More Than A Maybe (24 page)

I can’t say anything. I’m so angry and hurt I can barely even see.

“Okay!? Hello? Are you there, Veronica? Please, this is very important.”

I hate you. I hate you and my head hurts so much.

But I hear myself speak. “I need the address,” I say, softly.

“Okay. Do you have a pen?”

“Just a second.”

I don’t move — not for a pen, not for anything. I just hold the phone to my ear, and I breathe, and I try to keep my world together.

I count off thirty angry silent seconds.

“Okay, I have a pen,” I lie. Xavier reads off an address, but I can only hear a dull furious rushing in my ears and his voice sounds like stupid buzzing nonsense.

“Great,” he says. “Get that to FedEx right away for me, okay?”

“Okay.”

I hang up, and I go out into the kitchen and pick up Xavier’s phone, and I start up the new InSinkErator garbage disposal that was installed last week and I stuff the phone into the drain. There’s a terrible grinding of plastic and metal and glass, and I let the sound continue until I’m sure that both phone and garbage disposal are completely destroyed.

I need . . .

I look around at everything in the apartment. I see Xavier everywhere.

It’s Him. It’s all Him.

Every piece of furniture, every appliance in the kitchen, the chairs on the terrace, the audio system, the sofa . . . everything is Xavier.

I need to get out of here.

* * *

I go back into the bedroom, find a suitcase, and begin to pack, quick as I can.

Some inner voice tells me to pack light and go quickly, and I do, as quick as I can manage. I pack for utility. Versatility. Semi-casual, semi-formal. One pair of heels. One pair of flat-packed boots. I actually find myself wearing tennis shoes.

Only when my suitcase is zipped shut do I finally feel like I can spare a few minutes to make myself presentable. I remove the remnants of my grungy and tear-streaked cosmetics, then shower, change, and reapply my makeup in record time. I grab my suitcase and then I am out the door, leaving behind the broken Roomba and the broken garbage disposal and whatever’s left of Xavier’s broken phone and the broken, broken life I’ve made with such a terribly broken human being. I roll my luggage behind me to the elevator, and I punch the button for the lobby with a ferocity that surprises me.

The doors open, and as they do I see two men from the cleaning service in their gray uniforms. They’ve got their plastic carriers of scrub brushes and their fabric cleaners with them.

They recognize me. “Good morning!” one of them says, smiling. “Anything special we can do for you today?”

I look at him unsteadily . . . then I open my mouth.

“Actually . . . you know what?” I say, my voice a mockery of cheerfulness. “We’re not going to need anything this week.”

The man seems confused. “We . . . should not clean today?”

“Ah . . . no. We’re good for this week. I mean, you can still bill us for the week, or whatever, but . . . no, we’d rather you just leave it for this week. I’m sure.”

I give him a tight smile and struggle my suitcase into the elevator beside me. The cleaning men hesitate for a bit, then shrug, and we all go down to the first floor together.

We get out, and I follow them as far as the front of the building. The men get in their truck and start it up. One of them gives me a little wave out the passenger-side window. And then, a moment later, they’re gone.

I sigh with an impossible sadness, and I take a few steps forward, rolling my suitcase behind me.

Then I stop, because I have absolutely no idea where I’m going.

* * *

Where can I go?

Where?

I can walk into the ocean.

I can ask Rosco if his husband would mind a heartbroken girl spending the next fifty years sobbing on their couch.

I could go to see my cousins — the ones in Maine who I haven’t spoken to in six years.

I have nowhere I can go.
But as much as that thought chills me, I find that I’m already thinking of other targets for my hurt and rage. And Baby is now quickly climbing chart positions on my newly-minted shit list.

She had to have known about Xavier.
Somehow, she’d had to have had some idea the kind of . . . the kind of
bizarre psycho
he was, with his photo collection of identical women next to that ridiculous coffee, all of them exactly the same. Everything Baby had told me about freeing Xavier from his temporary world of maybes, everything she’d told me about keeping him . . . all that bullshit about the
oiran
. . .

Baby isn’t some all-knowing relationship sage at all.

