Chapter 2: Invitation

 

“You look like your dog ran over your cat, totaled your ride and then shot himself,” said Sam companionably the first time he passed her cubicle the next morning. Max breathed out for a long moment, massaging her temples as she cast a withering glance in his direction.

“I just call it like I see it,” he said, setting an unopened can of Coke down on her desk and pulling a chair from the next-door empty cubicle over to hers. He sat down in it, leaned back and crossed his ankles with all the finality of a man who was going to stay in that exact spot until Max told him what was the matter.

She bit her lip and sighed, fiddling with her mouse for a long moment while she considered him.

“Last night was a disaster,” she said then, tugging off her headset and running a hand over her head and through her messy ponytail. “It was just…I mean, it was seriously a first class disaster.”

“What happened?” asked Sam with sympathy as he tabbed open his own can and took a swig of Coke.

“I mean, for starters…” She trailed off. For starters what? Fiona was more beautiful than Max could understand? Fiona was more wonderful than any woman Max had ever had the pleasure to meet?

Max wished with all of her heart that Fiona was with her, and not her best friend?

It was utterly terrible, that thought, and deep down (really deep down), Max didn’t wish that at all. Not really. She was happy for Jo, incredibly happy. Jo had dated so many women, but hadn’t given any of them a chance to get close to her after she’d had her heart broken so completely by Alexandra all those years ago. She deserved, so, so much, to be happy, and she hadn’t been in such a long time with anyone. And Max knew that Fiona was just the woman to make Jo happy, was, in fact, the woman perfect for the job.

“For starters…” prompted Sam, his head to the side, one eyebrow up over his glasses.

“I mean…the woman Jo’s seeing. Fiona. She’s just…she’s just great…” Max spluttered, spreading her hands and trailing off again. She wasn’t certain what to say. “She’s just--”

Sam’s eyes widened. “Max…”

“What?” said Max miserably, placing her arms on her desk and her forehead on her arms with a groan.

“Oh, my God, you like her,” said Sam, mouth open in astonishment. “Hell. I haven’t seen you get that look in years, but I still remember it! The last woman you had it for was Valerie. Remember Valerie?”

Max blinked. “I had this look for Valerie?”

“Hey, we all make mistakes,” said Sam with a wide grin as he pat Max’s arm and straightened in his chair, the wheels creaking under him. “But seriously, you’re attracted to her, aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.

“I…” Max had never been good at lying, and the blush making her cheeks flame was probably a very good indicator that yes, absolutely, she was attracted to Fiona.

“Well,” said Sam, leaning back in his chair, the thing creaking now ominously beneath him as he pushed back, propping his shoes on the edge of Max’s desk. She’d told him so many times not to put his feet on her desk that she just didn’t have the energy to tease him about it again. “This…is bad,” he said, setting his can of Coke on the desk next to hers and clasping his fingers over his stomach. “I mean, Jo’s pretty into her, right?”

“Sam, there is no way that this is bad, because there’s no real problem. I’m not about to steal Jo’s girlfriend, thanks ever so much,” she said dryly, shoving his feet off the desk. He grinned at her and crossed his ankles again, propping his heels on the edge of her trashcan instead. “I mean, I wouldn’t have a chance in hell—”

“So you would if you could.”

“Don’t be a jerk,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “Jo’s happy for the first time in ages, and I’m happy for her. I would never take that away from her. Even if I could.”

Sam considered her for a long moment before he stood and wheeled the chair back into the next cubicle. He ducked back in, picking up his can from her desk. His eyebrows were up as he considered her. “I like Jo, Max…don’t get me wrong,” he said then, leaning against the half-wall of her cubicle. “But I’m kind of partial to you, and I’m loyal. So. I wish there was a solution to this. A solution that made you happy.”

It was a sweet sentiment, and it made Max smile a little. Sam was a good guy, for all of his little quirks. “That’s nice, Sam. I appreciate it.”

“And if you want something to help you forget about this little mess, I’m more than happy to set up with a really gorgeous looking gal. See, I have this cousin—”

“You’re always pushing that cousin on me,” said Max, laughing a little as she wrinkled her nose, but it sounded hollow. “Don’t worry about me,” she said with false bravado. “I’ll be all right. I’m sure there’s a woman out there who’s meant for me.”

