DEFINITELY MAYBE
DEFINITELY MAYBE
One Week Before She Disappeared
ABBY
Trapped. That’s what I am. The woman I have come to speak to calls me by my maiden name, and the sound of it surprises me. As though it is something I have forgotten. At work, I am a different version of myself—someone confident and well respected—but at home, I am just the wife . It’s like I am playing a role I didn’t audition for, but nobody tells you that the script of your life sometimes changes when you say “I do.”
I feel like I lost part of myself when I got married.
As though once he had me, he didn’t want me anymore.
It’s as if I’m invisible.
I’ve always been a private person. I know a lot of people believe in counseling and that talking to therapists helps , but I’ve never been one to share my problems. Until now. The woman I’ve made an appointment to speak to doesn’t look like a therapist. She has long blond hair and is dressed in black, as though she might be off to a funeral once she has finished listening to me. I don’t know if I can tell her the truth, but I’m so tired of pretending. She looks like someone you can trust, and she sounds kind, patiently waiting for me to tell her why I am here.
“Take your time,” says the woman in black.
Then she checks her watch.
It’s okay. I’m just as good at pretending not to be offended as I am at pretending to be fine. I take in my surroundings. This is not a nice-looking office. There is no stylish furniture or calming paintings on the wall. It is a place that has never seen better days.
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure where to start,” I tell her.
“It’s okay.” She smiles and leans forward, tilting her head so that her long blond hair falls over her shoulder. “I’m here to listen whenever you feel ready.” The smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and I wonder if listening to other people’s problems makes her feel better about her own. “Maybe start at the beginning,” she suggests.
Which seems wrong because this feels like the end.
We are not the same people we were when we met.
I think you’re in my seat.
Those were the first words my husband ever said to me.
I wonder what will be the last.
“I think you’re in my seat,” said an unfriendly voice.
I looked up from my book and saw a man staring down at me. He was a little older than I am. Attractive, but not in an obvious way, with dark hair and intense eyes. He was in good shape, well enough dressed, and wore the expression of a man who knew what he wanted from the world and how to get it.
“I don’t think so,” I replied and returned to my novel.
I’ve been traveling on planes since I was a child. My mother first sent me away on one—alone, because she said she could no longer stand to look at me—when I was ten years old. I was not a novice traveler and I knew I was in the right seat. But he didn’t move, just stood there staring at me, pulling the face of a person not used to being ignored.
“Sorry, you’re obviously reading something good...”
Trying to , I wanted to say but bit my tongue.
“My boarding pass says twenty-five A,” he blathered on, holding up the whole queue of people trying to board the plane behind him. “And that’s where you’re sitting.”
Why do some men always think they are right, despite having so much previous experience of being wrong? I glanced up from my page, again, to look at the boarding pass he was holding irritatingly close to my face. I had a curious urge to grab it, tear it up, and throw the pieces in the air.
“You’re in twenty-five F. This is twenty-five A,” I replied and returned to my book.
So it was definitely not love at first sight.
There was no apology as he took his seat on the other side of the aisle. Other passengers continued to file past looking for their seats—hopefully the correct ones—but nobody sat down between us, and I could feel him still looking at me.
“I’ve read that book, by the way,” he said from the other side of the plane. I ignored him and pretended to carry on reading. “It has a very disappointing ending.”
“Thanks for letting me know,” I replied, still not looking up.
“I could tell you if you like; save you some time?”
I deployed the look I reserve for people who irritate me more than is tolerable. A look I only use when I want someone to know that I hate them.
“No. Thank you,” I said, hoping he would get the message and that would be the end of it. Finally, someone sat in the seat next to mine, coming between us and blocking seat 25F’s view of me and my reading choices.
“Excuse me,” I heard him say to my new neighbor. “We’re actually traveling together.” To my surprise, and horror, he meant me. “Would you mind swapping so I can sit beside my friend?”
I was not his friend . I was not his anything.
“Of course,” said the man who had just sat down next to me, already unfastening his seat belt.
“Oh no,” I protested. “You really don’t have to do that—”
“It’s no bother; I don’t mind.”
I did .
My friend strapped himself into the seat next to mine and held out his hand, expecting me to shake it. I didn’t. Instead, I glared at his hand and then at his face as though I found them both offensive. “I think we may have got off on the wrong foot,” he said. “Can we start again? I always think traveling is a great way to meet new people.”
“I could agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
“Ha! That’s funny. Are you a comedian?”
“No,” I said, staring back down at my book.
“What do you do?” he asked. When I didn’t reply, he said, “I’m a writer.”
And those were the words that changed everything because writers were my rock stars.
He instantly transformed from an irksome stain on the planet into a creature of wonder. We started chatting, and he was charming and witty and clever. The book I was reading went into the seat pocket and wasn’t opened again. I have always had a soft spot for storytellers. I fall in love with their words; then I fall in love with the people who wrote them. I sometimes wish I could crawl inside their heads, hear their innermost thoughts, and see the world through their eyes.
It isn’t as though I’d never met an author before. The woman who raised me—when my mother gave up trying to—worked in publishing. I spent my teenage years living in a home that was often filled with writers. She would host these amazing dinner parties in her London flat, and they would all sit around for hours talking, eating, drinking. I would sit on the top step of the staircase, secretly listening, wishing I was allowed to be down there having fun with them. Those “dinner parties” often went on until the sun came up and I had to get myself ready for school. I’d go to class exhausted but happy. It didn’t matter to me whether they were million-copy bestsellers or award-winning novelists—though many of them were—they were all magicians of words, and that was my favorite kind of magic.