She’s just a California trophy wife with a souvenir charm bracelet.

This realization makes me feel empty. Empty — and terribly sad.

And then, because bad luck always has the worst possible timing, the phone rings.

Baby. Of course.

“Hey honey!” she says, in an overpeppy voice I suddenly find grating. “Guess what time it is? Champagne and honeydew time, girl — it is the
brunching hour.
Are you in?”

My voice is quivering with rage. “I am . . . completely
furious
with you right now,” I say, trying to get the words out while the anger still gives me enough power to do so. “You’ve known Xavier for . . . for
how
long, exactly? Years? And it never occurred to you to tell me about his past? About all those other girls?”

She sounds hurt at my words, confused. “God, listen to you! What’s your problem?”

So I spell it out for her, telling Baby exactly what my problem is — how I’d ended up looking at Xavier’s phone, how whatever is left of it is sitting in the drain at the bottom of the sink. The accusation in my voice is unmistakable.

When I finish, Baby doesn’t say anything for a few long seconds.

“Okay — that
is
messed up. But Veronica,” she says finally, her voice taking on a clear note of honesty, “you need to listen to me, okay? Believe me — I did not know ANY of this. I mean . . . I knew he’d had a
couple
of other girlfriends, but . . . ”

“Well, there certainly didn’t seem to be any shortage of them on his
phone,
” I say.

“See — that’s just the thing,” Baby says. “As long as I’ve known him, the man has been pretty much a loner. When he hangs out with me and Randy, the guy almost always comes by himself. I’ve met maybe 
two
of his other girlfriends in the time I’ve known him.”

“Both wearing black?” I ask, still seething.

Baby’s voice gets quiet.

“Okay, yeah,” she says. “Shit. They
were
both dark dresses. I don’t know . . . maybe they were the same. I guess. I just figured that he was into spooky chicks or something.”

“Did you just say
spooky
chicks?”

Baby sounds uncomfortable. “Yeah. Like . . . kind of goth girls. Black nails and Hot Topic. Or whatever.”

I decide to let it go. “Okay, fine — but who were they? Where did they meet?”

“I really don’t know too much about them,” Baby says. “I only know they were both students. Xavier met one of them after giving a talk at Berkeley. The other was . . . I don’t know, at some fashion university out of state. Not FIT, but . . . something kind of like FIT. Not really sure how they met. I saw them both once, that was it. Never saw them again. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask Xav —”

“Will you
please
not say his name right now,” I say sharply. “I’m not going to be talking to him again. And I really can’t be here any more. I’m leaving. Today.”

“Leaving for
where?
I mean, you could come here,” she says. “My house. Or Beauty World . . . ”

I sigh. “Those would be the first places he’d look.”

“Okay, but . . . is it really that bad?” she asks. “Are you, like,
hiding
from him?”

“I . . . just need to be somewhere else. Where he can’t find me for a while,” I say. I bite my lip. I still don’t know how much I can trust Baby, but . . . well, there simply isn’t anyone else in California I can rely on right now.

“I normally wouldn’t ask,” I say, “But can I borrow some money for a while? I mean, all I have is Xavier’s card. If I use that, he’ll know where I am. Besides, I don’t want to take anything from him. Not ever again.”

“Oh honey,” Baby says. “Of course you can.”

* * *

Baby meets me at a sandwich shop and gives me a big wad of bills — nearly four thousand dollars. I tell her it’s too much, but she insists. “I just cleaned out a couple of cookie jars,” she says, giving me a sad smile. “I can get more, but Randall might ask questions.”

“It’s fine,” I say. “It’s more than fine, really. Thank you so much.”

Baby calls me a taxi, and we wait together, not really saying anything. There isn’t much to say. When the car arrives I stand up and give Baby a big hug. “Say goodbye to Rosco, okay?” I ask.

She nods. “Totally. But this is so weird. I mean, can’t you at least tell me where you’ll be?”

I shake my head. “I better not. It’s better if you don’t know, in case anyone asks. I’m sorry.”

I can tell that Baby understands. She gives my hand one last squeeze.

