Again, seemed about right. Two people who hated him for the price of one.
“Sorry,” Max said as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I know I should remember your name.” He waited for the man to tell it to him, but he didn’t say a word. “But I don’t.” Still nothing. Was he thinking if he waited long enough, Max would remember? That really wasn’t going to happen. “Maybe you can remind me?”
“His name is Stuart Bain,” Hadley said, darting a glance up at Stuart’s face as she stepped in front of him. “He was the assistant director on America’s Fiercest Chef and he’s the director of my show. And if you’ll excuse us, Chef, we’re going to talk for just a moment. Be right back.”
With that, the door closed and they were gone, and Max was left to awkwardly stand there and act like he couldn’t hear the elevated voices on the other side of the door. He turned around, his hands still in his pockets, and rolled up on the balls of his feet—up and down, up and down.
At Tranquility Peaks, a treatment center in Malibu where he’d spent thirty corporate mediation–ordered days in the aftermath of his very public crash-and-burn, they’d taught him that the only way to waste a moment in life was to choose to waste a moment in life. Sure, it was New Age hooey, but he’d noticed that choosing not to waste moments was actually helpful. In that moment, for instance, he didn’t just stand on the porch and stew in his frustration at driving for thirteen hours and then being made to wait outside like the kid who’s been splashing around in mud puddles and can’t go in the house until his mom grabs a towel. No, instead he used that moment to decide it had been a lovely drive, and the best possible thing he could do next was get back on the road.
The discussion inside had subsided—or at least they’d stepped further away from the door—and still no one appeared. That was a pretty clear indication that Hadley didn’t want to speak with him—as if it hadn’t already been clear.
“You’re leaving?” she asked from the doorway, just as he reached his vehicle.
He nodded. “I think this was a mistake.”
“Probably.”
“I do think it’s best if I just go.”
She again said, “Probably.”
Max smiled at her as genuinely as he could, considering he was the most uncomfortable he’d ever been in his life. “Well . . . bye.” He waved. Idiotically.
She just nodded again.
There was no doubt these moments would go down as wasted, and he couldn’t deny that was entirely of his choosing. It was too late to do anything about that. But he still had the opportunity to make sure his entire drive back to New York wasn’t wasted on regret.
“I just wanted to apologize,” he said, taking one small step back toward the porch. “I was really awful to you that day—”
“Two days!” Stuart called from inside the house. “You were awful to her for two days.”
Max cleared his throat and nodded. “I was really awful to you those two days, and you deserved better. Sorry.”
Awkward silence filled the air, even as relief began to fill Max’s heart. When he’d set out from Manhattan, he hadn’t had any clue as to how an apology would be received. He’d been so busy focusing on the reception of it that he hadn’t given any thought to how good it might feel just to say it.
Hadley hadn’t moved or said a word, but she stared at him intently. Max knew he would appreciate her telling him his apology was accepted, but it wasn’t necessary. But he also didn’t want to just hop in the car and go, if she was planning to say something. His eyes began to twitch with uncertainty, from Hadley to the Range Rover and back again, as he tried to decide what to do. And still she stared.
“Okay, well . . . I think I’ll go,” he declared, gesturing with his thumb toward the vehicle. “Unless . . .” He raised his eyebrows, but she didn’t respond. “Nope. Okay. I’m going.” He walked to the driver’s side and opened the door. He waved again—just as idiotically as before—as he climbed in, and then he had a thought. He pulled his wallet from the glove compartment and reached inside for a business card, then he jumped out and hurried back around to the porch. “If you want to talk, here’s how you can reach me. You know . . . if there’s anything you want to say. Anything at all.” He held it out for her, but she made no attempt to grab it. “I’ll just, um . . . I’ll just set it here.” He placed it on the railing beside her, but the breeze made it flutter instantly, and he had to grab it before it flew away. “I guess that won’t work. Um . . . here . . .” He rushed again to the driveway, this time to grab a large stone from the collection that lined the path of minuscule gravel. He ran back over to her and set the card down in the same spot, but secured by the stone. He returned to the driver’s seat and climbed inside, but not before calling out, “Sorry again.” Then he shut the door, fired up the ignition, and drove away—pretty sure he’d just proven that sometimes you had no control whatsoever over the most wasteful moments of all.
6. Marinate.
HADLEY
Everything felt deceptively normal as I walked back into my grandmother’s house. Stuart left for home about a minute later, after neither of us had known what to say, really, apart from “That was weird,” with a commitment to talk more about it later. There was something about the comfort of the place that could almost trick me into believing I hadn’t just experienced the closest thing to a parallel universe I would ever feel.
I headed into the kitchen, a little bit zombie-like. I didn’t know what I was going to cook, and I certainly wasn’t hungry, but I pulled out a bowl and pie pan and a whisk, and then instinctively opened the refrigerator and grabbed eggs and cream, as well as some of the bacon and Gruyère that had been set aside for Lacey’s Mornay sauce and hot brown. I fumbled around the kitchen, grabbing everything else I needed to make a quick, easy quiche, although there was a part of me that thought it was the perfect time to tackle turducken or some equally arduous and ridiculous recipe that I’d always thought would be fun to have in my repertoire.
What in the world was that?
I set down the bowl of eggs I had begun whisking and looked toward the door—as if making sure the door Max and I had just stood on the other side of was still there would help it all make more sense. And then I realized I was asking the wrong question. Who in the world was that?
I sunk down gradually onto the stool beside the island and picked up his business card from the marble in front of me. It was one of those cool cards reserved for either the most successful or the most pretentious of people—only a name and a phone number. No job title, no company name, no website encouraging you to go learn more on your own. No . . . people with this sort of card were aware that you knew exactly who they were. What’s more, they were doing you a favor by gracing you with their phone number—but they certainly couldn’t be bothered to stand there and exchange digits with you, or to wait while you put each other’s information in your phones.
The card indicated the man on my porch had, in fact, been Maxwell Cavanagh, but nothing in my mind was doing much to confirm that. And it wasn’t just that he had said he was sorry, although that had certainly sent my senses into a topsy-turvy freefall. No, what was really causing sensory overload was the humility that had been evident in his eyes.