More Than A Maybe

by Monte, Clarissa

  He can tell that I’m only kidding, though. “Actually,” he says, “I’ve always wanted a big church wedding with all the trimmings. I’ll hire Cirque du Soleil, and we can have a shortcake buffet and three kinds of swans.”

  It’s one of Xavier’s attempts at humor. I stick out my tongue at him and fix my lips in a sarcastic not-quite-smile. I can tell right away that he doesn’t really mean that.

  In the end, we decide to have the wedding at a house in Barbados that belongs to one of Xavier’s old college friends. I’d half-suggested Sand House, but the look on his face had made me immediately wish I hadn’t. It had been hard enough for him to bring me there; turning Xavier’s private sanctuary into a madhouse of friends and business associates is still a bridge too far for him.

  Still, he obviously cares about making the day special. As the days go on, Xavier takes an astonishing amount of interest in the actual planning of the wedding. I’d expected Baby and Rosco and I to have to handle most of it ourselves, but . . . surprisingly, no. Soon Xavier’s bringing me copies of glossy Barbados Wedding catalogs and we’re comparing tour options together over bottles of wine and an iPad.

  There’s no mistaking it: something’s changed in Xavier. I ask Baby and Rosco about it the next time I’m at Beauty World.

  “He’s changed because you got him,” says Rosco. “I mean, okay — men are basically animals on some level. Sex-money-power-sex-money-power . . . there’s this weird blob of desire running through our heads 24/7. Makes us second-guess almost every major long-term decision. Is this the right person? Is this the right job? Should there be kids? How many kids? What am I doing with my life? That sort of thing. Now that he knows that he’s going to marry you, he can just focus on that. On you. Congratulations, sweetie.”

  Baby nods. “He wants to be involved in the wedding. That means something. You should be happy!”

  I frown. “Maybe. I don’t know. I actually wish that he wanted to be less involved. I mean, part of me is happy, of course. And then there’s the part of me that keeps having to steer him away from a nautical-themed wedding.”

  Baby and Rosco stare at me. “Oh honey, no,” says Baby. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

  I shake my head. “I wish I was. He was excited. You should see what the bridesmaids wear for that one.”

  “What? Like . . . like little sailor hats?”

  I laugh. “Not quite that bad. But let’s just say that blue-and-white stripes feature pretty heavily.”

  “Sounds like that On A Boat video,” says Rosco. “That one where those guys are on that boat. Have you both seen that? On YouTube? It is super funny.”

  * * *

  And then . . . then it all crashes down.

  It all crashes down, and I never see it coming.

  Xavier and I are relaxing at home one evening a couple days later, slowly making our way through a pile of wedding stuff. We’re just wrapping up the invitations — we’re planning to include a Swarovski crystal decanter with each one, so the guests we invite can at least toast our wedding if they aren’t able to attend.

  We’ve also been doing our fair share of toasting ourselves. Maybe a little too fair — we’re almost through our second bottle of Pinot when I suddenly have a flash of inspiration.

  “I . . . hey. Hey!” I say, lightly slapping Xavier on the shoulder. It’s a sloppy slip of a slap, because I am drunk.

  “Hey yourself,” says Xavier, sounding more than a little bit sozzled himself.

  “I have this idea,” I say. “For our wedding.”

  “Okay.”

  “There needs to be . . . Big Romance. I mean, like BIG. Like . . . did you ever see . . . ”

  I pause. Xavier, for all his charms, is not much of a movie guy. I try to think of an example from one of my TCM classics — something he might have seen. The twenties and thirties are probably out. “Did you . . . did you ever see From Here to Eternity? That big kiss on the beach, Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster . . . ”

  “No,” he says, shaking his head and reaching for his wine glass. “Missed that one.”

  I frown, trying to think through the haze of Pinot. Something more modern, maybe?

  “Okay. Um . . . do you . . . do you know that movie Big Fish?”

  Xavier smiles. “Is it about a big fish?”

  “NO. It’s not. Well . . . wait. Kind of it is. But that’s not the main point of the movie.”

  “Okay,” he says, taking another sip of wine.

