“What She Meant”

Maya watched as her girlfriend tapped her chipped, black nails against the steering wheel of her 2014 Gray Ford Escape. Olivia’s nails made virtually no sound but they annoyed Maya anyway. She erased and drew another line on her tablet, distracted by Olivia’s tapping. She had a deadline for her small graphic design business back home in Atlanta. The wedding threw off her deadline plan, but she would get it done. At least, she would if Olivia would stop her anxious fidgeting.

“Would you, for the love of God, stop that?” Maya finally said, dropping her tablet pen in frustration.

Olivia held up her hands in a defensive gesture. “What’d I do?”

“That thing. With your nails. It’s distracting,” Maya said. They were almost an hour into their five-hour drive to Charleston and Maya was still at a loss for words. There was a heaviness in the car, because of the argument they had in the first thirty minutes. Because of the argument the day before and the argument the week before. They sat in terse silence, Olivia’s gaze fixed purposefully on the road and Maya’s on her work.

They’d left their suburban apartment in Atlanta to head to Charleston for the weekend for Olivia’s mother’s upcoming wedding. Her mother, Tracy, was getting married to some twenty-three-year-old from upstate New York. The best Maya could figure was that the sex must be decent. Despite the tip-toeing around Olivia she seemed to be doing for the last three months, Maya was still glad to be going. Liv needed the support, even if she didn’t want to admit it.

Maya inhaled as deeply as she could without drawing her partner’s attention, but Olivia noticed anyway.

“Sorry,” Olivia conceded, moving her hand. She picked at her cropped blue jeans instead. Maya noticed the fidgeting; she’d always noticed the fidgeting. On their first date, Maya watched Olivia pick apart an entire croissant without realizing it. Reaching over, Maya brushed a strand of straight, blond hair off of Olivia’s freckled shoulder. She knew what she wanted to say.

“Do you want me to drive,” Maya asked. She meant: What can I do?

“I’ll be okay,” Olivia said. She meant: Nothing.

Maya felt useless, unable to reach Olivia for the first time in their three year relationship.

When they passed the rest stop marker, Olivia pulled the car in. She had to pee. The heat of the Southern summer was stifling, fogging Maya’s glasses as soon as she opened the car door. After slipping on her pink flip-flops, Olivia wandered off towards one of the rest stop’s clusters of buildings in search of the bathrooms. Maya leaned against the Escape and wiped her glasses with her sleeve. The rest-stop was pretty dead for the summer holiday. There was a vacant minivan across the lot from where the couple parked, and an old man walking a leashed dog on the other side of the green space. He noticed Maya watching him and waved awkwardly. Maya held up her hand in return. She glanced back towards the main buildings, looking for Olivia. It was hot and she could already feel the invasive stickiness of sweat on the back of her neck. As she tossed her head down to tie her dark curls into a bun, Maya tried to think of what to say that wouldn’t upset her girlfriend. Talking to Olivia had been like walking a tightrope for the last few months, but as they inched closer to South Carolina, Olivia seemed to tense up even more. Maya climbed into the driver's seat of the car and turned on the engine. She leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes as the air conditioning washed over her.

The wedding had snuck up on them. It had only been two months before that they were talking about getting in the car to drive to Olivia’s childhood home, near Charleston. That was, Maya thought, where the trouble started. While Olivia didn’t outwardly react to the news of her mother’s marriage, Maya could tell it was chipping away at her partner. Maya could tell with each snide comment and defensive pushback that Olivia’s anxiety was leaking into their lives.

The fight wasn’t about anything, really. It was about whether they should get a cat. Which Maya definitely couldn’t do with her allergies. It was also about whether or not they should go to Chick-Fil-A or if that was a conflict of interest for queer people. It was also about what color sheets they should get for the winter. It was about the heat in the South. It was about cold in the South.

It took Maya weeks to connect the dots on what Olivia was really upset about, and she was still not sure. Marriage was something they always fundamentally disagreed on, but now something about it had become more urgent. Her parent’s divorce definitely uprooted her life and her sense of security with it, but suddenly something was different. It was like Olivia felt Tracy’s marriage meant she needed to prove the worth of matrimony even more. Maya couldn’t tell.

