Maybe once maybe twice, p.32
Maybe Once, Maybe Twice, page 32
Weeks later, New York magazine published a tell-all article: four well-researched accounts of women whose careers were stifled by Cole Wyan. One of them was me.
I was on set the morning the story broke, watching Raini sing the first song I had written for the movie. She, quite simply, took our breath away. It was right then that I looked around, seeing not a dry eye on set—it was right then that I realized I was a part of something real and extraordinary. Something that wouldn’t slip through my fingers.
I walked out the stage doors, the sun setting on the backlot as I answered my phone.
“Hello.”
“Hi. I have Fin Bex and Shelly Pier for you.”
I waited, my heart pounding. I hadn’t talked to Fin since Cole had released my song, and I didn’t know what was coming on the other end of the line. Fin’s bouncy voice clicked through my phone’s receiver.
“So…turns out that guy’s a real piece of shit.”
I cleared my throat, almost smiling. “Yeah.”
“Shelly and I, we were just talking and thinking: You know what would be a real fuck-you to Cole Wyan?”
My eyes widened.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Recording so many songs that ‘Let’s Lie’ doesn’t even show up on your top songs on Spotify,” Shelly finished.
I exhaled, tears stinging my eyes, relief flooding through every inch of my bones.
“I’d like that, very much,” was all I could say.
“I think, however—and Shelly, correct me if I’m wrong—I think you should take a record deal and let me produce the record. Fuck the EP.”
“What happened to me getting left for dead if I take a record deal?” I asked, questioning Fin’s previous mindset.
“That remains true for so many,” Shelly said. “But I just had the head of Sony call me, asking, ‘Who the fuck is this Maggie Vine girl?’ and let’s just say, she didn’t need to read the New York mag article to know that Cole Wyan is trash. But she sure as hell wanted to help the woman who publicly took him down.”
“I would have called you earlier, but I went over to Sony to play her a couple of your demos from the film—I couldn’t risk sending them because of confidentiality. She loved you, and she’s all in—all in on you,” Fin said.
A wide grin split open my face as a blood-orange sunset roared in the sky above me.
“I mean…fuck yeah,” I said.
“Great. So the next call you get—if it’s a 212 number, take it. Her name’s Cara.”
And just like that, my music career took flight.
54
THIRTY-FIVE
I WAS SOARING. ASHER AND I had been going strong for seven months, I was midway into recording my first studio album, the movie had wrapped, and the Oscar buzz had already started—buzz that included Best Original Song. There was only one more box to check, but I wanted to understand my options fully before I approached it with the man I wanted by my side.
I had found a new OB, a woman who specialized in fertility and who didn’t mansplain my ovaries to me. Out of an abundance of caution, and because I could afford it, I had her redo all the tests. I wanted someone I trusted telling me about my body.
My OB sat me down across from her, inside a beautiful, cream-on-cream office on the Upper East Side.
“Okay, let’s get one thing straight: you’re not a lost cause—not at all. If your goal is to get pregnant, I would start with IUI, and I would start as soon as possible. You can absolutely try to do it the old-fashioned way, but I don’t want you to waste too much time trying, because with your egg count and your PCOS, the odds aren’t great on that end. If you’re serious, time is really important here.”
She went over the payment plans, and I exhaled. The numbers were still egregious, but they were now affordable to me. I had options. I just hadn’t discussed any of them with my live-in boyfriend.
“I’ll be back with my partner, and we can go over this with him.”
“That sounds like a plan,” she said.
My OB stood and smiled at me, her eyes filled with hope for my future. I smiled back, because I knew that she would help me reach my goal—somehow.
I walked back home, listening to a handful of home-recorded demos that I would send Bex later, as I took in the quiet West Village brownstones around me. Asher had moved to New York permanently after filming, purchasing a three-story brownstone on Perry Street so that I could live out all my Carrie Bradshaw dreams—minus sex with other men.
I ducked my head as I passed a stray paparazzo, the guy who always loitered one street back. Holding two coffees, I ran upstairs, finding Asher standing in the living room across from a roaring fire.
The fire lit up the dark gray leather wallpaper and deep green accents where Asher paced in front of a bookshelf lined with the works of Shakespeare and my record collection. I froze—taking him in, watching how he floated back and forth with a furrowed brow, all his attention glued to the script in front of him, his mouth muttering lines for his next upcoming feature. He turned, feeling eyes on him.
“You little lurker,” he said, grinning.
“What can I say? I get off on watching you work.”
I kissed him hard and handed him his coffee.
“How’d the writing session go this morning?” he asked.
“Great. Halfway there.”
He glanced down at his watch, a new Explorer Rolex.
“Shit—we’re going to be late for lunch.”
He grabbed his leather jacket from the chair and threw it on, and I tugged the lapel of his jacket toward me, so that I could pull his lips onto mine.
“Summer asked to push lunch back thirty minutes—Olivia ran long on a shoot,” I said, kissing his lips.
