Maybe Never

by Nia Forrester

  “I already . . . Tracy, this is Janice; Janice this is Tracy, my fiancée.”

  Tracy extended a hand and took Janice’s. It was soft, warm.

  “Wonderful to meet you, finally,” Janice said.

  Tracy raised an eyebrow and gave her a frosty smile.

  “Likewise.”

  Then she dropped her hand and turned to Brendan. “I can see you’re busy,” she said. “So I’ll just . . .”

  She nodded at Janice and then at Brett—who looked positively gleeful—and headed for the exit of the building. Behind her, she could hear Brendan’s muttered ‘excuse me’ and heard him following her. Tracy increased the pace but of course she was no match for Brendan who, within a moment, had caught her just below the elbow.

  “Hey,” he said. “I didn’t know you were coming, or I would have . . .”

  Tracy stopped and looked at him evenly. “You would have . . what?”

  “Are you coming back to the apartment tonight?” he asked, ignoring her question.

  “Should I?” she asked.

  “Yes. We need to talk.”

  Tracy pursed her lips and tried to ignore the hammering of her heart. “You know where to find me. When you’re ready to talk, that’s where I’ll be.”

  “Janice is not . . .”

  “Not what?” Tracy looked at him.

  She always thought that if she was confronted with an actual rival where Brendan was concerned she would lose control of herself and fly into a hysterical fit. And that’s certainly how she’d handled similar situations in the past. But now, though she was frightened, she didn’t feel the same territorialism that she used to. Instead she felt protective. Of herself, and of this other life inside her.

  Instinctively, as she thought about the baby, her hand fell to her abdomen. One of the things that brought her here on this particular day, besides missing Brendan, was the little flutter she’d felt the previous evening. It had been so foreign a sensation and so unexpected, she sat up and gasped, looking around for a moment to tell Brendan about it before remembering that he wasn’t there.

  So Tracy called Riley instead and asked her if it was possible, if she really might have felt the baby move.

  I felt Cullen at sixteen weeks, Riley said. And that’s about where you are right now, so it’s definitely possible.

  And Tracy had beamed in pleasure, in wonder.

  Now, her hand falling to her stomach did not escape Brendan’s notice and he took a step in her direction, his hand falling to cover hers. She pulled away.

  “Tracy . . .”

  He felt inaccessible to her. She didn’t know what he was thinking, didn’t know what he was feeling; she didn’t even know where he’d been, or who this woman in the white suit was who’d said it was good to finally meet her. When had things changed so much?

  “You know where to find me,” Tracy said again.

  And then just as she had in the apartment on Saturday, she turned to leave him. This time walking away was much easier.

  ________

  “Who the hell is Janice?”

  Brendan paused mid-step at the threshold of Shawn and Riley’s condo and looked into the eyes of his best friend’s wife, speechless for a moment.

  “Riley,” Shawn said from behind her, further back inside. “This is none of . . .”

  “Be quiet, Shawn. I’m talking to Brendan.”

  Riley moved aside to let him in, her arms folded, her eyes fierce. She hardly ever got angry; in fact the only time Brendan could recall it happening was when someone had come at Shawn with a devastating false accusation, years ago. But she was angry now, and it was directed at him.

  “Who is she?” Riley demanded.

  “Look, Riley, when I go to Brooklyn tonight, I’ll explain to Tracy . . .”

  “Yes, you will,” she said. “But first you need to explain it to me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes, you need to explain it to me! Because I’ve been defending you for years, Brendan. Telling her you were the best thing to happen to her. And now, quite frankly, your stock is down where I’m concerned. Way down.”

  Brendan shook his head. “I never asked you to be my cheerleader, Riley.”

  “Are you turning into an asshole?” she asked, her tone incredulous. “One of those guys who—when the chips are really down—turns tail and runs?”

  “Look . . .”

  “No, you look,” Riley practically spat. “Tracy is pregnant, and she’s scared and she’s alone. Tracy, who doesn’t have much of a mother to speak of is about to be a mother. How the hell do you think she feels?”

