He was meeting Jude for lunch, as he did every time he came this direction.
After all these years, Jude was still his best friend. No thanks to Max. When he'd been fourteen and bitter, he'd been ready to cut Jude out. His short life experience had led him to believe that friends were easy things to acquire. Jude was the one who'd been unwilling to let their parents' mistakes ruin their friendship. Now, at the age of thirty-two, Max owed Jude for that because he'd discovered that true friends were a rare commodity. A best friend like Jude? The rarest, most valuable commodity of them all.
Too often for his taste, he was surrounded by people, employees, acquaintances. But hardly any of them really knew him. It was good for him to be known the way he and Jude knew each other. It was necessary.
Sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he faced the drizzly Monday weather.
Jeremiah, Jude, and he had all responded differently to the scandals they’d been raised under.
Jeremiah had seized control of his story and proved to everyone why he was, in his own right, worthy of attention by becoming the most successful American Formula One driver in history.
Jude had retreated from the public eye. When he'd finished holding his family together after Felix and Fiona’s divorce, he'd taken steps toward a career that would enable him to hold the world together by righting its wrongs.
As for him? Max had clawed to prove his worth independent of the Camdens. For the past decade, he'd worked tirelessly to build an empire of his own. And succeeded.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and he twisted to watch Jude exit the building.
They exchanged their usual brief hug.
Jeremiah and Jude were the sons of two blond people. Both of them were light skinned with dark blond hair. Max's mother had olive skin and thick, black hair. Max, too, had an olive skin tone and dark hair. If someone were to look at the three brothers, they'd immediately note that he was the one who didn't belong. Fitting because Max had viewed Jeremiah and Jude as friends when they were kids and still viewed them much more as friends than as brothers.
“How are you?” Jude asked.
“I’m well. You?” It had been a month since they'd seen each other.
Jude nodded. “Also well. Ready for lunch?”
“Starving.” Max took his keyring from his pocket and spun it on his index finger as they walked toward his car. “I’ll drive.”
“Ah, good. Nausea for an appetizer.”
Max smiled. “I'm shallow and want to flaunt my car.”
“Fine by me.”
“I'd like it better if you were insecure enough to argue and demand a chance to flaunt your car.” Max gave a long-suffering sigh. “Your self-assurance is the kind that doesn't need a sports car to prop it up. It's infuriating.”
“How can I be infuriating when all I said was 'fine by me'?”
“You manage.”
“Also, why would I flaunt a Ford Bronco?”
“The bigger question is why are you driving a Ford Bronco when you could be driving a Ferrari?”
“I'm assuming that question is rhetorical.”
“Jeremiah has the sense to drive a Ferrari.”
“Jeremiah and you are equally shallow,” Jude joked. “I'm the only one with substance.”
No need to ask Jude where they were going for lunch because they always ate at the same place in Bangor—a lobster pound on the river at the edge of town.
When they got there, they approached the walk-up window side by side. Live lobster moved around in a tank on the left. At this time of year, they'd be hard-shell, caught offshore. To the right, a tall kettle of seawater bubbled above a wood fire. They ordered what they always ordered. Whole lobster with melted butter, a dinner roll, an ear of corn, and a scoop of coleslaw.
Soon the weather would begin to turn warm enough to eat at the large outdoor area when they came here. For now, though, they settled at the last empty indoor table. Maine travel posters and enlarged photos of customers eating here in the seventies and eighties curled and turned yellow from where they'd been stapled to the walls. Beyond the room's picture window, the gray-blue Penobscot flowed. It, like the bay, a town, and a slew of businesses, had been named for Maine's indigenous people.
Jude asked questions about Max's work and Max's mom. Max asked for the same work and family updates from Jude.