Sam studied her for a long moment before he nodded, turned on his heel and walked down the hallway without another word.

He didn’t have to say what he’d been thinking.

Max had been thinking it too, after all.

What if the woman who was right for Max was Fiona?

God, what a mess. She buried her fingers in her hair and pressed her forehead against the cool surface of her desk, taking deep breaths.

It didn’t matter. Fiona was Jo’s, and that was that.

And everything in her that cried out against that fact just needed to shut up. Now.

 

---

 

By Friday, Max had moved through all of the stages of grief and had come out the other side into the Land of Guilt, as she was jokingly calling it. With time and distance between her and meeting Fiona, and not being confronted with that captivating, beautiful woman in anything but a memory, Max felt utterly terrible that she’d ever felt a shred of attraction for Fiona. What kind of friend was she? Jo deserved a truly loyal friend, someone who wasn’t going to drool all over her new significant other. A friend who would be purely happy for her because she was happy. Wasn’t that what friends were for? And hadn’t they been friends for decades, almost all of their lives? God, Jo deserved a hell of a lot more than this.

Their friendship was worth much more to Max than anything else in the world. And Fiona had always been off limits, anyway.

And Max needed to stop thinking about something that could not possibly be.

Max always hated Fridays, contrary to almost everyone else in the rest of the United States, and probably the entire globe, because on Fridays in the Wellworth Marketing Center, everyone had to do outbound calls.

Outbound calls were what Max thought Hell probably consisted of, if she’d believed in Hell. She was given a very long spreadsheet from her superior that contained a list of names, addresses and telephone numbers, and then depending on what client they were working for that week, she went down the list and called each number, offering the person such varied things as insurance, magazine subscriptions and delivery denture cream.

Thankfully, this day was not the delivery denture cream client. Max always felt guilty about selling people things that they didn’t necessarily want, but selling these things to older people who already didn’t have a lot of money lying around for non-necessities (and delivery denture cream was very, very much a non-necessity), made her feel particularly evil.

No, today they were working with a client who sold insurance to small businesses. So Max was not actually calling people, as such, but businesses. It was a distinction, though small and seemingly meaningless, that gave her a lot of ease. Businesses usually had money, so if she could convince some poor person to get that insurance for their business (as if they wouldn’t already have insurance, she’d first groaned when they’d taken on the client), it’s not as if it was coming out of someone’s pocket. It was coming out of a business’s pocket. And that, to Max, was almost ethical.

Ethan’s Vacuum Repair Shop had said they’d call her back with an answer (which was a very polite way of saying “no.” Max marked the line on her spreadsheet with blue—which meant no). Gro Green had actually sworn at her and hung up the phone. She marked the line with blue. The Livingston County Thrift Store had laughed and hung up the phone. Another blue line. In the entire spreadsheet, there was only one pink line—meaning a yes--and that was because they actually already used that insurance company.

Max closed her eyes and breathed out steadily, working her jaw. She was so tired and she couldn’t wait for the end of her shift. She was fantasizing about what she’d have for dinner. She’d probably get take out. It was Friday, after all. And then she’d open a new bottle of wine, and…

She scrolled down in her spreadsheet, the automated caller cycling through the numbers. The phone was ringing before she even saw the spreadsheet’s line declaring the business, address and phone number.

Max blinked. She gulped down air and sat up straighter in her chair.

Florabella Cupcakes.

Fiona’s shop.

“Florabella Cupcakes, Fiona speaking, how can I make your day better?” came a bright voice on the other end of the line.

“Oh, my…oh, my God,” spluttered Max. “Fiona?”

“Max?”

Fiona remembered her voice.

Fiona remembered her voice.

Max grappled, trying to spin together the last few remnants of her composure. The script that she’d been given to say to every prospective client flew out the window. “My…my goodness, I’m sorry to bother you. I’m actually calling on behalf of my company…we have a new client…” She trailed off, unsure if she should continue or if she was, in fact, blathering and not making any sense at all. “I’m supposed to try to sell you insurance,” is what she half-mumbled, then.

