The Status of All Things (23 page)

“So what are you saying? That it’s going to happen again? Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” she spits out.

“You dodged a major bullet, Jules. I say to stop while you’re ahead.” I walk over to the bay window and lean my head against it, the sidewalks below not yet cluttered by the tourists—the people, many of them just like Jules, who are hoping to fill a void in their own lives in this City of Sin. Where the allure of the slot machines and the lights and the alcohol help people escape their own realities. “Both times, there’s been something that’s stopped you right before—maybe the universe is trying to tell you something?” I add, trying not to think about the messages the universe had been sending me about my own life.

“Maybe.” Jules materializes beside me, the blanket from the night before still wrapped tightly around her. “I know what the right answer is here. And I really
want
to assure you that I’ll never put myself in that position again. But you’re the one person I can be honest with—and the truth is I can’t make that promise. Not right now.”

“Okay,” I murmur without meeting her gaze.

“I’m sorry. All you want is to get married to the man you love, while I’m throwing my own marriage away. You must hate me,”
she says, apprehension dancing in the backs of her eyes when I finally look up to meet them.

There was a part of me that wanted to shake her—to convince her that sex is just sex. To make her realize how rare it is to have a man like Ben, who not only loves her, but is also completely devoted to their children, even if his job was pulling him away from them at the moment. But I knew I was watching her marriage from the cheap seats, and despite what I
thought
I knew, she was the one living it every day. And by the way she viscerally described her pain, I knew it was slowly ripping her apart—that I needed to be there for her the way she’d been for me. She’d literally kept me standing after Max left; she’d believed me when I told her my incredible story about traveling through time; and she’d never once judged me for my own mistakes or treated my problems as trivial, even when we both knew they were.

“I could never hate you,” I say as I grab her hand, the heat from the early morning Las Vegas sun already beginning to scorch the window. “It’s all going to be okay,” I promise, gripping her palm tighter, hoping I’m right.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!” I joke as Max smirks at me over his UCLA mug, the light blue script of the word
Bruins
so faded you wouldn’t know what it said unless you knew he’d gone to school there, that it was his favorite mug to drink coffee from. It’s always been the subtle things like this, the little nuances that make him who he is, many of which only I know, that have made me feel connected to him. Like how he can only read a magazine from the first page to the last page, never skipping around like I do; or the fact that he talks in his sleep after he’s had a cocktail; or the way he runs his hand through his hair when he’s nervous.

“Come on! Tell me
something
about your night.” He reaches in and kisses me softly. “I can make it worth your while,” he says seductively.

As I drove us away from Las Vegas this morning, watching the city disappear into the hills through the rearview mirror, Jules sleeping soundly in the passenger seat, Liam high above us in the air, having texted he was flying back with Nikki on the Gulfstream jet she’d chartered, I had prepared myself for how I would answer Max’s question, for the way I could describe my
night without having to lie. Jules had sworn me to secrecy about how she was feeling, and of course I would never betray her confidence. Besides the fact that she was also Max’s friend, she had told me she didn’t want to put her problems on anyone else’s shoulders. In fact, she’d repeatedly asked me if
I
was okay—if knowing the betraying thoughts that lingered inside her head had changed something inside of me, had altered the way I saw her or viewed marriage in general. The truth was, of course it had changed things, but I told her, if anything, it had pushed me closer to Max. It had reinforced why I didn’t ever want to lose him again.

“It was like old times!” I say brightly, because in so many ways, it was. Before Kevin and Nikki infiltrated my night, it had been just the three of us laughing and dancing the way we used to. I immediately launch into a recap of the evening, leaving out Jules’ incident, but including Nikki, a part of me wanting Max’s opinion on what her arrival meant for my friendship with Liam.

“Don’t take it personally. He’s a guy, which means he’s only thinking about
one
thing right now.” Max laughs and raises his eyebrows.

Maybe that’s the problem.

I smile at Max’s joke, but his words rest heavy on my mind. Did we put too much importance on our sex lives? Did we overlook other, possibly more meaningful things because our partners weren’t throwing us up against a wall? Did we let our animal instincts take over when instead we should be focusing on our emotional ones? Jules had contemplated having an affair because her husband wasn’t paying enough attention to her, but what if it was just a phase—if he really was just busy and distracted? If she’d tried talking to him about how lonely she was feeling, would things be different? And Liam. He was head
over heels for a twenty-four-year-old woman who’d struggled with alcohol and drug addiction and, according to the latest gossip, had barely graduated from high school—because the sex was good? He was changing who he was and even letting his friendships fall by the wayside because he only had one thing on his mind?

“What?” Max asks when he sees me shake my head.

“Nothing,” I say, deciding I’m overthinking it. I need to take Liam’s advice and let my friends live their lives the way they want to. And I need to focus on my own life—the one right in front of me, the one I plan to live with Max.

Stella had called while Jules and I were on the way back from Las Vegas to let me know about yet another obstacle she’d run into. Apparently, all of the DJs and bands on the island of Maui were now booked on our wedding date and the only way to play music would now entail a more DIY approach. She’d wanted my approval to set up speakers and an iPod. “It’s what anyone who’s anyone is doing now anyway,” she’d squeaked, her voice sounding as tight as a drum, and I’d known better than to argue.

Not surprisingly, it turns out, when you plan a wedding, then replan it, then change everything back to the way it originally was, the only way to pull it off, or as Stella lectured,
even have one at all
, is to prioritize.

