The Moment Max Forgot Me
By
Emily Ann Benedict
Wishing Wellies Publishing
All Rights Reserved
Also by Emily Ann Benedict
Only Angels Are Bulletproof
The Father Christmas Confessions
The Father Christmas Profession
Visit emilyannbenedict.com for more information.
Chapter One
I was standing on the sidewalk at the moment Max forgot me, helpless to stop the car heading straight for him. My screams went unheard, even to my own ears, as it struck him. At that moment I was stripped of everything I’d built up over the past ten years. I lost all sense of the high power career girl who wore suits that cost more than the rent my mother use to have to come up with every month and lived in an apartment with closets bigger than any bedroom I’d ever slept in as a child.
In that moment I returned to the desperate eighteen year old girl I’d been when I walked into Max’s office ten years earlier. On that day I was wearing the only suit my mother ever owned. I’d synched up the fabric of the skirt in the back with safety pins so it wouldn’t fall off me. I couldn’t think of a way to make the jacket look like it fit, so I just pretended not to notice that it hung on me like I was nothing more than a hanger.
The minute I walked into Max’s office I knew it was hopeless. There was no way on earth I was going to be hired to work for so much as a court appointed lawyer, let alone an up and coming defense attorney. I told myself to turn around and walk out, but desperation made me move over to one of the chairs in the waiting room and carefully sit down. If I sat down too quickly the safety pins would have popped open and stuck me in the back.
I looked around at the other applicants. They had credentials. It was apparent just looking at them. They were avoiding looking at me. I felt like an idiot, but I had one thing they probably didn’t have. Ever increasing debt.
It was an hour before Max stuck his head out of the door and wearily called out, “Next,” in my direction. I stood up, tried to straighten out my skirt, and walked into his office on legs exhausted by a day’s worth of job searching. This was the fourth company I’d hit that day.
Max walked straight over to his desk and sat down. That’s when I got my first good look at him. He was relatively young, thin, and had blonde hair floating a little above his head in a way that suggested it was rapidly falling out. His clothes were certainly expensive. Everything in that office was expensive looking. But, as my mother would have put it, he was obviously a man who didn’t know print from pattern. His suit was pinstriped and his tie was diagonal stripped. My mother would have cringed.
He sighed softly as he straightened his chair and then looked up at me. I recognized the expression that crossed his face. It plainly said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I’d already seen it three times that day.
Swallowing down the embarrassment and nerves, I eased myself into one of the leather chairs across from the desk and forced up a smile.
Max cleared his throat and began to speak, but the phone on his desk interrupted any conversation. He glared bitterly at the phone, then yanked up the receiver and said, “Hello.”
His eyes rolled. “Mrs. Benson, we’ve discussed this. Your appointment is tomorrow. I’ll go over everything with you then. I really can’t talk right now.” There was a pause. “Yes, I am aware you are paying me good money, but if I stay on the phone all the time I won’t be able to put together—” He waited a moment with gritted teeth. “Okay, I’ll call you back later this evening, will that do? Fine. I’ll talk to you then.”
He glared at the receiver for a moment longer before putting it back on the cradle. “My secretary retired without notice last week, leaving me without a shield.” He looked back up at me and realized he was talking to someone who was obviously under qualified. He probably thought I didn’t know what a secretary was. “Well, then, Miss…”
“McKenzie. Maddy McKenzie.” I promptly kicked myself. Madeline McKenzie would have sounded so much more professional. Why did I have to be so hopeless?
Ah, well, Miss McKenzie—”
Then phone rang again. Max flinched like he’d been lanced through the heart and reached for the phone again.
"Hello. Oh, hi, Mr. Aaron.” His head wilted a touch. “I’m sorry to hear you have a scheduling conflict, but I need you here as soon as possible.” He closed his eyes tightly. “Yes, of course I’ve checked to see if the answering machine is plugged in. I’ve done everything I possibly could think of. It’s not working.” Again, he paused. “Fine. Just get here as soon as you can. I need something to deal with these calls.”
He gave me a side long glace and shook his head ever so slightly as if he was suggesting there wasn’t much hope of finding someone to answer them.
At last he hung the phone up and returned his attention to me. Me. An eighteen year old girl, thin as a rail, raven black hair all the way down her back, wearing her mother’s old suit, who actually thought she could walk into a legal office and get a job.
“Do you have any qualifications?” he asked gently.
For some reason my reaction was to rear up and hold my chin high. “I’m a quick learner.”
Max smiled slightly. “Well, Miss McKenzie, a legal secretary needs a little more than that.”