We talked so much when we first met on the plane that I barely noticed when it took off. When the flight attendant arrived with a trolley full of drinks, he ordered three: a cup of tea, a whiskey, and some water. I don’t usually drink on flights, but I had some wine. I watched him pour a dash of cold water into his steaming cup of tea.
“I’ve never been a patient person,” he said, by way of explanation even though I hadn’t asked.
It was a night flight to New York, and before long the cabin was in darkness. Most of the other passengers seemed to be asleep already—travel cushions tucked under their heads, eye masks on—but we continued to whisper, like children excited to still be up long after bedtime. We spoke for hours, and I felt like I could talk to him forever about books, travel, life, anything. I wanted to know everything about him, what he thought and felt, to know if his view of the world was the same as mine. Have you ever met someone and just clicked? As though you had known them for years even though you had just met? That’s how it felt. So I confess I was a little disappointed when he yawned, tilted his seat back as far as it would go, and said he might try to get some sleep. I worried that maybe I had imagined the chemistry between us.
Nobody was sitting in the aisle seat next to him, it was just the two of us on the row of three, and he offered me the spare blanket he had swiped from the empty one earlier. I took it, even though I didn’t really want it, and tried not to sulk when he switched off the reading lights above our heads, plunging us into semidarkness like the rest of the plane. I attempted to get comfortable in the uncomfortable seat, turning my head to face him and closing my eyes. I kept feeling like he was watching me, but whenever I opened my eyes, his were closed. When I thought I saw his eyes start to open, I squeezed mine shut.
His face was so close to mine I could feel his breath. I opened my eyes a fraction and studied his features, his hair, his thick eyebrows and dark eyelashes, the shape of his nose, the shadow of stubble around his mouth, his lips. He seemed to be sleeping already, unlike me, so I turned away. It’s strange how we sleep next to people we do not know on a plane, how we can allow ourselves to be that vulnerable when surrounded by strangers.
I thought I was imagining it at first.
A hand slowly slid beneath the thin blanket that was covering me. It came to rest just above my knee, and I didn’t know what to do or how to react. I kept my face turned toward the window. The hand moved again, warm, strong fingers finding my skirt beneath the blanket and gently gathering up the material. Then the hand started to slide up my thigh. My eyes were shut, but I couldn’t hide that I was breathing faster, my chest rising and falling. My thighs were closed together, blocking the hand, but I opened them just wide enough for it to go wherever it wanted. I only opened my eyes once, to check that the blanket was hiding what was happening beneath it and that nobody else could see. I opened my legs a little wider, and the fingers found their way inside my underwear. I didn’t tell him to stop. I didn’t want him to stop. The only time he did was when I gasped as his fingers slipped inside me. Only when I was silent did he carry on. His fingers moved tantalizingly slowly at first, stroking, exploring, plunging deeper until he reached the perfect rhythm. Ripples of pure pleasure made me want to cry out, but he stopped if I moved or made even the smallest sound. So I kept quiet, and I kept my eyes closed—even though I was sure his were open and looking at me—because I didn’t want what he was doing to end.
Several hours later, when the cabin lights came back on and the flight attendants began serving breakfast, he acted as though nothing had happened, so I did too. We chatted—just as we had before—and when the plane landed we parted company with a simple,
“Nice to meet you.”
There was no exchange of contact details.
No plans to meet again.
I felt confused, numb, and incredibly foolish for thinking I had met someone who liked me. Someone I could maybe learn to love. I looked for him in the queue for passport control and again at the baggage reclaim carousel, but he was gone. Only when I walked out into arrivals, overwhelmed by the sea of happy faces waiting for loved ones, did I see him again. He was holding a large bouquet and a box of chocolates and smiling in my direction. I smiled too.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I met a girl,” he replied. “I wanted to buy her flowers.”
“That’s nice.”
“She is. Smart and fun, too.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Can I take you out for dinner? I want to do this properly.”
“It’s eight o’clock in the morning; it’s a little early.”
“A second breakfast then?”
“Definitely maybe,” I said and he grinned.
We spent an entire day walking around New York hand in hand and never ran out of things to talk about. He was late for a book event, and I was late for a meeting, but neither of us cared. We shared stories, laughed, ate, drank, and we made love that night in my hotel room. It wasn’t just sex. It was something different from anything I had ever experienced before. Something more. We got married a year later.
It never occurred to me that I’d made a huge mistake. Until now.
I don’t share any of this with the woman in black.
“I’m sorry. I think I might have wasted your time,” I tell her. I stand up and gather my belongings, but she soothes and silences me with her kind words and her smile, and I realize just how good she is at this—getting people to trust her.
“I know it can be difficult to talk about the things that upset us,” she says. “How about we start with one word to describe what brought you here today? The one thing that is troubling you the most.”
“Trust,” I blurt out.
“That’s good,” she says. “Is there someone you think about when you say that word?”
“My husband.”
“You don’t trust him anymore?”
“No, he doesn’t trust me.”
She frowns then, ruining her perfect face. “What makes you feel that way?”
“I’ve been lying to him, and I think he knows.”
“Lying to him about what?” she asks.
“Everything.”