The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel

by Dawson, Maddie

  “No, we had a fight in the apartment when we went back inside,” says Rosie.

  “Was it a big fight?” says Lynn. “Because I thought that the whole day he was being kind of overbearing.”

  “Men are often overbearing,” says Greta. “I believe they call it testosterone.”

  “I can’t really say what happened for sure,” says Rosie slowly. “He promised me he’d hire movers, but then he didn’t, so I was annoyed he got all of you to pack. And then I just suddenly knew that I couldn’t get in that truck and drive away with him.” This seems like a lame reason, so then she throws in the part about the oven and how he wouldn’t clean it, and then when she gets to the part about the German accent, Lynn jumps in and says that’s enough for her, no one should be expected to get into a car with a man who’s using phony accents.

  “Especially cross-country,” says Suzanne.

  “In the middle of the night,” says Greta.

  “I’d have killed him by New York City,” says Rosie, and she laughs, and then her eyes fill up again. “But now I miss him so much, and now I’m stuck here and I can’t go.” And of course she starts to cry again.

  “Oh, man,” says Greta, and they all dive into their purses looking for tissues. Greta is the first one to come up with one that, as she says, doesn’t have kid material on it.

  “We should order some food to go with this wine,” says Lynn. “Pretty soon, we’re all going to be crying.” She flags down their waiter, and for a moment they’re all busy squinting trying to read the menus, and Suzanne is asking questions about the dressing for the salads and how the chicken is cooked and what’s that sauce for the beef that she had last time she was here.

  As soon as the waiter departs, Greta leans over and touches Rosie’s arm. “Well, I will tell you this. When you didn’t have that wedding, I have to admit that we three kind of knew right then—”

  “But it really wasn’t just that—well, yes, maybe it was,” says Rosie. “We didn’t know then. I mean, I didn’t know then. I thought—”

  “The fact that he could go chase some teacups in Texas over his commitment to you says a lot,” says Greta. “I’m sorry, but it just does.”

  “And after fifteen years, to act as if the whole thing was just some kind of accident, that it didn’t really matter! What kind of marriage was that going to be?” Lynn adds.

  “The same kind of self-absorbed marriage I’ve been locked into for twenty years,” says Suzanne, and all their heads swivel toward her. “I tell you one thing: I wouldn’t do it again. And if it weren’t for the kids, I’d go right now.”

  They all get quiet.

  “You would?” says Rosie. She clears her throat. “You really would?”

  “Well, sure. I often think about how it would be to be free and on my own again. Hinty doesn’t ever think about anything for himself. It’s like he got married to me, and then I was in charge of everything in his emotional life from then on. If I tell him to do the dishes, he will, but he doesn’t think of it on his own. I just get bland smiles from him. Nothing. No passion, no excitement, no laughs. I’m not sure he even remembers the children’s middle names.”

  Lynn says, “They get so … settled.”

  “Jonathan just wants to keep life shut out,” says Rosie. “He says no to everything—until now, when he’s suddenly gone all full throttle on this. He was in the off position for so long that I thought this would have to be better, but it’s just as bad. And it’s my fault, because I kept pushing him to do something with his life.”

  “It’s not your fault,” says Greta. “I’ve watched him for years. And he’s wonderful, there are many great things about him, but he’s just … limited. You didn’t push him. He can’t be pushed. He’s limited.”

  “That’s just the word Soapie used,” says Rosie.

  “Ah, the wisdom of Soapie,” says Greta, and then she and Rosie look at each other and say in unison, “They’re all only out for one thing! Give ’em an inch and they’ll take a mile!”

  Then they all go into their usual thing, which is to talk about how great it would be, if once they get rid of these men—they don’t wish for harm, of course, but a nice, simple, painless, amicable four-way death—wouldn’t it be nice if all the women just moved in together? Think of the peace and quiet! The time to read and think! The clean kitchens! The great food! They’ve been talking about this for years, while the guys talk about sports and cars in the other room. It is, in fact, their favorite fantasy.

