Trust Me (22 page)

“Hi,” she said. “Come in.”

She was about to tell him that she was not alone, when she saw his expression change. She closed the door behind him and turned.
Edie was standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at them, or more specifically, at Max. She was holding an open pint of ice
cream in one hand and a spoon in the other.

“I can’t find a bowl,” she said.

“You have company,” Max said. “Should I come back later?”

Carly hesitated, caught between conflicting desires. If she sent him away, there was a possibility that their discussion would
be postponed until tomorrow, or later. She didn’t think that she could stand the suspense. And there was nothing that she
wanted more than to be alone with Max. But the situation with Edie was even more pressing, in its own way.

Carly made a quick decision. “Don’t go,” she said. “We were about to have ice cream. Edie, this is my friend Max Giordano.
Do you mind if he joins us?”

Edie looked momentarily taken aback by the question, then shrugged. “It’s your house, isn’t it?”

“Thanks,” Max said. He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the couch. A slight frown touched his forehead,
and Carly wondered what he was thinking. One glance at the girl spoke volumes about her situation. It was possible that Max,
with his own troubled teenage past, might do a better job of communicating with Edie than Carly could.

Maybe. Carly looked warily at him. Or maybe not. It was also possible that he would have no tolerance at all for Edie’s confrontational
attitude. And if Edie sensed any disapproval from him, she was likely either to fight back or storm out, both of which sounded
very bad to Carly.

She took a deep breath. “Max,” she said, “I hope that you can vouch for me and tell Edie that I wouldn’t be a bad person to
see every day. I want her to come and work for me at the clinic.”

Carly had been trying for dramatic effect, but the result was far beyond what she had intended. Edie froze in the doorway,
her mouth dropping open. Her face flushed a dull red.

“You want to give me a
job
?” she asked slowly, incredulously.

“Yes.” She had no idea how she was going to manage such a thing, but she intended to worry about that later. “I’ll train you
as a veterinary assistant. You can help me with exams and take care of the hospitalized animals. If you like it, I’ll teach
you how to assist in surgery and do lab work.”

Edie’s mouth pinched, and she looked from side to side, as if searching for an escape route. “You…” she began, then stopped.
She took a breath.

“You’re crazy!” she yelled, and threw the container of ice cream at Carly. It was not a good throw, and, fortunately, the
pint was still frozen solid. Max stepped in front of Carly and deftly caught it before it hit the floor. He looked at the
label and grinned.

“Chocolate,” he said. “My favorite. Toss me the spoon, kid.”

Furiously, Edie pitched it at him. He plucked it out of the air and calmly began to eat from the carton. Carly stared at him.
This was strange behavior for someone who was usually so fastidious, and she wondered what he was doing.

“I’ll pay you ten dollars an hour,” she said to Edie, who was now glowering at Max and barely seemed to hear her. “And you’ll
get a raise after six months. It’s the starting wage that we offer everyone at your level.”

Edie turned on her. “You are so incredibly stupid that I can’t believe you’re real.”

“I’m not stupid,” Carly protested. “I really think you can do this.”

“You think! I told you, you don’t even know me. What kind of moron tries to hire somebody they don’t even know? You—”

“I know you,” Max remarked, taking another spoonful of ice cream. “I know all about you.”

Edie stopped short. “Liar! I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Max said. “Let me tell you about yourself. You stand outside the Safeway begging for money, but we
both know what you’re actually doing. You’re selling your pride for small change. You can feel it every time some smug guy
drives by and gives you a condescending look. You know you’re smarter than he is, but he doesn’t know that, does he? You sleep
on the floors of strangers’ apartments, or in doorways, or in the park; but you never sleep well, because you have to be able
to wake up fast in case someone tries to mess with you. You’re tired all the time, and hungry, and pissed off at the world,
and you tell yourself that you don’t care about anybody or anything, and so you spend your time getting high—”

“I do not!” Edie shouted. “I don’t do drugs, so you can keep your superior attitude to yourself, you stupid… suit! You think
you’re so smart and successful, but I see guys like you every single night, driving around where I hang out. They come looking
for girls, or boys, or drugs, or whatever they think they need, and we all just laugh at them, wasting their money on stupid
shit like that. You think you know me? You’re wrong.
I
know
you.
”

“No,” Max said quietly. “You don’t. I was on the streets when I was your age, and someday I’ll tell you about it. Then, you
might know me. And maybe someday you’ll tell me your story, and I’ll know you. But that doesn’t matter. The point is that
you either care about something or you’re dead, Edie. And eventually you have to choose one or the other.”