  “Well, anyway,” I say, still determined, “there’s this scene in the movie. In the movie Big Fish. Where the man picks all these sunflowers for the girl he loves. And then she looks out the window and sees them. The sunflowers, I mean. She sees the sunflowers. And he’s standing in the middle of this big sea of sunflowers, and they’re all for her.”

  “Very romantic,” Xavier says.

  “Yes!” I say, my voice suddenly growing excited. “It is VERY romantic. So. I was thinking, we could do a romantic on the beach. A romantic thing on the beach. With sunflowers. We could have all of the sunflowers planted on the beach, and we could have a wedding in the middle of the sunflowers.”

  “In Barbados.”

  “Yes.”

  Xavier tilts his head to one side and looks at me over his glass of wine. “I think that we could probably do something like that. Pack them up, cool them down, send them over. Stick them in the beach.”

  “No, no . . .” I say. My head is swimmy, and it’s hard to say what I mean. “Not that, exactly . . . no sunflowers. Something like that. That’s what I mean. Something big and romantic and big and . . . and . . . ” I lift my arms above my head to show just how big I really mean, and some wine sloshes over the side of my glass and onto the carpet.

  “Careful!” says Xavier, carefully putting down his own glass. He stares unsteadily at the puddle of red seeping into the carpet. “Wait,” he says. “I know what to do here. I read about what to do here.”

  Xavier goes over to the kitchen and starts banging things around. “Where’s the salt?” he shouts.

  “What . . . what are you talking about?” I shout back.

  “The . . . come on, Veronica, the salt. The big thing of salt you use for . . . okay! Here we go.”

  He comes over with the massive sea salt grinder I’d bought a couple weeks ago, opens it, and starts shaking out big rocks of salt onto the wine stain. Soon there is a little pink mountain of salt on the carpet, red wine soaking into the crystals at the base.

  “There!” he says, waving at the little mountain like a magician at a county fair. “That will soak up all the wine, and then you can just sweep it up in the morning.”

  I look at the little pink mountain.

  “Wow,” is all I can think to say.

  “Great, huh?” he says, with a tipsy sort of triumph. “And now . . . it is bedtime.”

  Xavier helps me up, and we both stagger unsteadily into the bedroom. I plop down on the bed and close my eyes.

  “Gotta . . . gotta undress first,” Xavier says. “Before bed.”

  He tries to unbutton me, fumbling with the buttons of my blouse, but he only manages to get one of them undone before he gives up. A second later he’s collapsed onto the bed next to me, still in his clothes.

  * * *

  Xavier is swearing. He sounds panicked.

  The morning sunlight is streaming through the curtains. We’ve been asleep for hours, and now Xavier is late, tearing around the house like a madman.

  “This is not happening. Not today.”

  My head is pounding and my mouth is dry, but I manage to ask him what’s wrong.

  “I have to go. I have to go! Where is my . . . my phone, my keys? My plane leaves in . . . twelve minutes. Fuck.”

  I press my fingers to my aching temples and try to process what he’s saying. “Won’t . . . won’t they wait for you? Your private jet we took to Sand House . . . ”

  “I told you — it’s a NetJet. And sure, they’ll wait for you on the
runway jerking off until you show up. But those assholes in Houston aren’t going to wait. Trust me, Veronica — if anyone ever asks you if you want to source any type of high-tensile fiber domestically, you go straight to Caojing and you never look back.”

  I nod, still holding my head. “I will.”

  “I’ll be back when I’m back. Gotta go. The Roomba’s acting weird, by the way.”

  He leans over and kisses me on the cheek. The sound of the door closing is like a gunshot, and it rattles around inside my skull long after he’s gone.

  I’m still drunk, my headache is fast on its way, and I’m overly aware of my body: my boobs, the gunk of last night’s makeup . . . none of it feels like me. The bed is sticky and uncomfortable. I walk unsteadily to the bathroom and pee, then head to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  Then I see the Roomba.

  The Roomba has managed to lock onto last night’s wine-and-salt catastrophe. It has not managed to remove it from the carpet. Instead, it has somehow smeared it, transforming it from a small pink mountain into a large streaky smear, splayed out on the floor like a large strip of raw bacon.

