Max
I gripthe steering wheel as we take a hairpin turn, descending the hill in increasingly treacherous conditions as though we’re crawling under the obstacle course’s net. We’ve been stuck behind a truck for the last handful of kilometers with no opportunity to overtake, and the rain seems to be becoming increasingly persistent with each passing minute.
After learning the trains weren’t running, driving had seemed like the logical plan. But now, seeing the debris on the road from the storm, the wind whipping around the car as the rain falls, I’m not so sure.
Fabiana has been trying to get a hold of her grandmother, but thanks to the patchy service in the mountains, and the impact of the weather, she’s not had any success.The tension sparking from her is like a fireworks display, the love she has for her grandmother clear.
“Hello? Nona? Oh, thank goodness I’ve got a hold of you!” She says in a rush.
Her eyes flash to mine and I give her a thumbs up.
“Mr. Beckman told me what happened. Are you okay?” There's a pause as she waits for her grandmother’s response. “I'm on my way…Yes, of course I have to come…Because I love you and you're hurt…” She pauses again, listening, and then turns to me. “I'm with him right now, as it happens. He's driving me back to the city because the trains aren't running.”
There’s another pause, and then she glances at me before she looks away, murmuring, “It turns out I was wrong.”
I bite back a smile as I follow the truck around another corner, the windscreen wipers doing double time. She was wrong aboutme. In one short week, she’s seen more of who I really am. Yes, she shut me down last night. But there was something in her eyes, in her shallow breathing, that told me she wanted to kiss me as much as I did her. A fire, burning bright.
She has her reasons. She’s meant to be working with me, reporting on ‘the real Max’. But what I feel for her goes way beyond that, and as we sit side by side, Toffee sleeping on her lap, I can’t help but hope that she can see I’m worth the risk.
Because it feels to me that she is.
“You were doingwhat? Nona, at your age?... No, of course. I'm very pleased Mr. Beckman is a wonderful dancer, but maybe try doing something less physical next time? Like playing bingo, or watching a movie…”
I chuckle. Fabiana's grandmother sounds a lot like her granddaughter. A go-getter.
“Nona? Hello?” She looks at her screen. “Dang it. We’ve been cut off.”
“At least you got a hold of her.”
“Can you believe she was out dancing with our neighbor?” she says, but there's a lightness in her tone that wasn't there before.
Talking with her grandmother has set her mind at ease.
“Why can't she go dancing?”
“Because she's old,” she protests.
“How old?”
“She’s seventy-one.”
“So, you’re going to give up dancing by that age?”
“Maybe?”
I let out a laugh.
“What?”
“I'm not much of a dancer—you’ve said so yourself in at least one article—but I fully intend to keep on doing everything I do right now for as long as my body will let me.”
“You've been planning for your retirement? I suppose you are twenty-seven,” she teases.
“Not exactly planning, but you get one life, and you need to live it. It sounds to me that your grandmother has been having some fun while you've been away.”
She waves her hand in the air. “Oh, he's just our neighbor. He promised to check in on her for me. She's alone right now and she’s not used to me being away for this long.”
“Ah.”
