The Status of All Things: A Novel

by Liz Fenton

  She throws out her answers with precision—the hall closet. Yes, but we’re out of staples, just use a paper clip. In the garage next to your rain boots—while never losing her focus on the dough or me. Finally, her eyebrows furrow together tightly and she wipes her floury hands on a red-and-white-striped dish towel, and for a moment I think she believes me—that she’s going to hug me tightly, maybe call me a little crazy, but say we should jump into her Volvo, find Courtney, and slap her silly. But instead she sighs loudly.

  “Are you doing okay?” Her question hangs heavy in the air as she slides onto the bar stool next to me and I feel all the hope I had inside evaporate like pool water that’s splashed onto hot pavement.

  If my best friend doesn’t believe me, how will I get through this?

  “You’ve been really stressed from work lately, and the wedding planning has you frazzled . . . I know I’ve dropped the ball on a lot of my matron-of-honor duties. Between Evan’s soccer schedule, the math tutor we had to hire for Ellie, and my demanding hours at the restaurant since it was written up in Los Angeles magazine, I’ve been overwhelmed. I’m sorry. You’ve clearly needed me and I haven’t been here for you,” she confesses.

  “Jules,” I say, firmly squeezing her hand and taking the tone, the one we reserve for each other when we have to be painfully honest—like when she had to tell me that I should not, under any circumstances, ever wear anything with an empire waist unless I wanted to appear six months pregnant. “I need you to hear me right now, even though I know how this all sounds—but it’s real. Very real.”

  “Okay, you have my attention . . .”

  “Mom!” Evan runs through the kitchen. “I can’t find any paper clips.”

  “Did you look in the—” Jules stops herself and holds her index finger up to let me know we’ll continue this in a minute. She smiles, but as she swivels her stool toward her son, I catch her eyes rolling back slightly and I’m not sure if it’s in response to Evan’s incompetence in locating paper clips or my insistence that I’ve time traveled.

  When I’d arrived at Jules’ house earlier, I’d knocked a few times, and when no one answered, I’d let myself in, figuring she was busy with the kids. As I’d rounded the corner to the kitchen, I’d heard Ben’s voice first.

  “We’ve been over this. My workload more than doubled when Eric left.”

  “Can’t they replace him?” Jules’ voice was small.

  “Budget cuts.” Ben let out an exasperated sigh, as if he’d said those two words more times than he’d wanted to. “I’m lucky they didn’t cut my position too.”

  “So now you have to take on his travel schedule on top of everything else? You are gone all the time as it is. Now you’re never going to see the kids . . . or me.” Her voice was almost a whisper as she’d said or me, and I’d felt my heart lurch. I had no idea she and Ben had been fighting about this. She’s never breathed a word of it to me. And in all my wedding planning, I had never thought to ask how she was doing.

  “Listen, we’ve been over this. I have to work. It would be great if we could live on your salary at the restaurant, but the reality is that we can’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Jules’ voice elevated slightly, but vibrated as if she was trying to control it. “Forget it,” she snapped.

  “I’ve got to go. Remind the kids of who I am if I’m not home to tuck them in tonight,” he joked to break the tension, and even though I couldn’t see Jules’ face, I was absolutely sure that she didn’t think it was funny.

  I’d quickly ducked into the bathroom and closed the door, not wanting Ben to see me. Overhearing this conversation made me feel awkward, as if I was viewing hidden-camera footage of them in their bedroom. I’d never heard them argue over anything more serious than who was going to call the sitter to ask if they could stay out longer and have another cocktail. I’d waited a few minutes after the front door slammed, then made my way into the kitchen, where I’d found Jules lost in thought as she kneaded the dough. I’d wanted to hug her tight and tell her that Ben didn’t mean to be hurtful, that he was probably just tired, but then I’d have to admit I’d been eavesdropping.

