Maddie Dawson - The Opposite of Maybe

ALSO BY MADDIE DAWSON

The Stuff That Never Happened

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2014 by Maddie Dawson

All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

BROADWAY BOOKS and its logo, B \ D \ W \ Y, are trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dawson, Maddie.
The opposite of maybe : a novel / Maddie Dawson.First Edition.
pages cm.
1. WomenFiction. 2. Family lifeFiction. 3. City and town lifeFiction. 4. Triangles (Interpersonal relations)Fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.A9795O66 2014
813.6dc23 2013031824

ISBN 978-0-7704-3768-8
eBook ISBN 978-0-7704-3769-5

Cover design by Abby Weintraub
Cover photograph by Anna Sherwin/Millennium Images, UK

v3.1

To Jim, always

Theyre making love on Saturday morningalmost finished, but not quite close enough to the finish line to really and truly countwhen the phone starts its earsplitting chirping right by their heads.

Jonathan, who had been lying on top of her, with his face contorted in what she was sure was ecstasy, groaning, Rosie, Rosie, Rosie now comes instantly to a halt. His eyes dart to the telephone on the floor next to their mattress, and she says, Ohhhh, no you dont, and they both start laughing. They know he cant help it.

No, no, no! she says, and tightens her grip on him, still laughing. Not now. Dont get up to see who it is.

But I have to know, he says mournfully.

But why? You hate the phone. And you already know youre not going to answer it.

I know, but I have to see, he says. He bites his lip and gives her a sheepish look. Come on, let me check it.

All right, she says. Go look, you big lug. But come back.

He leans so far over the side of their mattress that he nearly falls onto the floor on his head, still tangled in the sheets. And then, laughing, he has to catch himself and walk on his hands until he can pull himself out of the wreckage and get upright on the floor.

Sex as vaudeville, she thinks. This is what they never tell you about long-term relationships: how youd just die if you were ever shown a video of yourself trying to have ordinary, household sex on any given day. And how it would still be worth it to you.

He scrambles for his glasses and then peers down at the Caller ID, absently scratching the hairs on his belly. Last week he turned forty-five, and when they went out with friends for his birthday dinner, he proclaimedin a toast, yetthat he had now officially become older than dirt. (Rosie, only a year younger, had been surprised to hear this.) Raising his glass, he had laughingly announced he was losing his eyesight, his hairline, most of his optimism, and just about the last shred of his vanity.

Now, watching him as he mindlessly pulls off the condom that has been hanging on for dear life and flings it across the room to the trash can, she thinks he really might have been serious.

The condom does a graceful midair arc and lands with a splat on the lampshade on her dresser. If it had been a gymnast, the Russian judge would have given it a nine. It definitely stuck the landing.

She looks at his face. Hes handsome still, no matter what he says. He has brown hairokay, thinning somewhat and streaked with gray nowbut his smooth, tanned face has hardly any lines, only a few crinkles around his wide brown eyes, which just now are scowling at the phone. Thats the trouble, she thinks: in the last two years, hes looked perpetually dissatisfied. Maybe thats what he was talking about on his birthday, how he doesnt care about life the way he used to.

It isnt Soapie who called, is it? she says. She has to go see her grandmother later today, and it would be just like her to call up at the last minute and try to change the plan. Especially since today is the day they are going to have The Big Talkthe wouldnt you really feel much safer with a home health aide talk that Rosie has been putting off. Shes even secretly arranged for a potential aide candidate to show upa wonderful British woman who claimed on the telephone that she knows precisely how to relate to women of a certain age, as she put it. So this is all orchestrated and it has to happen.

Nope, says Jonathan. The culprit is somebody named Andres Schultz, and hes from area code six-one-nine, he says. Do you know him?

No. Not for me.

Lets see six-one-nine is um San Diego.

Oh my God, she says. Do you really know all the area codes? Seriously?

Of course he does. Numbers have always attached themselves to him. And also, hes a collector of antique teacupsthe kind from the dynasties in Asia and Europe, not from little girls tea setsand hes in constant touch with collectors from everywhere. It turns out theres a whole subculture of wacky obsessives just like him, always on the Internet, comparing, blogging, judging whose collections are the biggest and the hottest, and gossiping about whos been written up in the journals. Its a world she never knew existed.

By now the call has been shuffled off to the land of voice mail, but Jonathan still stands there watching to see if the message light is going to come on. When it doesnt, he says, Shit. No message. Who could this guy be?

It might have been a wrong number, you know, she points out. She sighs. But why dont you just call him back and find out, so we can get on with our lives?

No, he says. I dont want to talk to him. I just cant believe somebody from San Diego would call here at nine thirty on a Saturday. Its six thirty in the morning there. What is he thinking?

I have no idea. But do you know what Im thinking?

What?

Im thinking I want you and your sweet hairy self to come back over here and resume having sex with me.

He makes a face. I think Mr. Happy might have moved on to thinking about teacups, and you know how once he goes there

Oh, I can persuade Mr. Happy, she says. She sticks a foot out from under the sheet and wiggles her toes at him, smiling.

Yeah, well, maybe once upon a time, but lately hes become more temperamental. Alsowell, frankly he has to pee. He frowns, looks at the phone again and then back at her. I tell you what: Ill go have a serious talk with him, and then well see what he wants to do about the situation.

Remind him that he actually likes this sort of thing, she says, and watches Jonathans cute bare butt disappear around the corner of the bedroom door. Hes humming Born to Run, which is lately his go-to song for the morning pee.

Hey, you know what? he calls from the bathroom. I bet this guy Andres Schultz is somebody answering my call for another Ming Dynasty cup. That could be good.

Fantastic, she says.

They currently have thirty-eight teacups stacked up in their living room, nested in white, archival-quality boxesteacups that will never again see the light of day. Apparently they have to be protected from sunlight, dust motes, and destructive air currents so they can last into eternity. Jonathan and those funny, obsessive guys he e-mails are no doubt saving the world from the problem of teacup extinction.

As Rosie has explained to their friends, every time Jonathan latches on to a new hobby, he goes a littlewhats the clinical term?oh yes,