The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel (7 page)

“Not really,” she says. “I think I always had more self-control than that.”

“Well, that’s too bad,
in
famous Rosie.”

She’s trying to remember where they were in their discussion—or where she was in her monologue, but it’s hard with all the kissing noises and laughter so close to them, and then she doesn’t have to, because Tony Cavaletti suddenly gives up and says in a tired tone of voice, “So bottom line: you want me out of your grandmother’s house,” he says. “I get it. Okay. Consider it done.”

“Oh! Well, it’s nothing personal—”

“No, no. I understand completely. I’m outta there. I was only gonna be there for probably another coupla weeks anyways. At the outside. It’s fine.”

He picks up his phone, but instead of making a call, he turns it over in his palm, staring at it like it’s some kind of artifact. She waits, but he doesn’t say anything else.

Go! Go now, you idiot. He said he’s leaving, so just thank him and go
.

“Well, thank you,” she says. “For understanding. And you’ll think of some reason to tell her? For why you’re leaving?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I won’t tell her that you tracked me down and fired me.” He looks up from his phone and smiles at her, painfully.

“I just wanted to explain what she—” she begins, but he shakes his head and waves her away, still smiling. “Thank you,” she says again, and heads to the door, but the Goth couple is in her way, sitting down and making out against the door now, and she can’t get by.

That’s when Tony Cavaletti pipes up again. “But by the way, just so you know,” he calls to her, “you may not realize it now, but I’m the guy you
want
there, believe it or not. I’ve picked her up off the floor like five times.”

She turns.

“And not for nothin’ but I’m the one gets her to eat. I cook her meals, you know.”

“Well … thank you,” she says.

“Yeah, and George and I are even getting it so she doesn’t drive places anymore because she’s really not safe behind the wheel, even though she won’t admit it. And—”

She walks back to the table. “Wait. George? Who is George?”

He lets a long beat of silence go by, and then he looks down at his sneaker and straightens out the tangled laces. “See,” he says, “I’m wondering if you really know all that
much about your grandmother,
in
famous Rosie. Maybe you’ve got everything all figured out, but then it turns out you don’t know squat about what’s going on. Like, were you the person who sent over that British lady the other day? Because that was never, ever going to work out.”

Rosie feels the color bloom in her face. “Look, I try. She’s a difficult woman, all right? And, just so
you
know, if you’re thinking you and this George are keeping her from driving, you’re certainly not doing a very good job of it. She went out the other night and was going fifty-five in a residential zone at eleven thirty at night, and
then
she threw the ticket away. What about
that
?”

“Yeah. I heard about that. That was a night when I was down in Fairfield, and the next day she tells me about it at breakfast. I’m there making blueberry waffles for her, and she’s all, ‘Ohhh, Tony, I got me a ticket!’ ”

“And are you the one who told her to throw it away?”

“No, what do you take me for? I told her to pay it.”

“Uh-huh. Well, perhaps you don’t know Sophie Baldwin-Kelley doesn’t pay her own bills. I do that for her.”

His eyes flash. “Hmm. Wonder if that could be why she threw it out. Probably didn’t want you to see because it’s pretty clear that would be something that would sure get you ticked off.”

“I’m sure she doesn’t care if I get ‘ticked off,’ as you call it. And by the way, she also threw out all her prescriptions, too. She’s got some kind of death wish, is what I think.”

“Nah, she’s just forgetful. And a little bit cranky. She wants fun. And who doesn’t need fun?”

“No, she told me she doesn’t care how she dies. She says one way is as good as another, and she’s not letting anybody tell her what to do.”

He studies her face. “Well, but she doesn’t really want to die. You should see her with George. She’s happy.”

“So tell me. Who is this George?” Rosie says. “Do I even want to know?”

“I’m surprised you don’t know him. They’re old, old friends, she said. His wife is in some kind of home with Old Timers’ Disease.”

“Alzheimer’s?” she says.

He flushes. “Alzheimer’s, Old Timers’, whatever. Louise? I think that’s her name.”

“George
Tarkinian
?” she says. “He’s the one who’s hanging around?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

“Oh my God. I do know him. But he’s married. He’s been married to Louise forever.”

“I know. That’s kinda what I meant when I said his
wife
was in some kind of home. When I used that word, it convened they had a marriage.”

“What do you mean, it
convened
they had a marriage?”

“Oh, here we go. So I used the wrong word. Do you make it a habit of correcting
everything
people say?”

“I teach English,” she says. “It’s an occupational hazard.” She sinks into the chair opposite him. “And so
he’s
now hanging out with my grandmother?”

“Yeah. That’s right. They’re kind of sweet on each other.”

“Sweet on each other? What, are you from the 1940s or something?”

“My mom used to say that. It’s nice. Certainly better than saying what people say nowadays: they’re
hooking up
, or they’re—”

“Please,” she says. “Are they—?”

“Are they what?”

“You know.”

“What? You think I check up on people? That’s the worst thing you’ve said yet.”

