More Than A Maybe (22 page)

I’ve got sandals on, but the sand is hot and it sizzles the sides of my feet as we walk — the cooler sand near the water line comes as a welcome relief. The beach isn’t crowded, most people are at work, just as Baby had predicted. We quickly find a good spot.

I spread out the towels while Baby goes to rent an umbrella. She returns a minute later and plops it down in the sand, and we get ourselves cozy and bask in the sun for a moment.

“Have you been doing the massages?” Baby asks, smoothing some stray grains of sand from a corner of her towel.

I laugh. “Aye-aye, Captain Boobs. Just like they showed me.”

“Good. Don’t forget. A friend of mine completely messed hers up by not massaging. Two revisions later and her left nipple still doesn’t point in the right direction. Yours seem okay, though,” she says, as she leans forward to give them a better look. Then, before I can raise a word of protest, she’s got both hands on them.

“Hey!” I shout, laughing and swatting her hands away. “Hands off the merchandise!”

She laughs. “Gotcha!” she says, sounding maybe just a little bit too cheerful.

My sides are beginning to ache from the laughing, but I manage to help Baby set up the beach umbrella so we can have some shade. We decide to sit and read for a while: Baby has a book about Coco Chanel on her Kindle; I’ve got a dog-eared biography of Barbara Stanwyck I found on a used book rack at Bettie’s. We stretch out and enjoy the sensation of the breezes as they gently kiss our skin. For the next few minutes, the only sound other than the ocean is that of my flipping pages.

The peace and quiet doesn’t last too long though, and I find out that Baby had been right about the natural magnetism of the common boob. We’re not there for fifteen minutes before a completely different type of boob shows up.

Two boobs, actually. Well . . . okay, maybe that’s going a little too far. The guys that approach our umbrella-shaded towel kingdom are really pretty cute. They’re a couple of slow-loping golden-brown surfer guys: a tall one with sandy hair that looks like he spends a lot of time at the gym; and a shorter one with a tangled mess of brown hair who looks like he spends a lot of time in the library.

They’re all
Hey what’s up
s and toothy white smiles as they approach. They make some obvious comment about how the ocean is
really blue today, isn’t it?

There’s nothing to say, really. Nothing except
yes, it is.

That’s all the encouragement they need: they shake our hands, introducing themselves as
John and Mark, like in the Bible.
They tell us that we’re really beautiful.

“Thanks!” says Baby. She smiles . . . so I smile too.

John the gym-guy is self-assured, confident. He makes a lot of eye contact. He does most of the talking, too, punctuating his sentences with big, opens sweeps of his arms. He tells us how he’s going into the military soon, and how when he gets out he’s going to study to be a marine biologist on the GI Bill. Mark the library-guy nods along as John talks, but he doesn’t say much. He spends most of the conversation trying to look like he’s not looking at Baby’s boobs — without too much success. Part of me doesn’t exactly blame him, though. They
are
a little bit larger than mine.

Finally, after a conversation that doesn’t really go much of anywhere, John hands Baby his phone and tells her to put in her number, saying we should all hang out sometime.

Baby shrugs, takes his phone, and start tapping away at it with her thumbs.

I frown, not exactly believing what I’m seeing.

Does Baby really give out her number that easily? Really?

John takes his phone back, smiles, then shoots a pointed glare in Mark’s direction . . . which Mark manages to understand after a couple of awkward seconds pass. He stops checking out Baby’s girls long enough to fish out his own phone and hold it in my direction.

I look at Baby, a little unsure of myself.
Should I still be following your lead?
my eyes seem to ask. She gives me a wink and a nod of encouragement, pointing a fingernail at Mark’s phone.

I frown at it . . . it’s a Blackberry, and I’m not really sure how it works, I realize. It feels weird, but I decide to just tell Mark my number. He takes a few seconds to tap it in, and soon both John and Mark are saying their goodbyes and on their way off down the beach.

As soon as they’re out of earshot, Baby shoots me an evil grin. “Um — what was
that?
” she asks.

“What was what?” I ask.

“You gave him your number!”

My mouth falls open in utter disbelief. “I . . .
what?
You did, though!” I stammer. “You did it
first.
I was just following you! ‘Follow my lead’
,
that’s what you said!”

