The Status of All Things (18 page)

Her words hit me hard and I feel like a clamp is tightening around my chest—my own insecurities about the universe bringing them together swelling as I realized Courtney was beginning to realize it too.

Courtney quickly fills the silence. “And so I had to make this awful choice—the friend who had always been there for me, or the man I thought I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with.”

“Decisions, decisions,” I say sarcastically, looking down so I don’t have to see the sincerity reflected in her eyes.

When I look up again, I see her lips part as if she’s going to say something, but she doesn’t.

“Sometimes I feel like I handed Max to you,” I say. “I let you go to concerts with him while I stupidly buried my nose in some romance novel. While you guys were bonding over being adopted, I paid more attention to pictures of babies posing with dogs in my Instagram feed. I was so confident, so trusting. I was an idiot.”

“No, don’t say that.”

“What should I say, then? I introduced Max to you before my own mother. I wanted you to meet him because I cared about your approval. I wanted you to like him. Not fall in love with him!” I slam my fist against the steering wheel, causing the horn to blare, and Courtney jumps in her seat. “And you know the worst part?”

“It gets worse?” she says under her breath.

“He’s only fucking five feet eight and a half inches. Maybe
five nine. You always said you wouldn’t be caught dead with a guy that
short
. With heels you are probably taller than him, no?”

“I don’t wear . . .”

“That was a rhetorical question, Courtney! I don’t give a fuck what shoes you had on when you were out trying to sink your claws into my fiancé,” I say, seething now.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her tears falling hard again.

“Me too,” I whisper, taking in her porcelain skin and bloodshot eyes, hating that she still looks beautiful despite the fact she’s been crying practically nonstop since she got into my car, remembering the night Max told me I had nothing to worry about. That his friendship with Courtney was just like mine with Liam.

“And now I’ve lost both of you,” I hear Courtney saying, her voice shaking so much my instinct is to reach over and console her, so I slide toward my door just to put more distance between us. “I want you to know something, Kate. My friendship with you, every bit of it was real. Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now.” She wipes at her nose with the back of her hand and I reach for a package of tissues in my center console.

“Here.” I jam the Kleenex into her hand.

“Thank you.” She pulls a tissue out and blows her nose.

I stare at my steering wheel, letting my fingers trace the symbol in the center.

“Even if what you said is true, it doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done. You can’t change the past,” I lie, and wonder if Courtney had the chance to go back, what she would do differently.

“He won’t talk to me, you know. At least you—you are giving me a chance to explain.”

“That’s not why I’m here. And I don’t need your justification,”
I say simply, but my voice sounds sharp and I notice Courtney flinch slightly. But she stays silent; even her tears have quieted.

“I just needed to tell you that you obviously can’t come to the wedding or any other wedding-related event—” I stop when I see the expression in Courtney’s eyes—she’s feeling sorry for herself. And suddenly I remember I’ve seen that look before. It was when I’d found her and Max talking at my rehearsal dinner and naively asked her to take our photo. I hadn’t been able to place it then—the emotion I was seeing reflected in them—but now I realize it was pity. She hadn’t felt sad about what she and Max were about to do to me, she’d felt sorry for me. She had known that Max was going to leave me in just minutes
for her
, and she’d stiffly taken our picture then disappeared into the night so she didn’t have to face her part in it. “But more than that, we—you and me, you and
Max
—
none of us
can continue being friends. This is not repairable.”

Courtney’s face turns ashen, but she simply nods. She knows what we all had is now broken. And without uttering a single word, she opens the door and steps out. I watch her walk away, wondering why I don’t feel more victorious.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. #truth

“I draw the line at sucking on peppermint pecker mints or penis pops!” I laugh into the phone as Jules rambles on about the favors she’s buying for my bachelorette party. I can hear her rummaging through the shelves of Sugar & Spice & Everything
Not Nice
on Wilshire Boulevard, her high-pitched giggle breaking into the conversation every few minutes as she discovers some hilarious trinket shaped like a man’s junk.

“Oh, honey, you better get on board—it’s a
bachelorette party
!
You should see what I’m holding right now!
Glow-in-the-dark pecker ring toss! Oh my God, I didn’t even know this existed—they’ve come a long way since the penis straws we had at mine!” We burst into laughter, us both remembering Jules dancing on the bar as she sipped her
cock
tail—as she kept calling it—nearly falling off the bar as she tried to mimic the scene from
Coyote Ugly
,
the night ending with us getting escorted out and hanging our heads in mock shame on the curb until Ben came to get us.

