“Your manager has a pretty high voice, does he?”
He looked confused for a moment and then laughed. “Sorry. No. His assistant, Candace, does. She’s pretty much the only one I actually get to talk to anymore.”
Max Cavanagh had been relegated to his manager’s B-list? How was that even possible?
“So . . . you were in rehab,” I stated rather than asked.
“Yeah. I mean, I definitely dealt with my fair share of anger management while I was there, but it just seems a little misleading, I think, to refer to an inpatient treatment facility in Malibu as somewhere I went to take some classes.”
Points for honesty. “That does indeed sound like rehab. How long were you there?”
“Only thirty days inpatient. That was what I had to do for the network to suspend me rather than fire me. And then I stuck around Malibu another sixty days, but that was outpatient.”
“Was that your choice, or—”
“Yeah. I had fought it like crazy, of course. In the beginning, I mean. It took me most of those first thirty days to actually start to see some good coming of it. By the time I was able to check out, I could think of a whole lot worse things than sticking around Malibu, spending time at the beach every day, and putting in a little more work at Tranquility Peaks to make sure some of the new habits stuck.”
I cleared my throat and thought of my dad. How would he have advised me to proceed? “Good for you. Seriously, I think that was probably a really wise decision. But, um . . . I’m a little surprised, to be honest, that you don’t know exactly how long it’s been.”
My dad had known. My dad had always known. Even when the days crossed into the hundreds, and then the thousands, he hadn’t stopped counting every single one of them. And never in weeks, months, or years. Each day mattered to him.
“How long what’s been?”
“Since you’ve had a drink.”
Max shrugged. “I guess I could look on a calendar and—” His eyes shot up and met mine. “Hadley, I’m not an alcoholic.”
“Hey, I’m not judging you. I’m sorry if that was rude. But my dad was an alcoholic, and I know that—”
“I’m not an alcoholic!” he repeated, throwing down his spoon with force. Sauces splattered and the spoon clattered to the floor. He stepped away from the pan—huffed away from it, actually—and took several deep breaths, his back turned to me. But after a few silent seconds, he was putting the spoon in the sink, grabbing a new one from the drawer, and dabbing paper towels on the floor and countertop. He drained his chicken, then added soy sauce, hoisin, rice vinegar, and the things he had minced, grated, and diced. “Sorry,” he finally said, quietly, as if that was all there was to say on the matter.
My lower eyelids brimmed with tears, and I turned my head away slightly as one escaped down the side of my nose. I swiped at it as subtly and quickly as I could. I was overwhelmed by the emotion of it all. The familiarity and the newness, all wrapped up in one. I remembered his complete lack of awareness as Stuart and I picked up the Wagyu ribeye he had knocked to the floor, and watched him now, diligently cleaning up every drop he’d splattered. The responsibility had always been his, but now he owned it.
I couldn’t help but also think back to what Leo had said to me on the phone the night before.
“Everyone in the business is claiming he has it all together now—has things under control, got help, has dried out, all of that—but you never can tell.”
Did any of us really have it all together?
The scent began wafting from the pan, and I was involuntarily drawn to it. I crossed to stand across from him—one of the benefits of having a show kitchen, designed for easy viewing. It was also, as it turned out, designed for easy smelling.
“I’m sorry I upset you, Max. I guess . . . well, with my dad and all we went through there, I guess it’s just sort of an involuntary reaction.”
“Well, you know what? My dad is an alcoholic too. As far as I know, he still hasn’t gotten to the point of counting days. He’s still in the passing out and losing days phase, to the best of my knowledge. But I assure you, I am not one.”
On one hand, he sounded exactly like you would expect an alcoholic in denial to sound. But on the other hand, he hadn’t had a drink in months. And on the other other hand, which I obviously realize is not a thing, I saw the change in him, and I was looking in his eyes right then. There was no way I could bring myself to not believe him.
“I’m sorry, Max. I really am. I just thought that—”
His shoulders relaxed and he began stirring again. “It’s okay. I get it.” He took a deep breath and kept cooking, but it was as if he was no longer comfortable in his own skin—and I could almost believe he was going to find a way to fidget his way out of it.
I walked around the island, stood beside him, and placed my hand on his arm. The fidgeting stopped immediately. “I mean it. I’m really sorry.”
His eyes went first to my hand and then to my face. I smiled at him, apologetically, and fought the temptation to do something zany—cross my eyes, stick out my tongue—to break up the somber feel of the moment. We couldn’t keep staring at each other the way we were. I couldn’t keep my hand on his arm. And I definitely couldn’t pull him close and hold him as long as he’d let me, no matter how much I wanted to.
“So, um . . .” I pulled my eyes away, and then my hand, and returned to my spot on the other side of the island. “I know common ground is usually a good thing, but I’m sorry that our dads’ alcoholism is a thing we share.”
Way to go, Hadley. That would break up the somber mood.
He cut up some green onion and stirred in the remaining water chestnuts. “I haven’t seen my dad since I left Ohio, so don’t worry about it. It doesn’t keep me up at night.”
As much as I wanted to say about Max’s dysfunctional parental relationships, I chose to react to the more surprising revelation first.
“You’re from the Midwest? Seriously?”
“Don’t tell. It makes me less intimidating.”
I laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”
He pulled out the butter lettuce and began rinsing it. “So what about you? Do you have a good relationship with your parents?”
“I had a great relationship with my dad. He died about ten years ago.”
Max glanced at me over his shoulder as the water continued to run. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay.” I thought about that for a second and then made the conscious decision to peel away a couple layers of my own. “No. It’s not. It sucks.”
He gasped and clutched his chest with the hand that wasn’t holding the lettuce. “Now who has the potty mouth?”
I rolled my eyes. “Sorry to offend your delicate ears.”
He winked and turned back to his lettuce, and not a moment too soon. I can’t imagine the expression that must have danced across my face upon realizing that wink had caused my stomach to flutter.
“My dad was the reason I started cooking,” I resumed. “Well, and necessity. He was working all the time—two, three jobs—so I learned to cook. I was nine when I started. Ten, maybe. And even with how busy he always was, even before he got sober, and with whatever drama of the week was going on with my mom, he and I still found time to watch Renowned and Julia. Every episode.”