  “Auntie Kate, Auntie Kate—do you like my pink shoes?” Ellie’s high-pitched voice jars me out of my thoughts as she appears by my side with her American Girl backpack slung over her arm, balancing on one leg while holding her other foot out to me.

  “They are gorgeous,” I say, reaching down to run my hand over the sparkly texture.

  “My friend Megan has the same pair, but they are purple. We are going to be twins today.”

  “That’s sweet,” I say just as Jules comes back into the room.

  “Ellie, did you brush your teeth? Megan’s mom just texted me, she’s going to be here in five minutes.” Ellie reluctantly heads toward her bathroom.

  “So if this is true—and I’m not saying I think it is—then that means I have to accept that Max did this to you—and with Courtney? I just can’t believe it—” She shakes her head, her eyes rimmed with concern. I can also see the strain in them, the extra concealer she’s using to disguise her shadows, and how her dress is hanging on her thin frame.

  “Jules—are you doing okay?”

  “Am I okay? Me? You’re the one who’s apparently”—she leans across the sink and whispers—“traveled back in time, and you’re wondering how I’m doing?”

  “You just look a little tired. And when did you lose so much weight? Not that I’m not jealous as hell, but you’re turning all Twiggy on me.”

  She grabs a dish towel and flings it at me. “So you’re saying I look like shit? Thanks a lot,” she scoffs, then presses her lips together into a half smile. “Anyway, I’m fine! Things are just crazy right now. I mean, whose idea was it for Evan to join club soccer anyway? Do nine-year-olds really need to practice three times a week? It’s not the World Cup, for God’s sake!” She points to the calendar on the refrigerator. “We have six tournaments this summer. Six! When am I going to get anything done? And don’t tell anyone, but I actually bought one of those chairs that has an umbrella built in.”

  “You didn’t!” I cry out. “I thought we made an agreement that we’d never become soccer moms.”

  “Hey, you’d be surprised at the things you start doing when you have kids.” She starts to busy herself with the dough again and I decide not to press. I can tell by the way she’s slightly arching her back and gripping the rolling pin that now’s not the time to push her.

  “So this thing with Max. It’s the real deal?” she says again.

  “Yes . . . and it’s going to happen all over again unless you help me. What can I do to get you to trust me on this?” I grip the edge of the countertop.

  Jules thinks for a moment. “So you can really wish for anything you want?”

  I nod. “Yes—case in point!” I exclaim, running my hand through my hair.

  Jules gathers her own blond strands into a ponytail then lets it fall loose around her shoulders. “I haven’t changed my style since before Ellie was born.”

  “You don’t need to—you always look beautiful.”

  Jules rolls her eyes. “Please. J.Crew called and it wants its cover outfit from the 2005 catalog back.” She tugs at her pale yellow dress and blue-and-white-striped cardigan sweater. “I’m in such a rut lately. Like I could use a serious update—starting with this.” She frowns as she points at her hair.

  “Like cutting bangs?”

  “No! Don’t you dare wish me those. Bangs are never the solution.” Jules shakes her head as if a shiver has just run through her. “You should know that better than anyone,” she says, reminding me of when I’d lopped off the front of my hair into what a magazine had described as blunt fringe when I got my job at the advertising firm, convinced it would make me look edgy. It did not.

  “Point taken,” I laugh. “So what do you want, then?
Because I’ll wish you a hot boy toy if it means you’ll believe me.”

  She raises her eyebrow, but the doorbell rings before she can answer. Jules calls to Ellie and Evan and ushers them quickly out the door, her body visibly relaxing once it shuts.

  “I cannot tell you how glad I am that it was not my day to carpool. This is going to be so much more fun!” She rubs her hands together. “Okay, so I’m ready. Do your thing—wish me a makeover!”

  Heart pounding, I pull out my phone and quickly type a status on Facebook, silently praying that this will work:

  Not that she needed one, but Jules looks amazing after her makeover. She’s a hottie!

  She grabs my arm and pulls me into the bathroom, giggling like a tween at her first concert, and I can’t help but join in as we lock the door.

