Maxine by Claire Wilkshire Read Free Book Online Page A

the memo re: Zaire.
    What do you mean, it’s not there ?
    Is there another way to spell it?
    Try with two dots over the i .
    â€¦Nope.
    That’s ridiculous, it was always there.
    Maxine, I just searched it. It’s part of the Democratic Republic of Congo now. It’s not a country any more.
    That’s absurd, says Maxine. She’s putting her papers aside and leaning in behind him to look at the screen and make sure, but of course he’s right. There’s also The Gambia. It used to be plain old Gambia when Maxine was growing up. What’s with that? While Maxine was looking away, the world changed. Words, countries had come and gone.
    You look like someone should have asked you first, Kyle tells her.
    Well, someone could have mentioned it.
    The funny part is that it works. Things do change. The first time Maxine abandons her attempt to name national capitals, Kyle says sympathetically, Wow, they didn’t teach you guys much in school back then, did they? But for some reason he wants her to improve.
    He’s patient, and he uses helping strategies. After she has responded Mexico City, the next answer will be Guatemala City, and then Panama City. He’ll say Laos and she’ll say I don’t know, and he’ll say Vvvv-Vvvv-Vvvvvvii. And she’ll say, irritably, I don’t know ! and just when he’s about to tell her, she’ll interrupt: Oh wait, wait now, Vientiane? After a few weeks of this, she’s saying, Djibouti, now that’s a trick isn’t it, Kyle, because the capital of Djibouti is Djibouti,HAH!Hah haHAH! She’ll rhyme off Astana-Kazakhstan, Asmara-Eritrea, Ashgabat-Turkmenistan, as if she’d known them all along. It’s hard to know who is more pleased by this or why, but when Maxine successfully identifies every country in Africa and its capital, they go out for hot chocolate.
    On her last day in the office, Maxine was to meet her boss in the boardroom at four o’clock, to finalize the details of the transition, he’d said, and deal with any loose ends he might need to address with her replacement. I know you’re on top of it already, he’d added, gazing down at Maxine’s desk, where brightly-coloured file folders sat in strategically asymmetrical stacks, each of which had a large, lined sticky note on top. The handwriting on the sticky notes was calm and even, and suggested that everything was manageable. But, he’d told her, I’d like to make sure we’ve covered all the bases.
    Punctuality was not Maxine’s chief virtue, but she did scuttle, at only a couple of minutes past four, along the hall that led to the boardroom, armed with a notebook and a list. For a brief moment she thought the atmosphere felt not quite as deserted as on a normal Friday at this time, but the thought passed, and then she opened the door to the boardroom and stopped dead. The boardroom was full. It was full of her boss and her colleagues and bowls of chips and a cake and a cooler overflowing with pop and Corona, full of streamers and balloons and her boss’s granddaughter Bridget, who was pulling on Maxine’s finger and saying, The presents are over here.
    Someone pressed an open Corona into her palm. They gave her a pen and a notebook and a fish in a bowl, to keep her company when she missed them all terribly, which, it was explained, she would. Bridget was tugging at her arm so Maxine squatted down.
    I was allowed to come, Bridget said solemnly, Because of the cake.
    Well, said Maxine. I’m, um, glad you were available.
    I think I can have seconds.
    Oh, I see. Let’s get you some, then. What do you think I should call the fish?
    Bridget thought for a minute and then scooched up to Maxine’s ear. She whispered: His name is Bluebird.
    So Bluebird it was. Maxine’s boss made a speech in which he said they were only letting her slip away briefly, on the condition that she come back. He said that in return for