The Status of All Things (8 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

“You ready yet?” Max calls up to me.

Will I ever be ready for this?

I wonder again how I will be able to stomach sitting at the same table with Max and Courtney tonight. It had been hard enough hearing that Max thought he was in love with her, but now I’ll be watching their clandestine relationship unfold right in front of me. I’ll have to sit in silence as they tease each other, something I used to view as harmless, but now every smile shared between them, every
accidental
brush of their hands, every look—will feel like a spike into my heart. And even though they may not be in love
yet
, I know it’s coming, and the process of waiting will feel like a Band-Aid being slowly peeled off my tender skin.
Unless I can stop it
.

“Just a sec,” I yell to Max as I post my status on Facebook, deciding that what I’ve wished for isn’t
that bad
. My broken heart might never be mended, but Courtney’s hair
will
grow back.
Right?
I can hear Jules cheering me on, reminding me that the future of my relationship is at stake.
Plus, it doesn’t hurt that Max is a sucker for long hair, does it?
she’d said when she’d heard my plan.

Twenty minutes later, my head is pounding, practically drowning out the music booming through the speakers as I scan the crowded lounge for Courtney, waiting to see the results of the status I’d written:

I’m shocked that Courtney chopped off all her hair.

“Is that her over there?” Max asks, and I swivel my head in the direction he’s pointing in.

“Wow,” I say under my breath as I spot her—her sandy-colored hair has been hacked off into a pixie cut. I feel queasy as I look over at Max, who’s staring at her with his mouth slightly open. She looks even better than she did before.
How the fuck is that even possible?

As we approach her table, Courtney’s hand flies up to her head. “Oh my God, it’s
so short
, isn’t it? I literally just left the salon,” she says, biting her lower lip as if waiting for our approval. “I went in for a trim right after work and came out looking like this.” She throws her arms up. “At first I was furious with my hairdresser, who claimed the scissors
just seemed to
take on a life of their own
,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Seriously, it was almost as if I blinked and it came out like this. . . . But now I kind of love it!” She squeals and claps her hands together like a seal.

“It looks good,” I say reluctantly.
Really damn good.
I sink into the chair across from her, deducing that I must be suffering some sort of karmic payback for wishing something bad to happen to another person. But maybe her hair looking good is just a fluke. She already has a pretty—make that beautiful—face, so I probably could’ve wished her bald and she still would’ve ended up looking amazing. I’d have to write a more impactful status next time—less about her looks and more about
her. But what?
It was one thing to hold this power in my hands. It was a whole other thing to use it properly.

“You totally pull it off,” Max says, jarring me from my thoughts as he takes Courtney in his arm easily, placing a small kiss on her left cheek, no different than he’s done in front of me a dozen times before, but this time, watching it sends a ripple of panic through me as I wonder if his kiss has ever spread to her supple lips, her red lipstick leaving its mark on his mouth.

“You think?” she says shyly before turning my way. “But look at
you,
”
Courtney purrs as she eyes me. “That is one hot dress, mama, is it new? Did you sneak out of work and hit Nordstrom without me? Meow.” She holds her hands up as if they’re claws.

“Thanks,” I say, deliberately not answering her question. The truth was, this outfit was courtesy of a status I’d posted earlier. I’d wished for a dress that would
make me look two sizes smaller and six inches taller and accentuate every curve—without the use of Spanx
. I’d mused at the time that due to my newfound magical powers, I’d never again have to go through a dozen outfit changes to escape the frumpiness I was feeling. But I still felt inadequate now and also hadn’t succeeded in getting Max’s attention earlier. He’d barely looked away from
SportsCenter
as I’d descended the stairs. And now he only glances over at me briefly before burying his nose in the menu, asking if we want to order the spinach dip.

As I watch Max flag down the waitress, I decide that even though my wish for Courtney backfired, I am still the one with an engagement ring on my finger. I need to remind Courtney of something I had with Max that she couldn’t compete with—
history
.
We
took the trip to Barcelona last year and sat in a café on that quaint cobblestone street and talked about how many kids we’d like to have.
We
had registered for the chef’s knives
and the Dutch oven and the waffle maker because
we
like to cook together. And
we
had fallen in love that night in Big Bear as we’d sat in the ski lodge and sipped hot toddies while sharing stories about our childhoods—me confiding how I’d let my mom’s insecurities become my own; Max revealing that he was adopted, and even though his parents had been everything he could ever ask for, he still often wondered why he hadn’t been good enough for the woman who gave birth to him.

I turn to Max. “You know what I was just thinking about?”

“What’s that?” he says.

“That time we went to Big Bear—we should go again.”

“What made you think of that?” he asks, and a flicker of concern flashes in his eyes so quickly I tell myself I must have imagined it.

I press on anyway. “Well, with the wedding only a month away, I’ve been working on my vows and was remembering where we first said I love you.” I smile. “Sorry to get all sappy in front of you, Courtney!” I say, resting my hand possessively on top of Max’s arm.

Courtney hides the beginning of a frown by taking a huge gulp of her mojito.

Okay, so clearly she already feels something. But what was Max feeling?

“So what do you think?” I ask Max. “I’ll book us the cabin we stayed at—remember, it had the most gorgeous view of Big Bear Lake and we had those delicious crab cakes at that restaurant in town?”

“Sure,” Max says noncommittally and takes a long drink of his scotch. I bite my tongue so I don’t make the sarcastic remark sitting on the edge of my lips:
You seem about as excited as a guy going in for a vasectomy
. But realizing it’s going to take more
than one day to snap him back to
our
reality, I decide to change tactics—and focus on Courtney instead.

