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The city had just begun to hum its nightly lullaby when she received the text message from Allison.
"8, it's 3. Dad's dead."
She was surprised her sister still had her phone number considering she hadn't spoken to Allison or anyone else from her family in over a decade. If anyone was going to be considerate enough to save her contact it would have been Vanya, she thought.
Maxine took a long drag off her cigarette, clicked the power button on her cellphone, and set it face down on her bistro table. She exhaled slowly, watching the cloud of smoke disappear into the cool night air. She ran her fingers through her waist length, ash brown hair.
She put out her cigarette in the filthy ashtray she'd snagged from a thrift store. She picked up her phone and clicked on the text again, mulling over whether she should respond.
"I'll fly in tomorrow."
She hit "send" before she could talk herself out of it. Her thumb wandered to Google Flights, scanning the red eyes until she found one without a layover. Her thumb hovered over the "purchase" button for a moment longer before paying for the overpriced First Class ticket.
Her fingertips loomed over her laptop keys, her mind now drowning in memories she had anchored to the floor of her consciousness years ago. She had been working on a new piece on aldermanic corruption, quite zealously at that, before she'd heard from her sister. She closed her laptop and scrolled through her contacts to land on "George Banks."
Her fiancé, George, was a candidate for the Governor of Florida. They met when she was interviewing him for a Forty Under Forty profile piece on political up-and-comers across the country. She wasn't his type. She wasn't tall, had pristine olive skin, fake tits, or even a preference for designer bags. Max's hair was usually long, grayish brown, and thrown up in a messy bun that usually had at least one pencil poking out of it. She had always worn faded, ripped vintage Levi's and whatever band t-shirt she found not rolled up on her hamper. She had a tattoo of angel wings on her shoulder blades, a nose ring, and an umbrella on her wrist. She had begun to dress more appropriately as of late thanks to encouragement from George.
He wasn't her usual bed partner either. He had curly blonde hair, a square jaw, and nearly ten years her senior. He had spent the last decade climbing through the ranks of local races until he was approached to run for governor.
Maxine kept her small loft in the Upper East Side for work despite spending the majority of her time in the home she shared with George in Siesta Key. She had flown back a week prior to cover a story her editor had been pressing her to investigate for months.
"My dad died," she typed. "Allison just texted me."
"Fuck, Max," he replied almost instantly. "Are you okay? I'll call you when I leave the fundraiser."
