The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel

by Dawson, Maddie

  “From now on, we’ll have to muddle through somehow,” he sings, extra loud, with feeling.

  “What kind of a Christmas carol talks about muddling through somehow?” she says. “What about decking the halls and all the joy we’re supposed to feel?”

  “Nah, this is about the real Christmas,” he says. “We have to muddle through to make the joy ourselves. That’s why we got the biggest possible tree.” He looks at her. “How is it you don’t know this?”

  Her phone rings, and she reaches over and turns down the radio and takes the call. It’s Greta, all harried, saying she can’t make the Lamaze class tonight—a teacher conference has been changed and changed again, and now this is the very last time she can schedule it.

  “Joe says he’s going to go with you,” says Greta.

  “Joe?” says Rosie, and Tony mouths to her, “I’ll go.” She tells Greta Tony’s going.

  “Tony?” Greta says his name as though Rosie has just said that she’ll pick up a hitchhiker to take along to Lamaze.

  She laughs. “Yes, he has a child, remember?”

  “Oh, yes. I remember. Well,” says Greta, “I suppose it makes sense. Give my regards to Starla, will you? Do you think I should call her and let her know that I can’t come?”

  “I think Starla can probably cope with running the class without you, just this once,” she says, perhaps a little more sarcastically than she means to, and when she hangs up, she says to Tony, “God! That woman is driving me absolutely crazy! She and Joe are worried about …”

  “Me and you?” he says.

  “Well,” she says. “Actually, yes.”

  By now they’ve arrived at the house. He cuts the engine and turns to look at her. “Okay, I’ve been dreading saying this to you all day long, but I gotta say it before we go and do more stuff together.”

  “What?” she says.

  He drums his hands on the steering wheel. “I got my own place, and I’m moving out this weekend.”

  “What?” she says. “But I need you!” She can feel her breath high in her chest, fluttering like a bunch of insects have taken over.

  “No, you don’t. Jonathan’s coming for Christmas, and he doesn’t want me around, I’m sure. Also I can’t—I really can’t keep doing this. For me and you.”

  “You just talked me into a gigantic tree,” she says. “And what about helping me with Lamaze? Jonathan doesn’t know anything about Lamaze.”

  “I’ll still do Lamaze with you when Greta can’t. And I’ll help you with the practices, because you gotta practice. It doesn’t come completely natural, even though they call it natural childbirth.”

  “No, okay, fine,” she says, and looks away because tears are dangerously close to the surface.

  “Aww, don’t be that way,” he says. “This is just the hard part, now.”

  She wipes at her eyes. “What about Soapie? What’s going to happen? How are George and I going to pick her up off the floor?”

  “She doesn’t fall anymore since she got the walker,” he says. “She doesn’t need me, and you and Jonathan certainly don’t need me around.” He touches her arm. “This is for the best, believe me.”

  She would like to point out that Jonathan isn’t coming for another ten days, but she can’t bring herself to beg him to stay. Heartsick and numb, she goes in the house and heads upstairs. She can hear him bringing in the tree and setting it in the stand she set out. He’s talking to Soapie and George, and maybe he’s even got them helping him put the icicles and the ornaments on. The stereo is playing Christmas carols, but she doesn’t come back down until it’s time to leave for Lamaze, not even when she can tell he’s at the bottom of the stairs, bellowing out “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with all his might.

  [twenty-five]

  Greta had said once that Christmas is like a giant art project competition that everyone is working on, and that the whole reason it gets stressful is that everybody is imagining that the projects happening at other people’s houses are even more elaborate, more perfect, and far more harmonious than those at one’s own house.

  And, looking at it that way, Rosie knows she had been doomed from the start. She doesn’t know how to put on a Christmas any more than she knew how to put on a Thanksgiving. She and Jonathan were only good for low-key holidays—a tabletop tree and an optional wreath, maybe one string of white lights strung along the window panes—and now Tony has dragged this giant monstrosity into their lives and decorated it with gaudy colored lights, strung pieces-of-aluminum-foil icicles across its branches, recorded a bunch of Christmas music CDs, and then moved away.

