Page 64 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

“Did you ever think about how it might have been if we’d gotten married?” he asks softly.

I shut my eyes briefly but there’s nowhere to hide. I owe him as much truth as I can muster. “There were times when it was all I thought about. When Lauren was colicky and on a crying jag or when I was exhausted and let myself think about how alone we really were. Or when she smiled for the first time. Took her first steps, said her first words. That’s when I would think how much nicer life would be if we were sharing it with you.”

A door slams upstairs and I attempt to bring myself back to the present. To reality. “Of course, our marriage might not have been everything I imagined. We might have ended up divorced. Or we might have stayed together, but fought all the time and been cruel to each other. Or the love and attraction might have faded over the years until we took each other for granted.” Iname all the things I used to tell myself when I missed him the most.

“Or maybe we would have gotten lucky and been gloriously happy.”

His tone is so wistful it hurts. His eyes are the warm golden brown of aged whiskey or fresh honey. He lowers his head and leans closer. My body sways toward his. It knows before I do that he intends to kiss me.

“Kendra?” Dee’s voice reaches us through an open window. Hurried footsteps sound on the deck.

Jake and I jump apart like teenagers about to get caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“Would you like to go out for dinner one night?” Jake asks.

“Oh.” It’s possible my mouth drops open in surprise even as my heart leaps a little.

“It doesn’t have to be a date,” he adds as the doorknob turns.

“It doesn’t?” I try to keep the disappointment out of my voice.

“No. Of course not.” He looks down and meets my gaze clearly. “Not unless you want it to be.”

Twenty-nine

Bree

Title Waves

Today, as we straighten the store post–book club meeting, I’m finally able to answer Mrs. McKinnon’s and Leslie Parent’s almost daily questions about how my manuscript has been received in New York with the news thatHeart of Goldis finally ready to be submitted to five meticulously researched literary agents.

“Oh, my dear. That’s wonderful!” Mrs. McKinnon clasps her hands to her chest.

“Yes, it is.” Leslie high-fives me. “You go, girl!”

The B’s raise their last glasses of wine in a toast and down them like shots in my honor.

Wonderfulis not the word I would have chosen. I would have gone withwretched, frightened, and nauseous, because the very real possibility of rejection is no longer comfortably off in the future.

It took a week and a half to do a complete read-through and tweak of the manuscript, which I’m fairly certain doesn’t completely suck.

I’ve also prepared a proposal, which consists of a synopsis (shoot me now!), the first three chapters of the manuscript (polished within an inch of their lives), and a cover letter in which I’ve carefully omitted the fact that it’s taken me fifteen years tocomplete this novel (lest they think, as Lauren does, that makes me a pathetic underachiever who is not serious about having a writing career).

Though I’m not at all sure that “doesn’t completely suck” is good enough to land an agent or a publishing contract, I’ve promised myself I will hit send no later than tomorrow morning.

“Thank you all for your enthusiasm and support,” I say, as if I’m giving an acceptance speech of some kind. “I’m not sure I would have ever finished if it weren’t for all of you believing I would.” I tear up at this because it’s true. I started on a journey and got lost somewhere along the way. The fact that I reached the end is nothing short of miraculous. I owe it not only to myself, but to everyone who’s cheered me on, to see this through, whatever the outcome.

All of the B’s stay to help tidy up the store. Mrs. McKinnon supervises. Title Waves is theirs as much as it’s mine. While no bookstore owner is in it solely for the money, I’m happy to make a more than decent living in a profession I feel passionate about. As we put things in their place, straighten chairs, wipe off tables, put the empty wine bottles in the recycle bin, I wonder what I would do without the store and the customers who come through it.

When I get home the house is quiet. Lily, whose observations about her father and my role in enabling him have pierced me to the core and shaken the world as I know it, is cheering at an away basketball game and spending the night with her cocaptain afterward.

Since it’s just Clay and me for dinner, I throw together a salad and warm up a loaf of frozen sourdough bread. After we fill our plates he begins to eat. His head is down as he scrolls through messages on his cell phone, and I take a mean kind of pleasure in the small balding spot this reveals.

“So, how was your day?” I ask when I can’t take the silence any longer.

“Hmmm?” He doesn’t look up.

“What happened with Sands-A-Lot? Did the tenant decide to stay an extra week?” I prompt.

---