The Status of All Things (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Going through old photo albums—OMG, who gave me that god-awful bowl cut when I was a toddler? #momIknowitwasyou #dontdenyit

As a little girl, I remember feeling like time always went slowly when I wanted it to speed up, like the first day back to school after winter break when I was still dreaming of the presents I’d opened on Christmas morning. And time seemed to fly by at lightning speed when I wanted it to decelerate, like summer vacation when I spent my days with my bare feet kicked up over the handlebars of my bike, the wind ripping through my long hair. But now, over twenty-five years later, as I stare at the date on the calendar, I wonder why the opposite is happening. My wedding is fast approaching, yet I find myself wanting the hands of the clock to move just a little slower. There is a pressing feeling in my gut, one that tells me to take my life one day at a time, to not be in such a rush, that Max will be my husband soon enough.

I pull out my cell phone and listen as it rings, wondering if my dad will answer or if I’ll get his voicemail, where Leslie hums in the background as he chants his greeting, trying to sound like he’s
rapping, but the result sounding more like he’s preaching. It’s so ridiculous that I can’t help but laugh every time I hear it. They’d moved to Northern California last year so I didn’t see them as often as I liked, but it was always good to hear his—
and her
—voice. And I realized my dad was the one person who needed to answer a question that had been sitting heavy on my chest.

“Daughter!” my dad says cheerily.

“Father!” I answer, smiling at the memory of trading this greeting for years.

“So you’re almost a married woman—how are you spending your
final
days before you become an old ball and chain?” My dad releases a hefty laugh and I imagine him sitting in his leather recliner, his feet perched on the matching ottoman, CSPAN on mute on the TV.

“Dad?” I start, ignoring his question, my voice suddenly sounding like it did when I was a little girl. “Can we talk about Mom?”

He exhales deeply, and for several moments there is only silence between us. Finally, he answers. “I know she’s upset about Leslie wanting to be in the family picture at the wedding—”

“I don’t want to talk about that. That’s not what I mean.”

“Oh? Then what is it?” My dad’s voice lightens.

I think back to what my mom had said to me—that my dad had been her everything, and I wonder, if that was the case, why hadn’t that been enough for them to make it? “What happened between you and Mom? Why didn’t you stay?”

“Whoa, I’m going to need something stronger than this coffee I’m drinking to have this conversation.” My dad laughs again, but this time it’s stilted. “Hey, Les, can you bring me a beer?”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand—” I start to let him off the hook, deciding as I curl my knees under me, the
photo albums from my childhood strewn across my dining room table, the little girl with the strawberry-blond pigtails staring up at me, that maybe I don’t need to dredge up the past after all. Maybe figuring out where my parents went wrong won’t unlock the answers inside like I hoped they would. As I listen to my dad and stepmom’s muffled voices, I wonder if it’s better to preserve the memories I have, not taint them. My dad had left, that was true. But he hadn’t left me.

“Sorry about that. I’m in my office now. Don’t want Leslie to overhear this.”

“Dad, on second thought, we don’t have to talk about this. It’s probably none of my business—” I flip through one of the albums, fixating on a school picture of me in the first grade, my front tooth missing, the freckles on my nose pronounced from the summer sun.

“Actually I think we should discuss it. I know your mom has always had ideas in her head about why I left.” I hear him take a drink of his beer. “I know she’s always felt I left her for Leslie—that I was having an affair with her.”

The word
affair
hangs between us, like a chime dangling in the air, silent until a gust of wind blows it and causes it to release a musical sound. I chew my lower lip, removing a photo of my mom and dad from behind the plastic in the album, one taken on their wedding day, the picture sticking slightly to the backing as I pull it out. My mom’s dress is ivory, with an antique lace overlay, her hair swept up in a bun with loose curls falling around her face. She has her arms wrapped around my dad’s neck, kicking her leg up behind her. My dad’s tie is loose and he is leaning his head toward her, his eyes closed.

“Kate? You still there?” my dad asks, his usually sturdy voice sounding weak.

“Yes,” I answer as I turn the picture over in my hand. My mom had written:
The end of a perfect day but the beginning of a perfect life.

I think of Jules. I thought she’d been in a perfect marriage too. And I was engaged to be married to a guy I had always thought was perfect for me. How do we know the difference between what’s real and what we tell ourselves is real? Did perfection even exist? Or maybe it was just a very dangerous notion, one that we can only see in others’ lives, but never in our own.

