The Status of All Things: A Novel

by Liz Fenton

  When he said those words, it was like everything clicked—I wasn’t being fair. Of course he could have a friendship with a woman if I could have one with a man. And if he felt the way about her that I did about Liam, I really had nothing to worry about. He’d rolled to my side of the bed and curled his arms around me, and I’d put the whole incident aside, burying the uncertainty so far down that I could almost pretend it was never there.

  • • •

  Jules rubs her temples. “This whole situation is like some kind of crazy brainteaser. It hurts my head.”

  And it hurts my heart.

  “I don’t know if I can go to the happy hour tonight,” I answer honestly, feeling like the one time I agreed to run a 5K with Max, the finish line seeming so far away.

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you,” Jules says, and I raise my eyebrow at her.

  “Really?”

  “How do you not see how strong and smart you are? You drive me nuts, girl!”

  “Well, it’s especially hard to see my strengths when my fiancé has just told me he’s upgrading to someone else.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “No . . . not exactly, but why else would he be leaving me for her?”

  “It might not have anything to do with you—like I said, he was probably just scared to commit and looking for an easy way out.”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were secretly watching Oprah again.”

  “Hey, that was a short-lived phase after Evan was born—but I did learn a lot.” Jules smiles.

  “Okay, Ms. Armchair Psychologist, how do you suggest I handle not only going to drinks with my fiancé and his secret love interest, but also my working relationship with her?” I know I will have to fake it everywhere—especially at the office. Simply asking to be reassigned to different accounts so I don’t have to brush shoulders with Courtney every day will never work. I can picture the disapproving frown forming on my boss Magda’s thin lips when she realizes my agenda—I’m trying to distance myself from Courtney. She will demand an explanation, one I won’t be able to provide. Disappointing my boss couldn’t also be part of this arrangement.

  “Don’t ask me. I watched O, not Maury Povich!”

  I jokingly push Jules in the shoulder. “Seriously! I need your advice here—you know I’ve never been good at masking my real feelings.”

  “Okay, okay. Sorry! Start by remembering something. This isn’t just about her. To really fix this, you need to figure out what went wrong with you and Max.” When she sees my face fall, she softens. “Don’t worry, I have no doubt you will—you and Max are great together.”

  “You mean were great together.”

  “No—I mean are, as in present tense. You said it yourself—they don’t know you know. So use this do-over you’ve been granted as an opportunity not only to get Max back, but to distract Courtney.” She winks. “And you know what I’m thinking?”

  I can almost see the wheels turning in Jules’ mind.

  I shrug.

  “Instead of doing a makeover on her, let’s do a makeunder. Do something awful to that gorgeous hair of hers!”

  I try to imagine Courtney’s blond locks transformed to a deep shade of blue, but it still doesn’t make the uneasiness inside of me disappear.

  “Why are you frowning?” Jules asks.

  “I know I’m lucky to have this second chance, but it feels weird—like I’m cheating.”

  “You are not the one who cheated here.” Jules narrows her eyes. “And as far as I’m concerned, you deserve every crutch, cheat sheet, and crystal ball you can get.”

  “Okay, so what are the Cliffs Notes on how I can stay professional at work when all I’m going to want to do is kick her ass?”

  Jules smiles. “That would be something to see, but you know it won’t help you get Max back. Just stay focused on your goal—that means business as usual with her. Plus, you can use time to your advantage. What are you always saying? How you and Courtney are always in competition to be on Magda’s good side? That a compliment from her is as rare as—”

  “—a California condor sighting,” I offer.

  “Right—remember that you don’t only know about Max and Courtney, you also know what’s already happened at work. So use that information to your advantage with Magda. Save a deal that’s going bad or fix a mistake before it happens. Overnight, you’ll be the star.”

  “Again, cheating—”

  “So what! This is your life! Remember that.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  If only Jules had been right. It turns out living a day for the second time isn’t necessarily an advantage, especially when you have to pretend you don’t know your close friend and trusted colleague is planning to steal your fiancé. When I first arrived at work, I nearly collided with Courtney as I’d tried to duck into the bathroom. I studied her face for a moment, searching for signs that she was in love with my future husband, but there was nothing that gave her away. She’d offered me a warm smile and asked if she could grab me a coffee. I’d stammered something about already being overcaffeinated and proceeded to hide in the bathroom stall, trying to catch my breath until Magda’s assistant came looking for me, relaying a message that I was already five minutes late for a meeting about the Calvin Klein campaign we had landed the month before.

  And the day didn’t get any easier from there. By the end of it, my tongue was sore from biting away the details I already knew but couldn’t share: that the start-up wedding website was going to fire us after lunch and there was nothing we could do to change their minds; that Magda’s latest boyfriend was going to break up with her right before a hugely important conference call; and that we were going to discover a major accounting error that was going to cost the firm thousands of dollars.

