Free Adventures with Max and Louise by Ellyn Oaksmith Page B

whatever you want to call us, we don’t really loik to be called implants; such a cold, impersonal word. I prefer Max, meself. Maximilian if you’re a bit of a toff, which I’m not.”
    My head spins. This is the voice who said, “You’re jealous” about Gwen when I was lying in bed. This is the voice on the bus.
    “You said ‘us.’ There’s more than one?”
    “Well, of course there’s more than one. You don’t see many lasses runnin’ round with one right smack in the center, do you? I’m the left one; always partial to that side. Louise is the other. Yer lucky she’s not talkin’. Once she starts, she won’t bleedin’ stop.”
    Stumbling forward, I nearly trip on the sidewalk. I need a stiff drink or three. I glance at my watch. It’s still far too early to slip into a bar.
    “No need to get yourself all in a tizzy. That’s a girl, have a sit-down.”
    Collapsing on a bench in a bus shelter beside a woman dressed for the office, I take long, deep breaths. Get a grip, Molly. Get oxygen to your brain, and this hallucination will go away . It has to be a hallucination, or I am going mad. Is this the way it happens? First you notice the bits and pieces of insanity, a voice in the bed, a stranger only you can hear talking to you on the bus, and later you fall completely apart on the sidewalk?
    “ ’ere’s the thing,” Max says. “You’re at a juncture roight now. The road forks; you choose a paff. The first option is that you keep trottin’ roight up that hill, go shoppin’ with your mate. ’e tries to talk you into some fashionable clothes, but you insist, no, they’re not my cuppa. In the end, you win because ’e knows you been froo a lot, and ’e doesn’t want to push. Life goes on pretty much as before. Not too bad, but then again, not a ’ell of a lot of giggles neither.”
    I’m actually listening to Max, feeling interested, if not downright fascinated. Yes, I might be completely losing it, but this guy seems to have given my love life, or lack thereof, a fair amount of thought.
    “Path two: you with me now? You scoot roight back down to the courthouse, and you find your man. Make no mistake, girly, ’e’s your man; every cell in your body is sayin’, ‘I want ’im.’ I’m not sayin’ it won’t be a job to get ’im. But I can tell you what’ll ’appen if you keep runnin’ away: you’ll both go back to work and feck all will change. ’e’ll be single, and you’ll be lonely. Listen to me. I can get ’im for you.”
    “I’m going crazy.” I have to say it aloud. The woman next to me stares dead ahead, clutching her briefcase. Checking the bus schedule, she stands.
    “Oy, that’s just another excuse. Fear, loneliness, grief. You can find any excuse for me if you want. In the end it’s your choice.”
    “And what if I just want you to go away?” The woman sidles farther away from the bus stop, keeping an eye on me as if I am a solitary suitcase in a New York subway.
    “You don’t want me to go away,” Max says calmly.
    “Oh, yes I do! I really, really, really do!”
    “Luvey, when you decided on surgery, you lit’rally opened yourself up. You can’t cut open a body loik a melon and expect no change.” He lowers his voice to a confidential tone. “You know, people who ’ave open ’eart surgery cry loik babies after they ’ave the operation. Openin’ up the ’eart, it is.”
    “I didn’t open up my heart. I opened up skin.”
    “Still an organ. Biggest one in the body, in fact.”
    “It was a mistake.”
    “Luv, there ain’t any mistakes. Only fate.”
    I run a hand through my hair. I’m not cold anymore. I’m so freaked out, I can’t feel anything but a creeping sense of panic and fear. “You’re just a regular expert, aren’t you? Where’d you go to school, Harvard?”
    “Oim more of a street philosopher, if you will. But I spend a fair time thinking on matters of the heart. And you, my dear young lady, chose me, whether you like it or