
“Hey.” Oh god, what if this was the typical rejection phone call? She’d had so many of those over the years.
“I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to come in and interview yesterday,” he said.
She cringed inwardly, thinking this didn’t sound good. It seemed like he was about to tell her someone else had gotten the job.
“And . . . I was wondering if you could come in tomorrow, too,” he added, much to her surprise, “if you’d still like to work for the housing department, that is.”
For a second, she thought she hadn’t heard him correctly. She even had to say, “What?”
“I’d like to offer you the job,” he stated plainly. “Are you still interested?”
Her mouth dropped open, and she had to clasp her hand over it for a second to keep an excited squeal inside. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’m very interested. Thank you so much.”
“Great, great,” Brody said. “Welcome to the team then. I think you’ll make a great addition.”
“Thank you,” she said again, bouncing up and down a little. “And yes, I
can come in tomorrow. What time?”
“Does 2:00 work?”
Max would be home with Dylan, so anything worked. “Sure.”
“Alright, just plan on being there until about 5:00 then. I’ve got some paperwork I need you to fill out, and then we’ll get you workin’.”
“Sounds good,” she said. “Um, I’m not gonna be alone, though, right?” She had no problem with solo shifts eventually, but as of right now, she didn’t really know what to do.
“No, Michael’s gonna be there,” he told her. “I’m gonna have him do your training.”
Because he’s the favorite employee, she thought. But she didn’t mind the thought of working with him at all. He would make it entertaining, and the time would probably just fly by.
“Does that sound like a plan?” Brody asked.
“It sounds great,” she confirmed, proud of herself for getting this job. It would be nice to be able to contribute
something to her family so that Max wouldn’t have to pay for everything.
“Alright, see you tomorrow then,” Brody said. “Bye, Maria.”
“Bye.”
She ended the call and finally let out that squeal of delight. It was
so nice to actually be offered a job rather than turned down. And this job wouldn’t require her to act happy all the time just for the sake of collecting tips.
She was excited to tell Max, but first, she called Michael. He answered after the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hey,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “Guess what?”
TBC . . .
-April