Edie had folded her arms tightly against her chest as he spoke, and hunched her shoulders so that she seemed to be hugging
herself. Her face was red, and her chin wobbled. She wouldn’t look at Max. “I want to leave,” she said.

“Nobody’s stopping you,” Max said, waving toward the door.

Carly couldn’t control herself any longer. “Wait, please don’t go. Have some ice cream. We should talk more about the job.
I really want you to do this.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Edie said, heading for the door.

“Edie.” Max’s voice cut through the small apartment, and the girl froze. “Do you need a place to stay tonight?”

The girl exhaled wearily. “What is this, National Mentorship Day? No, I don’t need a place to stay, or a job, or ice cream,
or anything from either of you. I’m fine, so leave me alone.”

“ ‘Sure,” Max said, and shrugged. “See you around.”

His callousness shocked Carly, and she made a noise of protest. It seemed to her that they had had a breakthrough. Edie had
not dropped her defensive posture, but Max’s words had clearly affected her. Now was not the time to be cool and casual, it
was the time to reach out.

“Edie,” she said quickly, “you care enough about animals to go to the library and study veterinary textbooks. You’re smart
and dedicated, and—”

The girl scowled at her. “I told you that I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But—” Carly began, then stopped abruptly as Max put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed, warningly. She looked up at him,
confused.

“Let her go,” he said in a low voice, his words almost inaudible. Carly frowned, about to argue, but his fingers bit into
her shoulder. His eyes held hers, and she yielded, reluctantly.

“Well… thanks for bringing Nero,” she said to Edie. “I’ll let you know if I have any luck finding his owner. Otherwise, I’ll
start looking around for a home for him.”

“Okay,” Edie said. She hesitated for a moment, looking from Carly to Max as if she were about to say something. But then she
turned and opened the door. “See you,” she muttered, and slipped out into the night.

They stood, staring at the door, until it became clear that she was not coming back.

Max finally broke the silence. “Interesting girl,” he said.

The sound of his voice released Carly. She blew out a long breath of astonishment. “I think I’d better sit down,” she said,
and collapsed on the couch. “Do you think she’ll ever talk to me again?”

“Yes,” Max said immediately. He sat down next to her. “In fact, I think that she is giving your job offer serious consideration.”

“Are you kidding? She wouldn’t even listen to me. How frustrating! I wish there was something I could do.”

“You did it. I’ll bet you a hundred bucks that she shows up either here or at your clinic sometime in the next few weeks,
wanting to know more.”

“I don’t
have
a hundred bucks,” Carly said, exasperated. “And she wasn’t interested. I don’t know why you think that she—”

“She was. She was so interested, in fact, that your offer scared the hell out of her. She needed time to think. That’s why
I told you to let her go. I didn’t want you to push her until she said no, because then she might have been too proud to change
her mind. But she never did say no, did she?”

Carly stared at him. Stunned, she thought back over the whole episode and realized that he was absolutely right. Her own attempt
to push Edie toward the clinic job, using praise and encouragement, was exactly the wrong strategy. She had overwhelmed the
girl, and—as Max pointed out—scared her. At some point, positive feedback would probably work, but right now, it was too much.
Sensing that, Max had provoked Edie, insulted her and challenged her; but he had never made an obvious attempt to control
her. He had handled the situation masterfully.

He was observing Carly’s surprise. “You would be amazed,” he said dryly, “at how much insight into human psychology you can
pick up while going through the New York State foster-care system.”

“I… guess so,” Carly admitted. “That was a pretty impressive performance.”