Maya jumped when the passenger door swung open. Olivia tossed a water bottle across the console and leaned over the console. “Okay, dusty Reeses or questionably melted M&Ms?”

Maya laughed lightly and pulled her seat back up. Olivia was notorious for her Reese's addiction and she couldn’t take that away. She reached for the M&Ms.

Olivia cracked open her water bottle, mostly to wash down the last of her slightly stale Reese’s cups. Scanning over her phone, she dismissed her notifications. She hovered over her missed calls. Three from mom. Tracy was a decent mom, sure, but they hadn’t talked — really talked — in years. Not since Olivia moved in with Maya two summers back. Tracy was too Old South to truly accept the “arrangement,” as she coined it at family reunions. Too Old South for them, but not, apparently, too much to marry some twenty-three-year-old Yankee, Justin Bieber look-alike. Olivia didn’t know how to start any conversation with Tracy, let alone one about her fiance Henry.  

Her parents had gotten divorced during her last year of undergrad. Olivia’s dad was a pilot. He moved to some French-speaking Canadian province and spent no time getting a new family. Tracy jumped around the US for a few years before returning to Charleston by the time Olivia had started her MBA. Olivia hadn’t been sure if her mom would ever truly be able to put roots down again, and she wasn’t particularly sure that’s what Tracy was doing now. Olivia couldn’t figure out what it was about Henry, except his youth, that actually appealed to her mother. Showing Maya the missed calls, Olivia pushed her phone down into the console.

“Maybe,” Maya started gently, “you should let her know we’re on the road?”

Olivia shrugged. She knew Maya was trying to help, but she didn’t want to talk to Tracy. She wasn’t ready to talk about the wedding, the honeymoon, about Henry. Olivia didn’t want to think about the fact that her mom was getting remarried three weeks out from her twenty-sixth birthday to Henry who, according to their extensive Facebook stalking, was three years younger than herself.

Olivia leaned back into the worn leather of the car, pushing her legs against the floorboard. She pressed so hard that her toes stretched against the plastic above the baseboard, cracking it a little. She leaned her head against the window, watching the passing miles. Traveling down the interstate, grey and green scenery blurring by her, she mentally pulled away. Olivia felt distant, her fingers digging into her nail beds. She could almost imagine looking down on herself, just outside the car, as she flew down the interstate. She was floating, floating away, trailing through the trees and fields, over the road and its round curves. In the car, she picked anxiously at the crevices between nails and skin, but she felt no pain.

When the phone rang, she didn’t hear it. It was Maya’s voice that pulled her back into the moment, into the problems she didn’t want to—couldn’t—face.

“It’s your mom. She’s calling me now,” Maya said, eyebrows scrunched around her dark eyes like they did when she was concerned. She was scrunching her eyebrows a lot lately. Olivia blinked, trying to find words.

“Should I answer,” Maya asked. She meant: Do you want me to?

“Yeah, I guess you should,” Olivia replied. She meant: I don’t, but you will.

Maya bobbed her head to the left and tucked the phone onto her shoulder. “Hello? Yeah, it’s me,” Maya said.

Olivia wished she would say “this is she” or “Yes Tracy, it’s Maya” but she wasn’t really sure what was happening on the other side of the call. Maya’s eyes slid from the road over towards her; Olivia looked away.

“Well, um, congratulations on the wedding, Tracy,” Maya said, turning her attention back to the road. “What do you need?”

Olivia imagined her mom, just on the other side of the phone, critiquing them through tone alone. Tracy was probably drinking champagne, watching someone paint her nails or something. Olivia turned back to Maya. She just wanted to reach over and yank the phone out of Maya’s hand but she also wanted to open the car door and run in the opposite direction of Charleston. Olivia watched as Maya’s shoulder tensed, and reached over to place her hand on Maya’s arm, squeezing lightly.

“No, we stopped at a rest-stop. She’s in the bathroom,” Maya lied. Olivia listened as they exchanged pleasantries, thankful for Maya’s patience with Tracy, who always spoke to her in a haughty and distant voice. Tracy ended the conversation quickly, after a distant sound in the background interrupted her, so loud even Olivia could hear it.

