“Cool.”
“Yeah, that kind of became my thing out in LA, when I was doing publicity for finance companies. But I’m branching out on my own and looking at office space and meeting with potential new hires. It’s just so overwhelming, and I still need to write up a business plan and all that stuff, and I mean…you have the best head for business of anyone I know, so…” She rests her hand on top of my forearm. “Can I borrow your brain?”
I reach for a napkin that I don’t need so I can move my arm away. “I appreciate the compliment, but to be honest, I think it would be better if I ask Chase if you can call him for advice. He’s the one who’s actually founded two startups. I’m just the money guy.
“Oh.” She looks down. “Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks.”
“Also, I have a girlfriend now, so it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to be in touch with you. It’s still new. Kind of.”
“Oh. Good. Who is it?” She says it like she wants to know which socialite I’m dating this time.
“Roxy.”
She snorts laughs and then checks my expression to see if I’m being serious. “Roxy Roxy? Like, Foxy Roxy?”
“I’m well aware of the incongruities, but yes. The Foxy Roxy.”
“Wow. I guess that’s not so surprising, really.”
“It’s not?”
“Well…” She twists her lips to the side, sheepishly. “I was always a little jealous of her, if you must know.”
“You were? I had no idea.”
“Yeah. Well. I’m a good little East Coast WASP.” She nods her head once, as if she’s made a decision. “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks. Me too. Are you? Seeing anyone?”
“No. I mean, there was someone in LA, but it didn’t make sense once I’d decided to move back here.”
“Right. Why would it?” I say, surprised by how bitter that sounded.
She stares down at her untouched cup of coffee and straightens herself up. “Well, I guess we both have other places to get to…”
“Can I ask you one thing?”
She continues to stare at the coffee cup. “Why didn’t I want you to move to LA with me?”
She always did know what was on my mind, even if she didn’t always tell me what I needed to hear.
“Yeah. I mean, I’m glad I didn’t, obviously. But I wondered for a long time.”
She leans back in her chair and looks down at her hands, which are in her lap. “I did love you, Keaton. You were good to me. But I never felt like I was the most important person to you.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “I was willing to drop everything and move across the country to be with you.”
“I know, I know. But I saw how you were with your friends. You were always so much happier and funnier with them. You’d do anything for them. I know you offered to come to LA with me, but I don’t think you truly wanted to.” She pauses for me to respond.
I don’t, because she’s right. I wanted to be with her, I wanted her to want to be with me, but of course I didn’t want to leave my friends and my job and move to LA.
She finally looks up at me, her voice quivering just a little. “It makes sense that you’d end up with Roxy. I mean, it doesn’t make sense at all, but you know what I mean.”
I smile at that. “Yeah. I do.”
When she gets up to leave, I hug her and say good-bye in the way that I wasn’t able to before. Not good-bye for now until you realize what a huge mistake you’re making. Not good-bye, fuck you, you never deserved me anyway, good luck over there on the Worst Coast of America. A real good-bye, I don’t expect to see you again, but thank you.
As soon as she’s out the door, I signal to the waitress for the check and then I check my phone for a reply from Roxy, but there isn’t one. Which is weird because she’s a compulsive responder. Whether we’re talking or texting or just raising our eyebrows at each other, she’s the comeback queen. Even when she’s in a meeting, she usually replies within ten minutes—she works at an online retail company, not a hospital.
I write another message, and for the first time since before we left for Antigua, I’m not smiling like an idiot.
ME: We still on for dinner tonight?
The animated dots come up almost immediately, which means she probably saw my earlier text and didn’t respond.
UTE: I’m so sorry, Keaton. I won’t be able to make it tonight. Something just came up, and I have to deal with it.
Okay, that’s troubling. She never calls me by my first name in texts, and since when does she say things like “I’m so sorry.” Maybe someone stole her phone.
ME: If this is really you, tell me where I have a birthmark or send me a boob pic.
ME: Never mind. Just send a new boob pic. Of your boobs.
UTE: It’s me, dummy. Sometimes I write weird things like sorry. Or Keaton.
ME: So that’s a no re. the boob pic?
UTE: It’s a not now. Please refer to your ever-growing library of them for the moment.
ME: You better send me at least one a day for the next three days, then. I expect a minimum of six boobs to add to my library.
I get no response to that.
ME: Are you saying you can’t make it to dinner or that you aren’t spending the night either?
UTE: Can’t do either. Sorry. I’ll miss you. Have a good trip. See you when you get back. Please tell me you aren’t one of those giant pussies who wants me to pick you up at the airport.
ME: Please tell me you aren’t one of those giant pussies who wants to pick me up at the airport.
UTE: I would sooner pick up trash along the freeway.
ME: We’re so perfect for each other.
UTE: You’re going to Finn’s party on Saturday, right?
ME: I will rock that house party. Thanks for reminding me to order birthday presents.
UTE: Don’t worry. The good godparent has it covered.
ME: Dream on. I’ll miss you.