“The years of study are paying off. The same principles apply in the modern business world.”

“Have you ever thought about doing this for real? Working with street kids?”

Max snorted. “Me? The girl was right. You are crazy.”

“But you’re good at it. And your background means that you understand them in a way that most other people can’t. It’s obviously
important to you. You can talk to these kids, Max, I just saw you do it. You know how to make them listen.”

“I can honestly say that I’ve never considered the idea,” Max said.

“You should,” Carly urged. “I think you would be great at it. You could really do some good for—”

There was a low rumbling sound from the kitchen doorway. Carly looked over and was dismayed to see Nero standing there, growling,
his jaws still clamped on the stick. The mop of hair concealing his face made it impossible to see what he was looking at,
but she had a bad feeling—from the direction in which his nose was pointed—that he was aiming the growl at Max.

“My God,” Max said. “What is that thing? It looks like a giant hedgehog.”

“It’s a dog. His name is Nero. Edie found him in the park. I told her that I would find a home for him.”

Max narrowed his eyes. “She should have left him in the park. He looks like he belongs there. Are you sure it’s a dog?”

Nero dropped the stick and sped toward Max. Carly marveled, briefly, that such stumpy legs could move so quickly, but then
her amusement turned to horror. The dog’s teeth flashed and he snapped at the air in the exact spot where, only seconds before,
Max’s ankles had been.

“Watch out!” Carly exclaimed, belatedly, and heard Max swear. He had lifted his feet just in time and was now holding them
in the air over the small dog’s head. Nero sniffed wildly around the empty space, muttering, then gave up and scurried into
Carly’s bedroom.

Max put his feet down. “You’re supposed to find a home for him?”

“Edie said that he doesn’t like men,” Carly said. “But she also told me that he doesn’t bite people.”

“One of those things is not true,” Max said.

“Oh, dear,” Carly said. “I’ll go and shut the bedroom door.”

She felt Max’s gaze on her back as she walked over and pulled the door shut. She turned and saw that he was still watching
her. “Max,” she said, “were you serious when you told Edie that you used to be on the streets?”

“I bailed out on a few foster homes.” He shrugged. “I was not a model kid.”

“Where did you go when you ran away?”

“Manhattan. Always. I was underage, so I didn’t have much luck getting a paycheck, but there were a couple of restaurants
in Little Italy that would feed me if I worked. You know, washing dishes, cleaning floors. I showed up whenever I needed a
meal.”

“It’s hard for me to imagine you cleaning floors,” Carly said. She sat down on the couch next to him and tucked her feet under
herself.

“I didn’t care. It was better than the alternatives.”

“How on earth did you get from there to here?”

“You didn’t read the
Fortune
article?”

“No. Should I?”

“Don’t bother. I gave them a few clichéd quotes about hard work and the American Dream. But what really happened was that
I got arrested.”

“What?” He was teasing her, Carly thought.

“It wasn’t the first time. I’d been in trouble for petty theft, trespassing. But when I was sixteen, I broke into an electronics
store and stole a couple of televisions. I had big plans to sell them on the street and make enough money to come to California.”
He shook his head. “Stupid kid.”

“You got caught?”

“Immediately. And when the owner of the store found out that I was a teenager, he came down to the station to see me. Jack
Levitsky. He told me that he wouldn’t press charges if I came to work for him. I still don’t know what the hell he was thinking.”

“You sound like Edie,” Carly remarked.

“He started me on the lousiest stockroom job that he had. I worked harder for him than I ever had in my life, and for some
reason, I liked it. By the time I was twenty-one, I knew the business inside out, and I was basically running things for Jack.
I got us into computers, and we started expanding. We started hiring college kids over the summers, to do repairs, and to
help customers with their systems. That was how I met Gary. Hell of a programmer, but he was like a baby. He didn’t know anything
about business, and he didn’t want to know. We eventually teamed up to start our company, and the rest is history.”

“Where is he now?”

“Retired at thirty-four. He bought a big Perini Navi and now he sails around the world with his wife and kids. He sent me
a postcard from Bali a few months ago.”