  Then there was the idea I’d pitched to Magda for the spa we were trying to acquire as a client—a concept I knew would secure us the business, even though Magda’s perfectly arched eyebrow and patronizing stare more than suggested she felt otherwise. She’d given me the same disapproving look she’d given me thirty days ago, the one that launched us into the same argument today, me defending my Come find your happy ending billboard idea and Magda scoffing at it, her ill-fitting jacket accentuating her emaciated body—something she took a great deal of pride in, grinning wildly when a homeless man had called out to her to eat a cheeseburger already as we’d strolled by. But what I’d forgotten was that thirty days ago, when I’d pitched this campaign the first time, it had been Courtney who’d swooped in, taken my side, and won Magda’s praise for being more convincing about my own idea than I’d been.

  As Courtney defended my intuitiveness and raved about how I always knew what the clients wanted, I’d wondered how I could be so in tune with the people I did business with yet so clueless about those closest to me—like her. When Courtney had backed me up last month, I’d shot her a smile and stage whispered that I’d buy all her drinks later that night when we went out with Max. But this time, I could barely force a smile, reluctantly swallowing the rage I felt toward her.

  As we’d walked out of the glass-walled conference room, Courtney had laced her arm through mine and I’d stiffened involuntarily. As she pulled me down the hall toward our offices, my mind kept wandering to what Courtney would look like if her eyebrows were “suddenly” shaved off.

  I dialed Jules’ number as soon as I got inside my office. “I need a lifeline,” I whined as soon as Jules said hello.

  “I always wanted to be your phone-a-friend!” Jules exclaimed, both of us remembering how we used to fantasize about being contestants on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. “You would’ve called me, not Liam, right?”

  “Of course!” I laughed.

  “So what’s going on? Because I know you’re not sitting there with Regis Philbin.”

  “It’s just that being at work with her is
even harder than I thought it would be,” I’d lamented. “Especially when she’s nice to me.”

  “Well, of course she’s laying it on thick. She feels guilty about harboring feelings for your man.”

  “That’s why she was kissing my ass so hard in the weeks leading up to the wedding,” I’d said after giving it more thought. “She was constantly swinging by my office with an extra Starbucks coffee or bringing me the latest People, even offering to stay late so I could go home and work on my wedding to-do list. To think I believed she wanted to help me because she was my friend, when she only wanted to relieve her conscience.” I rested my forehead in my hand. “This all feels hopeless.”

  “You need to pull it together,” Jules said sternly. “Where’s the girl who graduated at the top of her class from Occidental? Where’s my best friend who held my hand during seventeen hours of labor? And most importantly, where’s the woman who originally captured Max’s heart? She would be able to do this!”

  “I just wish I knew what went wrong between us, then at least I’d have a place to start.”

  Jules sighed into the phone. “Do you have any ideas?”

  We’d experienced a few tense moments in our premarital counseling. I remember bickering about which parent’s house we should spend our Christmases at or if we should have a joint checking account, but we’d eventually compromised on both. I couldn’t think of an issue between us that we hadn’t been able to work through in the past three years, something I’d always considered one of our greatest strengths. But how would we work through this?

  “Remember that ‘what-if’ game we played at your house that time?” I asked Jules.

  “How could I forget? A few relationships almost ended that night!” Jules started to release a laugh then stopped herself.

  “Do you recall the card Max pulled—the one about ­cheating?”

  “Oh yes—”

  “He said he was so sure he’d want to work things out if his spouse was unfaithful—”

  Max had drawn the card with the question: What would you do if your spouse cheated on you? He’d thought about it for not even a split second before swiftly responding, “We’d work through it.” The room had erupted, everyone’s opinion flying through the air. I’d righteously thought, But neither of us would ever do that. And even though Max had sworn up and down that he didn’t actually cheat with Courtney, he had still betrayed me emotionally, even if their lips had never met. And instead of attempting to work out whatever problems we’d had, he’d simply chosen her.

  “I don’t think anyone knows how they’ll really behave in situations they’ve never been in before. I think people would like to believe they’d act a certain way, but you just never know . . .” Jules’ words became softer, eventually disappearing.

  “Obviously,” I scoffed. “But he didn’t even give us a chance to work on our relationship.”

  “But remember, you have a rare opportunity here—to pinpoint where things went wrong,” Jules argued. “So you can try to fix it before it gets too far.”

  “True. But I would never have expected this to happen now. You always think there’s a chance down the road, maybe ten years in, but not before you even say I do.”

  I’d felt an instant spark when I met Max at our mutual friends’ wedding—after Jules had spotted him, I’d let my gaze follow hers and they’d landed on a man with olive-green eyes, dark brown hair that was slightly long on the top, and a strong jaw lined with stubble. He’d grinned as he recognized Jules, and as his mouth opened, he’d revealed the dimple that to this day remains hidden unless he smiles just a certain way—a feature he only brings out when he wants to charm executives, my mother, and probably Courtney too.