  “So what’s this going to feel like?” Jules says tentatively. “Will I go through some kind of transformation à la Teen Wolf? And what will people think when they see your status? There are going to be questions.”

  “Hopefully no one will be growing facial hair and fangs in this scenario!” I laugh. “And so far, all the posts I’ve written have disappeared as soon as the wish has been granted,” I say, thinking about how I had searched my timeline frantically after I’d written the status asking for the strappy sandals, but it was nowhere to be found. “Let’s just close our eyes and count to three and then turn and look in the mirror.”

  “One, two, three,” we say in unison, then cautiously we swivel around and face our reflections.

  “Oh. My. God.” Jules screams, clasping her hand over her mouth. “I’m fucking hot! Ben is going to shit his pants when he sees me.” She turns around, scrutinizing herself from every angle.

  Jules has never lacked in the looks department, with straight blond shoulder-length hair and round green doll-like eyes that are only accentuated by mascara on special occasions. But now her hair is shaped into a layered bob with sharp edges and golden highlights, and her skin is dewy and glowing. She lifts up her shirt and lets out a yelp. “Look at my stomach. I have abs again! Feel them.” She puts my hand on her abdomen and laughs.

  I shake my head. “I draw the line at feeling you up—but now do you believe me?”

  “Hell, yeah!” She laughs. “Can you give me some liposuction on my ass too?”

  I smile, slapping her butt. “You do not need that! If anything, the makeover gods should’ve given you a little more junk in your trunk!” I study her body, still as thin as it was before I wished her a makeover, but I had to admit the wish had created an air of sophistication that looked good on her. We lock eyes in the mirror. “How are you going to explain this to Ben?”

  She waves me off. “It won’t be a problem.” Jules turns away from her reflection to face me in the half bathroom and hits the towel bar as she awkwardly brings me in for a hug. “I’m sorry I doubted you, Kate. But I’m with you now—one hundred percent.”

  “Thank God. Because I’m kind of freaking out. And I need you.”

  “Okay, so you have this amazing power. But how should you use it?”

  “I obviously have to figure out how to stop history from repeating itself,” I say, sitting on the toilet, the image of Max’s resilient face as he broke the news to me at the rehearsal dinner still burned in my mind. “But first, I need you to be brutally honest with me about something.”

  “Like when you told me the belly band wasn’t working after I had Ellie?”

  I nod. “Although I still feel bad about that. You were so hormonal that I hated that you made me go there. You were only a few months postpartum.”

  She laughs. “It’s fine. I already knew the truth. I just needed to hear it. So what do you need to know?”

  “You really think Max and I are good together? That this relationship is worth fighting for?”

  “Of course!” Jules says without hesitation.

  “Even knowing what you do now—about his feelings for Courtney?” I say. “After it happened, Liam confessed that Max and I had seemed really predictable.” I scrunch up my nose as if the word has its own stench. “Do you think Max was bored?”

  “No!” Jules’ hands fly up in front of her face. “I honestly think he just freaked out about the whole ‘rest of your life’ thing!”

  “Really?” I push, her opinion holding so much more weight than she knows. If she thinks my relationship with Max is worth saving, then maybe it is. I hadn’t realized the power of that question until I’d heard it squeak from my mouth.

  “Absolutely—I know he loves you,” she says, and the burden I’ve been carrying, the part of me that wondered if I had misread my entire life, instantly lifts off my shoulders. “And now you can stop him from leaving again. Do you have any idea how many women would kill for an opportunity like this—to keep their husbands from going down the wrong path? To be able to reconnect before it’s too late?” She looks down, studying her hands, picking at the flour that’s still wedged under her fingernails.

  “What about you? Would you fight for Ben? Even if you knew his heart was somewhere else?”