Baby throws her head back, laughing at the look on my face like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen in her life. “I gave him a fake number! I just wanted to see if you’d do it or not.”

The next sound Baby hears is that of a dog-eared biography of Barbara Stanwyck bonking gently — but not too gently — against her head.

* * *

I feel a little guilty about the phone number. Baby insists it was a joke and swears not to tell anyone, even Rosco, and I’m pretty sure I believe her. But
still.

To help assuage my guilt, I take time to prepare an amazing dinner for Xavier that night. There are little hot crab cakes and venison medallions from the broiler; a smoked salmon and endive salad with capers. Unfortunately, Xavier has to stay late to take an overseas call from one of his suppliers, and by the time he gets home the crab cakes are cold and beyond saving, and I have to tip them into the trash. The rest of the dinner reheats nicely, though, and while I get everything ready I ask Xavier about his day.

“Not bad,” he says. “The rest of the model homes are coming along pretty well. We’ve sent out a couple of quiet feelers to gauge interest. Big response so far. I’ve had an offer to do an interview with a major architecture magazine once the launch gets closer, and some environmental website wants to shoot some video of the home interiors. How about you? You look like you got a little sun out there today.”

“I went to the beach with Baby.”

“Really? How was that?” he asks.

“Great,” I say, as I arrange the now-warm food on our plates. “There were a couple of guys that wouldn’t leave us alone for a while, but — you know, whatever.”

He spreads his lips and gives me a look. “Because of the boobs.”

“Yes! Because of the boobs!” I say, laughing.

Xavier shrugs. “Well, I guess you’ll have to get used to that kind of attention. And for that matter, so will I.”

“Why?” I ask. “Are you getting new boobs, too?”

“No,” he says, “I’m not getting new boobs. It’s just that I have to get used to the idea of
other people
looking at your new boobs.”

My eyes widen and I pause, a plate in each hand. “Wow,” I say.

“What?” he asks.

“Am I actually detecting a streak of jealousy, Mr. Black?” I say, smiling.

“No! I . . . ” he pauses, trying to find the right word. “Okay. Yes. The answer is
yes.
”

I smile at that, placing a plate of endive in front of him.

“Well, I’ve only got eyes for you,” I say.

* * *

I begin to believe that the changes I’m seeing in Xavier are truly permanent. Little by little, the man is clearly wanting more out of life than just temporary distraction and maybes. There are no more plateaus for Xavier and me. If I’d had any lingering doubts about the status of our relationship and just where it all was headed . . . well, let’s just say those doubts are soon forgotten.

No more than a week goes by before Xavier calls me on the xPhone and tells me to meet him at a place in Long Beach: the Earl Burns Miller Japanese Garden. It’s a lovely, almost magical place, filled with wonderful paths of neatly raked gravel, archaic-yet-stately wooden bridges, and immaculately-tended koi ponds filled with enormous carp in breathtaking shades of orange/red.

“Let’s feed the fish,” I say, as we stroll along arm-in-arm.

Xavier smiles. “You don’t need to feed them to get their attention, you know,” he says. “Watch.”

He walks onto the nearest wooden bridge and extends his arm out over the water. He pauses for a moment, then begins to make a strange pantomime movement with his fingers, flicking his fingertips together against his thumb as if he’s dropping something into the pond. It’s like he’s cast a spell over the fish swimming below. They immediately gather in the water beneath his hand, gasping with their mouths open, trying to find the invisible food.

I don’t like it. “You’re teasing them,” I say, in mild irritation. “Stop it.”

Xavier shrugs and stops teasing the fish. There’s a little shop next to the pond, and Xavier walks over and buys some little brown nuggets of carp food. We stand on the wooden bridge together and drop the food into the pond, one piece at a time.

The carp are interesting. They swim along lazily, with delicate, almost imperceptible movements of their fins. They’re perfectly serene, perfectly tranquil . . . until one of the pieces of food disrupts the surface tension of the water. Then all at once they’re fierce, thrashing around terribly, their hungry mouths sucking at the air, the water, each other . . . until one fish finds the tiny dot of floating food.