  After she introduced us, we’d sat outside on the patio and talked for hours—Max throwing his jacket around my bare shoulders the moment I shuddered from the cool breeze that had begun to blow. After our first date, he’d insisted on walking me to my front door, where he’d given me a warm hug and gently brushed my cheek with his lips. Before I’d closed the door, he’d thanked me for a night of stimulating conversation. Max’s attention had felt so pure, so transparent; he had genuinely seemed interested in what made me me. In the past, I’d always felt as if I had to find a new way to sparkle to keep my date interested, but with Max, I could finally let go of the breath I always seemed to be holding. On our fourth date, I’d pushed aside the Chinese food that had just been delivered and pulled him close, whispering I had something else in mind. He hadn’t argued.

  Somehow we’d found our way from there to here. What happened to the people who would watch an episode of Top Chef and then try, usually unsuccessfully, to re-create a dish that didn’t look that hard to make, musing that Padma would criticize us for our lack of salt? Where was the couple that dressed head to toe in Lakers garb and cheered on Kobe in our living room, often laughing that we should probably just buy a ticket to the actual game already? And what had become of the Max and Kate who I had thought were such a perfect fit that I’d had a silly puzzle made from a picture of us and given it to him last Christmas?

  I wondered if Max had started to pull away during the wedding planning. I was more opinionated than Max was in general—especially when it came to the details of our nuptials—but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to take his feelings into consideration. In the days after he proposed, I had asked him a million questions as I scoured TheKnot.com with a fierceness that rivaled my approach to preparing for final exams in college, searching for the style of wedding we might want—backyard country or hotel chic? I’d wanted to know: Did he prefer I walk down the aisle to a popular song or to a harp? Did he think we should have a band or a DJ at the reception? Ahi or salmon for dinner? But had I only asked him to weigh in because I knew he’d wave me off, that he’d tell me that he trusted me to make the decisions? I knew my behavior was often commanding, and I’d always thought that was something he found endearing, but now my newfound gift of hindsight left me questioning if I had ever known anything at all.

  “I think I might know where we went wrong,” I said to Jules as I rocketed up out of my desk chair.

  “What? Where?” She’d asked.

  “I need to give him control—let him plan the wedding however he wants. Make him feel more involved!”

  “But it’s only a month away.”

  “I don’t care. Whatever he wants, he can have it. I’ll change anything.”

  “Even yourself ?” Jules said carefully.

  “Yes, if that’s what it’s going to take. Just trust me, Jules. I got this,” I said as I’d hung up the phone and grabbed my purse, deciding if I was going to suffer through drinks with Max and his girlfriend tonight, I’d better look damn good doing it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “You ready yet?” Max calls up to me.

  Will I ever be ready for this?

  I wonder again how I will be able to stomach sitting at the same table with Max and Courtney tonight. It had been hard enough hearing that Max thought he was in love with her, but now I’ll be watching their clandestine relationship unfold right in front of me. I’ll have to sit in silence as they tease each other, something I used to view as harmless, but now every smile shared between them, every accidental brush of their hands, every look—will feel like a spike into my heart. And even though they may not be in love yet, I know it’s coming, and the process of waiting will feel like a Band-Aid being slowly peeled off my tender skin. Unless I can stop it.

  “Just a sec,” I yell to Max as I post my status on Facebook, deciding that what I’ve wished for isn’t that bad. My broken heart might never be mended, but Courtney’s hair will grow back. Right? I can hear Jules cheering me on, reminding me that the future of my relationship is at stake. Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Max is a sucker for long hair, does it? she’d said when she’d heard my plan.

  Twenty minutes later, my head is pounding, pr
actically drowning out the music booming through the speakers as I scan the crowded lounge for Courtney, waiting to see the results of the status I’d written:

  I’m shocked that Courtney chopped off all her hair.

  “Is that her over there?” Max asks, and I swivel my head in the direction he’s pointing in.

  “Wow,” I say under my breath as I spot her—her sandy-­colored hair has been hacked off into a pixie cut. I feel queasy as I look over at Max, who’s staring at her with his mouth slightly open. She looks even better than she did before. How the fuck is that even possible?

  As we approach her table, Courtney’s hand flies up to her head. “Oh my God, it’s so short, isn’t it? I literally just left the salon,” she says, biting her lower lip as if waiting for our approval. “I went in for a trim right after work and came out looking like this.” She throws her arms up. “At first I was furious with my hairdresser, who claimed the scissors just seemed to take on a life of their own,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, it was almost as if I blinked and it came out like this. . . . But now I kind of love it!” She squeals and claps her hands together like a seal.

  “It looks good,” I say reluctantly. Really damn good. I sink into the chair across from her, deducing that I must be suffering some sort of karmic payback for wishing something bad to happen to another person. But maybe her hair looking good is just a fluke. She already has a pretty—make that beautiful—face, so I probably could’ve wished her bald and she still would’ve ended up looking amazing. I’d have to write a more impactful status next time—less about her looks and more about her. But what? It was one thing to hold this power in my hands. It was a whole other thing to use it properly.

  “You totally pull it off,” Max says, jarring me from my thoughts as he takes Courtney in his arm easily, placing a small kiss on her left cheek, no different than he’s done in front of me a dozen times before, but this time, watching it sends a ripple of panic through me as I wonder if his kiss has ever spread to her supple lips, her red lipstick leaving its mark on his mouth.