Everyone Is Beautiful

by Katherine Center

  And then, before I thought it through, I just said, “I hadn't told him because it never happened.”

  Amanda didn't follow.

  “I wasn't pregnant that day at the park.”

  “Why did you say you were?”

  “Because that mom in the khaki pants asked me when I was due.”

  Honestly, I had not planned to come clean about that low moment in my life—ever. Some secrets are okay to keep. But here we were.

  “Unbelievable!” Amanda shouted, and smacked the steering wheel with the palm of her hand. For a second I wondered if my lie had somehow been worse than hers. We were at the airport. Amanda took an exit for the passenger drop-off. Then she said, “She asked you that?”

  I nodded. “She did.”

  “Why did you say yes?”

  “Because it was easier than saying no.” I shrugged. “And she was making me feel frumpy.”

  Amanda's face got serious, just as she pulled to a stop in front of the skycaps. “You shouldn't have lied to her,” she said, and I nodded in agreement, ready to take my scolding. Then she said, “You're way better looking than she is.”

  And I couldn't be mad at her after that. She had called my estranged husband without asking me and told him I was suicidal because of my fictional miscarriage—which was, any way you sliced it, inappropriate behavior. But she meant well. And, maybe most important: She thought I was prettier than Khaki Pants.

  I hugged her. And then it was time to call Peter and set him straight. But I'd lent my phone to my mother, who had, of course, lost it. “Give me your phone,” I told Amanda, as I reached into her purse. We were at the terminal, and we'd been parked at the passenger drop-off too long. It was time for me to get out. And there, with airport security waving us on, I dialed Peter's number for the first time in two weeks.

  But no answer. It went straight to voice mail. And I did not leave a message because in that moment, with Amanda staring at me and airport security now approaching the car, I did not know what on earth I could possibly say.

  Chapter 31

  I could tell you everything there was to know about Peter. His favorite fries were the little hard ones down at the bottom of the bag. He cleaned his ears every night before bed with Q-tips. He was afraid of vampires. He had a recurrent nightmare about a giant hand trying to grab him. He liked lemons, but not limes; cilantro, but not parsley; and cake, but not icing. He could read a three-hundred-page novel in an hour. He slept on his stomach. His favorite fruit was pineapple. Green peppers made him throw up.

  But I couldn't seem to index all my trivia about him into any meaningful pattern. It was useless information. The only thing I cared about was what he was thinking now and what he would say in seven hours, when I showed up at his door. If I were a computer, I might have been able to plug that information into some kind of an algorithm that could predict something about our future. But as it was, it was just me. I could tell you that he still had the Darth Vader piggy bank he ‘d begged for on his sixth birthday, but I couldn't tell you if he still loved me or not.

  At Amanda's insistence, I did not wear any mascara on the flight to L.A.—or any eye makeup at all. And, as she had predicted, I cried much of the way there. When I wasn't crying, I was wearing a “soothing eye mask” filled with cold jelly to keep the puffiness down—a present from Amanda before I left. “This thing'll stay cold for ten hours,” she said proudly as she handed it to me. They developed it—”

  And then I cut in: “At NASA?”

  “That's right,” she said.

  “NASA really turned out to be a great beauty investment.”

  I wasn't sure if the mask was helping. I checked my reflection a couple of times in the bathroom, but I mostly just looked red and puffy. I kept it on, though. What else was I going to do? My whole plan of looking so fabulous that Peter couldn't help but forgive me was in serious jeopardy. Though Amanda had pointed out that I had another great advantage now, thanks to her help. “You're not dead.”

  I wondered what Peter would see when he saw me today—after all my study with Amanda to turn myself into something irresistible, to claim that power beautiful women have. I wanted to be beautiful. I wanted Peter to feel a thrill to see me. I wanted to find the passion that had been lost at the bottom of the toy bin for so long. And more than any of that, I wanted to find a way to keep Peter close. I had no idea how to make any of those things happen. But just for now, for one weekend, I wanted to clean up pretty good.

