Chapter 22
Friday morning I woke up to a wave of media requests forwarded by Bronwyn.
If this was what being popular in high school felt like, I was so there for it.
I said yes to everything, including three pitch meetings with producers interested in optioning Love You to Mars and Back to turn it into a limited TV series or a movie.
With my dance card full of podcasts, book events, and media interviews for the following week, I turned my full attention instead to Max’s expected return in twenty-four hours.
Or maybe it was forty-eight. Unfortunately, he had not given me his precise itinerary, so I was left waiting and anticipating as Friday turned into Saturday, which rolled into Sunday.
The weekend felt as if Christmas Eve and Groundhog Day had been fused together.
But when I went to bed Sunday night, the necklace from Max still had not turned up, despite my searching for it every spare minute, and even more crucially, neither had Max.
I remembered him warning me that unexpected delays were a reality of space travel, though. It was too soon to freak out.
The next few days passed in a blur of ferrying Lucy to tennis camp and squeezing in the interviews and meetings I’d agreed to.
All while forgoing remote work and executing every assignment in the office perfectly to prove to Rebecca and William that I was absolutely fine.
And I was basically fine. Except for one fact: I still had not heard a peep from Max.
In case there’d been some horrible disaster on his mission, I’d been checking the news and social media several times a day for any mention of unusual space travel mishaps, debris of unknown origin falling from the sky, UFOs, new craters in the earth, astronauts stuck in space, you name it.
The black hole he seemed to have tumbled into was either real or proverbial. Either way, I was worried.
On Thursday night I had a book event in San Diego, and I wouldn’t make it back until long after Lucy’s bedtime.
I was forced to swallow some of my irritation and ask Rebecca and William for help with Lucy, which of course thrilled them to no end.
Because we’d always lived in the guesthouse, Lucy had never spent the night in the main house, so she was bouncing off the walls with excitement for her first-ever sleepover under her grandparents’ roof.
When I dropped her off, William took Lucy straight out to the pool.
I’d almost made a clean escape when Rebecca cornered me by the front door and asked if I’d made any progress finding a therapist.
At the agency, I’d observed many times when Rebecca would ask for a status update and it was obvious my colleague had nothing to share, but covered by claiming they’d sent an email and were awaiting a response, or had scheduled a meeting.
The mere hint of progress was usually enough to mollify Rebecca, allowing her to move on.
So I gave it a shot. “I’ve contacted several, just waiting to see when someone can fit me in. ”
“Thea, that’s wonderful,” Rebecca said, clasping her hands together. And with that, she wished me a safe drive and successful event as she walked me to my car.
At home later that night, I took a break from googling space-related incidents to complete an email interview I’d agreed to with a book influencer.
I personally loved filling out these types of interview questionnaires because there was no pressure to come up with clever answers on the spot and the questions were typically fun and quirky.
What book character would you want to be stuck in an elevator with?
Alexander Rostov from A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles because he would definitely keep me entertained with his storytelling.
What’s your preferred cocktail? Hugo Spritzes in the summer and Old Fashioneds in the winter.
If you could have one wish come true, what would it be?
That question stopped me in my tracks. My first impulse was to type: My boyfriend returns from outer space and we finally have sex!
Maybe that would count as two wishes? But the truth was, as much as I desperately wanted Max to reappear (and have sex this decade), I would forever and always blow my one wish on learning why Sam had gone for a run the day he died.
And who knew? Maybe if I put it in writing and shared it with the world, it would come true.
I typed in my answer and sent the email back.
By the end of the workweek, I had agreed to a book-to-film option deal with a producer who was coincidentally represented by Frannie’s dad, a superagent in the entertainment industry, and I’d also managed to charm my way through nine podcasts, three bookstore events, two large Zoom events, and five media interviews.
All while dodging questions about whether the astronaut I’d met in the dog park was still in my life.
On Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed for a book-signing event, dropping Lucy off at a playdate on the way.
After two hours of forced cheer, I needed another cup of coffee in the worst way.
I still had a mountain of agency work to catch up on and couldn’t afford to miss a beat, and I had only a couple of more hours before I was due to pick up Lucy.
Of all the possible coffee spots nearby, Peet’s was the closest. That Peet’s.
The one I’d last set foot in the morning of my surprise Disneyland date with Max. I pulled into an open space out front.
Perched in the same seat I’d occupied that day, I sipped my favorite drip blend, an Arabian Mocha-Java.
My thoughts traveled back to that morning.
He’d been such a bundle of nervous energy.
I smiled as I recalled his unintentionally charming attempt to intuit how I liked my coffee.
With a sigh, I pulled out my phone and checked again for a text. Still nothing.
I was about to take my last sip of coffee and leave when my eyes snagged on a man speed-walking past the window.
I could have sworn it was Max, but the man’s face was angled toward the street, so there was no way to verify other than to race out the door and shout his name like an absolute madwoman.
Hysteria bubbled up inside me as the man rounded the corner ahead and I lost sight of him.
My car was right in front, so I jumped in and drove around the block five times, searching for his face on pedestrians and inside parked cars, moving cars, and even a bus.
I expanded the search to a several-block radius before giving up.
In a cold sweat, I reflexively reached up to touch the empty space where Max’s still-missing necklace once rested.
A series of disturbing thoughts gnawed at me.
Did he return on schedule but not want to see me again?
Had I imagined his feelings for me? That seemed far-fetched.
All our dates, the banter, the protective feeling of his arm draped over my shoulders, the sweet and funny texts we’d exchanged.
And those kisses. Dear lord, those kisses.
But Frannie had cautioned that ghosting was all too common these days.
After a full week of no contact, I could no longer believe that Max was simply too busy with work or unexpectedly delayed.
I knew it was time to resign myself to the brutal truth that I might never hear from him again.
Maybe inviting Max to meet my dead husband’s parents had scared him off.
Or maybe he got spooked by the viral article and the media attention, given his need for extreme privacy.
Or maybe I was just too desperate and needy.
As if the possibility I’d been ghosted wasn’t devastating enough, I’d also painted myself into a corner with Rebecca.
Even though my dating life—and failures—should be no one’s business but my own, Rebecca might not see it that way after I’d promised her up-and-down for weeks that Max was an upstanding guy and she would see for herself soon.
The “I told you so”s would be excruciating if I had to confess she was right that Max wasn’t the man I thought he was.
I touched my forehead to the steering wheel as I squeezed back tears. This was not how I’d imagined this story ending. But I still had Lucy, and a bestselling book. I’d just have to take my lumps and get through the rest.