His phone rings, making a mooing sound, and she’s fascinated to see that his whole face changes when he looks down and sees the number. He flips it open. “Milo! Hey, buddy! Are you with the sitter? Did Mrs. Dolan pick you up? Good.” He gets up and paces around rocking up and down on his toes, his face going through all kinds of contortions. And then he says, “Yeah, well, Mommy’s on her way home. She and Dena got tied up here for a bit. They’ll be along. No, no. You know I don’t think you should play Angry Birds on Mrs. Dolan’s phone. Why don’t you ask her to take you outside?” He puts his mouth down close to the phone, like he would crawl into it if he could. Rosie looks away. “I know,” he whispers. “I miss you, too, kid. Naw. Well, maybe. Maybe. We’ll see. I know. I talked to her about it. I love you, baby. Yeah. I love you a million dinosaurs, too. No, two million. Okay, three million and infinity. Bye.” He closes the phone and it takes a moment for him to rearrange his face back to a normal expression. “That was my kid,” he says. “Want to see his picture? Here. Look at the phone here.”

“Sure, okay,” she says.

“Yeah. Look at that little mutt face,” he says, and holds out his phone, where a young kid who looks just like him is smiling and holding a toy dinosaur. Barney, maybe? She’s not sure.

“He’s cute,” she says.

“Yep. Sweet little Milo.” He gazes at the picture. “He’s five. Lives in Fairfield with his mom. We split up. She was the one who was here—one of them—”

“Aww,” she says. “I bet you miss him.”

He sighs. “Yep. Correctamundo. But I’m trying to work
out some stuff with her. That’s why I said I might leave in a few weeks. I can’t stay away from this guy.” He stares down at the phone.

He reminds her of her younger students, always with domestic complications they talk so openly about, and suddenly she feels everything shift a bit in her head. Jonathan is simply wrong about this guy being out to rob Soapie. He’s clearly not dangerous. And besides that, he’s getting Soapie to eat and picking her up off the floor, and it’s not like she has anybody to replace him with anyway. And, after all, Soapie likes him. And George is there, too.

“Tony,” she says, and stops. “So listen,” she says, and swallows. She lays out the plan, tells him about how she’s getting married and going to California, so could he just live with Soapie for two or three weeks longer? By then, surely she can find someone more official. What does he think? She’s twisting her purse strap around and around her fingers, cutting off the circulation.

He looks over at her, no emotion on his face. “What? Because I showed you the picture of my kid?”

She says no. Well, maybe.

“All right,” he says slowly. “I guess I could do that,” he says. He seems suddenly shy. “That’ll give me time to work out some stuff.”

“Well, thank you,” she says.

Jonathan will have a fit, but let him
, she thinks.

“Don’t tell her I was here,” she says. “And, oh yeah, don’t let her drive. Okay?”

“You should really stop doing that to your own finger,” he says. “You gotta calm down.”

That night she gets home to find that Andres Schultz has moved into their apartment, and the Lolitas, amazingly, are perched on tables, nested in open boxes, and one of them, shockingly, is in Andres Schultz’s pink, plump hand.

Rosie has to keep herself from rushing over and grabbing it back to safety, so deeply has this been ingrained in her.

“This is Andres!” says Jonathan, who has turned pink again. “And this is Rosie.”

“Well, hi, Rosa,” he says. Andres, a pudgy, shiny-faced guy with a round baby face, stands up and takes approximately a full minute to elaborately set the teacup on the table—and all three of them watch, holding their collective breath, as he does so. Then he exhales loudly, grins at her, and shakes her hand, and then he pulls her into a damp, exuberant hug. He smells of aftershave and airports and rumpled clothing.

“I already feel as though you’re family,” he says. He’s in his fifties, she guesses, and intense in a nerdy kind of way. He probably sleeps on
Star Wars
sheets and stands in line at midnight for the Harry Potter movies. “You and Jonathan! It’s been such a divine pleasure to meet Jonathan and to get to see up close these very, very …” Words seem to fail him as he gestures toward the piles of opened white boxes.

They talk, then, about Andres’s flight and about the conference where they met last year, and about the daringness of what they’re about to do. You’d think they were going to scale Mount Kilimanjaro, to hear the hushed way they speak of this venture. She stands, still holding on to her purse and smiling a frozen, exhausted smile.

Then Jonathan—the new, expansive, excited Jonathan—starts recounting every single second since he first laid eyes on Andres Schultz at the airport, how they recognized each other (clever Andres was holding up a cardboard teacup), and what they said at first, what they said next, and next, and next.

She thinks she might pass out from sheer minutiae overload.

“By the time we pulled out of the parking garage and started for New Haven—” Jonathan begins.

“We knew we had to work together,” finishes Andres.

“And then, by the time we got on the Bruckner, I was asking if Andres wanted to stay at our apartment instead of going to a hotel,” says Jonathan.

“I readily agreed. And by the time we stopped for dinner in, which was in—”

“Bridgeport.”

“Yah, Bridgeport, by then we were composing our business plan,” says Andres.

“We wrote it on a napkin,” says Jonathan.

She feels a little dizzy. Jonathan tells her that Andres will stay for three days or so, during which they’ll finish up the business plan for the benefit of Andres’s backers, and then Jonathan will give notice at his job. He’s got vacation time accrued, so he’ll get a decent check to start out with. He rubs his hands together, red-faced, beaming. A buddy at work knows somebody who’s looking for an apartment and could move right in so the landlord shouldn’t mind … and Rosie’s classes will be over in another week, right?

Ah, but she’s signed up to teach the summer session, she says, and Jonathan says, “But you can totally get out of that.” He looks at Andres. “We’re available!”

Wait. Is she really actually doing this? Like, in the next few weeks, packing up all her stuff and … moving?

“Well,” she says. “Wow.”

Later, she’s brushing her teeth in the bathroom when Jonathan comes and leans against the doorjamb. “So you’re okay with everything?” he says.