  When the long flight landed, I wheeled my carry-on toward baggage claim. Here was the plan: To collect my suitcase full of beauty supplies and find a bathroom where, per Amanda's instructions, I could “get gorgeous” before arriving at Peter's dorm room. My first job was to change into the black jeans and red shirt she'd picked out. Next, I was supposed to shake my head upside down and squirt hair spray into the roots to “reinfuse it with lift.” Then: Do a couple of jumping jacks, splash my face with cold water, brush my teeth, apply some Visine if necessary, and follow every step of the makeup recipe Vanessa had concocted for me. Then, walk quickly and confidently to the taxi station while repeating personal affirmations (Amanda's suggestions: “I am a badass wife and mother,” “I am fierce and feisty,” “I am a force of nature,” or “Every man in this airport wishes I were naked”—none of which felt remotely true), then proceed to Peter's place, without picking at my new manicure, and take that man by storm. It was eight in the morning.

  But before I made it to my bag, as I was walking out past the long line of shoeless people waiting to get in at the security checkpoint on the other side of the glass, I slipped in one of my new platform wedges: in particular, the pair that, when I tried them on, had inspired Amanda to touch her finger to my ass and make a sizzling noise. After years of sneakers and flip-flops, high-heeled wedges were, perhaps, a bit ambitious. But they'd made me feel tall at a time when, most days, I felt the opposite.

  I hit the floor and almost tripped the business commuter behind me. A security guard with the name tag eduardo helped me out of the flow of traffic and leaned me against the wall so I could put my shoe back on. It felt good to lean against something, and I took a minute to regroup.

  There is no better people-watching than at the airport: the whole world packed into such a tight space, moving fast with all their essentials in their rolling bags. And what caught my attention, as I took a few breaths and lay my eyes on the crowds, were all the imperfections. Everybody had them. Every single person that walked past me had some kind of flaw. Bushy eyebrows, moles, flared nostrils, crooked teeth, crows'-feet, hunched backs, dowagers' humps, double chins, floppy earlobes, nose hairs, potbellies, scars, nicotine stains, upper arm fat, trick knees, saddlebags, collapsed arches, bruises, warts, puffy eyes, pimples. Nobody was perfect. Not even close. And everybody had wrinkles from smiling and squinting and craning their necks. Everybody had marks on their bodies from years of living—a trail of life left on them, evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights and practical jokes and heartbreaks that had made them who they were.

  In that moment, I suddenly loved us all the more for our flaws, for being broken and human, for being embarrassed and lonely, for being hopeful or tired or disappointed or sick or brave or angry. For being who we were, for making the world interesting. It was a good reminder that the human condition is imperfection. And that's how it's supposed to be.

  That said, it was time to find a bathroom so I could get gorgeous. It was going to take at least an hour. But before I could find one, I found something else. I found Peter. In the airport. Of all places. Going somewhere with his duffel bag across his chest like a messenger.

  But he had a concert in L.A. that night, and not just a concert: the concert that the whole fellowship, and in fact even his whole life—had been building toward. Where, exactly, was Peter going? I couldn't imagine. And I suddenly didn't want to know. I felt, in that moment, like somehow I was prying into Peter's life, like I shouldn't have been there. I felt a strong
urge to step behind that doughnut-bodied security guy and hide.

  But just then, as if he felt me watching him, Peter turned all the way around and met my eyes. He looked terrible. He hadn't shaved, and his eyes were bloodshot and red, like he hadn't slept. He held my gaze like that for a good few minutes, his mouth a little open, as if he didn't trust his eyes.

  And, of course, I looked terrible, too, after a day of crying, no sleep, and the longest plane ride I had ever taken. I certainly looked nothing like the fancy girl who'd had her makeup, hair, and clothes coordinated by Amanda at the mall. But it was okay. It hit me at that moment that Peter wasn't looking at my eye shadow, or lack thereof, or my lipstick, or lack thereof. He was looking at me. I didn't have to try so hard to stand out. I stood out, in this sea of travelers, simply because I was me.

