The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel (38 page)

“Because we like Paris, and we couldn’t go. I think that’s the reason,” says Soapie. “We’re
pretending
.”

Jonathan has now gone to his comfort zone—numbers—and is giving some powerful mathematical data, such as how many ancient teacups he hopes to have by the end of the year, and the number of visitors the museum has had thus far, and how much it costs to buy a ticket to the museum.

Tony, always a master of subtlety, reaches over and ruffles Milo’s hair and says children are a blessing that just can’t be underestimated. “You’re not gonna believe how it changes you, man,” he says. “Just the getting ready alone—it lets you be part of a whole chain of humans. The preparation now, that’s of
parliament
importance.”

“Parliament?” says Jonathan, and Rosie flees to the kitchen.

“Oh my God. How did my life get to this?” she asks George.

He laughs. “I think you should relax and enjoy it,” he says. “How many pregnant women get a day when two men are having a pissing contest over them?”

From the living room she can hear Jonathan saying, “Yes, we have an apartment, and Rosie is going to decorate it when she gets to California.” And Tony is saying, “Really? She’s going to do that and give birth all in the same few weeks?” And Jonathan says, “Man, you know her. She would have hated anything I picked out. Believe me, this is best. Even if it doesn’t get done, at least it won’t be stuff she’ll yell at me for buying.”

She eases herself down into the nearest chair and does her Lamaze breathing. They don’t tell you in the course that it’s going to be good for so many things in life.

Jonathan says, on the way to the airport two days later, “Well, I’m not so worried about you and Tony anymore.”

“Good,” she says.

“He’s not at all what I pictured, from what Joe said. You know?”

“No?” she says.

“No. I mean, I think when I heard he was Italian, I pictured a kind of Italian stud, I think. This guy—I don’t know—he’s short and not really much of an intellect, you know? I mean, he’s nice enough and all that. And that kid of his. What chance has he got, with the home situation he has?”

“Please,” she says. “We don’t know—”

“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. What do we know?” He looks out the window of the car. “Anyway, we got ourselves on track, didn’t we?” He takes her hand across the seat. “We got a lot of things established.”

“It was great,” she says.

“Only casualty was the ring not fitting. But it still might, once you get that bundle of joy off the front of you.”

She smiles and looks at her pinky where the ring is.

“So are we all right?”

“Us? Sure.”

“No problems? We’ve survived the long separation, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” she says. She switches lanes, gets into the fast lane.

“But I noticed we don’t do that love-you-me-too-you thing anymore, do we?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, maybe we’ll start it up when we get back together.”

“Yeah, I’m sure we will.”

“And you’re going to get the rest of the house packed up, and get it sold, and come to California once Soapie is settled in?”

“Yes.” She closes her eyes. So much to do, so many fraught things lying ahead of her.

“You can do it, you know,” he says. “You don’t have any doubts, do you?”

“No. I’m fine. I know I can do it. It’s just going to be … hard. Saying good-bye to Soapie and all.”

“But you know it’s the right … well,” he says, stopping himself. He looks out the car window for a moment, and she can feel him trying to come up with the right thing to say. “Hard stuff, but then we’ll be together. And you’re going to love San Diego. I just know you will.” He leans over and squeezes her arm. “I love you, you do know that?”

“I do.”

“Hey, did you find a doctor in California yet?”

“My doctor has contacted one.”

“So all is good on that front.”

“Yes.”

“One thing we haven’t really talked about much. I’ll still have to work a lot of hours. But we can handle that, can’t we? You’re going to be plenty busy with nursing and … all that.”

“Sure,” she says. Then she has one of those moments when she can’t quite believe how her life is going to change. She’s going to have a family. She’ll be able to flip her hair and toss off sentences that start with “Oh, yes, well,
my daughter …
”

“It’s going to be okay,” he’s saying. “You’ll have the baby and I’ll have the museum. Funny how we didn’t ever
need
a baby or a museum either, for that matter, but it’s going to work out for us. We both got something that’ll keep us busy.”

Is that the way it is?

“I might have needed a baby and just didn’t know it,” she says.

“I have to break all the rules and ask you out on a date,” says Tony on the telephone a week later.

“What rules are these?”

“The rules I made for myself, that I am going to stop throwing myself at you,” he says.

“And where is this date taking us?”

“First tell me if you like surprises.”

“I’d have to say no.”

“Okay, then, we’re going to a party at somebody’s house, and it’s really a baby shower for you, and so I’ve been told I have to make you come.”

She laughs. “Oh, God. Is this one of Greta’s productions?”

“No. I don’t believe so. This is from your students.”

“My students?”

“Yeah. Carmen and Tomas called me.” He explains that it’s being held at Goldie’s condominium, and all the students are coming, and so are her friends, just possibly anybody she’s ever spoken to for longer than three minutes through her whole life. And he would have kept it a surprise; he himself
loves
surprises, but he figured there was a good chance she might not come if he didn’t let her know in advance. So could she please look surprised?

