Rafael Yglesias - Fearless

He laughed. “That’s right. Not even the beautiful people.”

“It’s easier to love the beautiful people,” Carla said.

Max laughed very hard at her comment. He cackled for more than a block.

“It’s not that funny,” she told him, worried by the energy of his laughter.

“You must make them crazy,” Max said as he controlled himself. “You’re very hard to bullshit.”

He parked his car in a lot and carried the shopping bags of wrapped toys.

“I want to give Bubble’s gifts to Monsignor O’Boyle,” she said.

“You could put them under your tree,” Max said.

“No. I got him what he wanted. Bubble didn’t mind sharing his—” she couldn’t finish that sentence.

“Okay,” Max said. “Then I’ll give the Bristle Blocks also.”

Monsignor O’Boyle wasn’t at Saint Patrick’s Old Cathedral, they were told by a young priest who answered their knock. Carla explained they wanted to donate the toys to poor children.

“Oh, they picked up for the Foundling Home yesterday,” he said as if they had made a mistake.

“Don’t they come again before Christmas?” Carla asked.

“I don’t know,” the young priest said.

“Take them,” Carla said with a command and confidence Max hadn’t seen in her before. “If there’s a problem tell the Monsignor to call me.”

“What a jerk,” she said about the young priest as they crossed Mulberry Street. Her eyes were bright; Max wanted to gather her wild black hair in his hands and look into them. Instead he walked beside her up the steps of her building and into the vestibule. They were jammed in there like two people squeezed into a phone booth. She pressed the intercom to her apartment. As she turned back to the door, Max’s face was right there, up close. He whispered, “Thanks for coming,” and kissed her on the lips, sweetly. Not for long, but it wasn’t chaste either. “Would you tell your husband that he does some of the finest plastering and painting I’ve ever seen? He looks to be a good electrician too. And I guess, judging from the window frames, he’s a good carpenter also—”

“Who is it!” her mother’s electronic voice interrupted.

“Me!” Carla shouted. The buzzing started immediately. She pushed the door open and held it, turning her head back to Max. He was still near her. His pale blue eyes watched her lips; they watched with nervous greed.

He wants me, she realized. It hadn’t occurred to her before and it was quite a surprise. So much of a surprise that she didn’t know what to think about it.

“Don’t talk about my husband,” is what she said.

“I’m sorry.” Max backed away, banging into the front door, opening it enough to let in a cutting ribbon of cold air.

“I’m angry at him. That’s why.”

“Oh,” Max said. He was still focused on her mouth. What was he so shy about? Did he think wanting her was a sin? But he wasn’t a believer.

Is he scared of me? she wondered and laughed out loud at the thought. “Don’t look so scared,” she said.

“I’m not scared of anything,” he said in that calm tone he had when he said something that was impossible.

“You’re scared to kiss me,” she argued gently.

“No, I’m not,” he said in that matter-of-fact voice. “I just don’t want to offend you.”

Carla held the inner door open. Max held the outer open. She looked into his pale blue eyes and then at his white cheeks. He seemed to be such a kind man that he was hardly real at all. Maybe he was actually sent by God. He had done all those good things, saved all those people, he had come to her and soothed her and yet he took no credit.

“Do you believe in God?” she asked. “I mean for real. You don’t think there’s anything?”

“There are lots of things. I just don’t believe any of them are God.”

That’s what a true angel would say, she decided. It’s just how God would do his works and test her faith. Not that she thought him supernatural. She believed Max was a real person, but glowing with goodness like an angel. She liked him. More than that — at that moment she understood she could easily fall in love with him. But she felt if she encouraged him to make love to her that would be a sin and destroy her.

“You’re right,” she said, testing him. “I don’t want to be kissed. I don’t want you to do anything — but — but I want to go with you the next time you go for a drive.”

He was not offended. He smiled with his lips shut. He was as sweet and brave as an angel. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Carla,” he said.

Max found Debby in her black tights, sweaty and beautiful, seated in a chair near their bed, a wing chair that was usually draped with her clothes, but rarely sat in. He stopped a few feet into the room and readied himself to tell her. He hadn’t said hello.

Nor did she. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said, as if it were a warning.

“I took Carla Fransisca for a drive.”

Debby smiled, a private look of amusement. “Again?” she said. “How’s she doing?” The edges of her hair were sleek and dark from perspiration. So were the tops of her tights. The fabric seemed to cling even tighter for it, a new skin for her tall lean body. In the black fabric she was a lovely panther.

“I’m in love with her.” He had hurried home, chased by this feeling. Keeping it secret even for the ride uptown had felt corrupting.

Debby sighed. She reached for a towel that Max hadn’t noticed before, lying on the floor beside the chair. As she stretched for it she groaned. She hooked it with a few fingers, flipped it up, caught it with her arm and stood. All in a single movement, a graceful talented movement.

She was a living work of art — that was what he had fallen in love with. He had been wrong. It was unfair to her.

“You’re in love with her?” Debby asked, more as a wondering repetition than a protest.

“Yes. Nothing’s going on. But I’m definitely in love with her and I didn’t want to lie about it.” He knew he sounded idiotic. And mean. “I’m sorry. Not that I’m in love with her, but that I have to hurt you.”

“I don’t think I can live with this much longer, Max.” She was upset. Her face showed only a little tightening, but that apparent calm meant the wound was deep and fresh. She walked toward the bathroom door and said loudly as she sought its refuge: “It’s too crazy.” She shut the door hard as if she had made a final decision.

She was right: her response was how the world ought to work. If he didn’t love Debby then living with her was crazy.

And Jonah?

Max had come straight to the bedroom on entering his apartment. He hadn’t glanced down the hall to check if Jonah was home. Would he be at this hour on a Wednesday? Was today after-school computer? It used to be that Max knew where and what his son was doing at all times.

Going into the living room Max heard the overture of one of his son’s favorite video games playing faintly from the hallway leading to his son’s room. Should he tell him that he wanted to divorce his mother? He was afraid of that, more afraid than he had felt of anything since the crash. Yet keeping it secret might be impossible. Could he spend time with Jonah and not reveal it somehow?

But Max wanted to see Jonah no matter how awkward or risky. Get him to take a walk over to the computer store and see their new games; or maybe to the bookstore to buy him a science fiction novel; or throw a football in Riverside Park, fighting the wind and broken glass.

Max had reached Jonah’s door when Kenny, Jonah’s closest friend at school, came out and nearly ran him over.

“Hi, Mr. Klein,” he said as he went past. There was a black stripe of ink running down his cheek, as if he were a scholarly Apache warrior. “I need a drink before we fight the Meka Turtle.”