Page 76 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

“Bree’s flying up tomorrow and coming back on Sunday. But I was thinking maybe you could plan your trip up to see her the following week. And I could kind of come up as a surpriseguest. I just need you to get me through the front door. I’ll take it from there.”

“That’s a bit risky, isn’t it? She might refuse to listen. Or kick us both out.”

“I know. It’s asking a lot. She could be angry at you for aiding and abetting the enemy. But I have to try once more to make her understand. And I want to take THE DRESS with me.”

“To wave like a flag of truce?”

I smile. “I’d wave it all over Manhattan if I thought it would help, but I’m thinking more along the lines of making sure she has it so that she can wear it on her wedding day if she wants to. Even if I...” I have to force myself to continue. “Even if I’m not invited to be there to see it.”

“I can’t believe it will come to that.” He cups my cheek and chin in one large hand.

“I keep telling myself it won’t. I hope to God it won’t. But if she refuses to see me you can at least give her the dress.”

“But...”

I put my fingers to his lips. “Promise me, Jake.” I stare into his eyes, willing him to understand and agree. “If I don’t get the chance, please make sure and tell her how sorry I am and how very much I love her.”

Bree

In transit

It feels crazy odd to be sitting in the Norfolk airport all by myself waiting to fly to New York City. I’ve always been a homebody. No doubt because of my toddler years spent traveling from one archaeological site to another with my parents and the fact that they chose to travel all over creation without me after I turned five.

I’ve barely left the state of North Carolina since I graduated from college and didn’t go to New York with Lauren. I’ve attended the occasional Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance meeting. A family trip to Williamsburg and DC. Another to Walt Disney World. Clay and I went to Charleston once. But the majority of our “vacations” have been spent at one of the Williams Realty beach rentals.

I feel a swell of excitement as I board the plane and take my seat. I’m going to the very heart of publishing, where I’ll attend writing workshops, meet editors, get to know other writers, talk to literary agents. I’ve attended plenty of bookseller conferences but have never gone to a writers’ conference. I’ve spent so long on this one novel that I’ve never really considered myself atruewriter; certainly not in the way Lauren is.

I know Lauren’s afraid of flying, but barreling down the runway makes me smile. My heart flutters with excitement as we lift off. The weight of my marriage problems and my daughter’s unhappiness grow lighter and increasingly distant as the ground falls away.

I treat myself to a glass of wine and keep my eyes pinned to the blue sky and puffy white clouds through which we slice until the pilot announces our initial descent into LaGuardia. We come in over the water and I drink in my first sight of the Statue of Liberty, the ships in the harbor, the bridges that connect the island of Manhattan to its outlying boroughs.

From the moment we land I feel as if I’ve arrived on another planet. A universe so different from the one I normally inhabit that I don’t even have the words to describe it.

Everywhere I look there are people. People who move and talk faster than any Outer Banker I’ve ever known.

From the backseat of a taxi I watch the crush of cars and people. I gape openmouthed all the way over the Queensboro Bridge, across the streets, and down the avenues. Everywhere Ilook there are tall buildings, vehicles inching along, horns blaring. My driver is a kamikaze whose hand stays on the horn and who zigs and zags through ridiculously small openings and sometimes no openings at all. He shouts at those he passes in a language I can’t identify.

It’s the first time I’ve ever seen Times Square in person. When we arrive at the Hilton, where the conference is being held, the driver sets my suitcase on the sidewalk and waits impatiently for me to fumble my way through the steps on the payment screen.

By the time I’m out on the pavement with people streaming all around me, I feel like I’ve fought a battle. The hotel lobby is packed. Check-in takes thirty-five minutes. I lug my suitcase up to my room then go downstairs to conference registration, where I get my packet and buy a turkey sandwich that costs more than a really nice meal in Manteo. I consider and reject the idea of wandering around Times Square by myself then retire to my room, where I leave a voice mail for Lily and pore over the workshop schedule like Eisenhower planning D-day. Then I hang tomorrow’s outfit in the bathroom while I take a hot shower in hopes the steam will eliminate the wrinkles.

Wednesday flies by in an eyeblink. Each workshop is more inspiring than the last. I scribble notes on character development. Dialogue. Point of view. Conflict. Newly published authors’ journeys that are filled with things they wish they’d known. Why didn’t I ever do this before?

I join a table at lunch and discover that some of the attendees have been coming to conferences like this for years. A few of them have been submitting even longer. We compare notes. Tonight the publishers have cocktail parties for their authors. Dinners for the most promising or successful.

“Wow,” I say as one of my tablemates describes a publisher party and dinner one of her critique partners was invited to before she sold her first book. “How do you get to go to those?”

“It’s invitation only. Because they publish you or they want to. Sometimes if you hang out in the bar you’ll see big-name writers having drinks with their editors or agents. But you have to be careful how you approach them,” a writer named Karen says.

“Last year I saw someone dragged out of the women’s bathroom by security,” her friend Pam adds. “She’d been pitching her novel through the bathroom stall door and the editor inside called security on her cell phone.”

I laugh until tea comes out of my nose. Then I realize they’re serious.

By the time I’m supposed to meet Lauren, I’m exhausted and exhilarated. I try Lily again then find my way to the hotel bar and peek around the wall of people attempting to get in. Some of them have already gone up and changed for the evening, but I didn’t want to miss a word of the last workshop on plotting, which I now know is one of my greatest weaknesses.

I’m standing behind the human wall, trying to figure out what to do when the wall begins to part. I’m way too short to see over the people in front of me, but I can sense their excitement. There’s a buzz of conversation as people in front of me step aside. Suddenly Lauren steps forward in full-blown bestselling-author mode.

“There you are!” She hugs me then kisses me on both cheeks as the crowd looks on in silent awe and I can’t help wondering if the affection is for show. The successful author being nice to one of the newbies.

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