Summer had recently started dating an established makeup artist who really was right for her. Olivia was kind and soft in the places Summer could be loud and bold, and Summer was exuberant in the places Olivia was quiet. It was a perfect yin and yang. And neither woman wanted children. Olivia and Summer hadn’t left each other’s orbit since I introduced them on Asher’s set.
We filed into the airy white marbled kitchen and I took Asher’s hand, bringing him toward me.
“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked, my tone even.
Asher studied me, with his puzzled eyes narrowing on my neutral expression.
“What’s going on?”
“I went to my gyno today, and we discussed my options.”
“Your options for…?”
“For children.”
Asher’s face went white. My eyes widened, surprised by his reaction.
“You want children…now?” he asked, his voice so quiet that I had to lean in to hear it.
My eyes scanned the dreadful stillness of his body. I steadied my now-shaking hand on our kitchen island, trying to keep my spine upright. “Asher, I want children, and I don’t have a lot of time to do it naturally. I need to start trying now-ish. I’m not exactly blessed with the eggs of a twentysomething. Time isn’t on my side in this area.”
He was frozen, and it took him a moment to speak.
“You should text Summer and tell her we’re rescheduling,” he said, his voice low.
A sinking feeling enveloped my body as his ashen face didn’t seem to melt away. I texted Summer quickly, my heart racing in my throat.
Rain check on lunch. Fill you in later.
Hand on his chest, eyes widened, Asher walked over to the couch in the sunroom, which I called the Soul Room. Everything in here was light and cheerful—soft blushes, yellows, and creams amid leafy plants in the corner. I dragged my footsteps into the room, and the heaviness mounted inside of me as I sat down next to him on the yellow velvet couch. He looked at me, waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
“Asher, I’m almost thirty-six. I want a baby one day. And in order to have the best chance of doing that, one day needs to be very soon. And I love you, and we’ve looked at rings together, so I know that you see a future with me…”
“You want a baby with me.” It wasn’t so much a question as it was Asher trying to wrap his mind around it.
“That would be ideal, considering we’re, you know, crazy in love and want to start a life together. I was looking into doing this by myself before you reentered my life—that’s how badly I don’t want this moment to pass me by. But yes: I’d love to do this with you. I don’t want another baby daddy.”
“It’s not funny, Maggie.”
He stared at me, his head shaking as my face reddened with heat. I had forgotten that Asher Reyes didn’t have a sense of humor when he felt backed into a corner.
“Sorry.”
“I don’t know how I feel about being a parent.” He put his hand on his neck and swallowed hard. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ll have an answer anytime soon, or even in the next year or two.”
I could feel my insides tightening, bracing for a fall as my heart seemed to get heavier and heavier.
“My brother—his death and his life were…” Tears constricted Asher’s throat, and I watched the sadness fill his eyes. “There was so much fear for so long with him, and then there was unimaginable pain. I’m terrified of having children, Mags,” he cracked, the tears now falling. “I’m terrified of it. I don’t know if my heart’s capable of trying and losing someone—I don’t want to love someone like that without having control over if they’re going to be okay. I can’t go through what my parents went through.”
Asher trailed off in silent tears—his strong jaw quivering at the thought. He shook his head and looked at his hands, as if ashamed, but knowing this was his truth.
“I’m sorry—I’m sorry I don’t have the answer that you need right now—” He stopped talking, his voice cracking under pain.
“Don’t be sorry,” I whispered through tears. I took his hand in mine, pulling his eyes back to me. I sucked in swirling pain and heartache. “I think—I know a child would be lucky to have you. But I can’t make you want one right now, just because I’m ready. I—I understand.” My voice quivered, tears enveloping the words.
“I’m not saying never, Maggie,” he said, squeezing my hand. “I just can’t be someone’s father right now. I can’t conceptualize it. I mean, I just started talking about my brother. I think having a kid right now would wreck me.”
I had convinced Asher to open up about his brother, and in turn, he shocked the shit out of me. What was supposed to be a super-sexy Men’s Health cover shoot and interview became an issue about Asher’s struggle with depression, where he shared for the first time the truth about his brother’s death. It turned the magazine upside down, in the best way possible. The editors crafted the issue around mental health. I was so proud of him, and all I could think about when reading that article was how attentive and caring of a father he’d be one day—partly because of all the loss he carried for too long. What I didn’t know was that Asher didn’t want to be a father because of all the loss he carried. And I couldn’t make him feel like his decision was wrong. I couldn’t, because he believed it was right for him.
“One day, maybe I’ll be ready to have kids—”
I shook my head.
“No. Please don’t—don’t make promises for tomorrow that you might not keep. I watched Summer’s marriage fall apart because she wanted so badly to promise someone something that wasn’t right for her.”
He cupped my face with his hands, wiping my tears away even as they kept falling.
“You were supposed to be it for me,” he said, his voice breaking.
I watched Asher’s chest constrict with the loss, and he kept his warm eyes on mine, tears streaming down his face. All at once, I couldn’t stop sobbing. He wrapped his arms around me tightly, our bodies clenched in sadness.
After a short while, I pulled back and ran my hand over his strong jaw, kissing his cheek, his lips, holding his face in my hands.
