Filthy Doctor(54)

It had seemed gauche to start a ruckus about lifestyles and living decisions on her first night home, so she’d bitten her tongue and ate the chicken pot pie. But now, she could tell that her mother wanted to discuss something with her, and it wasn’t about her pseudo-reluctance to eat the eggs and bacon. Her mother was putting away the dishes in the dishwasher, a focused frown on her face as she composed her speech. Max waited.

“They’re hiring at Lincoln,” her mother said, finally, picking up a mug of coffee on the counter and sitting down across from Max. Lincoln was the main strip mall in the area—for all that they said that strip malls were dying Lincoln was still doing a bustling trade, not the least because it was the only place in twenty miles to get anything.

“Thanks, mom,” she said, not-saying that she was so not going back to retail, or waiting tables. Everybody at CopaCopa had told her that at least they weren’t getting robbed outright, like they did in the suburbs. She’d worked at the Gap, herself, in her teenage years, for a pathetically low wage, and there was one thing she was certain of: nobody ever made it anywhere by working in retail.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” her mother said.

“I know,” she said. “Can we just agree that it’s going to take me a little while to come up with some kind of plan, though, please?”

“How long do you need?”

“I’m going to go to Montco today to see what their requirements are for enrollment,” Max said. Her mother smiled, as Max knew she would. “Maybe see about a work-study while I’m there, and then go for a swim.” Her mother had a family-wide membership for the local YMCA—it was cheaper than getting three separate memberships, especially since her father used the gym irregularly and she was only in two a few times a year. And she did have to work off the chicken pot pie from the night before.

“Work-study would be good,” her mother agreed. “At the very least, you’ve already worked, so you know what they’ll expect.”

Didn’t you spend three years telling me that modeling wasn’t a real job? Max thought, but she kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t in a mood to pick a fight with her mother now—and her mother really did have good intentions for her, she reminded herself. It was just that, having been a housewife for almost twenty years, she really had no idea how things really worked out there in the real world.

Max ate the egg white and scraped the rest of her plate into the trash, while her mother sighed. “I told you,” Max said, as she pulled on her shoes. “I’m gluten-free and vegan now.”

“Bring the car back before three,” her mother called.

Max nodded. It’d been a while since she’d last driven; she was always the designated driver when she and her modeling friends had gone out—the stories about girls getting drugged and raped were too common for it not to happen, and her friend Jenny had had a close call. If Max hadn’t walked into the men’s room at the club by accident, there was every possibility that Jenny would have been raped—her dress was pulled down to her waist and the man had just whipped out his cock, and Jenny was clearly out of it. So she never drank in public places—and anyway, after her modeling gigs dried up she was too busy scraping together rent money to party, anyway.

So it was rather incredible how fast and automatic everything still was—look left, look right, check her blind spots, scope the mirrors, turn, merge. She wondered, briefly, if this meant that she was supposed to be living in the suburbs, with its perfect tree-lined streets and two cars in every garage, stifling her with its Stepfordian perfection. It was what had drawn her to the city—or rather, pushed her out of the suburbs—and now, as she pulled into the parking lot of Montgomery County Community College it was hard to think of this as a way out, instead of as a prison.

She got the standard admissions tour, which came with a run-down of the amenities (a library with 134,682 books, as if someone had actually sat down and counted them all) and a brief explanation of how work-study worked. Her GED, which she’d taken to become emancipated at the age of sixteen, was still good, so she didn’t need to take that again. The arts program was nice—they worked in traditional media but also alongside programmers and animators—and she thought that there was something in it for her, especially when she saw some of the students’ projects.

Her mother and father would be pretty darn furious about it, though. A fine arts degree from a prestigious university was pretty darn useless as it was—never mind one from a community college. But she could spin graphic design as a good skill and a worthy degree to have. If there was one thing living in LA had taught her, it was that people were suckers for good design.

It was barely noon when she left the admissions office, resolved to talk out the financials with her parents that evening. That gave her three hours before she had to get the car back to her mother—plenty of time to take a dip and do a few laps.

At noon in the middle of the week there were very few people there, and the people that were there were mostly old and saggy. Still, swimming was swimming, and as she dived into the pool she felt her body come alive again, and what a joy it was to be weightless in the water. She could still do nearly a full length of the pool without taking a breath.

Freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly—she did them all, and as she hung onto the pool after a series of laps she heard someone behind her say, “You’re quite a swimmer.”

She turned around, expecting to see one of the old men who were doing languid laps in the pool—there were always older guys around looking to flirt with her, and that went double because her swimsuit had cutaways in the sides, enough to be interesting but not enough to be risque. He was treading water behind her. He was definitely older, but his arms were lean and ripped, and she thought she could make out a well-defined six pack despite the water. His face was vaguely familiar—she had the feeling that she’d seen him before on TV, which was ridiculous because there were no celebrities in Bloomsdale, Maryland. But he seemed pleasant enough, open and honest, with a nice smile. “Thanks,” she said, pleasantly surprised. Most of the men who wanted to talk to her were old enough to be her grandfather, which she found sketchy as hell.

“Name’s Jack,” he said. “I’d uh, shake your hand but I’m kind of busy right now.”

“Max,” she said. “That’s all right.”

“Race you to the other end,” he said, grinning.

Oh really, she thought. He must have only just arrived—otherwise he wouldn’t have made such a silly challenge. “What’s the prize for winning?” she asked, as he slid under the lane marker and into the one next to her.

“If I win, a date with you, if you win, how about twenty bucks?”

She should’ve known that he would go or something like that—not that she planned on losing to him. “One date,” she said, “that’s it.”

“One date,” he agreed, “though I may ask you out again.”

“You’re assuming that you’ll get that lucky,” she retorted, grinning.

“Oh ho, getting cocky now, are we?” he asked.

“Not as cocky as you are, thinking that you can beat me,” she said.

He shook his head, smiling. “I knew I’d like you the moment I saw you,” he said.

“Make it fifty,” she said, trying to decide between her butterfly and crawl—the butterfly was a faster stroke, but it took a lot out of her. But then again, there was only one lap—

“Fifty it is,” he said.

He must be loaded, she thought, as she braced herself against the pool

“Go!” he shouted, and she took off, kicking against the water with both legs in an explosive burst that took her almost a quarter length of the pool before she had to kick again.

The butterfly was faster but it was harder to get right, and if she didn’t time every movement, from the sweep of her arms to the rippling kick with both legs, it would be a sure way to lose. But she was good at the butterfly, if only because it was more fun than lifting weights to keep her upper body toned for her modeling career. She flexed herself, snapping her legs into the water again, certain that he was behind her—three more strokes to go and victory would be hers. He was nowhere in sight. Two more strokes and she would be fifty dollars richer. One more stroke—

And then all of a sudden he rocketed past her and touched his wall just a fraction of a second before she touched hers. “Ha!” he shouted, ripping off his goggles.

She stared at him, bug-eyed with disbelief: how did this happen again? He wasn’t Michael Phelps, was he? “Don’t feel bad,” he said, reaching over the rope to shake her hand. “I should’ve told you that I was the state champion and an Olympic contender.”

“That—that wasn’t fair!” she sputtered angrily. “If I’d known—”

“You’d have still raced, don’t deny it,” he said. “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d beat you.”

She scowled and pulled herself out of the pool, heading to the bench for her towel and flip-flops.