“Kate . . . I didn’t have an affair.”

“Then what happened?”

“Sweetheart, there is no
one
answer to that question,” my dad says, and I hear ice cubes hitting a glass. I imagine him now mixing a drink in the bar in his office. “We just grew apart.”

“Then why doesn’t Mom see it that way? Why is she still so . . .” I pause, choosing my next word carefully. “. . . stuck?” I finally say.

“I’m probably to blame for that.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t give her a whole lot of warning, Kate. I said
we
grew apart, but maybe what I should’ve said is
I
changed.” He takes a breath. “By the time I came to her and talked to her about how I was feeling, it was already too late—something inside of me had shifted. I wasn’t the twenty-four-year-old man she married anymore and I needed to figure out who I was, and I didn’t feel like I could do that with her. That’s the thing people don’t realize about the forever part of marriage—you’re going to change, and if the other person doesn’t adapt, things can go sideways pretty quickly.”

“So then why did you get married again right away?” I ask,
knowing that’s the sticking point, the thing my mom can’t accept. That my dad pulled away in that U-Haul intending to go find himself, but instead he found the woman of his dreams.

“I know your mom has always thought I had an affair because of the timing, but like I told her back then, I didn’t know Leslie before I moved out. I met her after. Believe me, another relationship was the
last
thing I was looking for—but it just happened. Life is short, and when you meet someone who makes you as happy as Leslie makes me, well, let’s just say everything else seems to fade away,” he says.

Was my love for Max so strong that the rest of the world stopped when we were together? Yes, I had come back in time for him. But maybe it wasn’t because nothing else mattered to me but my love for him—maybe I just couldn’t bear being left alone.

“If you could do it all over again, would you still have married Mom?” I ask.

“Of course—because we had you. But, Kate, even if I had the opportunity, I wouldn’t want to rewrite the history of my life.”

“Not even if you were given the chance to go back in time and change anything? You wouldn’t?”

“Nope. Sometimes your mistakes turn out to be your biggest blessings—so you can’t live your life second-guessing every choice you make.”

“Why not?”

“Because then you’re really not living it at all.”

I consider my dad’s words as I place the wedding photo back in the album.

“Kate? What is this all about? I know it was hard on you when I left. But I really thought it was the right thing to do. I didn’t want you to grow up in an unhappy household. I hope you know
that.” I can hear the panic in my dad’s voice. That maybe I don’t. That maybe I’ve been bottling up a secret anger toward him for leaving my mom.

“Yes, I’m okay, Dad,” I say, and can picture his jaw softening as he hears my words. “I mean, of course I was sad—no kid wants her parents to get divorced. But you were always there for me,” I say, thinking about how my dad never missed a soccer game or a spelling bee, never tried to shove Leslie on me, instead letting me come to accept her on my own terms, which I did eventually. “Plus, you know I love Leslie,” I say, feeling a pinch of betrayal of my mom for saying it out loud.

• • •

The conversation with my dad sits with me long after we’ve hung up. As I’m getting ready for Nikki Day’s party, I’m still replaying my dad’s words—that he wouldn’t rewrite his history, even if given the chance. Was he just saying that to spare my feelings, because if he hadn’t married my mom, I wouldn’t have been born? Would Jules have to give the same response about her marriage to Ben because of her children? Or was my dad right—does life work out just as it should, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time? And if that was the case, why couldn’t my mom accept that? Even though she had already been on three dates with Bill, she was still bringing my dad’s name up in every conversation, the thought of seeing him and Leslie at the wedding consuming her. I had hoped that dating another man would ignite a spark in her, one that would let her leave the past behind once and for all—but for whatever reason, she still seemed to be clinging to it.

“What should I wear to this thing?” Max says, startling me as he enters our walk-in closet.

“Shit, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you!” He grabs for a pale blue button-down. “You okay?”

“I was just thinking about a conversation I had with my dad today. I was asking about why he left my mom.”

“That’s a heavy topic for a Saturday.” He searches my eyes. “Why were you asking? Is your mom giving you shit about Leslie again?”

“Yes, always.” I release a hollow laugh, pulling a blue wrap dress down from the hanger and holding it up against my body. “Can I ask you something?” I meet Max’s eyes in the full-length mirror on the wall and he nods.