  Then someone, usually Greta, brings up the question of visitation for the men. “Because … well, won’t we miss sex sometimes?” she says.

  This gets discussed. Greta, of course, maintains that sex with Joe is still as good as it was when they first met, which has to be a blatant lie, and just the kind of hostile thing she’s known to throw out during these kinds of conversations. The others have to roll their eyes.

  “I think we should let the men visit,” says Rosie this time. “We do want sex with them.”

  “I’ve read that after menopause, sex gets even better for some women,” says Greta.

  “Well, that’s good news, because today I figured out that I’m right there. I’m in early menopause,” says Rosie.

  “God, I wish I’d get me some menopause,” says Lynn. “I am so sick and tired of the whole business!”

  “Wait,” says Suzanne. “What makes you think you’re having early menopause?”

  “Oh, here we go! We can’t get together without the period report,” says Greta. “Come on. Out with it! We want all the gory details.”

  So Rosie tells them it’s been weeks since she had her period, and also she’s in a bad mood all the time. Greta needs to know just how long it’s really been, and she, of course, doesn’t know.

  “Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” says Lynn, and there’s a silence around the table. They all look at her.

  “Well,” says Rosie. “I think I’m sure. The Internet says—”

  “Wait. Have you had … unprotected sex?” asks Greta.

  “Well, there was the once, but—” She has to stop because everybody around the table has erupted in hoots and yells. “Wait! Wait just a minute! I am not pregnant because I am forty-four years old, and my doctor said—well, not my doctor, but people say that it’s impossible to get pregnant at that age, and anyway if I were pregnant, I think I’d know. I’d have this—this spiritual feeling about sharing my body with more than just myself—”

  “I think you need to buy a pregnancy test,” says Greta.

  “And I don’t want to upset you or anything, but that’s bullshit about the sharing-your-body stuff,” says Suzanne. “A fertilized egg doesn’t keep you company for a long time. Like, until it’s pretty much ready for preschool.”

  “Oh, my God, wouldn’t that be the most ironic thing in the whole world?” Greta says. “You turning out to be pregnant right when the three of us get our kids practically launched and out the door? Also, are you still going to come live with us in the fabulous man-free home if you’ve got a little kid underfoot?”

  Rosie feels like she might pass out. The blood is beating in her ears.

  “Wait. I thought it wasn’t completely man-free, it’s just invitation-only,” says Suzanne.

  “Some men can never be invited. We’ll have to vote.”

  “Oh, no, no! I’m not going to live in a home where I have to live by other people’s votes,” says Lynn. “Absolutely not.”

  “Okay, no votes,” says Greta, “but let’s just all agree you can’t inflict bad men on the rest of the group.”

  “Well, what about kids? Our kids have to be able to come visit us, don’t they?”

  “Can’t we vote on kids?”

  “Rosie’s kid will have to live there!”

  “Okay. Rosie’s kid can be an honorary grandchild or something.”

  “I know! We’ll get our other kids to raise it! They’ll be old enough by then.”

  “Sssh,” says Lynn. �
�I think Rosie’s crying.”

  Which is probably technically true, but she doesn’t mean to be. She’s so happy, actually, sitting here amid all this talk and clutter, even the talk about her pretend offspring. She’s 99.9 percent sure this is not going to turn out to be pregnancy, but it’s funny to hear them all talking this way, like she—she, Rosie Kelley—could ever in a million years be one of them, moms with regular lives and minivans and husbands.

  “Tony says he thinks I’m pregnant,” she says in a daze. And then she has to explain who Tony is, and how he thinks he has this mystical ability to read pregnancy in women’s faces, but how he’s really just a know-it-all, but thank God he’s there to keep Soapie from falling down all the time.

  “That’s it,” says Greta. “I don’t know who this guy is, but we’re getting a pregnancy test. Now.”