  Rosie thinks she never knew such an angry, unreliable person. What kind of man saddles you with a huge tree when you’d told him you wanted a tiny one, and then leaves?

  She also feels like she may have a limb missing.

  “I know why he had to go,” says George, “but I wish he’d waited until after Christmas. This is feeling just the slightest bit gloomy.”

  Tony, in fact, has gotten a job bringing Christmas to others. He told Rosie he’s taken a job in a nursery, helping people decorate their houses. The service is for people who are too busy to put up their own trees and holly wreaths. But she can’t help but picture innocent people coming home to find every inch of their homes strewn with tinsel and colored lights, all blinking and singing Christmas carols. They are likely going to get more Christmas than they bargained for when they bring in Tony Cavaletti.

  She looks at their monstrosity of a tree, draped in silver tinsel and colored lights. True to the song, he’s put a star on the highest bough. It makes her want to cry.

  “Let’s go to Paris,” says Soapie. “That’s where we belong. Paris, Paris, Paree.”

  This makes Rosie cry, too—from regret, from guilt, and just because anything at all can make her cry. But then she wakes up one morning and knows that if she has to do this massive art project, she’ll make Soapie’s last Christmas a Paris Christmas. There’ll be croissants, of course, and crepes, champagne, chardonnay, chicken Francese, perhaps some escargot. Some chocolat. No, a chocolat fondue! She actually starts getting excited by the idea. She finds a three-foot statue of the Eiffel Tower in a junk shop and drags it off to her car. It’ll make a wonderful centerpiece, right in front of the tree.

  “We’re bringing Paris to us,” she tells Soapie, who looks pleasantly baffled by the idea. “No, non, madame, c’est magnifique! You’ll see!”

  French music, French movies—she looks up and downloads everything she can find. One day she’s about to order a French flag for the front of the house and comes to her senses. Instead, she orders a large poster of Paris twinkling in the evening and hangs it in the front hallway.

  Jonathan arrives on the red-eye five days before Christmas. When Rosie first sees him at the airport, pushing his way through the crowd, head and shoulders taller than the rest of the people, she feels so giddy that she thinks her knees are going to buckle. He’s wearing jeans and his nubbly Irish sweater that some aunt of his had knitted him (he has so many knitting aunts that he never could keep straight which one), and he’s carrying his leather jacket and a duffel bag, and he hasn’t shaved, and his graying hair looks so distinguished and his face so rugged and grown-up—well, how could she have forgotten how handsome he is? The baby jumps in her belly, like she might recognize him.

  Okay, so it would be nice if he would hold her at arm’s length and shake his head in wonder at the beauty of the fulsomeness of her, if he would need to perhaps wipe a tear from his eye at the whole remarkable miracle that is taking place right now inside her. She is building his child, for heaven’s sake, and the least he could do is to smack himself in the head and grin and marvel at her talent in pulling this off. Not just any forty-four-year-old can do it; the ultrasound nurse says that every time.

  But he doesn’t. He doesn’t have that in him. Instead, he simply hugs her and kisses her on the top of her head—he’s never gone in for those dramatic public kisses
, except for that one time, the day of the proposal. Now he is as cool and unruffled as ever, a tall drink of water of a man striding across the airport next to her while she hurries to keep up.

  “Look at me!” she says, and twirls around for him in the parking lot, and then nearly falls over her own feet because she’s now so pregnant she’s swaybacked and her balance isn’t what it used to be. He looks her over and says, “You sure look plenty ripe,” but then later, on the way home, when they stop at a diner for breakfast, he looks into her eyes and manages to say the right things. Jonathan style, at least. He says that she looks radiant, that he’s missed her terribly, and that she’ll be a wonderful mother, and that Andres Schultz says the baby is welcome at the museum anytime at all, as long as it doesn’t tip over the displays.

  “You do know what babies are, don’t you?”