“Yes, definitely wear that. It brings out the blue in your eyes.” He smiles.

“Thank you. But that’s not my question.” I pause, looking around, thinking how much my life has changed since I was in this closet when this all began—when I was giddy over a pair of sandals that had magically appeared.

“Oh?” He runs his hand through his hair, sticking up slightly in the back from the baseball cap he’d been wearing earlier.

“Do you think life works out just as it should? That you can’t mess with destiny?”

Max’s lips curl upward and I think I see his chest contract slightly, as if he’s just released the breath he was holding. Had he been worried I was going to ask him something else? “Have you been reading
The Power of Now
or something?” He laughs.

“No!” I swat him with my dress. “I’m being serious, Max. What’s your opinion?”

“Well, if I
must
weigh in on this . . . I would say that we control our lives, not the other way around. I don’t believe there’s some predestined plan for me.”

“Good answer,” I say, kissing him deeply.

“Oh, yes. Definitely wear that,” he says, running a finger down my arm as I grip the dress. “And if you do, I can’t be held responsible for what I might do to you later.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yep,” he says, kissing me again.

“Why wait until later?” I start to pull his T-shirt over his head.

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” he says, pulling me down to the closet floor. I let myself get lost in his kisses, in his touch, detaching myself from the conflicting thoughts about fate and destiny that are wrestling inside of me, and decide the only moment that matters is the one I’m living in right now.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Once, Magda had given me some valuable advice. It was right before my first client pitch, a proposal I had been working on for weeks, barely sleeping or eating, my hair falling out at the slightest touch from the stress. As we sat in the reception area of the cosmetic company we were courting, the fire-engine-red walls making my temples pound, Magda had uncharacteristically put a hand on my trembling knee and smiled. “Kate, you’ve put together a fantastic presentation. I wouldn’t let you pitch this if I didn’t think you were ready.”

I had nearly jumped at her touch. “But what if I’m not . . .” I’d paused before finishing my thought, not sure how vulnerable I wanted to appear.

“Not what?” Magda squinted her eyes.

“Ready?” I’d finally said.

“I’m going to tell you a little secret,” she said as she leaned in. “No one’s ever
really
ready for anything. You just fake it till it feels right—and eventually it will.”

I had nodded silently, trying to reconcile this kinder, gentler Magda with the one who had fired questions at me like bullets the entire way there.

“Okay? So pull it together. I don’t want to have to fire you,” she said, and laughed quietly to herself, leaving me to wonder whether or not she was joking. I never did find out—I had held my shaking hands steady as I’d impressed the executives, signing them as my first client. I have given countless pitches since, but I have never forgotten that moment—or the tip that had gone along with it. Advice that would come in handy tonight.

As we all sit silently in the valet line that wraps around the block for Nikki’s party, Max’s Jeep Cherokee trapped between Escalades and SUV limos, I wish I could read everyone’s mind. Max stares straight ahead with a blank expression. Ben and Jules sit in the backseat, their hands brushing lightly, almost as if by accident.

“Liam’s already in there,” I say, my voice almost echoing in the quiet car as I glance back at Jules, who looks up from her phone, her emerald eyes slightly vacant despite how stunning she looks in her cap-sleeved charcoal-gray sequined dress, her legs crossed tightly to combat its short length.

Max had whistled as she walked out her front door, shooting me a guilty look immediately afterward. “It’s okay,” I had said, laughing. “She looks smokin’ hot.” And when Ben had materialized through the same doorway a few beats later—the entrance to the two-story house they’d owned for nearly a decade, the home they’d been so proud to be able to purchase, me helping them move in and paint because they’d used all of their savings for the down payment—there was something that felt disconnected between them, like an unplugged power cord straining for the outlet. I watched Max as they slid into the backseat, curious if he had noticed. He hadn’t seemed to, launching into a debate with Ben over whether Los Angeles would ever get another professional football team, both of them laughing as if they
didn’t have a care in the world, and I decided I was just being sensitive because I knew that Jules’ fidelity to Ben was hanging on by a tiny thread.

I quickly reapply my lipstick as we inch toward the valet stand, while all of us attempt to guess which celebrity is going to emerge next from the sanctuary of their limousine. Jules and I let out a squeal when we spot her favorite celebrity couple stepping out of the car ahead of us, him grabbing for her hand as they expertly maneuver the microphones and cameras assaulting them as they meander down the red carpet.

