by Liz Fenton
“What?” I say, surprised to see two silhouettes through the sheer drapes hanging from my front window.
“If he doesn’t want you exactly the way you are, is he really worth having?”
“Spoken by the man in the two-thousand-dollar Chanel shirt.” I laugh quietly, but Liam doesn’t join me.
“I’m serious, Kate. This isn’t a game. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about.”
“Point taken,” I say as I lean over and kiss his cheek. “Thank you. For the advice and the ride.”
“You’re welcome. And just so you know, Jules and I are not changing a damn thing about your bachelorette party next weekend, and won’t be making you sport some ugly-ass Hawaiian getup—even though it is very, very tempting!” He laughs before adding, “Unless it involves a short straw skirt. Hmm . . . maybe that’s exactly what we should do.” He winks.
“Not likely.” I smile. I had been so consumed with all the changes for the wedding I had totally forgotten that my bachelorette party was only a week away. My last one had been such a blast. I had felt so happy as Jules, Courtney, Liam, and I danced the night away, the cheesy veil they snapped into my hair swinging around me like a gymnast’s ribbon. I try not to think about what it will feel like this time as we celebrate something that might not happen alongside the person who wants to take it all away from me.
I step out of the car and wave to Liam as he speeds off to dinner with Nikki, an event that will no doubt be chronicled online tonight by TMZ. Before he drove away, he invited me to a Los Angeles magazine party in Nikki’s honor the week before the wedding. “I’ll come if you promise to wear a shirt that costs less than my wedding dress,” I had joked, blowing a kiss in his direction as he deliberately gunned the accelerator pedal.
I open the door quietly, still wondering who is inside with Max. I catch my breath as I see him and Courtney cracking open a bottle of champagne in the kitchen, Max motioning the bottle toward Courtney and acting like he’s going to shoot the cork at her. I knew this joke well. He had done the same thing to me the night we got engaged.
I drop my bag on the table to alert them to my presence, and they both look up at the same time. I search their faces for deception, guilt, anything that will tell me what’s really going on between them, but I see nothing. Max doesn’t jump away from her like he’s doing something wrong, and she holds my gaze as she walks over, gives me a tentative hug, and tells me I’m just in time to toast with them.
“What are we toasting?” I ask through gritted teeth, suddenly remembering the last time Courtney was here, just a few nights before the wedding. I’d invited her over, ironically, to celebrate. We’d just landed a new client and I’d splurged on a bottle of wine that we’d shared while talking for hours on the patio. As I look back now, it’s surprising that Courtney never seemed off or like her mind was elsewhere. Max had gone for a late run and had come out to say hello, shirtless and sweaty, just as Courtney was leaving. “It’s pretty dark out there, let me walk you out,” Max had suggested, and I’d been proud to be engaged to such a gentleman. I’d hugged Courtney tightly and smiled as she and Max disappeared through the front door. As I got ready for bed, my body tingling from the wine and feeling thankful that I had such a great friend and fiancé, had they been outside planning their future?
“Courtney’s first day—it went really well!” Max answers, and suddenly it’s clear why I never heard from him all day. He was too busy picking out champagne at the corner liquor store with Courtney. “She even wooed Ernie!” he says with a laugh, referring to the notoriously prickly CEO.
“Fantastic,” I say halfheartedly as Max fills another flute and hands it to me. “Where did you find your keys?” I ask, pointing to where they are sitting on the counter.
“Oh, I’m so stupid. They were actually in my messenger bag the whole time!” He looks at Courtney and they laugh together as if they’re sharing an inside joke, and I imagine him telling her the story as they sipped their coffee in the break room, Courtney batting her eyelashes and giggling at his forgetfulness. “Sorry, honey,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.
“No problem,” I repeat limply. “Liam gave me a ride home,” I add, to no one in particular.
“Oh, good,” Max says breezily, clinking Courtney’s glass and then mine. I take a seat at the counter and listen as they regale me with every story of the day, from the way Courtney’s new boss kept calling her Cathy to the food truck that had pulled up outside their office building with the most mouthwatering Kobe beef sliders you’ve ever tasted. I nod my head at the right intervals and try not to hyperventilate. I had caused this. I tried to tear them apart, but instead I had brought them even closer together. It seemed the more I tried to hold on to Max, the further he was slipping away, like a thread that continued to unravel. And, as I observe Courtney and Max laughing about a painful regulatory meeting they had suffered through, it’s becoming harder to believe that they weren’t going to end up together. Perhaps this was why people wouldn’t want to know when they were going to die. Because how could you truly live knowing the end was coming?
Several glasses of champagne later, Courtney finally heads home, but not before Max offers to carpool with her the next day. “Lovely,” I say under my breath as they debate whose iPod they are going to listen to.
“So you like having Courtney at work?” I state the obvious as we head upstairs to our bedroom, Max taking the steps two at a time like a schoolboy.
“Of course,” he says innocently. “You know that better than anybody. Aren’t you the one that used to say she was the only thing that made your job bearable?”
Yes. That was true. But that was before she blew up my life and took you with it.