“I love you so fucking much,” I whispered, the truth of the statement splintering me in half. “You’ve—you’ve changed my life—not just once, but twice. You’re the first person who looked at me and really cared—and you made me really care. You taught me the purpose of loving someone, and seeing the world through your eyes is a goddamn privilege.” I caught my breath, heaving tears. Asher choked back a sob, keeping both my hands in his as he watched me continue. “You’ve given me the chance to have a family. And I wish it was with you, but I understand. I really do understand,” I said, the words coming out small, because the feelings were so huge that they could have swallowed us both.
I understood more than he knew. Up until a few years ago, I didn’t think children were for me. It wasn’t until I unpacked my father wound with my therapist that I started to realize that I desperately wanted a child. I hoped, for Asher’s sake, that he would dive into the deep wound left by his brother, even if it meant deciding that children still weren’t for him. I knew I couldn’t wait around for that answer, nor would I ever want to resent him for taking his time to get there. He deserved more than that. And so did I.
Asher pulled me toward him and kissed me, hands in my hair, tears and longing everywhere. Asher Reyes kissed me like it was the end. It felt like falling off a shooting star—gorgeous and devastating.
We held each other until the sun rose. It was the hardest goodbye of my life, by far.
I couldn’t help but think, as I held Asher that night, tears in both our eyes, massive, full love swelling from both our bodies, that maybe I had misunderstood my mom. Maybe this was what happened to her. Maybe she got so much love in that short time from my father that it was enough. Maybe their breakup didn’t leave a void inside her. Maybe their love filled her up, so much that there wasn’t actually a hole. There was boundless untamed love that they explored—that much I pieced together from their stories—especially from the way my dad talked about my mom. I would call my mom and ask her—I owed her that much. Actually, I owed her a lot more than that.
The love of your life doesn’t have to last forever. I would live the rest of my life knowing that loving and being loved by Asher Reyes—twice in this lifetime—was more than enough.
55
SEVENTEEN
I STARED AT THE PHONE, frustration bubbling, pacing back and forth in my tiny dorm room. It was 8:07 at night. Asher had said he’d call at eight. He was never late. He was late.
Already two months into my freshman year, life wasn’t going as I expected, so while Asher being late to call me wasn’t a crime, it was coming on the heels of my crippling loneliness. I hadn’t made a lot of friends at NYU, and everyone in my music classes had the kind of talent I had thought made me rare and sparkly. Not helping was my roommate, Summer Groves, a horrible excuse for a person. Cold and mean, she acted like I had done something unfathomable to her the second I greeted her with a wide smile on our first day on campus. I was thankful that she was at some random rally tonight, not here to flick her eyes at me as I melted down over my boyfriend’s lack of calling.
Long distance, the time change, and Asher’s and my differing class schedules and commitments seemed impossible to navigate. I found myself saying no to going out and making friends, just so I could spend my dinners talking to him on the phone. This wasn’t how I’d pictured college. Asher had a rigorous schedule at USC, the theater program left little time for fun—let alone spending hours on the phone with his girlfriend. And my schedule at NYU, with my major in music production, didn’t exactly leave idle time, either.
I knew we were drifting apart. I knew it, yet I didn’t want it to be true.
I jumped, my flip phone buzzing in my hands. I flicked it open.
“Hey,” I said, a little coldly.
“I’m sorry.” Asher sighed on the other end of the line.
“It’s okay.”
I sat on the edge of my twin-sized bed, swinging my legs back and forth.
“This is hard, Mags. This is harder than I thought.” His voice was thick, as if he was wrestling with something.
I could feel a wave of pain throbbing under my lashes, bubbling, waiting.
“Do you—do you not want to do this anymore?” I asked, my voice small.
“It’s not that. I don’t not want to do this—I just—I can’t only see you twice a year and talk to you when the timing—when we feel rushed, and it sucks for both of us. That’s—that’s not a relationship. That’s not fair to either of us. I don’t know what to do,” he said.
I swallowed the tears, my hands trembling.
“Yes, you do, you just don’t want to do it. So I’ll—I’ll do it for you,” I cracked.
I pictured him pacing outside his dorm at USC, the gorgeous cream fountains and green palm trees in view, his olive skin bathing in the sun, his face filled with sadness. I wanted to hold him, I needed him to hold me, and I knew, the way you just know, that we wouldn’t be holding each other anytime soon, or maybe ever again. And with that brutal thought, my chest caved in, and a special kind of loneliness filled all the spaces he had ever touched. My hands, my arms, my knees, my neck, my heart, my soul—I was consumed by a heavy, dark cloud.
On the other end of the line, so was he.
“Mags,” he said quietly, his voice breaking, his tears audible even through mine. “I don’t want to do this,” he cried.
I tugged myself into the fetal position, holding the phone to my cheek as I buckled, the cries guttural. I’d felt rejection and sadness when my father broke his promises—but his lack of fathering never felt like something that I was losing, like a loss that was permanent. His just felt like a temporary disappointment. This pain was splintering.
Losing Asher Reyes was losing a part of me I would never get back. This was heartache creating a hole inside me that no one else could fill.