Then, a few moments later, they all swim away.

* * *

“There’s . . . something else. I have something. Something I’ve been carrying around with me for a very long time now,” says Xavier.

I take in a quick, sharp breath. “Are you talking about your phone again?” I ask, my voice full of a false nonchalance.

“No. I’m talking about this,” says Xavier.

He places his fingers into his pocket and pulls out a small black jewelry box. He fixes my eyes with a long, steady gaze which does not break . . . as he falls to one knee.

“Veronica,” he says, “would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

I feel my breath coming in tiny gasps. My knees feel weak, somehow, and then they buckle altogether, and I’m kneeling too, in front of him, my gaze locked with his own.

“Xavier . . .”

His eyes shimmer as he presses his lips together. “Veronica . . . it has taken me a long time to get to this place. A long time. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that the kind of man you deserve was even inside me. When I first met you, I saw a strong young woman who knew what she wanted, and something . . . I don’t know,
something
in me changed. When I see you, I see a future of adventure, and excitement, and . . . maybe even
danger.
But I know this, Veronica: together, we will most definitely have a greater adventure than we could ever have apart from one another.”

Xavier opens the box, and I see the diamond flash of a ring against the dark velvet inside. He picks it up, takes my hand gently in his own, and then slides the ring around my finger.

I look at the ring and then at him, as I blink with a disbelieving joy. I can hear the fish as they thrash around in the water next to us; it's as if they are celebrating together with me. I lift the ring up, looking at the diamond sparkling in the light, and then I look past it, into the very blue and nearly cloudless sky.

I look back at Xavier, and when I do his eyes are hungry and wet.

I smile at him. And then Baby’s words come to me, and they echo in my head.

Just out of reach.

“Let me think about it,” I say.

But honestly — who am I kidding?

Five days later, I tell him
Yes.

The look on Xavier’s face when I speak that word is one of pure and unrestrained elation.

“Just how long were you planning to make me sweat it out?” he asks, his smile a mile wide.

“That was just about long enough,” I say. “So let’s do this thing! How about Vegas? Maybe this weekend?” I ask, grinning. “We’ll rent one of those big stretch Hummers and try and fit it through one of those drive-thru Chapel O’ Love places.”

He can tell that I’m only kidding, though. “Actually,” he says, “I’ve always wanted a big church wedding with all the trimmings. I’ll hire Cirque du Soleil, and we can have a shortcake buffet and three kinds of swans.”

It’s one of Xavier’s attempts at humor. I stick out my tongue at him and fix my lips in a sarcastic not-quite-smile. I can tell right away that he doesn’t really mean
that.

In the end, we decide to have the wedding at a house in Barbados that belongs to one of Xavier’s old college friends. I’d half-suggested Sand House, but the look on his face had made me immediately wish I hadn’t. It had been hard enough for him to bring me there; turning Xavier’s private sanctuary into a madhouse of friends and business associates is still a bridge too far for him.

Still, he obviously cares about making the day special. As the days go on, Xavier takes an astonishing amount of interest in the actual planning of the wedding. I’d expected Baby and Rosco and I to have to handle most of it ourselves, but . . . surprisingly, no. Soon Xavier’s bringing me copies of glossy Barbados Wedding catalogs and we’re comparing tour options together over bottles of wine and an iPad.

There’s no mistaking it: something’s changed in Xavier. I ask Baby and Rosco about it the next time I’m at Beauty World.

“He’s changed because you
got
him,” says Rosco. “I mean, okay — men are basically animals on some level.
Sex-money-power-sex-money-power
. . . there’s this weird blob of desire running through our heads 24/7. Makes us second-guess almost every major long-term decision.
Is this the right person? Is this the right job? Should there be kids? How many kids? What am I doing with my life?
That sort of thing. Now that he knows that he’s going to marry you, he can just focus on that. On
you.
Congratulations, sweetie.”

Baby nods. “He wants to be involved in the wedding. That means something. You should be happy!”

I frown. “Maybe. I don’t know. I actually wish that he wanted to be
less
involved. I mean, part of me is happy, of course. And then there’s the part of me that keeps having to steer him away from a nautical-themed wedding.”