“Oh, yeah, she’s great,” I say, trying to hold back the sarcasm that’s been bubbling just beneath the surface all night.
“What’s going on with you?” Max sits down on the bed. “You seem annoyed. Is this because I didn’t pick you up from work?”
I sit next to him and grab his hand. “No, although that would have been nice.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I never really worry about you that way.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, you’re probably the most independent girl I’ve ever met,” he says. “Sometimes I’m not even sure that you need me.” He laughs, but his eyes are full of questions.
My pulse quickens. Had I made Max feel like I didn’t rely on him? I tighten my grip on his hand. “I do need you. More than you know,” I finish, a tear escaping from the corner of my eye as I think about the way he had been so willing to walk away from me.
Max wipes the tear from my cheek. “You know, you could have just asked me to come get you. And I didn’t mean anything by the independent thing. I was just saying that I knew you’d find a ride home. That’s all.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. “Because, Max, I want you to know, you can tell me anything. Even if you think it will hurt me. Let’s get it all out into the open now, before the wedding.”
Max pauses and I can almost see the wheels in his head turning. I imagine him starting to feel the buds of something with Courtney, but he’s telling himself that it doesn’t mean anything. He shakes his head slowly at me, probably squelching the little tweak in his heart he feels when he’s with her, deciding it isn’t worth throwing everything we have away—yet.
“Maybe it will be good for us to get away to Big Bear this weekend?” I ask hopefully. The words I feel like I’m losing you sit at the tip of my tongue, but I’m too afraid to say them out loud. Here I am, sitting with the man I love, the one I’m supposed to marry, the rest of my life hanging in the balance, and I can’t say those simple words—too paralyzed by fear to ask Max how far he’s slipped from my grasp. To discover if he even wants me to try to pull him back up. Instead I bury my head deep in his neck, hoping he’ll hear the words in my heart that I can�
�t say out loud.
“Yes,” he finally says. “It will be good for us.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
While packing for our trip to Big Bear, I thumb the Lycra fabric of my sunflower-yellow bikini, my mind wandering back to the morning we left for Maui. Max had just returned home from his morning run and I’d just reopened my suitcase so I could pack this very swimsuit, along with a matching cover-up and oversized straw hat. He’d found me straddling the black and red Tumi wheeled bag, pressing my weight into it as I attempted to zip it closed. I’d looked up and he was leaning against the doorjamb, his cheeks ashen, not flushed like they normally were after completing a six-mile run.
“What’s wrong?” I’d jumped up from the bag and the top had sprung open, revealing the straw hat that was now smashed. I shook my head and pulled it out.
“Just watching you,” he’d said, taking a long drink from his bottle of water.
“Oh?” I’d said, still staring at his face, an unreadable look in his eyes.
“You’re beautiful, you know that? Inside and out.”
“Why thank you. You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Kate. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I’d said, confused by his solemn tone. I’d leaned in to kiss him, but missed his mouth because he’d grabbed me, enveloping me in a bearlike hug.
I’d squirmed out of his grasp, the sweat from his chest having created a large spot on my sundress. “What’s gotten into you—you know we’re going to be late if you don’t get in the shower. And now I have to change out of this!” I shook my head at him. “We have a five-and-a-half-hour flight to snuggle!”
He’d smiled and said, “You’re right, we do.”
But as I’d turned to attend to my bag, a pair of espadrilles having now spilled out from it, I caught Max’s expression from the corner of my eye—he looked sad.
As I thought back, it had been another warning sign I clearly hadn’t wanted to see. So much so that I’d blocked it out until now—the bikini unlocking the memory. I toss the bathing suit aside and pack a simple black one-piece instead, not wanting to relive that moment, the one where he might have told me he couldn’t go to Maui at all, if I’d been paying a little more attention. If listening to him had been more important than how many pairs of shoes I could shove into my suitcase.
First thing tomorrow morning, we’d be driving up the winding road toward the city at the top of the mountain where we first fell in love, the large green pine trees whirling by, the expansive canyons overwhelming, and hopefully the silence in the car wouldn’t be deafening. In the past few days, our conversations had been limited, us becoming more like ships passing in the night as our work schedules became increasingly demanding so we could each take the two weeks off for the wedding and honeymoon. Max’s devotion to work didn’t concern me—last time around, he’d spent the same amount of hours in the office and Courtney wasn’t working there. And even though she was now a fellow employee, I got the sense that she’d been in training most of the time and they only saw each other occasionally in the halls or the parking lot, that I had maybe let my imagination get the best of me. But it did concern me that when I did see Max—passing each other as one of us stepped out of the shower and the other into it, or in the kitchen as we’d silently eaten from our Styrofoam take-out containers—our exchanges felt stilted. I felt out of the loop in his life, wishing he’d give me more details about his days, more information about how he was feeling. As I’d complained about how Magda now wanted me to find a replacement for Courtney, he’d moved his head up and down as if he was listening but offered nothing more. I worried that he was keeping everything bottled because he was scared that if he uttered even one word, every thought he was having would cascade out of his mouth. Including his doubts about me. So I hadn’t pushed, hoping that our trip to Big Bear would organically inspire us to talk the way we used to—and maybe remind him of who we used to be together.
