Maybe, Maybe Not

by Nina Rubinstein Alonso


Sylvie checks the café where a couple is performing ‘duo-poems in rhythmic impulse,’ the man lisping lines that stop and start, the woman shouting jerky poly-syllabics with snap-click sounds and sharp twists of her head. Suddenly the man kneels, does a quick cucumber roll, jumps up to applause. But Sylvie’s looking for Ricardo, relieved to see him in the hall on his phone, “Tonight’s good, Henry,” he says, trying to accommodate the head honcho of Ristographic, a company that might invest in Omni-Designs.

“Henry gets our potential better than anyone we’ve met so far, though likely more about money than art,” his partner Jonas says.

The quasi-poetic hollering is still going on when Ricardo hugs Sylvie and says, “Maybe we’ll get rich yet,” and hurries off somewhere. An hour later he’s back, looking like he’s been smoking weed, his mood genial to the point of grinning silliness.

Jonas says, “Relax, Sylvie,” meaning she needs to get used to the jumble of uncertainty, even consider it charming.

She teaches freshman English at a local college, struggles to pay rent on their attic flat, visits mom in the nursing home, sad to see her wobbly state, blinks tears when mom says she’s glad Sylvie’s her daughter but so is that lady across the room who’s dozing, slumped in her chair. Grateful that mom doesn’t seem to be in pain, Sylvie gives her goodbye kiss-hugs, then walks back to her VW Bug, bumper duct-taped from a recent rear-ender, wipes tears, starts the car.

Jonas says, “We need an investor or this business is going nowhere, and we’ll be waiters forever, hand-welding wire star-designs.” His girl friend recently left him for a guy with a ranch in Colorado, claims he’s ‘fine about it’ and maybe he is.

Next morning she’s up early to teach morning classes, Ricardo still asleep, no idea when he got home as he works late.
 
One of her students speaks so little English he struggles trying to write a paragraph never mind a three page paper. The department head advises giving him an incomplete and referral to the language specialist. She hopes he’ll understand, won’t whine and make another scene in her office.

That evening, no idea where Ricardo is, no call, no note, maybe at the restaurant?  Her friend Judy keeps telling her, “Don’t waste any more time on a guy who’s good-looking but going nowhere.”

He arrives after ten, puts a container of gazpacho from the restaurant in the fridge and says “The deal with Ristographic is off as Henry wanted sixty percent of the company. Said I’d ask my partner, but no way we’re giving up control. Meeting folks in Miami tomorrow.” 

She watches him change into a suit and pack his suitcase. “You don’t need to drive me to the airport as Jonas is picking me up,” which probably means he’s meeting people he doesn’t want her to see. When things go well, he helps with rent, always cash, no explanations. She needs to pay bills, but fears he’ll get hurt, arrested.

Last summer they traveled for months, first to Lisbon then Vigo, Santiago de Compostela, Toledo, Madrid, Cordoba, ferried to Tangier, back to Malaga. They visited friends in Nerja, spent weeks in Barcelona, strolled La Rambla eating churros, visiting Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral. No teaching, no business, no schedules, no pressures. 

Summer ended with a heavy thump. Back in Cambridge they see Harvard Square ripped apart by riots, anti-war protests, chaotic sit-ins, broken windows, bashed phone booths, police everywhere, dogs sniffing for bombs. Their apartment’s dusty, months of junk mail shoved under the door by a neighbor. Ricardo goes back to work at the restaurant, welding wire designs, dealing pot.  She’s afraid he’ll get busted or attacked, tells him she’s thinking of leaving, but she’s still there, doesn’t want to leave, loves him.

Thursday her friend Macey comes to ballet class after missing several weeks, looking thin and depressed. She whispers to Sylvie, “Billy’s dead, a horrible accident,” something to do with a bad drug deal, then describes sprinkling his ashes in the ocean from a helicopter she rented. Her story sounds edited, details deleted, remembers Macey saying her husband was into ‘serious drugs, not just pot,’ but can’t ask as she’s in pain, traumatized.

Sunday night Ricardo’s back, says his suitcase got lost in the Miami airport, obviously upset but provides no details. Did it disappear or was it ripped off? Money? Drugs?

A letter arrives from Jean-Luc, a guy Sylvie met at a meditation conference in France last year, as he’s touring the states, wants to see her. He teaches biology at a university in Paris, good-looking, dark hair, trim beard. During the conference she and Talia planned to share a room, but  one evening Talia returned and saw Jean-Luc hugging Sylvie and took her things elsewhere. On the flight back to Boston they talk and she says she figured Sylvie was trying to break away from Ricardo by being with someone else, asks if it worked?  

Sylvie says Jean-Luc was merely “okay, nothing marvelous, has another girlfriend.” Talia nods, “When I broke up with Chris, it wasn’t heartbreak, just time to move on.” Sylvie’s gazing out the window at the choreography of clouds, “I love Ricardo, but hate what he’s doing.”

“Move in with me, try to get some perspective,” and Sylvie agrees. A few weeks later Jean-Luc visits from Paris, and again asks her to travel with him to California, but she can’t do it, refuses. “No spark,” she tells Talia.

The next night she has dinner with Ricardo ‘just to talk,’ but they touch, and she moves back in with him. Did he stop hustling pot?  No. Did she accept what he’s doing?  No.


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Nina Rubinstein Alonso’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, The New Boston Review, Nixes Mate, Peacock Journal, Broadkill Review, Southern Women’s Review, etc. Her book This Body was published by David Godine Press, her chapbook Riot Wake by Cervena Barva Press, her story collection Distractions En Route by Ibbetson Street Press, and her poetry collection Travels With Fernando is about to be published by Wilderness House Press.  She’s also the editor of Constellations: a Journal of Poetry and Fiction (constellations-lit.com).