  “Not really,” he says. “I’ve heard rumors that they’re a lot of trouble,” and she says, “Yeah, well, I don’t really have much of a clue about them either,” and he says, “How did we get into this mess, again?” and it’s crazy, but just the fact that he said we instead of you makes her heart soar.

  Then they go to Jonathan’s mother’s house, and it’s really fantastic there. Edie, his mother, shrieks in joy at the sight of the two of them—and she comes over and rubs Rosie’s belly just as though she’s met the Buddha right then and there. Then, when she’s had her fill of rubbing, she goes over and smacks Jonathan for not telling her sooner, but she’s laughing and wiping her eyes, and anybody can see she’s not really mad. She sits Rosie down and insists she put her feet up, and then yells at Rosie that she should have told her about the baby, even if Jonathan didn’t: after all, this is the grandma she’s talking to! But it’s okay, she says. She knows how weird her son is about telling news. And then she gets on the telephone and calls at least ten of her closest friends and announces that she’s going to be a grandma again, made possible by the least likely of her children. And when she gets off the phone, she starts swatting Jonathan again, and then kisses him all over his face, and brings the two of them cups of hot chocolate. Jonathan sits there and rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling with his faraway, crinkly eyes, and Rosie thinks, This is what family means. Someone to be happy when you tell them you’re adding family members, and mad at you for not telling them sooner.

  It’s different, of course, when they get back to Soapie’s house, which they have to do soon because Tony isn’t there anymore and Soapie can’t be left alone. George has stayed home from visiting Louise in the nursing home today just so he could watch out for Soapie, and Rosie finds the two of them in the living room sitting on the couch, drinking Christmas martinis and listening to Christmas music on the stereo.

  George has his face arranged to be welcoming to Jonathan, and he jumps up from his chair in his charming old-man way, but Jonathan doesn’t even meet his eyes.

  “Now, Jonathan, this is the amazing George Tarkinian,” Rosie makes a point of saying, and steers Jonathan right over. The two men shake hands, and George keeps looking up at Jonathan with his bright eyes all fixed with the expectation of being regaled with witty stories and observations and maybe even appreciation for being there during Rosie’s pregnancy. But there’s nothing coming back. Jonathan, stiff and uncomfortable, doesn’t know how to play that game.

  It’s when he goes over to hug Soapie and she searches his face and says, “So where have you been?” that he looks truly pained.

  “I’m in San Diego now, Soapie,” he says. “I’ve got my own museum.”

  “Yeah, well,” she says, peering at him. “Is it the teacups? People pay money to come see those things?”

  He laughs a little. “Yeah, they do. Not enough. But some.” He shoves his hands down in his pockets and glances around the room, looking like he’s a prisoner of war and expecting the torture instruments to come out soon. Rosie remembers that he’s always hated this house, that he thinks of it as the epitome of a suburban nightmare. A WASP nest, he called it once. A place that traps guys, hands them lawn mowers and hedge clippers, and turns them into automatons or something. Strips them of their manhood.

  Soapie turns to Rosie, looking so artificially and pleasantly addled that later Rosie wonders if she wasn’t being mean on purpose. “Where is that Tony, do you think?” she says. “Is he here?”

  Oh, it’s going to be a long afternoon. Rosie explains again that Tony has his own apartment now and then dashes into the kitchen to get snacks. George asks Jonathan to help him bring in wood for a fire, and then everybody tries to settle in and make polite small talk over drinks.

  George tells about how Louise is doing (not so well, and yet not so bad either), and what the nursing home does for the residents at the holidays (they give them stocking gifts), and how the weather has been (milder than you’d expect, could be global warming). Jonathan tells a few things about San Diego and about the museum (the price of admission is $8.50 for adults and children, the same price because they don’t want children in there, actually, so why give them a discount) and Rosie talks about her students, all of whom want to give her a baby shower. Conversations keep trying to make it aloft but then keep running aground. Eventually it’s time for her to get up and make dinner, and the only thing that keeps her going is that soon she will get to have sex.

