Page 114 of You Belong With Me

Molly looked appraisingly at Edie. ‘That dress Edie’s in wouldn’t go above her knees. You’d have to unzip it and take it off entirely – I call bullshit, Fraser.’

‘Thank you, exactly!’ Edie said, appreciating Molly being a ‘fashion buyer’ at last. She sensed she could derail further enquiry if she moved fast enough.

‘Molly, can I say, in all sincerity, this is the best wedding I’ve ever been to. Not top five, top one. Best day of your life, but for others, too.’

She squeezed Elliot’s hand, and he squeezed back.

‘Really?! For real?’ Molly said.

‘Swear,’ Edie said. ‘The standard that all weddings will have to meet for me, from now on.’

‘You next!’ Molly cried, and Elliot saw the moment to smile indulgently and herd them all back into the party.

Inside the tent, it was a sensory overload, with the tumult already inside Edie. The music had returned to something Bon Iver romantic, and Edie saw a chance to be sort-of alone.

‘Can I have this dance?’ she said, leading Elliot back ontothe monochrome floor. ‘I feel we could improve on the last one.’

‘That’s a low bar,’ Elliot said, as they resumed a dance hold. ‘Are you knobbing someone else? I wanna be your Ford Cortina and run you down.’

Edie laughed until she shook. ‘I was collapsing, playing out hideous scenarios in my mind. Tormenting myself with corrupted imagery.’

‘I know the exact feeling,’ Elliot said. ‘Shall we draw a line under all that?’

‘Let’s,’ Edie said.

‘There’s no way Fraz doesn’t tell Molly our news later, by the way,’ Elliot said quietly. ‘In light of that, do you mind if I break it to my parents in the morning? We don’t need to rush into doing any marrying. They have to see so much second-hand blather about me in the papers – I can’t stand them hearing about this from some in-law of Fraser’s and sayingElliot, what on earth?’

‘You could tell them we shagged on the swing and constructed the engagement as a cover?’

Elliot grinned. ‘It’s an option …’

They tightened and relaxed their hold on each other; Edie laid her head on his chest. They spent a minute appreciating the moment they’d arrived at.

‘We’ve come a long way since I was hired to write your life story, haven’t we?’ Edie said.

‘Fair to say, you understood the assignment,’ Elliot said. ‘You haven’t stopped writing it since.’

‘When I think about how many things needed to happenfor us to end up here, it gives me vertigo,’ Edie said. ‘The chances we would ever even meet were so incredibly low.’

‘You don’t believe in “meant to be”?’ Elliot said.

‘I don’t think we were meant to be,’ Edie said. ‘That suggests we could simply wait. I didn’t wait for you, Elliot Owen. I was busy finding myself – at the same time, I found you. Then you chose me, and I chose you.’

‘A division of labour that’s worked. We can bear that in mind for the future? We’ll keep choosing each other. Maybe the trick is to spot if it’s your turn.’

‘That must be what they mean in golden wedding anniversary write-ups when the couple say it’s about “give and take”,’ Edie said.

‘We’re trying for golden?’ Elliot said. ‘Ambitious.’

‘We are. I’m going to try. I think thattryingis the lesson I’ve had to learn. I thought I feared failing, but actually I was used to that. I was scared of trying.’ She leaned up to kiss him, in a crowded room. ‘But not any more.’

One year later

‘Will the microphone people ask me things, too?’ Edie said, as the streets of Hell’s Kitchen flashed past, through tinted windows.

‘Yeah, but it won’t be hardballs.What do you think of the show?, that sort of thing,’ Elliot said.

‘I liked the script so much I made him do the sex scene?’ Edie said.

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