  “I have an empty water bottle in the car,” Suzanne says. “You can sit in the backseat of my car and pee into the bottle, and we’ll know the results right away.”

  “In case you’ve lost all your dignity, by any chance,” says Lynn.

  They nearly fall over laughing at that idea. Ambulances may have to be called to cart them off, they’re laughing so hard as they get up to leave. The waiter waves them good-bye, looking somewhat relieved to see them go. Rosie loves that they walk her to the store, help her pick out a kit. And while she draws the line at peeing in the car, it even seems like ridiculous good fun, buying this pregnancy test, like they are naughty teenage girls. Didn’t they have to buy one for Greta one time, when she’d had an incident in college?

  She can’t quite remember all the details. But that’s what is so wonderful, because Greta remembers the whole thing, and entertains them with the story of Rosie waiting outside the bathroom door and cheering when the test came out negative.

  Greta even remembers something Rosie had forgotten: that Rosie was disappointed just a little bit that Greta’s test was negative. “Oh,” she’d said, “it’ll be so much fun when we start having babies together, won’t it?”

  So it had been a dream of hers a long time ago. Funny how she can’t recall that.

  She kisses them good-bye downtown, hugging and promising to keep in touch. The women say they’ll put their family members in cold storage more often. Greta drives her home, all the way to the back door, and Rosie leans over and hugs her.

  “Do you want me to walk you in?” says Greta, yawning.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” she says. “This is the first night I’ve had my energy back. I can’t tell you how different I feel!”

  “You just needed to see us,” says Greta. “We love you.”

  “I’m not really pregnant, am I? That was just us talking, right?” she says.

  “Of course you’re not,” says Greta. “Probably.”

  “Thank you,” Rosie says, and then lets herself in the back door as Greta’s SUV’s taillights disappear down the driveway. The kitchen is illuminated only by the light on the oven and the bathroom light down the hallway. She notices as she turns the key that George’s car isn’t there. Neither is Tony’s, but she’d halfway known that Tony was going to go to Fairfield tonight, to work on getting his ex back or whatever it is he does there.

  But where is George? She goes inside, heart already pounding, as if it has run ahead and peeked and now knows all the bad news.

  And then she sees what she’s been so scared to see: Soapie lying on the floor. Only this time there is blood and this time Soapie isn’t moving.

  [twelve]

  Soapie, gray, hollow, but still alive, goes by ambulance to the emergency room at Yale–New Haven Hospital, and once there, the hospital people kick Rosie out while they do all those horrible but necessary reviving things to her, hooking her up to machines and tubes.

  The EMT, a big guy with an earring and a bald head, had been in the kitchen while Rosie stood by in shock, curling his brown hands around Soapie’s head, cradling it gently after he eased her onto the stretcher, all his concentration beamed at making sure she was comfortable. Rosie had watched the stretcher being loaded into the ambulance, and even after she drove herself to the hospital, she was still shaking as she made her way to the chairs in the waiting room. It’s only later that she realizes she could have called Greta back, or any of the others. She didn’t need to be so alone like this.

  By the time they call Rosie into the room, it’s nearly four in the morning, and they’ve bandaged Soapie’s head, which makes her look something like a jaunty sailor, one who just happens to be in a coma. Her eyes are closed, with her mouth set in a hard line, collapsing in on itself, as if behind those closed eyes she’s thinking how angry she is at being yanked back from wherever she was going, thrust back into life.

  Remember if you hear that I’ve died, just be grateful that I went the way I wanted to.

  But could that truly be the way she felt? Now that she’s a member of the Gang of Four and has people cooking for her and dancing with her, now that the lamps are lit in the big, cavernous living room, now that she’s singing “Crazy” at the top of her lungs every single night, did she still want to die?

  Rosie makes her way to the empty family waiting area, off the ICU. CNN is on a big-screen TV, and she turns the volume down to zero and settles herself in a chair to wait. There’s a People magazine there, and an Architectural Digest, some postcards about ailments, in case you want to be entertained by the symptoms of diabetes or osteoporosis while you wait.