A few moments later I am in the back seat of a taxicab that smells like a wet dog. The air conditioner is terribly cold. My tears are already trickling their way down my cheeks and off the bottom of my chin.

The taxi driver looks into the rearview in surprise.

“No no!” he says. “A pretty lady should not cry! And on such a beautiful day!”

He opens the glove compartment and rummages around for a moment, then leans backward over the seat to hand me a pack of tissues. I take them, giving him a whispered
thank you
in return.

The taxi driver makes a little sympathetic smile, then reaches up a hand to the rearview mirror. He adjusts it a little, turning it with a precise, practiced motion, so that he can more easily check out my tear-spattered breasts.

* * *

The Ocean-View Motel has a few things going for it. It is quiet, it is clean, and it is reasonably-priced . . . but I cannot help but be struck by the things it does
not
have.

It does not have a gym, or a steam room, or a Jacuzzi. It does not have room service — just a continental breakfast between the hours of nine and ten in the morning. It
does
have a swimming pool, but it looks untended almost to the point of abandon. The water is brackish, and it is full of dead leaves.

But of this I am certain: that of all the places I could be in the world, right now this place seems best.

Xavier is an egotistical psycho.

Xavier is a self-absorbed, egotistical psycho . . . and I am good to be rid of him.

I tell myself this again and again as I make a forced effort to enjoy the motel room. I take off my shoes and I scrunch up my toes to feel the texture of the room’s worn burgundy berber. I put my suitcase into the closet and shut the door and I sit on the corner of the the bed. I turn on the television and watch five minutes of CNN and five minutes of an idiotic sci-fi movie about a robot killer.

I turn off the television and take my suitcase out again and I try to unpack my things, but there aren’t enough hangers in the closet. So I look them over carefully, try to prioritize them according to what I think I’m likely to wear. There are Hanger Clothes and there are Suitcase Clothes, and I separate them into two little piles on the bed. Then I hang up the Hanger Clothes on the hangers and I put the Suitcase Clothes back in the suitcase.

I hear strange inhuman clunking sounds outside my door. I put a nervous eye up to the peep-hole, but there’s nobody there. This makes me relieved and then nervous again, so I slowly open the door, and as I peer around the door jamb I see what’s making the sound.

It’s the ice machine. My room is next to a little self-service nook that houses the floor’s ice and Coke machines, along with a vending machine with rows of candy and snacks behind little turning screw-job dealies. I go and get my purse and I buy a bottle of Aquafina water and a pack of M&Ms, and then I go back in my room and I lean back onto the bed and look up at the speckled dots of the room’s ceiling tiles.

I can see a brownish water stain in one of the corners, where the tile meets the top of the white stucco wall, and I stare at it until I feel myself start to cry again. I grab a couple of pillows and build a little pillow fort around my boobs and I hug myself tight, letting the tears come hard and fast.

And then, when my crying slows, I pinch my eyes closed hard.

Somehow I sleep. When the clunking of the ice machine wakes me up again, it is 2:12 in the morning.

I go and take off my makeup and have a proper shower, and to make myself feel just a little bit better I make sure to use up all of the towels and washcloths.

When I get back to the room my iPhone lets me know that I have calls and messages and I want to strangle the electronic life out of it. I want to sting it with bees and cover its screen with black electrical tape and put it into a little burlap sack filled with rocks and tie it up and throw into a koi pond.

Instead I turn it off. I hold down its little silver button, and I wait until the 
slide to power off
slider appears, and I slide it and then the phone is dark.

Then I go back to bed.

* * *

I sleep surprisingly well that night. I wake up several times, but then I realize that I don’t have anything to do and my ambivalence about this make me sleepy and I fall right back asleep.

When I finally can’t possibly snooze any more I sit up. My eyes fall on the dark iPhone next to the bed, and the black mixture of hatred and loneliness and guilt that I feel makes me switch it on again.

There’s a message from Baby, wanting to know if I’m all right, and if there’s anything she can do I should call her right away. She says Rosco sends his love.

Xavier has called many, many times. He’s left voicemails, but I can’t bring myself to listen to them. His text messages start off normal:

> Here in Houston. It’s hot.