I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but I didn’t feel like right then was the best time to tell Stuart that Max and I had gotten to know each other a little better over breakfast—or during some post-breakfast drama on the street, rather.
“I’ll be careful,” I assured him, and popped another doughnut in his mouth.
We each got back to work—him boxing things up and calling out instructions, me scrubbing Meemaw’s kitchen so she would at least have a clean surface for her Chinese takeout when she got home—but I had one final thing that needed to be discussed.
“Hey, Stu?” I shouted at him over the noise of the bustling crew.
“Yeah?”
“Will other directors know how to use that really flattering light filter that I like?”
“So that’s why you keep me around!”
I laughed. “Don’t act so surprised. I don’t even remember your name half the time. With the other crew members, I just refer to you as ‘The Guy with the Flattering Light Filter.’”
11. Preheat oven to desired temperature.
MAX
“Hey, man. I’m back. Just walking into my place right now. Sorry to call so late.” He looked at his watch: 1:14 a.m. Max’s calls had been ignored all day, but this one was justified. “Hopefully you got my messages. Call me tomorrow. Or today, I mean.” He pulled the phone away from his ear to end the call but rushed it back as he thought of one more thing he needed to say. “I’m feeling good. I want to get back to work. Renowned will be great”—he still wasn’t completely sure that was true—“but I can handle more. If the network’s lost interest in To the Max, I’ve got some other ideas.” None of them as good as To the Max, but he didn’t figure it was necessary to include that disclaimer in his pitch. “Let’s talk.” He fumbled around in his mind for what else he needed to say, but with all of that now having been added to the countless thoughts he’d left with Candace throughout the day, he figured there really wasn’t anything else.
That done, he jammed his phone into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled his key from the front pocket. He steeled himself and turned the key, and then walked inside and felt the familiar emotion of . . . nothing.
He set his backpack down by the door and looked around. Everything was the same. Of course it was. Just like it had been the same when he’d walked back in for the first time, a month earlier, after returning from Tranquility Peaks. He’d picked up a few habits at Tranquility Peaks and he’d hopefully kicked a few, but life had not changed.
He closed the door behind him and immediately removed his shoes. There were few things Max loved more than being on the road, but after his two-day round trip to Nashville, he was ready to be home. At least for a little while.
He reached down, picked up his backpack, and hoisted it onto the farmhouse table in the dining room. He wondered, as he often did when he looked around his apartment, how many other people bought homes they didn’t really love, in locations that weren’t the most convenient, simply because they fell in love with a kitchen. Max had never been much of a romantic, but his SoHo kitchen had made him believe that love at first sight was actually possible.
He unzipped and prepared to unload the bag of clothes, but his eyes stopped on the wall of his beloved kitchen, and then everything stopped. Without a doubt, the built-in wine rack and full bar setup had been among the most appealing traits of the apartment. Those, along with the perfectly positioned eight-foot skylight.
He walked to the wall of liquids a bit zombie-like.
At Tranquility Peaks, Buzz had helped him realize he didn’t need alcohol; he only wanted alcohol. Buzz had also taught him that he could avoid a lot of his anger by being okay with other people receiving credit for their accomplishments. Even if their accomplishments were actually Max’s accomplishments. Even if their accomplishments were stupid. Even if their accomplishments weren’t actually accomplishments at all.
So he was okay with giving Buzz credit for helping him realize that he didn’t need alcohol, despite the fact that he’d told everyone—including Buzz—that from the very beginning.
Buzz had advised him to remove all the alcohol from his home—not because Max thought he needed it, but because, at certain times, he knew he’d want it. In four months, he hadn’t had a drink, and he’d been fine. But throughout most of that four months, the most stressful thing about each day had been the relaxation everyone kept trying to force upon him. Once he got back to filming—existing on four hours of sleep a night and losing track of time zones over the course of a week—would he really be okay saying goodbye to a nice relaxing bourbon at the end of a long day?
He didn’t even bother looking at the wine bottles—those were easy enough to dispose of. The midlevel bottles could be served at one of his restaurants, or maybe even just kept on the rack for decoration. Wine had never been his temptation anyway. It was a miracle worker when it came to complementing a meal, but on its own . . . no thanks. The big-ticket wines, kept in climate-controlled (and keypad-protected) storage in his bedroom? Well, those were mostly just investments. Maybe one lucky network executive would receive an 1811 Chateau d’Yquem for Christmas this year. Regardless, he had no plans to ever drink the elite bottles anyway. He’d sooner drink his Apple stocks.
Now the hard liquors were another thing entirely.
He threw down the socks he had just pulled from the backpack and marched over to the bar. He grabbed the bottle of Macallan, quickly removed the top, and in one fluid motion poured the expensive brown whiskey into the sink. He reached up and to the left to grab a bottle of Grey Goose, and soon it was chasing the Macallan down the drain.
Max held the two empty glass bottles in his hands and felt extremely proud of himself. So proud that he figured the twenty-five or so other bottles of liquor could hang out a little longer. He’d emptied enough into the New York sewer system for one day.
He’d also unpacked enough for one day, he decided, looking at the used socks—the only clothing he had removed from the bag—which now lay on his kitchen floor. He dug into the backpack and pulled out the brown leather-bound journal he’d taken away as his one physical memento from Tranquility Peaks. Each of his thirty days there, and then continuing for another two months as he met with Buzz on an outpatient basis, he’d been required to write a journal entry detailing something new he had learned about himself that day.
Today, in my ongoing adventure of discovering who I truly am—the parts I like and should celebrate, as well as the parts I hope to improve—I discovered . . .
He had been strongly encouraged to continue with the daily journal entries once he returned to his normal life, and to find a licensed therapist to discuss them with on a regular basis. He had no idea if he was going to follow through on all of that, but he had intended to keep up with the discovery journal, at the very least. But he hadn’t even cracked the thing open since leaving Malibu. Not because he had stopped caring about improving, but because he hadn’t learned a single new thing about himself.
At least not until that day. That day had been full of discoveries. For instance, he’d never known just how much he enjoyed really good pancakes—or how slowly his body digested really good pancakes when he did nothing but sit in a vehicle for the rest of the day.