For some reason, Jules had it in her head that she needed
to change my entire bachelorette party plan from what she’d done last time, even though the mellow night she’d organized before, when I’d simply worn a bride-to-be sash and subtle veil, had been perfect—me having no idea of the heartbreak that was waiting for me around the corner. “The only thing we need to change
this
time around”—I’d breathed heavily into the phone when I’d called Jules yesterday just minutes after my unsettling conversation with Courtney—“is
the guest list
.”

Jules listened quietly as I told her about the talk Courtney and I had had in my car. As soon as I finished, she blurted, “You’re a better woman than I would’ve been!”

“Why do you say that?”

“It would have been hard not to pop her in that gorgeous mouth of hers!”

“Don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I haven’t thought about it. But it’s weird. As angry as I am with what she did, part of me feels sorry for her too. I don’t think she could feel any worse—not even if I gave her a black eye.”

“If you say so.”

“I do say so,” I confirm. “I just want to try to move on from it all. To get on with my life with Max. To focus on our future.”

“I agree. And first up on that agenda? A kick-ass bachelorette party! With penis necklaces!”

“Okay,” I concede, too exhausted to argue. Besides, it seemed to make her happy—she’d been subdued lately, and planning this her way would hopefully snap her out of the funk she’d been in.

“Jules?” I try to get her attention over the beeping sounds suddenly ringing through the phone.

“Kate, you’ll never believe what I just found!”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” I say slowly.

“Electronic strip poker!” she squeals, and the beeps begin again.

“Jules,” I say as I glance at the clock on my desk slowly ticking toward the time when I have to meet with Magda. “I’ve got to go. Have fun dildo shopping!”

After hanging up, I’m faced with an endless stream of emails that have appeared in my in-box during our short call. I start to click through them when a Facebook notification pops up on my screen—one of my college classmates has changed her status to married. I hit like and then scroll down my own feed, grimacing at the endless stream of celebratory announcements, staged photos, and carefully written statuses. In the past few days, I’d started to look at Facebook differently, wondering what the real story was behind the date-night photo or the pouty-lipped selfie. When I was in Big Bear, reconnecting with Max, doing things that provided endless photo ops, something had kept me from posting about it—I didn’t even check in at the restaurant where we had dinner. Even though we were legitimately having a wonderful time, I held off. For reasons I didn’t completely understand, I hadn’t been compelled to share our private moments with other people the way I used to.

I click through my list of friends now to see if Courtney is still listed or if she’s unfriended me. But as I’d expected, her name is still there, listed among those who claim they are ready and willing to receive my news every day. I wonder which of us will be the first to admit publicly that it’s over.

• • •

I’ve always been convinced Magda has a sixth sense about what’s on my mind. Whenever I’m about to do or say something, it’s as if she already knows. Once, in a meeting, I parted my lips just
the slightest bit and she whipped her head around and pointed at me, her long magenta fingernail hanging in the air. “Don’t even think about suggesting we change the campaign slogan!” she’d warned, and I’d clamped my mouth shut, wondering how she knew exactly what I was about to say. So I’ve done my best to steer clear of her since I traveled back in time, keeping most of our conversations limited to the phone, worried that if I spend too much time in her presence she’ll look at me and ask why I didn’t use my power to wish her younger. So when I picked up the phone earlier to give her an update on how my search for a replacement for Courtney was going, I wasn’t surprised that at the very same moment, my other line had blinked red and it was her telling me not to bother calling—she wanted to see me in her office this time.

I hover in her doorway at exactly 10:30 a.m. until she finally looks up from her work and curls her finger toward herself, indicating that I should enter.

I slide down into the seat across from her and wait, doing my best to keep my mind blank.

“You can stop avoiding me now,” she says abruptly.

“Excuse me?” I say, using my most innocent-sounding voice.

“I know you haven’t found someone to fill Courtney’s shoes and—”

“I can explain.”

Magda tilts her head to the side and purses her lips and I immediately stop talking.

“There’s no need—in fact, you can stop looking.”

“You’ve found someone?”

“No,” Magda says simply, removing her blazer and smoothing the front of her black silk sleeveless blouse, her bony shoulders protruding from underneath it. “I’ve decided we
don’t need to hire someone. You’re doing a great job picking up the slack.”

I blink rapidly. There was no way I could keep up with the workload I’d been juggling. I’d been creating PowerPoint presentations rather than going to lunch and laboring after hours at home each night. I’d even had to write several emails and craft a pitch on the final day Max and I had spent in Big Bear. I knew I’d burn out if I kept this up for much longer.
Maybe I can just wish that Courtney never left in the first place?

“But—” My pulse quickens, sending shivers of panic through my body as I start to argue why there is no way I can continue this pace—especially with the wedding coming up—but Magda cuts me off.

