Maxine Read Online Free PDF Page A

the back of her mind a small voice wonders what will become of the plum, Maxine does not allow this thought to be articulated. The plum gets chewed.
    Barb Larsen perches on the edge of the couch, sipping from a Garfield mug. Gail has told Maxine to get rid of the mug, but Maxine refuses to throw away something that is perfectly serviceable just because it happens to have Garfield on it. It’s not the mug’s fault. There is no room in the world, Gail maintains, for household items possessing this level of stupidity and ugliness. Gail has threatened to drop it out the kitchen window, so it could plummet past old Mr. Jenkins’ kitchen window below and smash into lots of small pieces. Fortunately, Barb is oblivious to the Garfield debate. She has a look that suggests she’s about to embark on a challenging topic, a look that provokes in Maxine a queasy claustrophobia. It occurs to her that she could possibly run back into the kitchen, fling open the back door, and climb down the fire escape. It would be a weird thing to do, granted, but not impossible. Maxine hesitates. She hovers for a moment over the computer chair and then resigns herself to normalcy. She flops heavily down.
    So, Barb says, it’s been a week. A week today. I feel so badly. About what happened.
    Oh, it’s just one of those things, says Maxine. I feel bad too. She’s squishing her lower lip between her thumb and index finger. I shouldn’t have let him out of my sight. She gulps the rest of her tea.
    Yes. But I should have been available for you to reach, I should have been there. It was inexcusable—Barb is leaning so far forward that Maxine fears she might pitch face-down onto the floor—I didn’t know it would happen, Barb says. You have to make choices. Barb is in close to Maxine now, staring at her, green eyes topped by that blunt fringe of hair.
    Of course you didn’t know it would happen. That’s not your fault, Maxine says encouragingly, rolling her chair back just a touch. Anyway, it’s all over now! She wonders if standing would be too pointed a gesture.
    Barb turns her head away and pulls the elastic out of her orange ponytail. She gathers her hair in one hand, gives it a vicious wrench, and snaps the elastic back on.
    Some things, Barb says, there’s no good way of dealing with. She seems to be hesitating. She glances out the living-room window, toward her own living-room window in the white house across the road. She gets up slowly, rubbing her palms down the front of her jeans.
    I guess I should let you work.
    The loaf, says Maxine, jumping to her feet and smiling, That was so kind of you. I really appreciate it, she says, picking Barb’s shawl up from the arm of the couch and flapping it open like a matador.
    Maxine closes the door behind Barb, locks it, and draws the chain. She almost sprints to her desk.

3
    december 2002
    f    rédérique was trying to write, but a colleague kept wandering into her office. “How goes it, Frédérique,” he would say, leaning toward her so that she could see the green of his eyes... She could see far too far into his crazy emerald eyes... She felt dizzy, as if she might tip forward into the ocean of his grey-green eyes and be dragged into the icy—
    â€œSorry, Charles—I’m busy.” Frédérique pushed the door shut with her foot, forgetting him the moment it closed. This would be an important paper. She did not see exactly how she would reach the end of it but she had every confidence. She could hear the applause that would follow her presentation. She imagined herself wearing something long and swishy. It would swish when she smiled and turned to acknowledge a question.
    Maxine is thinking about herself in the third person, partly because it’s Monday and on Mondays you are supposed to be at your most virtuous. But she tries to do it somewhat often anyway. She reaches for a piece of fruit and thinks,