Page 48 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

“Well, since you asked, the term isBankers,” I reply, still smiling.

“Lauren?” He draws her back in again. “Any other advice on fitting in?”

“Don’t bring up the Weather Channel, either,” Lauren replies almost begrudgingly.

“Why not?” Spencer asks before popping part of a muffin into his mouth.

“Because they show up here anytime there’s even a one percent chance of a nor’easter or—God forbid—a hurricane. And they do stand-ups twenty-four hours a day making it sound like we’re about to be blown off the face of the earth,” Lauren explains.

“It’s really bad for business,” I agree, barely resisting the impulse to high-five her.

“Shocking as it may seem, tourists aren’t eager to cross multiple bridges to get to a narrow barrier island when they’ve been led to believe a hurricane is barreling toward it.”

“They blow everything out of proportion,” Lauren adds. “Because if it’s only a possibility of thundershowers and not a hurricane brewing, they don’t have a story.”

Spencer shakes his head. “Wow, you Bankers are a tough crowd.”

“Now that you know how to avoid pissing off the resident population my work here is done,” I tease, grateful that he’s facilitated this conversation. “I believe it’s safe for me to head to the store.” I get up and pour the rest of my coffee into a to-go cup. “Make yourselves at home.”

“Actually, I thought I’d give Dee a call before we head out to see what time our room will be available.” Lauren tosses this out as if it’s an afterthought—and just like that she negates whatever bond I might have imagined was forming. She can’t wait to get out of here.

“Great.” I’m not going to beg her to stay with me. Maybe Rafe’s bed is too small. Or maybe she wants to stay in the same place with her father. Who knows? It’s not as if a couple conversations are going to put our friendship back together anyway. I don’t need more than basic communication if Lauren doesn’t. But I know for a fact that Kendra does.

I exhale as I turn and walk outside to my car. The drive is just long enough to dither over whether to call Kendra now or wait until I get to the store. Or maybe I should swing by the Sandcastle after work. I have no idea how this whole mess is going to get resolved or what, if anything, I can, or even should, try to do about it. But I have to let Kendra know that I’m here for her if she needs me. She’s always been there for me. I can’t leave her to face this all alone.

?At the store I automatically begin to straighten shelves and dust the children’s section, but Mrs. McKinnon, who filled in for a few hours yesterday afternoon, is a much better housekeeperthan I am and everything’s in perfect order. There’s barely even a speck of dust. In fact, the whole store is extremely neat, maybe eventooorganized. Like a woman who’s put on her Sunday best just to run to the market. There’s really nothing that needs doing and if I were still working onHeart of Gold, I’d already be at the front desk booting up my laptop. Where I could lose myself in Whitney and Heath’s relationship instead of examining my own. Or wondering if Kendra’s okay. And what on earth I should do about it if she isn’t. And whether I could forgive her if I were Lauren. Or Jake.

I pick up my cell phone and hit speed dial but Kendra doesn’t answer. Finally it goes to voice mail and I leave a message. Over the next thirty minutes I try twice more with the same result. I beat off the stirring of unease and then the worst-case scenarios. Kendra’s not exactly a techie or overly attached to her phone, but she’s not someone who never answers, either. She’s also not someone who’s going to do herself harm or give up on attempting to make her daughter understand why she did what she did.

Too antsy to just sit there and actually wishing I still had a manuscript to throw myself into, I rearrange the new-releases table even though it clearly doesn’t need it. Then, because I’m still worried about Kendra and feeling the unexpected blip of camaraderie from breakfast, I pull Lauren’s books from the shelves and create a whole display of them in the front window. Then I decorate it with a neon-green bucket and shovel, a floppy sunhat, and an assortment of beach balls and sunglasses and drizzle it all with seashells.

I’m considering putting theBE BACK SOONsign on the front door so that I can go check on Kendra, when the front door opens with a jangle. Mrs. McKinnon and Leslie Parent walk in.

“Hello!” Leslie smiles cheerfully. Mrs. McKinnon looks around either to reassure herself that I haven’t destroyed the order she had wrought or, perhaps, to reassure herself that I have.

“Hi.” We meet halfway, which puts us right near the local cookbooks.

“It’s funny to come in and not find you typing away on your laptop,” Leslie says.

“Itisfunny. I was just thinking how odd it is to be done after all this time.”

“When will you send it off to New York?” Mrs. McKinnon asks as if you just putNew York, New Yorkon the front of it and pop it in the mail.

“Well, I probably need to do another read-through. And it might need some revisions. Then I’ll put together a list of agents who represent my kind of work. Then if I’m lucky enough to have an agent agree to represent me it would go out to editors that...”

“Has Lauren read it yet?” Leslie asks.

“Well, no.” I’m very glad we’re now on speaking terms, but I have no intention of asking her for help of any kind. And especially not a critique of my manuscript. I’m not sure I could survive that.

“She could probably just ask her agent to read it, couldn’t she? And maybe her editor?” Mrs. McKinnon asks. “That way you could just leapfrog over all that rigmarole.”

“Oh. Oh no. I would never ask her to do that.” I’m practically stuttering. And wishing I had left for Kendra’s before they arrived. “She’s far too busy to...” I stop short.

“That girl has a lot on her mind now, doesn’t she?” Mrs. McKinnon says not unkindly. “What with a long-lost father showing up and all.”

“What, uh, what makes you say that?” I can barely get the words out.

Leslie rolls her eyes. “Plenty of people have seen them out on the porch at the Dogwood.”

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