Okay, yes, she can.

So, Friday night. Eight p.m. sharp.

He’ll pick her up.

“Practice in the mirror,” he says. “If they find out I told you, I’m a dead man.”

“Want to hear something kind of crazy—something you never expected to hear me say?” Rosie asks Soapie on Friday afternoon. They are in the den, next to the big windows that overlook the backyard. It’s a gray, threatening-snow sort of day, and George has gone over to see Louise before the snow comes, he says.

“What did you say?” asks Soapie. She reaches down and picks up the grilled cheese sandwich Rosie has made her. It’s been one of her extraordinarily good days. She’s had an appetite, and she’s been focused. They watched
The View
together all the way through, and Soapie laughed at all the funny parts. Usually she gets upset when the women are all talking at once, but today even that didn’t bother her. It’s been the kind of day that gives Rosie hope that the transition to the nursing home won’t be so hard on her—and even though that date is fast approaching, she still can’t picture it herself, how she’s ever going to be able to simply walk away. Best not to dwell on all that.

“My friends are throwing me a baby shower tonight,” she says. “Wanna come, too?”

It’s a joke, because of course Soapie can’t come to something like that. But she tilts her head, as if she’s thinking about it. Funny how even two months ago, the news of a baby shower would have sent her off on some diatribe about outdated, sexist social customs for women. Now, she just smiles benignly and says in a small voice, “You look like her, you know. The way she would have looked if she’d gotten older.”

The light, coming through the big windows, is filtered. It looks soft, almost pearly gray. Rosie stops, takes a deep breath, as though this were a moment that could skitter away like a frightened animal if she weren’t careful.

“Who?” she says. “My mom?”

“Yes. It makes sense, I guess. That you’d be like her. Here, put my Coke here on the table, will you?”

Rosie moves the glass from the tray to the table next to her grandmother. Soapie is tracing her index finger on the brocade of the arm of the chair. “Lately when I sit here in the afternoons, I think about her.”

“Really?”

Soapie leans forward and says in a loud whisper, “Don’t tell George, but she talks to me sometimes. Come and sit by me. I want to tell you something.”

Rosie smiles and pulls the armchair over, sits down, and looks at her grandmother. “Does that feel good, getting to sense her presence again?”

She sees her grandmother swallow, with difficulty. Her eyes, which seem clearer today, drift over to the window and then come to land on Rosie’s face. There’s an urgency in them. She swallows again. “Ahh, Rosie. After all these years, I think I know now why she did it. Hold my hand.”

“Why she did what?” But it’s so weird, the fact that she suddenly knows what Soapie is going to say, how the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

Soapie sighs. “Why she killed herself. I know why. I remember now.”

“But she didn’t kill herself. A building fell on her,” says Rosie, but even as she’s saying it, she suddenly knows that building story can’t possibly be true. What were the chances of a piece of a building falling on a woman? It is one of those things that has
never
made any sense. Why hadn’t she ever stopped to think about that before? It’s not true. It never was true.

Ka-boom
.

Soapie looks at her sadly. For a long moment, she doesn’t
speak, and Rosie holds her breath. A piece of herself has run away and is hiding. She can feel the shock in her fingertips. Maybe she doesn’t want to know.

“No. No building, sweetie.” Soapie’s eyes are on her, piercing but kind.

Rosie closes her eyes. “Tell me,” she says. Her voice is tinny.

“She wanted him too much, and he said he wasn’t coming back,” Soapie is saying, but there’s a ringing sound in Rosie’s ears. She can barely hear. “She was here with you and me, and he was up in Canada somewhere and this is the part I just remembered. He wrote her a letter and said he didn’t want her and he didn’t want a family. He changed his mind, Rosie, and it just killed her.”

“But what about
me
?” she hears herself say. “Didn’t she want to be with me?”

“She just went crazy. It felt like she forgot who she was.”

“But I was just a little girl, and she loved me, you said.”

“Nothing was enough.” Soapie looks out the window. “Nothing was going to help. I tried to get her to go talk to somebody and get some help, but all she wanted to do was try to track him down in Canada. Which was impossible, of course.”

But what about me?
Rosie wants to shout.
You said! You said she loved me. Any mother loves her child and doesn’t want to leave her that way
.

When she finds her voice, she says, “But you … why did you tell me about the building? Why did you lie to me?”

“You were too little to know,” she says. “Who’s going to tell a baby what really happened?”

“I haven’t been a baby for a very long time,” says Rosie. “You let me go on thinking that that’s how she died. Why didn’t you ever tell me the truth?” She can feel her voice
rising. She feels like that little child again, smothered in not-knowing, sitting in the stuffy, stale-smelling den, missing her mother so much that her whole body trembles with the longing for her. She starts to shake. “All those years you wouldn’t ever let me talk about her, and the whole time you’re letting me believe this lie.”