“So, Courtney, tell us what’s going on with that guy James you’ve been dating,” I say after our waitress sets down our appetizers. “You were all giddy about him—I think you even called him dreamy? Didn’t you go out on your third date last week?” I ask, refusing to look at Max, afraid I might see jealousy reflected in his eyes. But hoping this will remind him that Courtney isn’t sitting at home quilting every Friday night. That she is actively dating
other men
.

“That guy?” She laughs as she plays with the mint leaf at the bottom of her now-empty glass. “I was
so
wrong about him—found out he was seeing, like, three other girls after telling me he wanted to be exclusive.”

“That must have really hurt. To have someone betray you like that,” I say, wondering if she hears the irony in my words.

“Not really—I hadn’t known him very long. He did me a favor actually—I’m done going out with guys I meet at the gym or at a bar or”—she wrinkles her nose—“on Match.com. They’re all the same. I’ve decided that I’m just going to focus on work. Don’t they say the right guy comes along when you least expect it?” She giggles.

I swallow the words at the base of my throat—the ones I wish I could scream at her—at
them.

Max is not the right guy for you. He’s the right guy for me.

But before I can so much as shake my head, she leans in and asks Max about an acquisition his device company has been feverishly working on. I suddenly feel like a third wheel as I listen to him tell her about the stent they are attempting to license from a small German company. Courtney nods her head vigorously as Max explains that this small mesh device, used to
treat narrowed arteries, has the potential to revolutionize angioplasties and shows great promise in its phase 3 trials.

“This could be huge for us,” he says, before taking another drink. “Send the stock prices through the roof!”

Last time we’d all met for happy hour, I vaguely remember the details, having tuned out around the time he walked us through the step-by-step process of how arterial plaque forms in the artery, instead turning my attention to my Instagram account. But this time I forced my eyes open with interest, ignoring the buzzing of my cell phone, trying to keep pace with Courtney, who to my dismay looked genuinely interested.

It wasn’t that I didn’t find Max’s work compelling, I did. His analytical mind is one of the things that had drawn me to him from the beginning. But there was only so much clinical information I could handle, Max often joking that he knew I was far more interested in discussing whether the basketball players should’ve U-turned the divorcées on
The Amazing Race
. Had I made him feel like his work wasn’t important? That his stories were no longer interesting? Was that where I’d gone wrong?

The rest of the night feels like a boxing match, Courtney and me in the ring, each trying to win a round of “who can hold Max’s attention longer?” And if there had been a referee, I think he would’ve called it for Courtney. By the time we get the check two hours later, I’m so exhausted that it feels like I’ve run up and down all 170 steps of the Santa Monica Stairs a dozen times. I fall into bed the second we get home, the three mojitos I consumed sending me into a quick, but restless sleep.

I wake up a few hours later, one question still nagging at me.
Were they already in love?
I couldn’t tell if I was imagining things at dinner based on what I knew, or if the subtle nuances I’d noticed were real. I eye Max’s cell phone resting on the edge of
the dresser next to his wallet and car keys. I could check it—just to find out if they’d been texting or emailing about more than Hootie and the Blowfish’s latest album.

Sliding out of bed, I tiptoe over and grab the phone, freezing when Max turns over on his side. Finally, when I’m sure he’s still asleep, I shut the bathroom door silently behind me, shaking.

I warily slide his phone across the countertop. Before this all happened, I’d never so much as glanced at one line of an email that he’d left open on his computer, and now I was about to look through his phone. This wasn’t me. But considering what I now knew, talking myself out of it was harder than convincing myself not to rip the plastic off that second row of Thin Mints. Just as I’m about to give in to temptation, a woman Liam dated briefly last year comes to mind—one with serious jealously issues who constantly accused him of seeing other women behind her back. (He had been, but in his defense, he’d never told her they were exclusive.) Whenever he talked about her, he’d make the sounds from the shower scene in
Psycho
. When I’d prodded him about why he stayed with her, he’d claimed the sex was great, but that he was also glad he didn’t own any bunnies for her to boil.

The relationship had come to a crashing halt when she’d gotten ahold of his phone. Although he’d been diligent about deleting everything, even texts between Jules and me, she’d used the search feature to access texts from the trash. Liam had told us the story over drinks one night, describing how she accused him of having threesomes with us—something we had all found both horribly disgusting and incredibly hilarious.

I sigh and lean back against the bathroom door. I should just put the phone back where I found it and figure this thing out the old-school way—by using my instincts instead of going all
Fatal Attraction
on him. But I only knew how this story ended—I didn’t know which chapter we were on. Before I can change my mind, I pull down the search box and type in Courtney’s name. The only text exchange I find is from after we’d left the restaurant.

Courtney

You okay? You seemed a little off tonight.

Max

I’m fine.

Courtney

Okay. Know that I’m always here for you.

Max

Thanks. I just have a lot on my mind. I’ll be okay.

Courtney

Kate’s a very lucky woman—I hope she appreciates you.

I check for a response from Max, but there isn’t one. Rage rises to my throat as I try to push the image of Glenn Close holding a butcher knife from my mind. I rack my brains, trying to remember if I’d ever given Courtney the impression that I’d been taking Max for granted. Had I somehow made it seem to her like he wasn’t my number-one priority? But more importantly, had I made
him
feel that way?