• • •
“Kate, when will you have candidates for me to meet?” Magda’s piercing voice barks through the phone later that day while I’m nestled in my office, listening to my relaxation playlist on my iPod. I hold the receiver away from my ear as she hollers about how bad this gap in our executive staff is going to make our firm look to our clients.
The truth was, I hadn’t found anyone who even halfway compared to Courtney. Her work ethic, the blend of humor and heart she injected into her pitches, and her innate awareness of what clients wanted were incomparable. I hated to admit it, but I missed her. Not the part of her that wanted to take Max from me, but the part that made my work life easier. I stare at the résumés on my desk, the endless stream of people who would kill for this job, none of them coming close to having the experience or talent Courtney does. “Are you sure you don’t want to rehire Courtney?” I hear myself asking.
“No fucking way!” Magda cries.
“Okay, then,” I say evenly. “I’ll keep looking.”
“Try LinkedIn,” she screams as she hangs up the phone.
“Gee, thanks for the hot tip,” I say into the dial tone.
I stare out the window and wonder what my life would be like if I’d just accepted that Max wasn’t the man I was supposed to marry. There were so many things I’d never know. Like if I’d still be working at the agency with Courtney or if one of us would’ve quit because the tension between us would’ve been insurmountable. Or if Max and Courtney would’ve ended up in a relationship or quickly discovered that once their secret feelings were revealed, the excitement was gone. And there was also no way of knowing if I would’ve been miserable without Max, or, after experiencing some time alone, would’ve discovered I was happier without him. But I’d never find out if that was the case because, for whatever reason, I was given a second chance. And it’s this opportunity that has been the sliver of hope I’ve been clinging to—that tiny ray of light shining through the crack that reminds me there is still a chance. That the universe has made a mistake and is trying to right itself.
My phone buzzes with a notification. Callie Trenton from college has commented on my oddly shaped wedding gift picture. It’s definitely a cake pop maker! They’re all the rage! I click over to her page and there’s a series of pictures from her latest family vacation to the Bahamas. As I scroll through her album, I feel that twinge of jealousy in my chest and it slowly builds until I finally have to close out of Facebook completely.
“She’s only posting the best parts of her life,” Jules says adamantly when I call her and tell her about the pictures—the last was of her swollen belly, revealing that she’s expecting her third baby.
“She has a lot of ‘best parts,’ ” I remark.
“How old are her kids again? I can’t remember,” Jules asks.
“I don’t know.”
“You practically stalk this woman’s page and you can’t even ballpark it? Come on!”
“Okay—maybe they’re eight and ten?”
“Oh, honey, let me tell you something. That is definitely an oops baby!” Jules squeals.
“How do you know?” I ask, my mind flashing back to Callie’s hands wrapped around her slightly protruding belly, the sun setting behind her making her look almost angel-like, the caption “Heaven on Earth” seemingly fitting.
“I’m looking at her page now and I’m just telling you that there is no way she and her husband looked lovingly into each other’s eyes after eight years and said, You know what? Our life is just a little too easy right now. We are sleeping through the night, everyone’s potty trained and can basically fend for themselves, so, hey, let’s go through the newborn and toddler hell all over again! That would be like Ben and me getting pregnant right now. I love my two children. But three? No thank you. I can’t even fathom adding a pet to our household! I can’t be held responsible for one more living thing—not even a goddamn houseplant!”
“
Aren’t you being a little harsh?” I ask with a laugh, caught off guard by Jules’ tone.
“I’m just saying that no matter what the real story is with that baby, Callie has the same bullshit in her life we all do. She’s just not posting about it. The same way I’m not and you’re not. I mean, look at your mom. We both know she’s bitter half the time about something that happened twenty years ago, but if you believe only what she writes on her Facebook feed, she’s the most secure woman in the world.” Jules giggles. “Like that one from today—”
I sigh, remembering my mom’s most recent post that laser hair removal was the best thing since sliced bread.
“So, Big Bear tomorrow! You excited?” Jules asks, and I’m thankful she’s changed the subject, although this one is no less painful.
“I’m nervous. I feel like this is it. That if I can’t get through to him this weekend, it’s over.”
“You will. You just need some time alone together,” she says, and pauses, and I can sense her unspoken words hanging in the air.
“What?” I ask. “I can feel you thinking over there. Just say whatever’s on your mind.”
Jules exhales before answering, as if trying to decide if I can handle her internal dialogue. Finally, she breaks the silence. “Marriage is hard, Kate. My marriage is hard. Even when you get off on the right foot, you have to always keep fighting for it. The minute you stop, it starts to slip away from you again. So if this is what you want—”
“It is,” I interrupt.
“Then fight like hell for it, and then whatever happens, you can walk away without any regrets.”
I pause, letting her words settle—knowing they aren’t just for me. Now that I had seen the cracks that existed in her marriage, I wondered how long they had been there. Maybe if I had looked just a little harder, paid a little more attention, if I hadn’t been so self-consumed, I would’ve seen her distress sooner.