Having Max as my husband is priority number one
, I’d thought as I’d tried to block the image of my bright pink iPod propped up next to the shrimp cocktail.
That’s
what’s important
.

I heard myself suggesting we go back to the luau theme, and after a long pause during which I could almost hear the words Stella wasn’t saying rolling around in her mind, she’d finally spoken.

“We can’t,” she’d said slowly, exasperation creeping into her voice. “As soon as I let the dancers go, they were immediately booked by another couple. And they were the last troupe available. Same thing with Louie’s Luau, the company that was going to roast the pig, the whole nine yards. They’d done me a favor saying yes at all—” She didn’t finish her sentence, as if she knew she’d just be adding salt to the wound.

“I’m sorry, Stella.”

“It’s fine—just promise me one thing,” she’d responded, her tone suddenly lighter, and I’d found myself assuming that was a skill she’d obviously honed through her job—to be able to dance through a conversation without losing total control, no matter how frustrated she might be.

“You name it.”

“Just don’t change anything else.”

“Cross my heart,” I’d said, imagining Max in the crisp dark suit we’d originally selected for the ceremony, remembering how he’d tugged at the collar and dusted imaginary lint off the lapel as he’d examined himself in the mirror. I drew in a long breath as I drove past the world’s largest thermometer in the tiny town of Baker, the dial ticking up to 105 degrees, hoping that was the explanation for why I’d felt a bead of sweat forming on my brow.

• • •

“Did you see the
Enquirer
?” Jules asks the next morning when we meet for coffee before work, both of us still bleary-eyed from our weekend.

“Do people still read that?” I ask.

“If by ‘people’ you mean me, then yes!”

I shake my head, and she slides her hand into her bag resting at her feet and pulls it out.

“You shouldn’t have your purse on the floor!” I scold her.

“Why not?” she says as she flips through the magazine.

“Bad feng shui! The idea is that money spills out of the bottom of your purse when you leave it on the ground,” I say, remembering the look I’d given my consultant when she’d first told me. But now I was always careful to set my tote on a chair. “And, girlfriend, you don’t need any more problems!”

“Tell me about it.” She continues to turn the pages until she finds what she’s looking for. “Here it is, look.” She holds the magazine out to me.

“Do you want to talk about things?” I ask, hoping her comment was an opening that she’s ready.

“Nope,” she says, and her lips form a tight line, one I’ve seen when she tells one of her children that their time on the iPad is over. It’s not negotiable.

“You sure?” I push anyway.

“I’ve already said too much. I shouldn’t have laid all of that on you. I’ll figure it out, I promise.”

“But . . .”

“Kate, please. I’m not ready. But when I am, I will tell you, okay?”

“All right.” I acquiesce, still concerned and wanting another chance to convince her not to stray. To stop her from doing something that can’t be undone. I exhale deeply and grab the magazine from her, reading the headline: “New Direction for Nikki Day?”
Under it is a picture of Nikki in the passenger seat of a car being driven by one of the members of a boy band currently topping the charts—their latest single ironically titled “I Got Your Girl, Yo.” “Is this true?”

“Hell if I know.” Jules rolls her eyes. “Liam says it’s not.”

I raise my eyebrows at her. “What?” she says in response. “Of course I asked him about it! And he swore it was bullshit.”

“But she is in the car with this guy and her head is resting on his shoulder!”

“I know, I know, but he says it’s Photoshopped or something. Then he reminded me about her party this weekend.”

“He’s still going? After this article basically tells the whole world she’s probably cheating—” I say, and then catch myself, but it’s too late, the words are already out there. “You know what I mean, Jules. It—it’s different than your situation,” I stammer.

“You really believe that?” Jules says.

“Yes, of course. I’m just not a fan of Nikki. I don’t think she’s right for him. That’s all I meant, I promise. And he can go to that party, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to attend. I don’t care what she told him, these pictures don’t lie.”

“Okay, but if you’re secretly judging me for how I’m feeling, now is the time to tell me. It’s better to get it out on the table.” She slaps her hand on the wood tabletop for emphasis. “Because I would think
you
of all people would understand . . .”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, feeling my chest tighten.

“Because of what Max did to you with Courtney.”

“He didn’t actually
do
anything.”

“He fell in love with someone else!” She bristles and my eyes fill with tears.

“In another life, not this one,” I start to argue before Jules interjects.

“True. I’m sorry if that came out a little harsh.”

“A little?” I say, my voice catching in my throat.

“Okay, a lot. Maybe I just got overly defensive because of my own stuff. But what I’m trying to say is, you forgave Max. You understood that there was more to the story.” When I don’t
respond, her face softens. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a bitch.”

“I know,” I say. “It’s okay.”

“I was just trying to make the point that you should give others the same consideration you’ve given Max.”

“Like Nikki Day? I’m sorry, Jules. I love you, but comparing her to Max is a stretch. Why would I give a shit about her?”

“Because Liam does,” she says simply.

I pause for a moment. “You’re right,” I reluctantly agree, her reminder about accepting Liam’s choices bringing back the talk he and I had at the club.

“Great,” she says, clapping her hands together. “So that means you’ll go to this party no matter what your feelings about Nikki are? Because even though Liam acts like he doesn’t need us, he still does. We should be there for him. In good times,” she says as she points to the article about Nikki, “and bad.”

“I’ll go,” I say, and swallow the lump in my throat, trying to ignore how quickly things seemed to be spinning out of control—like a merry-go-round that I can’t escape without flying untethered through the air and falling to the ground.