  At 7:13, according to the big clock on the wall, she’s startled by a man striding in, wearing blue scrubs and carrying a clipboard. She’d been dozing. And drooling. She sits up, wipes her mouth, tries to smile.

  The attending, Josh Grimby.

  He shakes her hand and then puts one foot up on the wooden arm of the chair and frowns down at the papers he’s holding. Her eyes take him in, traveling up from the large hands, the stubbly chin, tight mouth, close-cropped hair, small eyes.

  He lets out a sigh, says what she would have expected, like a doctor in a TV show reading from a script.

  Broken hip. Needs surgery to put a metal plate in. Surgery soon, maybe today. Managing the pain. She’s knocked out. We’ll know more in a few days. Get some rest. We’ll take good care of her. We’ll call you when we’ve got her on the schedule. Or if there’s a change.

  Can I kiss her good-bye?

  Of course.

  Is she going to be all right?

  We’ll know more in a few days. Surgery later. She’s knocked out. Get some rest. We’ll take good care of her.

  We’ll call you if there’s any change.

  “Well, thank you,” she says.

  She doesn’t remember the pregnancy test until she gets home. And frankly, the only reason she remembers it then is because Tony Cavaletti is down on his knees, wiping up the blood from the floor and the test is on the table next to where he’s kneeling. He gets up, eyes huge and brown, his hair sticking up everywhere.

  “What happened?” he says. “I’ve been calling you. I’ve been out of my mind—”

  “I had to turn my cell off. She fell and broke her hip. But she’s alive. She’s stable. They’re keeping her in the hospital. Doing surgery soon. They’ll know more in a few days.”

  “That’s what they always say.”

  “I know.” She goes over to the sink and fixes herself a glass of water.

  “How does she look?”

  “She looks like a person who’s unconscious and who has a bandage on her head. She looks kind of like a drunken sailor, actually—with that bandage.”

  “Were you here, when it happened?”

  This is the hard part to tell him. But she does, the whole bit of it.

  His eyes bug out. “She was alone when this happened? Even George wasn’t here?”

  “No. No one was here.”

  “Well, where was everybody? She needs to be watched. You told me that yourself, that somebody needed to be with her—”

  “Yeah, but none of us knew the othe
rs weren’t going to be here. You see? It’s just impossible, taking care of somebody the right way.” Oh, hell, she’s starting to cry again. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have gone out for so many hours. But she’s been doing so well. I should have checked with you and George to see if somebody was going to be around. I let her down.”

  He stares at her. “Look, look, it’s okay. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I woulda been here if I’d’a known. Don’t blame yourself for this. Nobody can do it all. And you’ve got a ton on your plate just now. You got a baby coming.” He nods toward the pregnancy test.

  “No,” she says. “It’s just a pregnancy test. I didn’t take it yet.”

  “You should take it,” he says.

  “I—I will. I’m just waiting.”

  “What are you waiting for? The contractions to start pushing the kid out?”

  “It’s not going to be positive,” she says.

  “Yeah, well,” he says.

  “I’m too old.” But even as she says that, she’s feeling sick and clammy. Oh God.

  “When you’re too old, nature takes away the privilege, is the way I always understood the way the system works. I think you should take the test, see if Mother Nature thinks you’re too old.”

  “Okay,” she says. “But I think I want to be alone.”

  He actually laughs. “Come to your senses, woman. Gah! You think I’m gonna sit there with you while you pee on a stick?”

  [thirteen]

  And then two pink lines bloom on the stick.

  Right away, bold as you please.

  Hi, they say. Guess what.

  She checks. Yes, the back of the box is pretty definite about the meaning of these two lines. She reads all the text, the fine print, the manufacturer’s information and address, everything.

  Huh. She feels a kind of preternatural calm, like maybe she really did know this all along and had just been fooling herself with all the thoughts of menopause. Or—here’s another possibility—perhaps she’s just in shock.