Free The Opposite of Maybe: A Novel by Maddie Dawson Page A

Everybody is smiling and laughing and yes, teasing her a little, and she is basking in it, laughing right along, even when they start calling it another episode of
The Jonathan and Rosie Show
. This started years ago, actually, when the eight of them were going on vacation together to the beach, and the rest had watched in dumbfounded fascination as Jonathan packed up the car in his crazy, obsessive way: making sure he had his water shoes, his special fiber towel, the sunscreen that has about a billion SPFs, the sun hat with the flaps for the ears and the back of the neck, his wraparound sunglasses that looked like they had been designed for Stevie Wonder. And Rosie, they said, was hardly better, with her sacks of poetry books to read and Jonathan’s art books, her string bags and her lotions.
    It became an episode ever after referred to as “How Jonathan and Rosie Go on Vacation,” followed a few months after that with “How Jonathan and Rosie Throw a Dinner Party”(hilariously casually, without even thinking if they have enough chairs), and “How Jonathan and Rosie Get Ready for Work in the Morning.”
    “ ‘How Jonathan and Rosie Put on a Wedding’ is the coup de grâce,” says Lynn.
    The answer: It’s going to be crazy! No two people have ever or will ever put on such a hilarious rendition of a wedding. The bride will wear a red skirt with ruffles and red cowboy boots, and the bridegroom will likely show up with rings he’s fashioned from aluminum foil, all because he forgot to go to a jewelry store in time.
    “Sorry, but it
is
funny,” says Greta.
    “It’s hilarious,” says Rosie. “More likely he will make it to the jewelry store, but then he’ll decide that aluminum foil rings are more artsy and creative, so he spends so much time making them that he forgets to take a shower before the ceremony.”
    Lynn says, “You know what’s going to be the hardest? We’re not going to get to see up close the show ‘How Jonathan and Rosie Adapt to Married Life.’ ”
    “I’m quite sure our lives will go on much the same. Believe me. You won’t miss much.”
    “Oh, come on,” says Greta the expert. “You’ll be surprised how it changes things.”
    “You’ll find your fights are way more—how should I put this?
—loud
,” says Lynn. “He may stop bathing altogether and start eating macaroni and cheese three times a day.”
    “Oh, stop. Rosie and Jonathan don’t fight,” says Greta.
    “It’s true,” says Suzanne. “All the rest of us are having dramas all the time, and you guys just sail along.”
    It is true that Rosie has often felt that she and Jonathan were mostly audience members in their friends’ lives, watching as they went through one life-changing situationafter another. They bought and renovated houses. They got jobs, shifted to others, moved on, got promotions, moved on again. Children came: Greta and Joe have four kids, Suzanne and Hinton three, and Lynn and Greg two.
    And oh, the crises that came up! One year Hinton had a crush on a colleague, and Suzanne almost left him. But that blew over, as did the time that Greta’s husband Joe, a physician, almost died from a tick bite. And then Lynn’s mother was killed in a car accident, Greg lost his job, and Joe’s father moved in with Greta and Joe and grew senile there, until they had to put him in a nursing home.
    Sandrine, Greta’s daughter, started making herself throw up after eating, and Lynn’s son was expelled for bringing a bow and arrow to school. Over the years there have been plenty of lesser emergencies, too: bad grades, mean camp counselors, sleepovers during which no one got any sleep—not to mention the bouts of flu and possible food allergies, dogs that died, unfair eliminations from soccer teams, best friends who turned into bullies, devastating eyebrow piercings ranking right up there with tonsillectomies, torn ACLs, and twisted ankles.
    For years as she’s watched, bearing witness, babysitting their