“Okay, see you soon—” Maya started, but the call had ended before she could finish saying goodbye. Olivia sighed dramatically. “Did she say anything about Henry?”

“Nah, just that he’s excited to meet you,” Maya said. Olivia was not excited to meet him.

Halfway there, they stopped at Chick-Fil-A for lunch. Maya knew that Olivia wanted to boycott the entire institution, but her own obsession with the chicken meant they ended up at the chain more often than not. Picking at her chicken-free house salad, Maya tried to approach the situation delicately.

“Maybe,” Maya started gently. “He won’t be that bad.” Olivia turned her head from the play area, where she seemed to be watching a kid as he attempted to climb up the red slide backward.

“I guess so,” Olivia said, pulling her gaze from the kid back to the present. Maya tried not to get irritated at the distant response. She understood Olivia, probably more than anyone. For all of her put together business suits and schedules, when Olivia broke down, she broke down hard.

The red plastic of the chair stuck to the back of Maya’s legs as she repositioned herself. She watched as Olivia dipped a fry in Polynesian sauce and turned her head back to the kid, who had made it up the slide.

“Do you need some ketchup?” Maya asked. She meant: I’m trying here.

“No, thanks,” Olivia said. She meant: I know. But I’m doing it myself.

Maya crumbled up her napkin over her salad, swallowing down the sour feeling in the back of her throat. “Ready?”

“When you are,” Maya replied, packing up her mostly uneaten meal.

The walk to the car was spacious, not just from the heaviness between them. They walked different when traveling. Maya could feel the thickness of the physical space where they didn’t touch. Outside of their bubble, in the real world, was the real dangerous space. She remembered nights in the park during their first year of dating. They held hands and leaned on one another, comfortable. It was the looks and, once, an angry drunk man screaming about God in the Olympic Park that stopped all that. It was easier to stand apart from one another, as you would a friend. Easier and safer.

Maya wanted to reach out with her hand and brush Olivia’s with her own. Maybe that could heal the distance between them and set right the offness that seemed to permeate their entire existence now.

At the car, Maya watched from the rearview mirror as Olivia dropped her bag in the back. Her blond hair was coming out of its messy braid and her freckled shoulders seemed tense. Maya guessed if her mom were alive and getting married to some kid, she would be stressed, too. She just didn't know what to do. What was the procedure when your girlfriend’s mom got remarried to some kid and your girlfriend became a completely different person? It wasn’t like she could Google that one.

On the road again, Olivia’s hands fiddled with the radio. She fidgeted, looking for a station to pick up on the long stretch of interstate. They passed trees and grass and billboards, listening to slightly staticy jazz. Olivia played some games on her phone but looked up when Maya laughed.

“What?” Olivia squinted into the sun, pulling down the vizor.

“Nothing, that’s just pretty ironic,” Maya said. There was a line of giant billboards ahead of them. They carried the usual suspect slogans like “Car Accident?! Call Now” and “Save your Soul or the Devil Will Get You.”

Maya was pointing at the sign at the end of the row. “How long until your mom calls in?” she asked, jokingly.

Olivia felt her temper flare as they passed the sign labeled “Need to Undo ‘I do’? Call 1-800-DIVORCE.”

“I dunno, maybe it’ll work out,” she snapped back. Olivia ignored Maya’s sharp intake of breath and turned back to her phone screen. Maya didn’t reply, so Olivia kept scrolling through the limited pictures on her mom’s wedding hashtag: #HereComestheHydes. Apparently, Henry’s last name was Hyde.

“When we get married, we’ll have a better hashtag than this,” she said out loud.

“When?” Maya asked, her voice rising an octave. “What’s up with you and marriage lately?”

“I don’t know. I was just looking at the hashtag. I guess, I just want them to know we’re together,” Olivia said, the ever-present defensiveness creeping into her voice.

“Who? People know we’re together,” Maya said.

“I mean, like, my family and stuff,” Olivia said.

Maya scoffed. “We don’t have to get married for that. We don’t have to prove anything, least of all to your family.”

