Max said he “would fucking not!”
And then Arnie started to sweet-talk him, saying that they would pay him ten times the money he would make in an entire year working at “the fucking movies” and that he could keep the cat at the end and they would give him complimentary pills that would help ease his “fucking anxiety” and the food would be “gour-fucking-met” and all he had to do was stay in the room for twenty-one days with the cat, but without coming out or having any contact with the rest of “the fucking world.”
“We would observe you,” Arnie had said. “And ask you questions from time to time. But that’s it. You wouldn’t have to do a thing, except play with the cat.”
I was amazed, and wondered if Max’s story could possibly be true.
I said, “So they just wanted you to be in the room with the cat?”
“What the fuck, hey?” Max said, nodding, his eyes open wide. “Fucking weird, right?”
“Why would they pay you to play with a cat for three weeks?”
“I don’t fucking know. But suddenly, while I was standing there fucking frozen, with the fucking clone of Alice purring at my fucking feet, I realized that the room was definitely a space-fucking-craft. Math. That’s what I used to figure it out. Fucking math.”
“Math?” I said.
“What the fuck, hey?” Max said, nodding confidently. “Three weeks was just enough time to travel to a different fucking galaxy if they put the craft in hyper-fucking-warp speed.”
I didn’t understand what type of math Max was using here, but he seemed so excited that I didn’t interrupt him. Maybe you understand, Richard Gere, because you are so much smarter than I am.
“So it all made fucking sense. And that’s when I fucking knew . . . that fucking Arnie . . . was a goddamn . . . fucking . . . alien,” Max said, throwing in the pauses for dramatic effect. “A yellow-color-loving alien from outer-fucking-space. They’re everywhere, you know. And I won’t let you or me go through what my sister fucking went through. No fucking way. Not going to fucking happen. Not on my watch.”
“Did you say alien?” I asked Max.
“Don’t you fucking believe in aliens? The universe is so fucking huge. Probability is on the aliens’ side. Those fuckers exist! How can you not fucking believe?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never really thought about it much.”
What I was really interested in was finding out more information about The Girlbrarian, so I said, “Max, have you ever read Jung? Have you ever read Synchronicity?”
“Synchronicity? Isn’t that an album by the Police? ‘King of Fucking Pain’ is on that fucker, I think.”
“No, it’s a book written by Carl Jung. It’s about coincidences and how there are none. Unus mundus.”
“Unus-what-the-fuck-dus are you talking about here, hey? And what the fuck does it have to do with aliens? Or the fucking spaceship I almost ended up imprisoned in for three weeks?”
“Hear me out,” I said. “Before we met, I saw your sister at the library. Many times. You might say I felt a certain connection with her. I’ve been watching her working in the library for years and—”
“My sister? Eliza-fucking-beth?”
“I had always wanted to speak with her, but I was too afraid.”
“Why?”
“That’s not the point,” I said, because I didn’t want to tell Max I was in love with his sister. I didn’t know how he would take that information.
“What the fuck is the point, then?” Max said.
“My mother died a few weeks ago, which led to my having a grief counselor named Wendy, who recommended I see Arnie, who just so happened to pair me up with The Girlbrarian’s brother. Think about it. What are the odds?”
“Who the fuck is The Girlbrarian?”
“The girl I have wanted to meet for years now! Your sister!”
“What the fuck, hey?”
“Synchronicity!”
“You want to fucking meet my sister?”
“More than anything in the world.”
“You don’t need synchro-fucking-nicity to meet my sister. I’ll take you to meet her right fucking now. No problem. And she can fucking tell you about the aliens who abducted her. What the fuck, hey?”
Richard Gere, I couldn’t believe my good luck.
It was hard not to think about my mother’s philosophy—The Good Luck of Right Now.
More proof, as the bad of Mom’s death would directly lead to the good of meeting The Girlbrarian for the first time.
Maybe Arnie had been an alien who tried to trick Max into boarding his spacecraft, but the good that balanced out the potential bad of his deception was surely taking place at that moment.
I had never been more certain of anything in my life.
I didn’t care what The Girlbrarian said to me as long as I finally got to speak with her. She could have recited the Declaration of Independence seventy-six times in monotone and without making eye contact once, and my eyes would be riveted on her beautiful plump lips. And now I didn’t have to worry too much about coming off as a freak or failing to say anything at all when I first met her, because Max would be with me.
Max is very talkative.
Max would explain why I was there, providing me with a legitimate reason to be in the same room with The Girlbrarian.
Max would provide a natural bridge for me—a cause for The Girlbrarian and me to speak, even if we ended up talking about aliens.