“My God, Kate, you look like you’re about to pass out—I thought you were going to be relieved!” Magda says incredulously. “Weren’t you and Courtney always in competition? Each of you trying to show me how great you were
individually
. Didn’t you both desperately want my”—she waits for a moment, even though I can practically see the word she’s about to say dangling from the end of her tongue like bait on a fish hook—“approval?” she finally says, dragging the word out one syllable at a time.

I sit silently, my palms wet with worry.

“And now she’s gone. Don’t you see, Kate? You’ve won.”

I force myself to nod and quickly walk out, the look on Magda’s face clear—there’s nothing I can say that will change her mind.

I hurry back to my office feeling like I’ve just been punched in the gut, the to-do list in my mind so long it dizzies me. From the call I need to return to Stella to discuss a million wedding details to the three campaigns I am juggling—all with something due to the client at the end of the week—I’m overwhelmed. I
duck into the bathroom to splash some water on my face, hoping the shock of cold against my cheeks will at least stop my knees from wobbling.

“Sorry, closed for cleaning,” a woman’s voice says from behind the stall.

I grip the sink, wondering when I’m going to feel like I’m in control again. I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m riding in the passenger seat of my own life. As I stare at my sallow reflection in the mirror, a cart filled with mops is wheeled out of the stall. “Can I just splash some—” I start to say, then stop abruptly when I see Ruby’s familiar curls.

Ruby pulls a yellow Caution sign out from the cart, sets it outside the bathroom door, then flips the latch and turns to me. “You don’t look so good.”

“Thanks.” I roll my eyes at her.

“You’ve been a tough case, I must say.”

“What do you mean by that?” I stare at her hard, willing her not to give me one of her cryptic answers.

“Well, just when I think you’ve chosen your path, you take a turn in the other direction.”

“And that’s a problem for you, why?” I demand. “Because you’ve never actually said why you’ve taken an interest in me. Is that the right word, Ruby,
interest
?” I say, unable to control the anger in my voice.

Ruby ignores my question, giving me a look I can’t read.

“I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated.”

“Because you have the chance to do your life over? To correct something that went wrong? That’s frustrating?” Ruby puckers her lips.

“Well . . . yes and no. I mean, why won’t you just tell me what I’m supposed to do? Isn’t that why you keep showing up?”

Ruby shakes her head. “I’m just here to make sure you’re all right.”

“But not to offer me any actual help?”

Ruby ignores my dig. “As always, you can ask me
one
question,” she says as she dips her mop in the bucket and starts gliding it back and forth across the linoleum floor.

I think for a moment, quickly weighing the questions sitting heavy on my mind like encyclopedias on a shelf. “Well, I’m sure you know this, but Max and I are back on the right path—” I stop, waiting for her to look up from her cleaning, but she keeps mopping. “So that means we’re good, right, no more surprises? We’re definitely getting married?”

Ruby finally looks up. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

I feel a ball of fear slowly dislodge from my gut. “Thank you,” I say, and start to leave. But something propels me to turn, and when I do, she’s staring at me, mop in hand, a furrow in her brow, concern in her eyes
.

• • •

The sun has set, the lampposts illuminating the street, when I finally leave the office. I’d worked through lunch and dinner, but still hadn’t crossed as many things off my list as I’d hoped, my mind constantly wandering back to my interaction with Ruby, wondering if I’d imagined the look I’d seen or if it had been real.

I grip my steering wheel, but don’t start the ignition, unsure of where I want to go. Finally, I pull out my phone and send a message to the only person I feel like talking to right now.

My cell dings a few moments later with a response from Liam and I smile. I’d felt so disconnected from him lately. He had always been the one person besides Jules I could absolutely count on, but lately it has felt like he is slipping away. I knew it
was just because he had become so caught up in Nikki and her lifestyle, but it still made me uneasy. Everything and everyone seemed to be changing so much this time around, and I wasn’t sure it was for the better. I fumble with the phone and quickly click on his name, hoping he’ll say he has time to grab a beer with Elvis and me. But his message is curt.

Sorry, can’t. At Nikki’s.

Tears sting my eyes as I stare at her name and type several childish responses that I quickly delete, not sure why I feel so upset. Liam was just losing himself in someone in the way that people do when they are letting themselves fall. I had to get over the fear that his relationship with Nikki might mean he wouldn’t be there for me anymore. That one of the few people who had always understood me might start spending that energy understanding someone else. I tap the phone against my forehead and tell myself to grow up. Liam was one of my best friends and I needed to let him be happy, even if it meant I might have to stand on my own without him.

Starting the car, I decide I’d been wrong about the place I needed to go. Taking a deep breath, I turn the wheel in the direction of my house, suddenly desperate to be wrapped in Max’s strong arms, to let myself fall into him the same way Liam was falling into Nikki, to help him penetrate the silent wall that still stood between us.