  Brendan, who moments before had been filled with a sense of righteous indignation that someone else—Riley, but still, someone else—thought they had the right to be all up in his fucking business suddenly felt what he probably should have felt all along: shame.

  “You’re it for her, Brendan. You. No one else,” Riley continued. “So if you’re not up to the job, get out now. Tonight. You helped put her back together and so now she’s yours, if you’re man enough to . . .”

  “Riley!” Shawn stepped closer and in between her and Brendan. “That’s enough.”

  “Fine, I’ll stop,” Riley said, her eyes never leaving Brendan’s. “But if you think he’s coming in here to sit around and shoot the breeze with you while my best friend is in Brooklyn terrified that she’s about to lose everything that matters to her, then you’re both crazy.”

  Shawn looked helplessly from Brendan to Riley, trying to decide.

  “Nah, man, it’s okay,” Brendan said, holding up a hand. “I’m not tryin’ to cause any stress between you and . . .”

  “Oh no, you’re not going to cause any stress between us,” Riley cut him off. “I won’t let you. Shawn and I are good. Maybe you need to go make sure the same is true of you and Tracy.”

  Brendan nodded. Maybe he deserved that. He turned to leave then stopped, looking at Riley once again.

  “Janice is an old girlfriend,” he said. “Emphasis on the old.”

  Riley’s eyes were cold. The explanation sounded sliver-thin, and it would to Tracy as well. She would need to hear more. He would have to tell her everything.

  An hour later, sitting in his car a block away from the townhouse, Brendan considered his options. There weren’t very many besides going in and talking to Tracy. Each day of the past week had drifted by with him in a haze of denial—denying that he was doing anything wrong by continuing to speak to Janice, denying that by leaving Tracy alone he was being the worse kind of coward, and denying that he missed her.

  Once she was gone, and he no longer came home to her scent lingering in the apartment, or the sounds of her up in the kitchen putting together something for him to eat. Once he no longer had to listen to her describe with excitement some tiny detail about the wedding she’d resolved that day. Once he didn’t have her next to him in bed, surreptitiously watching her caress her stomach in a habit that had sprung up practically overnight. Once he didn’t have these things, Brendan had to acknowledge that maybe he was the one too focused on the wedding. Maybe he was the one who was hung up on the event itself when the truth was, Tracy had wed herself to him a long time ago.

  Finally shutting off the engine, Brendan got out of the car and started toward the house. No matter where this conversation went, he knew where it was going to have to begin: with Janice. Bumping into Tracy like that, coming out of his office had been like one of those nightmare moments. Not because of where he and Janice had been, but because it was something he’d imagined in his head a dozen times, what Tracy would do, what she would say if she ever saw him with a woman he even appeared to be involved with. What she’d done, to his never-ending surprise—was nothing. She’d greeted Janice politely, if somewhat coolly and then she walked away.

  In the moment before she had, Brendan noticed something that people who did not know Tracy would not. She had closed herself off, wrapped herself in a shell as hard as steel, that no one �
�not even him—would penetrate. The shell was the same one he’d worked years ago to break into, and finally had. Opening her up, getting her to believe it was safe to do so, had been long and difficult.

  Damn, she had put him through it in those days.

  On a few mornings over the last couple of years, Brendan had awoken wondering whether it was worth it, whether he might not have finally met his match in this woman; this beautiful woman with an ugly past who even after they reconciled, tested and tested and tested, almost as though trying to force the issue of what she saw as his inevitable departure. The fights they had were epic and painful, every single one seemed destined to put an end to their relationship once and for all.

  That was the kind of fight he and Tracy had the evening that Brendan and Shawn learned that one of their employees at the lounge they co-owned who had been embezzling from them for months was probably going to jail. Almost thirty thousand dollars skimmed off their profits, by a twenty-four year old kid whom they both liked, and who might have had a good future ahead of him if he’d resisted the urge to do foolish things to support some hoped-for high-rolling NYC lifestyle.