  I was near the end of the glass partition that separated the people coming from the people going. Peter was on the other side. We watched each other through the glass. Peter's line moved forward, but he didn't move with it. When the guy behind him nudged him, Peter stepped out of line, without dropping my eyes, and started walking toward me. He didn't look away once, just walked with a steady purpose right to where I was. I felt frozen, and, as Peter rounded the glass, when he was just two steps away from me, Eduardo the security guy said, in a sharp voice, “Hey! You can't go this way!” But Peter didn't even seem to hear him, and I worried, suddenly, that Eduardo might hit him with his nightstick.

  Two steps later, though, Peter was right up in front of me. I hadn't been able to read his face. I wasn't used to his expression. Was he angry? I'd never seen him so disheveled. His shirt was untucked, and his clothes looked like he'd slept in them. I held very still as he stepped up to me. I was afraid to move. Was he going to yell at me? Leave me? Tell me he was moving to Mexico and throw divorce papers in my face?

  “Hey!” Eduardo said again.

  But Peter didn't even pause. Without even dropping his duffel, he reached right up to cup the back of my head with his hands and brought my mouth to his. I did not have time to think about the fact that it was exactly the kind of kiss I'd been wanting to teach him weeks before. He was moving on instinct, his body an expression of his thoughts. And then we were pressed against the airport wall, kissing, Peter's focus so intense it seemed like he wanted to crawl inside my body—with Eduardo the security guy looking on.

  I'm sure I've had kisses that good before. But I can't remember even one.

  We made out like teenagers against that wall. And when Peter came up for a breath, he stared at my face like he'd never seen it before, and said, “Why are you here?”

  “Why are you here?” I countered.

  “I was going home to find you,” he said.

  “I was coming here to find you,” I said.

  Peter touched his forehead to mine and took a deep breath, as if he were trying to breathe me in. And I remember feeling like I never wanted to move from that spot, not even caring that Eduardo was keeping a wary eye on us.

  Peter pulled back again to meet my eyes. “You're okay?”

  “I'm okay,” I said. “I'm okay if you're okay.”

  “I'm okay,” Peter said. “Are we okay?”

  I nodded. “I hope so,” I said. “I can't tell you how much I hope so.”

  And then, when Peter kissed me again, I realized something—or maybe it was that night, at the concert, as Peter rocked the piano and I fought the urge to point out the “For Elena: who kisses with her hands” in the program to the person next to me; or maybe it was even the next day, as we ate take-out Chinese in bed out of the cartons, still naked at lunchtime; or maybe it was even on the plane ride home, after we'd begged seats next to each other and while Peter slept with his head on my shoulder: I realized that nothing about that kiss could have been as good if I didn't know Peter backward and forward and inside out. If I hadn't watched him shave a thousand times, or poked him in the middle of the night for snoring, or watched him pace the hallways with each of our wakeful newborns. And, also, if I didn't know that he knew me the same way and had seen me at my worst as often as at my best. If we didn't know each other precisely that well, and hadn't been disappointed and dismayed time and again, and breathed each other's breath, and become so woven into every minute of each other's lives, and even come to take each other for granted in the way that you only can when you've seen years and years of day-in and day-out, it wouldn't have been the same.

  I realized something else, too, seeing Peter again after all that time: As much as that kiss felt exactly like the ones from college I'd remembered so many times, there was something new between us right then in the airport, some real sense of discovery. Everything was just as it had always been, and, at the same time, everything was brand-new. And, despite it all—everything, more than anything, felt exactly like home.

  Epilogue

  Amanda would later say that my bumping into Peter like that was too impossible and that I was making it up. She insisted that nobody's luck was that good. She also insisted that Peter changing his plane ticket home five minutes after she called him was totally unbelievable as well. But that's what he'd done. And the first flight that wasn't full took off two hours after mine landed. And he stayed up all night worrying, trying to call my lost cell phone and, when that failed, Amanda's. She slept through the ringing. And though she did see his cell number ten times in her missed calls the next day, she still didn't believe any of it.