  She and Jonathan will lie in her bed, with his hands cupping her enormous breasts and her even more enormous belly, and she’ll close her eyes while the baby kicks and dive-bombs her internal organs, and then she’ll open her eyes and smile at him, and he’ll …

  “Whoa. Is this even safe?” is what he says when they finally get to bed.

  “Of course. Here, don’t you want to feel the baby move? Put your hands here.”

  “Um … well, okay.”

  “Come on, it’s so cool! It’s the best part of everything.” She takes his hand and places it against her belly, and he leaves it there and closes his eyes. She moves against him, starts to undo his belt.

  “Rosie—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No.”

  “Jonathan, you’re driving me crazy. It’s okay. Pregnant women can have sex. It’s even good for them.”

  “It’s—it’s … I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. It’s freaking me out. There’s a person in there.” He laughs. “It feels too public, somehow.”

  “Public? Did you say it’s too public? This is a fetus, not an audience. It doesn’t know.”

  “But what if—I don’t know—what if it does know?”

  “What if it does know?” she says. “Yeah, what if it does know? What then? You think it’s going to mind? It’s fine. Trust me on this. You’re grossed out by me, aren’t you? That’s the truth of it. You don’t like me this way.”

  He does not deny this. Instead he says, “It’s just so … different. Also, I wouldn’t even have the slightest idea how to even … you know, fit …”

  “You can fit.”

  “Rosie.” He bites his lip and looks at her. “I can’t, okay? I can’t.”

  “Is it my stretch marks? Because we can turn out the light—”

  “No, that’s not it. Please don’t feel that way. It’s that you’re too—too delicate.”

  “Call Joe,” she says. “He’s a doctor, and he has four kids. You think he didn’t fuck Greta for the total of three years she’s been pregnant in their marriage? Call him. He’ll tell you it’s doable. Everybody does it. You know what my Lamaze teacher said about how long you can have sex while you’re pregnant? She says it’s a good idea to stop when the contractions are five minutes apart, so you can go to the hospital. Get it? All the way up to the last moment!”

  But he won’t, even when she is nearly in tears. He asks her if she’d rather he sleep in another room under the circumstances, and she cries and says no. And she asks if he’s seeing someone else in California, and then they have a big fight, because he’s not, and how can she not trust him when he loves
her and begs her—has begged and begged—for her to come and join him? And there’s no one else, never will be, never has been, and then they have part two of the big fight, which is about why they didn’t get married when it was scheduled, and he says he will marry her in the morning if she wants, that’s how sure he is, but he will not stick his penis anywhere near that baby. She cries and throws a pillow at his head, and he says he hopes that makes her feel better, because it certainly made him feel better. And now could they just go to sleep?

  So they do, somehow. She on one side of the bed and he on the other, clinging to the edge of the mattress for dear life. The next day she calls up Greta and tells her what’s going on—or what’s not going on—and says that if Joe has an interest in saving this relationship, maybe he could find a way to put that medical degree of his to practical use and just step in. And so Joe takes Jonathan out for a beer and explains the facts of life to him, and the next night, Jonathan pulls her to him in bed, and they do it.

  It’s not the best sex anybody ever had, especially between people who basically love each other and have been apart for seven months, but it’s a start.

  She wakes up at three fifteen, hot, tangled in the covers, and needing to pee. When she comes back from the bathroom, she sits on the bed and watches him sleep. He’s lying on his back with his mouth open, one arm flung across his forehead, and, seeing him there sprawled across the bed, she knows that this is all a terrible, terrible mistake.

  Jonathan only thinks he wants them to be together, but for him it’s just an abstract concept. He’s actually just fine walking through the world all by himself, gathering up his teacups and his numbers and measuring his successes in ledgers and blog posts. He’s just fine without all the messiness and bother of making love, of having a baby, even of having to interact on a deep level. All this time apart, and he’s been basically, fundamentally fine—while she’s been the one changing and discovering things about herself, creating this baby, figuring out what she wants out of life.