  Brendan was torn up about it, and had to return to the lounge and break the news to the other employees; and to maintain group cohesion he decided to stay in the club until it closed in the early morning hours. He was exhausted from having worked a full day before getting there and from fighting with Tracy; and irritable and feeling like shit that he might play a role in derailing a kid’s future. When he called Tracy to let her know he wouldn’t be in until maybe seven a.m. the next morning, she’d said very little.

  But then later, sometime past midnight, one of the bartenders told him he was wanted back in his office. When he went back, Tracy was there, wearing sweats and a t-shirt, looking like she’d gotten straight out of bed and come over in a cab or something. As soon as she saw him, she stepped forward, arms open and Brendan walked into them.

  She just hugged him and said nothing, because she knew him, and knew he felt awful. Leaning into her and smelling her coconut-scented hair had relaxed and comforted him, and when she tried to pull away, he held her tighter. When finally they released each other, Tracy had gone over to his desk and unwrapped a plate of food she’d brought with her and made sure he ate it. Then she pulled out an afghan and stretched out on the sofa opposite his desk, curling into one of the cushions.

  I’m here if you need me, she said before closing her eyes.

  It was the only thing she said.

  But it was the perfect thing, because they were still both angry from their fight and talking would have done them no good. In that moment, her letting him know she was there if he needed her was the first time that Brendan allowed himself to admit that he might. The difference in the feel and mood of his evening was dramatic, just knowing that she was there, within reach.

  The fact that Tracy needed him was a given. Brendan loved that about their relationship, took pride in the fact that the woman who seemed to need no one, needed him. That night, he realized that he needed her too. It was something he hadn’t had to reflect on too much, because she was always there, not just meeting his needs, but anticipating them.

  For a moment, he stood with his key out and poised at the front door of the townhouse, prepared to open it. For one irrational second, Brendan considered that it might not work, but it slid into the lock as effortlessly as it always had. The inner door was unlocked and Brendan shoved aside a moment of irritation. If he’d told her once, he told her a million times to lock both doors . . .

  “I would have locked it before I went to bed.”

  Tracy was standing at the top of the stairs to the second level which were immediately opposite the front doors, and had obviously read the irritation on his face. Brendan looked up at her. She was wearing black leggings and a white tank without a bra. Seeing her in such close-fitting clothes now, he detected the difference in her figure, the tiny mound that was beginning to form at her abdomen, her larger breasts. Brendan’s breath caught.

  Pregnant. Tracy was going to have their baby.

  “You want to come down for a sec?” he asked.

  Tracy seemed to hesitate but finally nodded and made her way down toward him, but slowly. Brendan took several steps forward so that when she was at the third step from the bottom, they were eye-to-eye. Tracy stopped. They looked at each other.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice quiet and hoarse.

  “Hey,” she returned.

  Brendan leaned in and pressed his lips briefly to hers, and Tracy answered his kiss by leaning in momentarily and kissing him back. As she did, Brendan lowered a hand and placed it on her stomach. For a few seconds they were both motionless and then Brendan finally let his hand fall away.

  “I thought I felt her move last night,” Tracy said unexpectedly, almost as though it was news she couldn’t contain in spite of herself.

  “Her?” Brendan said, a smile in his voice. “So you’ve decided we’re having a girl?”

  “It just feels like a girl,” Tracy said, blushing.

  “Yeah? And what it did feel like, when she moved I mean?”

  “Like a wave, little ripples inside me.”

  “You should have called me.”

  Tracy shrugged but she looked away from him so Brendan knew she’d considered and rejected it. “It was just a few moments. Nothing to get all excited about probably.”

  “But you were,” he said. “Excited. So you should have called me.”

  Tracy shrugged again, and seemed uncomfortable. The wave of protectiveness he generally felt about her enveloped him again in an instant.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s go sit down.”

  In the living room, when he sat on the sofa, she chose the armchair opposite instead of sitting next to him. Brendan sat with his hands clasped between his knees, struggling for words to begin.