  “There is no man on the planet,” she said, “who would have left town like that on the morning of the biggest concert of his life.”

  No man, it appears, except Peter.

  I would also find out later that Peter had not stayed angry with me when he was in L.A. Quite the opposite. He hadn't been gone two days before it hit him that I hadn't wanted that kiss from Nelson.

  That night, Peter had been brooding about the kiss, as he'd done at least a thousand times since it happened, while he ate a PB&J for supper, alone in his little dorm room. He was studying the image of Nelson kissing me in his head, again, and he noticed something that he hadn't before: my arms were at my sides the whole time. They just dangled. And that's when Peter knew for sure that I hadn't wanted Nelson to kiss me. “That's not the way you kiss,” Peter said later. He said that I kissed with my hands, ran them everywhere, put them in his hair, stroked his neck. That settled it for him, right then. He suddenly, in that great optimistic way that Peter had, felt better. In that one moment, I was forgiven.

  He had picked up the phone right away and called me. He left a long message detailing his epiphany and apologizing for being a jealous asshole. Then he asked me to call him back. He said, “Call me, okay? I want you to call me.”

  But I didn't call him. Over the next few days, he called at least five times—maybe more. But I never called him back. Turns out, being dropped in the toilet had broken the phone a little bit. Not too much. But just enough. I couldn't receive any calls. And I guess I received few enough calls in general that I didn't even notice.

  Peter thought it was my turn to be mad. He thought I was giving him the cold shoulder. But before he could come up with a way to get back on my good side, something else happened: Peter woke up with music in his head. Loud music. Urgent music. And, as always, he couldn't do anything at all—couldn't even function—until he ‘d written it down. He later described it like an explosion in his head. And it was, if this makes sense, a letter to me. In music. All the things he'd meant to say for the past four years, all the dreams he ‘d wanted to tell me about, or the funny stories that happened while he was at school, or the thoughts he'd wanted to share but that had been lost, as so many things are, in the everyday hustle. Those things started coming back to him, as if they'd been waiting all that time for their chance, and as soon as things got quiet, they all took it—at once.

  He wrote like a maniac after that. He didn't even realize time was passing. He played so much his fingers got blisters. He forgot to eat. He forgot to sleep. Sometimes, if he co
uldn't stand it, he'd crawl under the piano to nap so he didn't have to waste time in transit. It was as close to going crazy as he ever hoped to get, and, on the other side of it, he had a massive piece of music to play at the final concert that would absolutely blow all the other musicians out of the water. When Peter finished playing, the audience didn't just clap, they cheered. They didn't just stand, they jumped to their feet. The roar in the auditorium was so loud, it sounded like people were stomping on the floor. And they may well have been.

  Being away from the noise and the kids and the craziness of life in our house had cleared Peter's head—and out of the silence emerged the piece of music that he'd been trying to write all semester. It was, in truth, the piece of music he'd been trying to write all his life.

  Everything came out that next day in his dorm room. We spent the whole day in bed—ate, fooled around, and talked and talked and talked. I came clean about my non-pregnancy, my non-miscarriage, and my non-suicidal feelings. He apologized for taking me away from home and for leaving me at the holidays and for overreacting about Nelson. Every few minutes, we marveled over how easy it was to talk to each other when we were alone.

  The music he wrote during that fellowship landed Peter, among other things, a tenure-track job at Boston University. So we didn't have to move. We stayed in our little apartment building for several years after that, as did Nora and Josh, who spent a lot of time with our kids—and each other.

  Just about the time Josh had given up on Nora for good, she had showed up at his door. She took his hand when he answered and led him upstairs without a word, into her apartment, into her room. He stayed that night and didn't sleep in his own apartment again even once after that. By the next fall, he and Nora were both back in school—as student and teacher—and they rode their bikes to campus together.