Fucking hell, I want to tell her I love her, but she’d dropkick me if I do it in a text for the first time. There’s no sign of another text from her, and I guess she already told me she’ll miss me, so I put my phone away, pay the bill, and head back to my office. The smile’s still on my face when my meeting starts, but some strange, unsettling feeling lingers. I’m certain that it’s just from seeing a significant ex and knowing that I want Tamara to be the last ex-girlfriend I ever have.
24
Roxy
Did you do it yet? Aimee mouths to me as soon as I open the door. I nod at her and then look down at Finn, who’s standing right in front of her, clutching his iPad case and standing remarkably still as he waits for me to invite him into my apartment.
“Hey, buddy!” I say, bending down and holding my hand out for him to slap it.
“Hey,” he mumbles. He tucks the iPad case under one arm and slaps me five and then very half-heartedly participates in the super special handshake we made up a few months ago. The handshake involves fist bumping, butt shaking, and turning around while flapping our arms like a chicken, and then it ends with us making a fart noise with our tongues. It feels a lot less awesome when he isn’t into it.
“Well, thanks for coming over, you guys. Come on in.” I watch Finn let his little backpack fall from his slouched shoulders and then to the floor as he trudges over to my sofa.
“Hey. Pick that up, mister!” Aimee says.
“Ugh. Where am I supposed to put it?” he moans.
“I’ll just put it by the door here,” I say, picking it up for him. “What crawled up his bum?” I ask his mother.
“He just found out that his best friend has to visit his grandparents out of town this weekend, so he’ll miss the party.”
“Awww, that’s a bummer, Finn! But hey—I’ll be there!”
“Thanks,” he says, all mopey. “Can I watch Netflix?” he asks both of us.
“Absolutely,” I say. “Your mom and I are just gonna go in the kitchen to get us snacks. O
h—but don’t go into the bathroom for a while, okay?”
“Why? Does it smell?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
Aimee drops all of her bags near the door and follows me to the kitchen. There’s no door, so we talk quietly—not that Finn has any interest in anything other than Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and his own misery.
I flick my hands, in an attempt to release the anxiety I’ve been trying to harness in front of my godson, because it is vitally important that he thinks of me as cool at all times. But my heart is racing, my armpits are damp, and I have felt on the verge of tears all day.
“Keaton should be here with you,” Aimee says, rubbing my back. “Or you should at least be talking to him. You’re really not going to call him?”
“I need to know what to say to him first, and he’s going out of town for a few days. I don’t want him thinking about this while he’s dealing with this new investment thing.”
“Okay. Are you okay?”
“Do I look okay?”
“No.” She opens the fridge to pull out the organic string cheese packets that I keep stocked in case of a Finn visit. “You look like a spaz. I’m glad you called me.”
“I don’t know why I’m so nervous. It’s so dumb. I’ve done this before. Like, twice, and it’s always a false alarm.”
She nudges the fridge door closed and gives me a look. “Do you really not know why you’re nervous?”
I cover my face. “I literally didn’t know it was possible for me to get nervous until this morning… Hey, how old is Tamara now? Late twenties?”
“His ex? Why are you even thinking about that right now?”
“Just tell me so I can stop wondering.”
“I mean…I guess she’d be twenty-eight.”
I swallow hard. “Right.”
“And that is irrelevant.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Nope! Fuck, I miss being twenty-eight. Being almost thirty-five sucks all the donkey balls.”
She puts the cheese down on the counter and crosses her arms in front of her chest. I am entirely sure that she is loving this—being the calm, rational one in our relationship, after all my years of unsolicited advice-giving wiseassery whenever she found herself in a dating situation that just made me laugh.
God, I miss those days.
Or do I?
Is part of me loving this angsty little minidrama that’s playing out in my brain too? Because it has been so long since I felt anything even remotely like this, anything even remotely this much. Because of Keaton fucking Bridges.
“Roxy. What are you hoping the result will be?”
I take a deep, shaky breath before answering, because I haven’t really even allowed myself to form this thought in my head until now. “A plus sign. I wasn’t planning for it and it’s way too soon, but for the first time ever, I wouldn’t mind if it’s a plus sign.” And that’s when I finally let myself cry. For the first time since Finn was born, I cry like a big baby.
Aimee has wrapped me in her arms, and I just hang there like I ragdoll.
When I got to work this morning and looked at my calendar, I’d realized that it was time to start a new pack of birth control pills, and that was also when I’d realized that I never got a period. I’d been so caught up in being with Keaton that I lost track of pretty much anything that wasn’t scheduled into my calendar or right in front of me. It doesn’t even make sense that I’d get pregnant because I never missed a pill, but with the traveling and everything…I haven’t been taking it every twenty-four hours for the past few weeks. You never know. Knowing Keaton, he probably has exceptionally persistent and charming sperm. They’d be all: “All right, egg, here’s how it’s going down. I’m going to penetrate you, and you’re going to love it, and I’m just gonna wait here until it happens. And it. Will. Happen.”
“I want you to get what you want, Rox, but I’m just going to say that even if you don’t get a plus sign this time, that doesn’t mean you won’t another time.”