“They’re going to be pretty damn disappointed to see us.” Max chuckles as he puts the car into park, the valet, a young model type with a shaggy haircut, opening our doors with a flourish. We hurry self-consciously down the carpet, the flashing of the cameras stopping briefly as we shuffle past, me looping my arm through Jules’ and pulling her back slightly from Max and Ben.

“You doing okay?” I ask, glancing over my shoulder at Ben and Max.

“Yes!” she snaps. “Don’t be like that, Kate.”

“Like what?”

“Reading into every single thing, each look or moment of silence. It’s not that simple,” she whispers. “Please don’t make me regret confiding in you.”

“Sorry,” I say, slightly hurt by her tone.

As if reading my mind, she squeezes my arm. “I know you’re just trying to be a good friend. But, I promise, it’s all going to be okay. I’ll figure it all out.”

“With you and Ben?”

“With everything. Stop worrying so much.” She touches the thin skin under my eyes. “It’s going to give you wrinkles!” She
laughs and I join her, deciding she’s probably right. Here I am, at this incredible party, surrounded by the rich and famous, with Max and all of my closest friends—I need to take a deep breath and enjoy it.

• • •

“Have you tried the ceviche?” Jules calls over her shoulder later as she walks in the direction of the bar to get us our third round of champagne, tripping slightly as she looks past me to a good-looking man—one I think I recognize from an action flick Max and I saw a while back. The movie star catches her elbow as she starts to fall and soaks in the broad smile Jules gives him as a thank-you. They have a brief discussion before walking slowly to the bar together, continuing their conversation as they stand in line, Jules’ leg propped out, her hand sitting on her hip flirtatiously. I take a bite of my crab cake and glance over at Ben, who’s talking to Max while keeping a close eye on his wife. He catches me staring at him. “She’s just drunk,” he says confidently, but I hear some defensiveness hiding behind his words. “I’m just making sure she makes it back without falling over again,” he adds quickly, as if he needs a reason to be watching her.

“Totally! She’s just blowing off steam,” I add a little too eagerly and wonder why we’re trying so hard to convince each other that what we’re witnessing is harmless. But then I remember Jules’ warning—to stop reading into every little thing. If I’d bumped into a hot actor who had headlined the last blockbuster I’d seen, I’d probably be flirting too.

Ben finally peels his eyes away. “You know how it is—a night away from the kids, and you go crazy.” He laughs. “She deserves to let loose. I’ve been traveling a ton lately. We’ve barely seen each other.”

“You should whisk her off on a weekend away after the wedding,” I say, fighting the urge to shake him, to tell Ben that he is on the verge of losing the woman he’s loved for more than a decade, that she is slipping through his grasp like hot sand on a summer day.

“Maybe. It’s so hard to find a sitter,” he says, and takes another sip of his Jack and Coke.

“We’ll watch them,” I say firmly as Max whips his head up and starts to say something. I give him a look that immediately silences him.

“We’ll see,” he says noncommittally as Jules walks carefully in our direction, clasping two flutes so full of champagne that the liquid is spilling over the tops.

“Did you see who I was talking to?” she says, her cheeks flushed as she sips the bubbles off the top of her glass and hands the other to me. “That was the guy who was in
First Night
! You know, he was the one who got the girl in the end?”

“He sure did,” Ben says under his breath and drains his glass. Max throws me a
What the fuck is going on with them
look and I shrug my shoulders in response, Jules either not hearing him or not caring as she sways to the beat of the band that begins to play.

“Let’s go find Liam,” I suggest as I glance behind me, surprised I haven’t seen him yet—we had spied Nikki earlier giving an interview, but Liam was nowhere to be found.

“Looking for me?” I hear Liam’s deep voice and spin around, his normally rumpled hair expertly slicked back, giving his usually slack features a hard edge that I can’t decide if I like.

Liam greets Max and Ben with a firm handshake before pulling Jules and me in for a hug. “You girls look stunning.”

“Thanks,” I say, resisting the impulse to reach up and touch
his hair, convinced it will feel like a Ken doll’s head. “Where’s Nikki?”

“Around,” he replies vaguely, and my mind immediately wanders to the picture of her and the guy in the
Enquirer
, wondering if he’d also be making an appearance here tonight. Hoping, for Liam’s sake, that he won’t. “You know how these thing are,” he adds, all of us bobbing our heads in agreement, even though we have no clue about
these things
.