“What’s wrong with my family?” Olivia asked, dropping her phone on her leg with a soft ‘plop.’  Maya glanced over at her, eyebrow raised. Olivia knew that Maya thought her family members were erratic and judgmental, but Olivia couldn’t help feeling like she had to meet their unspoken expectations. Two degrees in business, a perfect record, and an established accounting job in Atlanta meant nothing to her family in light of her relationship with Maya. She needed to make up for it.

“Nothing that isn’t wrong with everyone else's family,” Maya said. Olivia could tell she was holding her tongue.

There was a beat of nothing, just the road, and jazz and then Olivia asked, “If they’re so bad, why are you even coming?”

“Come on, Liv, you know why. I’m not gonna abandon you to the lion’s den.”

There was a tense silence and a feeling like a string being pulled so taut between them that it might break. Olivia blinked back tears.

Maya sat in the passenger seat again, hands moving rhythmically as she cross-stitched a tiny bunny. They’d been driving without speaking for over an hour. Maya knew because she’d been keeping track, looking over at the clock every time she finished another line of stitches. It was another thirty before Olivia broke the silence. “Listen, Maya, what if we can’t get married in a year?  What do we do then?”

“I know marriage is a delicate situation for us, but it’s not what I want,” Maya said. She meant: Yes, I feel the panic of restriction, too. I can’t live life beholden to governmental whims.

“I know,” Olivia replied. She meant: I respect you but I don’t want to marry anyone but you. I love you.

Maya cursed as she pricked her finger on her needle. She threw it down angrily. “What do you want, Olivia. What do I do?”

Olivia's hand tightened on the steering wheel, her knuckles paling as she squeezed. With anger, she said, “I hate all of this.”

“Okay,” Maya agreed, unsure what Olivia meant by ‘all of this.’

“Oh, no. Not you, you dork. I hate that we have to go to this wedding. I hate that I have to meet this dumbass twenty-something. I hate my mom and dad got divorced and move the world apart. I hate that I can’t hold your hand when I want to. I hate that you won’t marry me.”

It all came out in a rush, loud and fast. Maya wasn’t expecting the force of it.

“Well, it’s about time you actually said something about it,” Maya said. She watched as Olivia blinked twice, in rapid succession, before pulling the car over to the side of the road. Olivia twisted around in her seat. “Are we good?”

Maya didn’t know the answer. Maya didn’t know if they would forever be at the marriage impasse. Maya didn’t know if Olivia could ever heal from the earthquakes that repeatedly destroyed the foundations of her life.

Maya didn’t get to respond before Olivia sighed and turned back towards the steering wheel. Maya put her hand on Olivia’s over the stick shift, stopping her from changing gear.

“We’re gonna be late, Maya,” Olivia said, and Maya could see shiny tears forming in her gray eyes.

“Why does it matter? You don’t even want to go,” Maya said, finally releasing some of the frustration pinned up inside her, too. Olivia was gritting her teeth now.

“No, but that doesn’t matter.”

Maya pulled away and unbuckled her seatbelt. “Why not? Why do we have to do anything that makes you unhappy? We could do whatever we wanted.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Why not?”

“Because… I don’t know, people have expectations for us to be there.”

“But why do you care?”

Maya watched as Olivia fought with herself. The years of worry and expectation, versus the impulse to turn away. Maya had never seen Olivia follow a whim before. It was always plan and commit, with no deviations.

Maya could see Olivia beginning to spiral into uncertainty. She reached forward and placed both her hands on top of Olivia’s. “I don’t wanna get married, Liv. It’s not you. I swear to God if I did I would marry you. But I can’t live for everyone else's expectations.”

Olivia nodded slowly, and then more quickly. Her eyebrows pinched together in an expression Maya had never seen before.

Maya leaned over to kiss Olivia, hoping that she could ground Olivia with her lips. She couldn’t solve Olivia’s problems, but she could be there to help her solve them.  

“Okay?” Maya prompted when she pulled away.

Olivia glanced back toward the road.  “If we’re not going to this wedding, where are we going?”

Smirking, Maya refastened her seatbelt. “Who knows?” she said. And she meant it.  

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