Fiona laughed into the phone, that beautiful, warm, throaty laugh that sounded like bells ringing happily in some quaint little European town. “That’s funny that you would get my number. What a small world, right?”

“A very small world,” Max muttered, glancing at her computer monitor that was beeping an angry red at her. Big brother, aka the Stupid Software (as Max called it), knew she was going off script and was prompting her to try and close the deal, because it assumed that if she veered off script, it was because she was very, very close to closing the deal. But, as usual, the Stupid Software was wrong.

“I actually already have insurance,” said Fiona, regret tingeing her voice. “I’m sorry. Am I screwing up your quota?”

That surprised Max. That anyone would care about her quota was a surprise, in and of itself, but how warm Fiona’s voice was…well, that was another kind of surprising all together.

“I’m doing okay with my quota—don’t worry,” said Max, fiddling with the cord of her headphones.

“Listen, I’m so sorry about your migraine…are you feeling better today?” Fiona’s sweet voice seemed to curve toward Max like a finger, beckoning her. Max closed her eyes, massaged her temples, and swallowed.

Yes. The migraine that she’d used as an excuse to leave the dinner. That migraine.

“I’m doing much better, thank you so much for thinking about it,” she said in a low voice as a co-worker walked past the entrance to her cubicle.

“I was so sad to see you go…I would love so, so much if you came by for a cupcake sometime. Maybe today? Or, you know, tomorrow, or Sunday, or…” Fiona laughed as she trailed off. “My treat. Cupcakes are great for headaches. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Max laughed, in spite of herself. “My doctor never prescribed me that in lieu of my migraine medication, no.”

“Well, let me tell you, it’s a well-kept secret,” said Fiona, her voice dropping softly to a conspirator’s whisper. “And I’d...I’d love to see you again,” she said, then.

Had Max imagined that? But no, she most certainly had not. She couldn’t have. Fiona had told her, in no uncertain terms, that she wanted to see her. It probably wasn’t in the way Max was already imagining. It was simply because Max was Jo’s best friend. Surely the new girlfriend would want to stay on good terms with the best friend. But as Max thought this, she knew that wasn’t exactly true.

It was because Fiona was just a nice person.

There were a million things to say to that, and Max ran through all of them in her head for a heartbeat before she breathed out, picking up her blue stress ball in front of her keyboard, the one with the little eyes and mouth that would pop out when she squeezed it hard enough. She squeezed the heck out of it just then, closed her eyes and said: “yes, I’d love that. I’ll try to stop by after work—what time are you open until?”

“Six, but I’m in the back long after making the cupcakes for the next day. So just knock on the window and I’ll hear you. Sound good?” Fiona actually sounded delighted, her warm voice filled with excitement.

It made Max’s heart beat even faster. And it was already reaching heart-attack level paces.

Max breathed out, squeezed the stress ball just a little harder, the cartoon eyes and mouth popping so far out it seemed that the ball was in danger of breaking. “I’ll see you tonight!” she managed.

“Wonderful. I’ll see you then. Bye!” And the line went dead.

Max’s screen went back to the spreadsheet, and a little pop-up box asked if she’d closed the sale.

Max stared at it for so long, it began to blur in front of her eyes.

Yeah, she’d closed the sale. Sort of.

The rest of the day flew by in a strange, panicked blur as Max tried desperately to think of some excuse to not stop by Florabella Cupcakes after work. Which was ridiculous, she knew. She was just stopping by to see her best friend’s girlfriend, who was an incredibly nice, friendly person, who simply wanted to give Max a free cupcake. She was panicked about a free cupcake! There, when she thought about it like that, it really did seem silly not to think about going.

Around five o’clock Max rose from her chair, stretched overhead and dragged her sequined coin purse out of her bottom desk drawer, hefting it in her hand. It had a couple of quarters, which meant she could probably get a Coke and some candy. What a terrible idea. She grinned to herself and began to walk down the aisle.

A leg stuck out of a cubicle a few feet ahead of her, causing her to pause. It was a man’s leg, wearing a very scuffed-up loafer, and jeans because it was casual Friday.