Liam grabs a drink from a passing waiter and settles in, telling us funny stories about walking the red carpet with Nikki, confiding that it felt weird to stand by her side and hold her sequined clutch while she regaled each reporter with sound bites she’d rehearsed in the limo on the way here.

“Must have felt amazing being someone’s purse handler,” I say sarcastically.

“It beats sitting at home obsessively binge watching some TV show on Netflix, which you could’ve been doing tonight,” he says pointedly, and I stick out my tongue.

Several glasses of Moët & Chandon and turns on the dance floor later, we’re all having a great time. Max and I jump up and down to the beat and Liam joins us in the brief windows when he isn’t being pulled away by Nikki’s “people” for a photo op. Ben is even swinging Jules, instantly taking me back to their wedding day when they’d surprised the guests with a synchronized dance.

When the band begins to play a song I don’t recognize, I pull Max toward the dessert table, which is overflowing with gorgeous delicacies I had been looking forward to tasting all night. But his hand goes slack as we reach the edge of the dance floor and I twist my head to see why, my stomach doing a somersault when I see what he does—Courtney dancing closely with a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair. He raises his hands in the air and
she slides herself toward his toned body as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. Gone is the girl who had cried in my car, her red-rimmed eyes now sparkling, her hair sleek, her body tucked into a mini that leaves little to the imagination. I put my hands on my own dress, suddenly feeling like an old maid—Courtney’s beauty had a way of making your own luster dim.

“Max?” I say softly, the noise from the band swallowing my words. I shake his shoulder slightly and say his name again before he finally turns his head, the anguish in his eyes hitting me like a sucker punch to the stomach, the alcohol he’d consumed earlier ripping away the veneer that I realize now must mask his true feelings.

“Courtney,” is all he says.

“I know, I see her too,” I say, and grab for his hand. “Come with me,” I plead, not wanting to sound desperate, even though I am. Desperate to pretend that I don’t see Max’s love for Courtney written all over his face; desperate to still believe I can outrun our fate. I think about Jules’ messed-up life and Liam being turned into a Hollywood cliché. It’s as if by coming back here, I have taken a sledgehammer to everyone else’s story in order to write my own happy ending.

Max gives Courtney one last look before turning back to me and grabbing my hand. “I’m sorry, Kate,” he says, and I’m not sure what for and I don’t want to ask.

“It’s okay,” is all I say because I don’t trust myself to say anything else. “I’ll be right back,” I say, pointing in the direction of the restroom, just wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and what’s happened in the last five minutes.

Walking in a haze through the crowd, I almost collide with a server wearing a crisp white shirt and black pants. “Excuse me,” I say automatically without looking up.

“You better watch where you’re going,” a familiar voice says, and I do a double take when I find Ruby holding an empty tray, smirking at me.

“Why am I even surprised?” I say, more to myself than to her. “Of course you would show up now. Is this your
I told you so
moment?”

Ruby’s smirk evaporates. “Is that what you think? That I’m here to teach you some sort of lesson?” she says as a drunken starlet walks by and hands her an empty glass with a cigarette butt in it. Ruby tosses the glass into the trash before grabbing my arm and pulling me away from the crowd. “Whether you believe it or not, I’m here to help,
not hurt,
you.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” I say, my anger at Max spilling out of me onto Ruby. “I did everything,
everything
right this time. And he still loves her. She still wins,” I say, my voice cracking.

“Maybe that’s the problem, Kate. You keep treating this as if it’s a game.”

“Isn’t it, though? Aren’t we all trying to triumph at life?” I think about Callie from college, who just this morning had posted a picture of a letter her eight-year-old had written telling her what a wonderful mommy she was. He even had incredible handwriting that seemed unlikely for a child who had only just graduated kindergarten. But the fact remained the same—if life was a game, Callie was in the lead by a mile. And even given a second chance, I had still lost.

Ruby presses her lips together and looks me over with wonder as if I’m a rare animal at the zoo. “After everything you’ve been through, that’s what comes to mind?” She steps into an alcove as a real catering waiter walks by briskly. “And to think I believed you were
finally
getting it.” She untucks her shirt. “I’m done here,” she says, her eyes glistening as she turns to leave.