My posture started to deflate. I knew the speech that would shortly follow. It appeared he was going to be gentle, but there was no stopping sentences like, “This just isn’t the right job for you,” or, “Have you thought about college?”
Occasionally I had an impulse to tell them about the debts my father’s untimely death had left us and the new ones my mother’s illness was rapidly racking up, but what little self-respect I had left forced me to stay quiet. Still, facing that same speech for the fourth time wore my nerves so raw it hurt to breathe. Maybe that’s why I answered the phone. Maybe I’d just taken a little too much that day. My patience just all out fled when that phone lit up again.
Before Max had the chance to groan I stood up, snatch the receiver, and said, “Hello.”
There was a pause. “Where is Max?”
“He’s busy. Can I take a message?” I was painfully aware of the New Jersey tinge my voice held. It sounded so unsophisticated next to Max’s soft tone.
“This is Mrs. Benson.” The voice on the other side of the line became stiff and, frankly, arrogant. “He’ll take my—”
“Mrs. Benson, he’s already told you that he’ll call you back this evening.” Maybe the exhaustion was making me a little giddy.
“Now listen—”
“No. He’s busy right now. He won’t be able to pay full attention to you anyway, so there’s not much point in trying to talk to him. Wait until he’s got the chance. Okay.”
“Well—”
“Has he got your number?”
“Yes, but—”
“Good. He’ll call you back tonight.” I promptly hung the phone up then froze as the full recognition of what I’d just done hit me. I looked down and realized I was sitting on the edge of his sold mahogany desk like it was my mother’s little pressboard one at home.
With cheeks now warm and red, I slowly stood back up and faced him. “Well,” I choked out. “I’ll just be go—”
“You’re hired,” he said calmly, though his eyes were wide. The thick glasses he was wearing made them look like they were practically ready to fall out of his head.
I stopped and stared at him for a moment then back away a little. “I’m what?”
“Hired.” He stood up and held his hand out. “Peter Maxwell. Ev
eryone calls me Max. I’d appreciate it if you would too.”
I weakly took his hand. My arm flopped rather limply as he shook it. “Just Maddy,” was all I could say in return.
“A pleasure to meet you—”
“Did you just say I was hired?” I have a good feeling my face was scrunched up in an unflattering way.
“Yes.” Max yanked a wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out several bills. “Here. Go buy yourself some clothes. That’s enough to handle a suit and a few shirts. Grab a pair of shoes too. I’ll make sure you have enough to buy a full wardrobe by Monday. Show up at nine.” He gave me a flinch of a smile.
I was immobile for quite some time, but I finally found the strength to back my way out of the office.
Just as I was about to cross the threshold when he called out, “Tell the rest of the girls out there the position has been filled.” That time he flashed me a larger smile then turned his head back down to a form of some sort on his desk.
When I made it out into the hallway I finally looked down at bills he’d tucked into my hand. I counted it four times before my mind would willingly accept I was holding eight hundred dollars. I’d never even touched a check worth that much.
I ran right to the side of my mother’s hospital bed, chattering like a mad woman. She thought I was having a fit at first. Then she thought I was outright delusional and tried to call the nurse. Finally she saw the money and just stared at me with her jaw hanging open.
I was waiting at the door Monday morning, feeling a little delusional, at eight thirty, suited up in clothes more expensive than I could fathom...and I’d only spent half of the money Max had given me. I was a little afraid to spend it all, just in case I showed up and it was a joke.
Max walked straight up to me and looked me up and down. “How much did you spend?” he asked as if he could tell I hadn’t spent it all.
“Half,” I said weakly.
“You’re going to need to get your suits tailored. You’ll never find a suit off the rack that will fit you.” He smiled softly and opened the door.
That’s how my first day with Max started. The whole situation was crazy as far as I was concerned and I’m sure people on Max’s side of the world would have called it outright stupid. But it worked. In a matter of weeks I wasn’t just his secretary. I was his Girl Friday.
I made sure he never missed an appointment or court date, that he was dressed in something coordinated, that he had all his files, his facts, his wits, and something to eat along the way. He meanwhile taught me how to spend money like a mad woman on the proper clothes and furnishings, made sure I was living on the good side of town, and never let anyone look down on me. When someone suggested he really should hire employees with college educations he would reply, “Why? She has me.” It was true. I practically got a law degree under him.
“Besides,” he would always add, “Maddy has something they don’t teach in school.” He never said what that was, but people understood. We worked well together. And it all went well for ten straight years.
I’m sure it would have continued on well if my best friend, Georgia, hadn’t gone and stuck her foot in my mouth by saying, “Why don’t you just admit you love him?”