  A foot away, the Roomba has stopped. It’s making beep noises.

  I punch the button that turns off the Roomba with an angry stab of my thumb and shove it aside, then go to the closet for the Dyson. I vacuum up as much of the salt as I can, but the pink outline of the wine splash is still there on the carpet. I don’t want the cleaning service to have to deal with it, so I Google ways to remove red wine from carpet and I try all of the ones that don’t involve salt.

  I manage to make the spot fade a bit more, but it’s still definitely there. My still-swimming head is pounding now, actually pounding . . .

  I need some time to regroup, shower, relax — but the cleaning service is coming, they are coming. In how many minutes? I don’t know.

  I see the flat black rectangle of the xPhone on the counter, and I pick it up to check the time. And then I realize something.

  This is not my xPhone.

  This is Xavier’s.

  There’s no mistaking it. When I turn it on the lock screen shows me a picture of Xavier’s souped-up electric Alfa Romeo, along with the little grid of dots that he always swipes to unlock the phone.

  In his morning panic, Xavier has taken my phone . . . and here in my hands is his.

  Now, looking back . . . perhaps I should have stopped myself.

  Maybe I should have stopped right there, gotten myself a tall glass of ice water, taken off my gummy makeup and had a long shower. I could have gotten dressed, left a note of apology for the cleaning service about the wine stain, and gone to my new hot yoga class.

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I force myself to think through the pounding in my head, my thoughts taking me back further and further . . . to that night I’d felt Xavier’s curious touch on my back. To those odd little C-movements he’d made against my skin with his finger. To the abrupt way he’d stopped the motion when I’d mentioned it.

  I find that my fingers are already sliding their way across the surface of the glass, making that same C-shape. It is my touch and it is not, but it only takes an instant before it is done.

  Xavier’s phone is unlocked in my hand.

  It’s not too late to stop this, I think.

  It is too late.

  I sit down heavily, and I spend the next half-hour crosslegged there on the tile of our kitchen floor, learning about the real Mr. Xavier Black. The one that I never get to see.

  There are thousands of mails, tens of thousands, and I can’t possibly read them all . . . an ocean of corporate urgency from clients, partners, business associates. There are hotel receipts and notices from accountants, advice from financial planners and investment bankers. There are interview requests and business proposals and merger notices and PDF diagrams and discussions of plastics and resin and heat transfer rates and the comparative efficiency of solar panels.

  And so I search for myself, both of me: Veronica Kane. Alice White.

  There are very few messages about me or our life together, and what I find is pretty lacking in the juicy detail department: Xavier has a new girlfriend. Xavier is going on vacation with his new girlfriend. Xavier is worried about his girlfriend’s new boobs. Xavier has proposed.

  It doesn’t add up to much. The lack of personal details is a stunning contrast to the level of business minutia contained in the other emails. I pause for a few moments, weighing in my mind whether to continue my digging or not.

  My eyes fall on the phone’s brightly-illuminated PHOTOS icon. It beckons to me with the lure of taboo, like a door that says DO NOT ENTER.

  It’s a place I don’t want to go . . . but it’s a place I desperately need to see.

  I tap my finger against the screen.

  There are few photos, nothing labeled or arranged — but this is isn’t so surprising, really. I’ve never seen Xavier as much of a shutterbug. Several of the pictures are food: artfully arranged cubes of charred steak, tastefully-lit photos of thinly-cut sashimi from a business dinner. There are a few photos of an enormous factory floor in what I suppose is China, with thousands of humans in white caps and gloves, hunched over worktables.

  Then there is a picture of me.

  I am seated across from him, wearing the white dress I’d bought with Baby on our first shopping trip. Looking at the picture is like going back in time. My hair is as it used to be, and I am smiling next to that enormous blended dessert drink Xavier ordered for me. I remember how it smelled, how it tasted . . . how Xavier’s face looked in the flickering radiance of our table’s candlelight.

  And there, on the floor of our kitchen, I smile . . . and my smile is the same as the one on the girl in the picture I hold in my hand.

  And then I flick my finger over to the next photo.

  In a flash, my smile crumbles.