“You know,” said Sam, peeking his head out of his cubicle and waggling his eyebrows at Max. “You were actually whistling just now.”

“No I wasn’t,” she scoffed at him, grinning, as he got up, hands in his pockets and grinning, too, to follow her to the break room.

“Yep, you were so totally whistling. You never whistle unless you’re in the best mood ever.” He dragged out the contents of his right pocket, which consisted of a few small balls of lint, three quarters and a wadded up gum wrapper.

“Why shouldn’t I be in a good mood? It’s Friday,” said Max, a little uneasily as she considered the candy machine, her eyes unfocused and not really taking in all of the delights before her. He was right. She had been whistling, and she pretty much only whistled on the night before a date.

But this wasn’t a date. This was very much not a date.

It was because of the free cupcake.

Yes. Of course. She was excited about the free cupcake.

She groaned and ran her fingers through her long, lanky ponytail. Extra lanky because it was casual Friday, and everyone was just lucky that she’d had enough gumption to put on clothes this morning and ditch the pajamas. “Sam…” she said, trailing off as she fed quarters into the machine, pushing the button for the chocolate covered peanuts. She swallowed what she’d been going to say when he cast a glance in her direction. She didn’t want to talk about seeing Fiona. Not yet. “Did you ever call Rita back?” she said then, purposefully making her voice lighter as the machine spat out the wonderful chocolate. She picked up the wrapper and tore off the top, tossing it into the trashcan.

“The one who couldn’t eat wheat?” said Sam a little too innocently as he shoved his quarters into the coke machine and pressed the button for the can of lemonade. “Yeah,” he said then, after a few beats, grinning back over his shoulder at Max. “I did. We’re actually going on a date tonight. And I apologized to her for being such a jerk at dinner.”

“You hadn’t told me you’d been a jerk at dinner,” said Max, brows raised as she leaned against the wall, popping a chocolate covered peanut into her mouth. Ah. Bliss.

“Yeah. I kind of made a big deal about having to go to a gluten-free restaurant because I thought the food was going to be terrible. Which, I realize,” he said, holding up his hands as Max’s mouth dropped open, “was the jerkiest move since jerks were invented. So I apologized a lot and sent her flowers and we’re going on another date since she’s giving me another chance. Because she’s a lot nicer than I am.” He looked a little chagrined and more than a little self-conscious.

“You’re such a jerk,” said Max with narrowed eyes, chewing on another peanut. “You’d better treat her right this time.”

“I will.” Sam popped open the tab on his can and took a swig of lemonade. They both should have started ambling back to their desks, but they paused in the break room, the air heavy between them.

“Look…” began Sam, but Max was biting her lip, shaking her head.

“If this is about Fiona--”

“Maybe it is,” said Sam, leaning back against the wall, too, head to the side as he considered Max. “Look, you only live once, right?”

“There are whole bunches of people who believe in reincarnation who would robustly contest that fact,” joked Max, but Sam’s face remained perfectly serious.

“You only live once,” Sam repeated, a little more solemnly this time, “and I just think…well. Sometimes things happen for reasons, okay?”

“Sam, I don’t need a come-to-Jesus talk about the perfect time and place and etcetera,” said Max gently, stepping forward and offering him a chocolate covered peanut. He declined, but fell in step alongside her as they both left the break room. “But for the umpteen millionth time, I love Jo. She’s been like a sister to me my entire life. And I would never, ever do anything to jeopardize that, and I’d really like to not talk about this again.” She paused in front of Sam’s cubicle, her voice lowered as she turned back to face him.

“Okay,” said Sam with a shrug, his gaze lingering on Max’s face. “You just…” he trailed off, sighed. “You deserve to be happy, too, all right?”

“I’m happy,” said Max with a defensiveness she didn’t feel.

Sam’s eyebrows rose again, and he said nothing, only slid into his cubicle, and his chair. Max opened and shut her mouth, because she wanted a scathing retort…and none were currently available. All of the wind went out of her sails.

The truth of the matter was that she wasn’t happy.

But she’d been happy this afternoon.

…Because of Fiona.