Page 39 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

Spencer does a 360, taking it all in. “Very nice.”

“Yeah. It’s a 1919 Craftsman. Deanna spent almost two years renovating and finding period-appropriate details and furnishings.”

When I pull open the back door that leads into the kitchen without knocking Spencer starts with surprise.

“I promise we’re not breaking and entering. This door is always unlocked. Guests can come in late at night or from the garage apartments to get a snack or drink or to hang out in the living room.”

“Okay,” Spencer says. “So we’re not in Kansas anymore. And we’re definitely not in Manhattan.”

As we step inside I wish more than anything that we were in New York. That I’d never been forced to discover that my mother lied to me my entire life. Though I guess that would also mean I still wouldn’t know my father.

The galley kitchen to our right is empty. The office door is open on our left. Deanna gets up from her desk. One look at my face and she says, “What happened?”

“Did you know that Jake Warner was my father?”

She blinks, but in far more surprise than Cocoa the cat. “They ran into each other here last Saturday when Kendra came to cook breakfast. They said they both grew up in Richmond but... Holy shit.”

“Yeah. They were engaged only she cut and ran. She left him at the altar. She never even told him about me.”

I see the struggle on Deanna’s face. She doesn’t want to believe it. “I can tell you’re serious. But I know your mother. She must have had good reasons.”

“I thought I knew her, too.” Once again I wish that this were some awful joke or misunderstanding. “She had reasons, all right. But that doesn’t make them good ones.”

I keep drawing breaths but I don’t think any of the oxygen is reaching my brain. “I’m supposed to be the one who makes things up for a living, but she’s been spewing fiction my entire life.” I look Deanna in the eye. “You’re her best friend. And she never told you?”

Deanna shakes her head, her confusion clear. I know the feeling. As angry and freaked out as I am I still can’t quite take in the enormity of it all.

“We were both twenty-one and right out of college when we met. People came here to find themselves or to start fresh. I’d heard her husband had died. She never said otherwise.” Dee exhales and shakes her head again. “Wow.”

There’s a beat of silence as she no doubt reflects on all the times she might have asked a question or my mother might have offered an explanation. Then she looks from me to Spencer and back. “I take it this is your fiancé.”

“Oh yes. Sorry. Deanna, this is Spencer Harrison. Spencer, Deanna Sanborne.”

She takes his hand and shakes it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Ditto.” Spencer gives her a smile.

“Quite an introduction you’re getting to the Outer Banks.”

His grin goes a little crooked. “Can’t argue with that.”

I watch them assess each other, but it’s as if I’m floating somewhere up near the ceiling. A punctured balloon slowly leaking air, but with a bird’s-eye view. Spencer keeps stealing looks at me and I know he’s trying to figure out what I need from him. But how can he figure out what even I don’t know?

“So, what can I do for you?” Deanna asks.

“Well, I needed to be somewhere besides the Sandcastle. And I’d like to get to know my...” I swallow. “My father.” Thinking the word is surreal. Saying it is even stranger. I’m forty years old and this is the first time I’ve ever uttered those words as more than a prayer or a wish that I had one. “Do you have a room for us?”

I see thenoon her face before she speaks. “I wish I did. But there’s a wedding tomorrow afternoon at Mount Olivet. The bride and groom and their immediate families checked in yesterday. They’re staying through Monday.”

“Oh.” I deflate further.

“I can make some calls to double-check, but it’s a big wedding and I’m pretty sure the other B and Bs in Manteo are full.” She thinks for a minute. “The closest hotels are the Surf Side and the Sea Spray but those are pretty bare bones and they’re near your mom.” She rejects this even before I shake my balloon head. “Or, you could head a bit north to Duck. The Sanderling’svery nice. I could give the manager a call. Or I could check with Clay to see if any of their beach rentals are vacant.”

The idea of staying in a strange place right now—when my past has been yanked out from under me—makes my stomach turn. This is not the moment I want to feel like a tourist.

Dee reaches out and wraps her arms around me. I feel her shaking her head again even as she pulls me tight. “I am well and truly gobsmacked. I can only imagine how you must be reeling.”

Her sympathy brings tears to my eyes and I sniff in a fruitless attempt to hold them back. I’ve known Deanna virtually since birth. She was a tenant at Snug Harbor when we first came to Nags Head. We shared the Sandcastle with her in that first winter after it had been built when the owner was looking to put someone in it. She stayed on in later years because my mother couldn’t afford it on her own. She was the first person besides my mother that I knew. The tension in her arms tells me she feels almost as shocked by my mother’s secret past as I am.

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