  Jules folds and refolds a hand towel next to the sink before responding. “I would—we have a lot of history, and that means something. Plus, it would be a second chance. And this is yours, Kate,” she says, perching on the edge of the countertop. “Sometimes even the best couples lose their way, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be together.” She breaks eye contact with me before looking up again, and I wonder if she’s thinking of the fight she’d had with Ben earlier. “Listen, I know you. You’re a problem solver. So I want you to understand this is not about anything being wrong with you.” She shakes her head. “Max stumbled for whatever reason, which happens sometimes, even in the most solid relationships, and she was there at the right time. But that doesn’t make her the right girl.”

  I nod, but say nothing—it feels good to hear Jules defend me, to defend what Max and I have together.

  I feel my pocket vibrate and frown when I read a message from Courtney.

  We still on for drinks tonight at STK?

  The baby hairs on my arm stand on end as I consider the timing of her text, and for a split second I forget I’m reliving this day—that she is simply reaching out because she’s confirming our happy-hour date for tonight. That the last thirty days as I know them never happened.

  “What is it?” Jules looks over my shoulder to read the screen. “Why the hell would she think you’d have a drink with her? After what she did to you?”

  “She doesn’t know I know, remember? It hasn’t happened yet. According to her, we are still girlfriends and coworkers—”

  “—and apparently women vying for the same man!” Jules interjects.

  “Yes, that too—thanks for the reminder.” I smile to let her know I’m being sarcastic. “And we’re supposed to go to happy hour with Max tonight.”

  “Can you do that? Can you pretend not to know what they did or are going to do to you? You were so cool about it when they became good friends . . .”

  “What?” I press, the rest of her sentence hanging in the air like a kite on a breezy day.

  Jules shrugs.

  “Just say it. I was too trusting, wasn’t I?”

  “No! I was just thinking that it’s enviable you were able to be like that. Most women would be jealous.” She stops midsentence, thinking for a moment. “You know, even Ben got a little weird about Liam in the beginning. I’m not sure if I ever told you that. I laughed so hard when he brought it up because it was Liam. Liam! I could never imagine . . .” Jules doesn’t finish her thought, but she doesn’t need to. The way she rapidly shakes her head at the thought of being intimate with him speaks volumes.

  Max and I had discussed his friendship with Courtney once, when he’d come stumbling in the door from one of the concerts they had attended a few months after meeting, beer and cigarettes thick o
n his breath. They were both huge fans of nineties bands, and with my blessing would occasionally see whatever group was passing through town. Before, I had been the one who went to see Toad the Wet Sprocket or Good Charlotte with Max. But to be honest, I had been relieved to be off the hook, much preferring to stay home and curl up with the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly than bobbing my head with feigned enthusiasm as I listened to songs I didn’t particularly love when they were originally on the radio.

  “You smoked?” I said to Max, recoiling slightly at the sound of my own voice, a voice I’d only heard inside my head, the voice that had started once the clock ticked past 1 a.m. My mind had involuntarily drifted to an image of the two of them dancing, their plastic cups of booze held high in the air above their heads, having so much fun together that time had slipped away. I’d made a vow that I wouldn’t confront him when he got home. I was simply feeling anxious because I couldn’t sleep, and in the morning I’d feel better. But when Max had gotten into bed well after 2 a.m., the smell of smoke triggered the insecurity I’d been trying to bury. When she was just my friend, Courtney’s model-like face and body never threatened me, but that night, it was the first time I had wondered if he’d also noticed her exquisite beauty.

  “Courtney bummed one from some guy and I took a drag, but it was awful.” He mock coughed and suddenly I’d imagined him with his arm around her waist, leaning in and gently removing the cigarette that was dangling from between her lips.

  “Should I be jealous here?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Max laughed, grabbing my face between his hands and planting a drunken kiss on my lips.

  “Just tell me I have nothing to worry about,” I said as I pulled back from his grasp and searched his glazed eyes for the truth.

  “You have nothing to worry about,” he repeated, kissing each of my fingers softly, then, after a few moments of silence, adding, “Let me put it this way—you would never think of Liam like that, right?”