Point, Click, Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

how amazing it was, how Jake was so clearly still madly in love with her, and Maxine would just smile and shrug her shoulders. How lucky she was!
    She couldn’t bring herself to talk about it with her friends, not even her best friend, Katie, to whom she had always told everything. Maxine couldn’t let herself think about it too long either, so she threw herself into parenthood and painting, determined to not only be a great mother but also to find real success as an artist.
    And she did.
    It started with shows in the best local galleries. Then she began showing in galleries in New York and L.A. Soon, invitations from contemporary museums all over the country started coming in. There were talks with visiting artists and fancy dinners with collectorsand glowing reviews in newspapers and art magazines. Finally she had achieved a success in her world that Jake had achieved in the world of medicine.
    Maxine knew Jake was proud of her, but there was something missing. As with the sex, he seemed detached. No one else noticed, of course, because he would always be hanging all over her, smiling lovingly and kneading her shoulders. But Maxine could feel it. He just wasn’t all there.
    Then one night after dinner, Maxine needed the number of the pediatrician’s office but couldn’t find her cell phone. Jake’s BlackBerry was sitting on the kitchen counter; she picked it up. Maxine had never used a BlackBerry before, so she started pressing random buttons. A list of recent text messages came up, and there was only one name. Deirdre.
    Deirdre was the newest doctor in Jake’s practice. She was a graduate of Brown University and did her residency at the Cleveland Clinic. When Deirdre arrived in Kansas City to start her new job, Jake and Maxine hosted a cocktail party for her.
    The first thing Maxine thought when Deirdre walked into the house that night was that she looked like a better version of herself. Deirdre was thirty-two, tall, and athletic, with silky blond hair, flawless skin, and blue-green eyes that seemed to change color like the waters off a Greek island. Maxine was forty-two, short, and slim, with dirty-blond hair, pale freckled skin, and eyes the color of the murky waters off Manhattan. Maxine had always felt she was cute enough, that she actually looked pretty good for a mother of three, but Deirdre’s otherworldly beauty set off an insecurity she’d never experienced before.
    “That Deirdre is pretty amazing,” Maxine said to Jake when they were climbing into bed after the party.
    “Yeah, really bright,” he said casually. “We were lucky to get her.”
    “And beautiful. She’s very beautiful. I’ve never seen anyone so beautiful.”
    “I guess,” he said, remaining nonchalant. “I think she’s got a boyfriend.”
    Maxine smiled to herself. She knew Jake found Deirdre attractive—how could he not?—and she appreciated his effort to comfort her with the news of Deirdre’s boyfriend. Not for a moment did Maxine consider that Jake would cheat on her. Never. Jake was the most honest, upstanding guy she had ever met, and, despite their issues in bed, she knew he loved her and respected her and would never do anything to hurt her. Sure, she was a little jealous of Deirdre. Who wouldn’t be? But she trusted Jake completely.
    Until she saw those text messages. Couldn’t there be an innocent excuse? she thought. Maybe they’d been going back and forth about a patient. Maybe they were discussing a movie they’d both seen. All Maxine had to do was open one up and she’d know for sure, but she simply couldn’t do it. In her heart, she knew what she would find.
    Jake had never texted Maxine in his life, and clearly he wasn’t texting anyone else but Deirdre. Texting was something young people did, and Deirdre was young. It was something intimate, a mode of communication just for her.
    Maxine put down the phone and locked herself in the small bathroom in the finished basement. She sat on the floor for half