“Let’s go to a toy store,” she said to Max. “You can get him the Bristle Blocks. I got plenty on my list.”
After buying the presents they ate madly at the Food Court, a square area in the mall ringed by fast-food stands. They went from one counter to another, eating without any common sense. They each had a hot dog and an egg roll and a slice of pizza and a bucket of fried chicken and two frozen yogurts. While they ate they had Bubble’s presents wrapped for a fee; the money went to children with AIDS. They put the presents in the Saab’s trunk. Max asked if she minded touring some more of beautiful Jersey. She was glad to stick with him.
He drove through miles and miles of industrial landscape. She told him about Perlman’s group therapy session, reminded of it when they passed a Sheraton. Max made no comment while she recounted all the survivors who had claimed he saved their lives. She tried to prod him by drawing a pitiful picture of Jackie, the cheerleader mother: “One woman came there just to say thanks to you. She acted like she really needed to see you. She said she and her sons would have died without you.”
But Max wasn’t provoked. He said, “It’s so weird the stuff they have to believe.” And he changed the subject, reciting another fact about the warehouses and factories they passed. He seemed to know why every brick in New York and also New Jersey was put there. He was very intelligent, Carla thought, easily the most intelligent person she had ever met, but in a useless and sad way.
“What do you build?” she asked when they were in the tunnel going back to Manhattan. Riding with Max, speeding through the glowing fluorescent coffin buried under the river wasn’t scary. She remembered the agony and terror she had felt when coming home from the group therapy session with Manny. She had shut her eyes, put her head between her knees and screamed until they were out. I was so crazy, she thought, comparing that day’s hysteria to this calm with Max. Is it Bubble’s death or is it Manny that’s making me so crazy? Or is it because he’s fucking another woman?
No, I was crazy before I knew about her.
“I don’t build anything. I design homes,” Max answered after a long pause. She had almost forgotten her question. “I was going to say houses,” Max said. “But they’re really people’s homes. Built for good closet space.”
It was only their second meeting yet she knew him well enough to know he meant he didn’t think closet space was worth fussing about. “I’ve lived in small apartments my whole life,” she said, “and I’d love to have a big closet.”
“Exactly. That’s the way my clients feel. I don’t blame them. But you see architecture has nothing to do with comfort or usefulness. Sometimes we pretend it does, but really if it was a choice between people and a beautiful building I’d lose the people. I always thought there was something to be said for the neutron bomb.”
They came out of the tunnel and Carla was surprised by the sun. The sickly white glow of neon had obliterated her memory of it and she was delighted it still existed. She pressed the button, let her window roll down and allowed the warm light and the cold air to wash her face.
“I’m sorry,” Max said. “That was just a joke. Pretty stupid.”
“You say what you want, Max. It don’t bother me. Every time I open my mouth I piss people off. I know what you mean. You love buildings. You love all buildings, even the ugly ones. You can’t love all people.”
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.