“I know, I know. But he wants a bunch of kids, and how the hell is he going to do that if he’s with me? I would have to have a baby every year. I’d have to quit my job.”
“Well, now you’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
“I just want to give him what he wants,” I sob into her neck. “What if I can’t?”
“You haven’t asked him if not having a bunch of kids is a deal breaker for him, though, have you?”
I snort. “If I ever have that kind of conversation with anyone, please shoot me.”
“Roxanne. You are in a serious adult relationship with Keaton. That’s the kind of conversation that serious adults who are in relationships have when they’re almost thirty-five.”
“Ugh.” I pull away from her, wipe my eyes, and slouch my shoulders while moaning just like Finn did. “But we haven’t had enough fun yet.”
She hands me a paper towel. “Oh really? That’s not what it sounded like on Valentine’s Day when you were screaming so loud you woke up the whole island.”
I laugh so hard while blowing my nose, I think some of my mushy brain came shooting out. “You heard that?”
“I’m pretty sure everyone in the Caribbean heard it.”
Thinking of that shower at the resort reminds me of what’s waiting for me on my bathroom counter. “Shit. It’s been way longer than five minutes since I peed on it. I’ll have to do it again.”
“Do you have another one?”
“I bought five boxes.”
“Atta girl. Want me to come with you?”
I shake my head. “But don’t leave until I come out, okay?”
“Please. I’ll be right here until you kick us out. And remember—it’ll be fine either way.”
My hand is trembling as I reach for the doorknob to my bathroom. I don’t know why I’ve gotten so worked up and convinced myself that the future of my relationship with Keaton depends on what a plastic stick tells me today. I just know that I want Keaton, and I want Keaton to have what he wants, and I want him to want me, but I don’t know if I can give him everything that he wants and deserves, and that feels terrible.
I inhale, slow and deep, remembering the Zoltar Speaks card that Chase gave me. Winds of change. Soon everything will come down to a better order. It’ll be fine. Plus or minus. Now or later. Me and Keaton. I open the door and look right at the plastic stick on the counter.
It’ll be fine.
25
Keaton
Text messaging is an interesting way to connect with a person. I can remember a time in my life—about four days ago—when I would always smile while writing and reading text messages to and from one Miss Roxanne Carter. I’d send her a message. She’d respond by writing a message back to me. Sometimes, if I was lucky, she’d respond by sending a picture instead of a string of snappy words. It was fun. It was even a little bit thrilling. It was one of the many different ways we connected with each other. It wasn’t my favorite, but it was in the top ten for sure.
Now all of a sudden, it’s the only way she’ll communicate with me.
I call her, it goes to voice mail. I FaceTime her, she doesn’t accept the call. She always responds with a text saying she’s so sorry she missed my call. What was I calling about?
Well, I was hoping I could actually speak to her on the phone to tell her what I was calling about, because I was calling about wanting to talk to her and hear her voice. Being able to see her at the same time would be an added bonus and something that is technologically possible in these exciting times that we now live in—so why not? Especially when we’re in different cities. Especially because we’re dating. Especially because we both supposedly miss each other.
Roxy fucking Carter has found a whole new way to drive me crazy, and she’s doing it in the last way I ever would have imagined possible—by not talking back to me.
How did we go from spending every night together and staying in touch all day long to only
texting back and forth a few times a day—for more than three days?
I called Chase to ask if he’d seen or talked to her. “No, but Aimee and Finn were at her place a few days ago before dinner.”
“So she’s okay?”
“Sure. I mean, Aimee didn’t say anything, so I think we can assume she’s okay.”
I told him she wasn’t calling me back, just texting. He said she’s “probably just being Roxy.” Which made a lot of sense when he said it, but I don’t even know what that means anymore. Which Roxy is she being? Did she revert back to the post-wedding Foxy Roxy who can’t deal with how awesome we were together? Or is this how Roxy is when she suddenly decides she doesn’t want to date the awesome guy she’s awesome with? There are a million reasons for not calling a person back, and none of them are good.
I kept looking around when I was at the airport, thinking that maybe this was all leading up to a big surprise—that she’d be there at Arrivals waiting for me, in heels and a chauffeur’s cap, a Mr. Bridges sign, and in a trench coat with nothing on underneath. She wasn’t. I feel bad about looking so disappointed when I only saw Manny there to greet me that I’ll probably have to give him another raise.
When I picked up Jackpot at the dog hotel, he was so excited to see me. But when we got to the car and there was no Roxy in the back seat, he looked back at me, sighed, and frowned. You blew it with her, didn’t you? he was thinking.
Did I? Did she see me with Tamara? Is that what this is? Is she the kind of woman who would show up to surprise me at work and then not tell me that she saw me with my ex-girlfriend and then be passive-aggressive about it? I don’t think so, but I’ve been wrong about women once or fifty times before.
I’ve re-read her messages over and over, and they aren’t passive-aggressive or curt or incendiary. They’re just brief and to the point. We’ll talk at Finn’s party is what she keeps telling me. She just doesn’t want to talk to me until then for some reason. Even now that I’m back at home.
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