  “I want to tell you about Janice,” he said.

  Across from him, Tracy swallowed.

  “We used to date,” he said. “A really long time ago. And I ran into her again recently when I was downtown.”

  Tracy was listening, and her expression was neutral but Brendan could see her throat working as she swallowed.

  “The day I first ran into her was the morning after you told me . . . about the baby. And I went with her back to her apartment,” he continued. “And while we were there, we started talking about old times, she took me back to show me some pictures she’d kept of back when we were dating.

  “We were sitting on her bed, and there was a moment. But nothing happened,” he finished hastily. “I wound up talking to her though, telling her things about us that I had no business sharing. I talked about you and about us, and . . .”

  At that Tracy stood and pursed her lips, and Brendan could see her agitation increase. “What did you tell her about me?”

  “That our relationship is complicated, that sometimes I’m not . . . But I didn’t sleep with her, Tracy. I barely even touched her . . .”

  “I know you didn’t sleep with her,” Tracy said almost impatiently.

  Brendan paused, surprised. “You know I . . .”

  “That’s not the kind of thing you would do,” Tracy said, but her voice was bitter. “You’re not the liar, the cheat, the asshole that women fear. You’re a different kind altogether.”

  He waited, puzzled by her tone, confused by her words.

  “You’re Mr. Perfection. The one who slowly, and probably even unintentionally, chips away at a woman’s self-esteem by convincing her that if anything is wrong with the relationship, it’s her fault.”

  Brendan blinked. “Wait a second . . .”

  “You wouldn’t sleep with Janice. Not because you didn’t want to . . .”

  “I didn’t want to, as a matter of fact,” Brendan said, his voice rising.

  “So why was she with you today? After that near-miss in her apartment, why were you still seeing her?”

  At that, he was caught. He d
idn’t know why. Nostalgia, boredom . . .

  “You were still seeing her because you’re shopping around. Even now, you’re shopping around,” Tracy said. And for the first time, she looked hurt.

  “What’re you . . ?”

  “I’m getting tired of waiting, Brendan . . .”

  “What’re you talking ab . . ?”

  “. . . for you to decide that it’s okay for you to be in love with me. That I’m good enough . . .”

  “Hold up, that’s your fucking issue, not mine.”

  “. . . or kind enough, or sweet enough or friendly enough to be the woman you fell in love with. I might be . . . cute, but I don’t live up to some ideal in your head, do I? Maybe if I was more like Riley . . .”

  “Oh here we go . . .”

  “Yes! Here we go! I’m not even sure you like me sometimes. Since we’re talking God’s honest truths, that’s the God’s honest truth. You like how I look. You like fucking me. But me? As a person? Maybe not so much.”

  “Because I insist you act like a decent human being when you come into contact with other human beings?”

  “It’s more than that. I feel like I’ve been interviewing for this role of Brendan Cole’s Woman for two years. And every time I do or say something that’s not perfectly sweet, not in keeping with your image as the guy everybody just loves, I feel like I’m one day further away from being given the job on a permanent basis.”

  “That’s your internal bullshit, Tracy. Being interviewed to be my woman? What the fuck have you been these last two years?”

  “That’s what I want to know . . .”

  “So what? You got pregnant to force the issue?”

  “Yes! Maybe I did!” Tracy screamed at him.

  That response seemed to surprise them both and for a moment there was a stunned silence.

  “So you wanted to trap me,” Brendan said.

  “Trap you?” Tracy said, her voice suddenly quiet. “No, Brendan, not trap you. Haven’t you noticed? Babies don’t make men stay, they make them leave.”

  He narrowed his eyes in confusion.

  “I didn’t plan this pregnancy if that’s what you’re asking,” Tracy said, her voice tired. “I just . . . I don’t know. All I know is it started not being as important if I did get pregnant. It didn’t make any difference. At least not to me. If I got pregnant and we got married, if I got pregnant and you left me, it wouldn’t make any difference.”