  The photo is identical to the previous one in nearly every way. The tablecloth is the same, and the candle, and the oversized brûlée espresso drink . . . but the girl . . .

  The girl is not me.

  She’s wearing a black dress that looks identical to the first one Xavier had sent to my apartment. The girl’s face is a bit rounder than mine, her eyes a bit larger — and the look on her face is one of pure romantic happiness.

  The rest of my body is frozen, but my fingers move on their own across the xPhone’s screen.

  Next photo: Same dress. Thinner face. Smaller eyes.

  Next photo: Same dress. Longer neck. Perfect cheekbones.

  The tears are coming and my head is pounding, but I can’t stop and I don’t, my finger keeps flicking to the next photo, and the next photo and the next, and the dress is the same and the drink is the same, again and again, always the same, and I want to know how many times this has happened, and I don’t and I do and my heart is beating faster and faster and my head hurts SO FUCKING MUCH, and I want to scream and throw the phone down and finally I do —

  It clatters against the tile floor.

  I bring my knees up to my chin, wrap my arms around them, and lay my throbbing forehead against my arms . . . and I cry and I cry and I cry.

  Chapter 15

  My iPhone is making noises in the bedroom. I ignore it until I can’t anymore.

  I stand up and wipe at my eyes with the backs of my hands until they’re covered in black grimy streaks of yesterday’s mascara. Then I stand, shakily, and pause to catch my breath before storming back into the bedroom. My iPhone is buzzing and it won’t stop buzzing, and it’s slowly sliding its way across the slick black marble of the end table next to the bed.

  The display says UNKNOWN, even though I know who it must be.

  I don’t want to answer it. But I do.

  “Veronica? Xavier. I’m calling from the limo. From the driver’s phone. So listen: I’m still on my way to the airport. Turns out I have your xPhone and you — well, obviously you must have my phone. So what I need you to do, is I need you to go out, take that
phone to FedEx, and send it to me in Houston by Same Day Express. It has to be Same Day Express. They’ll send it right to the hotel. Okay?”

  I can’t say anything. I’m so angry and hurt I can barely even see.

  “Okay!? Hello? Are you there, Veronica? Please, this is very important.”

  I hate you. I hate you and my head hurts so much.

  But I hear myself speak. “I need the address,” I say, softly.

  “Okay. Do you have a pen?”

  “Just a second.”

  I don’t move — not for a pen, not for anything. I just hold the phone to my ear, and I breathe, and I try to keep my world together.

  I count off thirty angry silent seconds.

  “Okay, I have a pen,” I lie. Xavier reads off an address, but I can only hear a dull furious rushing in my ears and his voice sounds like stupid buzzing nonsense.

  “Great,” he says. “Get that to FedEx right away for me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I hang up, and I go out into the kitchen and pick up Xavier’s phone, and I start up the new InSinkErator garbage disposal that was installed last week and I stuff the phone into the drain. There’s a terrible grinding of plastic and metal and glass, and I let the sound continue until I’m sure that both phone and garbage disposal are completely destroyed.

  I need . . .

  I look around at everything in the apartment. I see Xavier everywhere.

  It’s Him. It’s all Him.

  Every piece of furniture, every appliance in the kitchen, the chairs on the terrace, the audio system, the sofa . . . everything is Xavier.

  I need to get out of here.

  * * *

  I go back into the bedroom, find a suitcase, and begin to pack, quick as I can.

  Some inner voice tells me to pack light and go quickly, and I do, as quick as I can manage. I pack for utility. Versatility. Semi-casual, semi-formal. One pair of heels. One pair of flat-packed boots. I actually find myself wearing tennis shoes.

  Only when my suitcase is zipped shut do I finally feel like I can spare a few minutes to make myself presentable. I remove the remnants of my grungy and tear-streaked cosmetics, then shower, change, and reapply my makeup in record time. I grab my suitcase and then I am out the door, leaving behind the broken Roomba and the broken garbage disposal and whatever’s left of Xavier’s broken phone and the broken, broken life I’ve made with such a terribly broken human being. I roll my luggage behind me to the elevator, and I punch the button for the lobby with a ferocity that surprises me.