Page 78 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

Our bodies join. We move against each other, our breathing harsh and eager as we climb together. An urgent rhythm claims us and takes us higher. Until we dangle dangerously, deliciously before shooting over the edge of reason into a glorious, breathless freefall.

?When I wake it’s not yet dawn. The apartment is still dark. Spencer’s breathing is deep and even.

I stare up into the ceiling, but I can’t go back to sleep. No matter how many times I haven’t looked at that damn manuscript I’ve never been able to forget that it’s there. It’s been a constant reminder of how much Bree once meant to me. How much I’ve missed her.

I invited her to come over on Saturday, so that I can show her around and to spend the night. How can I not read what she’s spent fifteen years working on?

I pull on a robe and pad downstairs into the living room, not bothering with coffee. I barely think as I pick up Bree’s manuscript and carry it to the sofa, where I turn on the lamp, stretch out with a pillow under my head and an afghan over me. I tell myself to keep an open mind. That it will be what it will be. That if it’s just not ready I’ll let her down easy. Or maybe find a good book doctor who can help her fix it. But I can’t completely ignore the shiver of fear I feel. What I don’t know is whether I’m more afraid that it will be really awful. Or that it will be really good.

Thirty-four

Lauren

I’m still lying on the couch readingHeart of Goldon Friday morning when Spencer leaves with a parting kiss and an approving smile. I rouse sometime later and notice a cold cup of coffee and a bagel smeared with cream cheese on the end table.Knew you’d do the right thing. Remember she’s a beginner. Be gentleis scribbled on a napkin.

I heat up the coffee and take a bathroom break. The bagel could double as a doorstop and it’s with some regret that I drop it in the garbage.

I read the entire day, a luxury I rarely allow myself. Which is kind of crazy since, like pretty much every writer I’ve ever met, I began as a voracious reader, an inhaler of words and impressions. Escaping into another world is addictive. Every writer’s journey begins with that first book that could not be put down.

It’s late afternoon when I reach the point in the story where Whitney begins to see Heath for the man he really is without courtesy of rose-colored glasses. Did Bree even realize who and what she was writing about? Does she have any idea that it’s no coincidence that she had had enough of Clay’s bad behavior at the same time Whitney chose herself over her blind adoration of Heath? There are few things more self-revelatory than writing anovel. (It’s just that sometimes we try not to see it and hope no one else does, either.)

I stand up and stretch. Do a few neck rolls.

Maybe Bree should have forced Clay to read this. Not that he would have recognized himself in the dark hair and even darker eyes that Bree camouflaged him in. My agent once assured me that you could write about virtually anyone if you changed their name and a few physical details since people so rarely recognize themselves or their behaviors.

When I get up to stretch and forage for food it’s after fourP.M.and I’ve got just over a hundred pages to go. I had imagined I’d jot down ideas and point out areas that needed work, but although there’ve been a few rookie mistakes and missed opportunities, I’ve been so caught up in the story (and being a fly on the wall to Bree’s life) that I haven’t made a single note or scribbled the smallest suggestion.

I’m almost numb when I finally finish. And not just because my body is stiff and my neck hurts.

I’m stunned by how goodHeart of Goldis. It needs work, of course. No first draft is completely ready for consumption. First drafts of first books should never be flung out into the world.

This manuscript was written by someone who loves words and their nuances every bit as much as I do. But it’s infused with the kind of truths one pours into a journal kept hidden under the bed, an honesty that comes from believing no one else will ever see what you’ve written.

I’m painfully jealous of the honesty and innocence it reflects. It’s a book of the heart written by someone who has not yet encountered the harsh realities of publishing. Who has never had to think about reviewers or print runs or publisher support.

I look down and realize that I’m hugging the manuscript to my chest. The feel of the paper is almost as shocking as the threat it poses to Bree’s and my status quo. For the past fifteen years I’ve been the bestselling author who achieved our once-shared dream. Bree’s been the homemaker/bookseller who’s played at being a writer.

Only it turns out Bree hasn’t been “playing” at all. And I’m not as big a bestseller as I was.

This truth is staggering. So is what my conflicted reaction to that truth says about me. I know that Bree wants to be published. I know that she wants to prove that she could have come to New York and been every bit as successful as me, if only she’d wanted to.

What I don’t know is how honest I’m willing to be. Or whether I’m even capable of being completely honest about what she’s created.

We’re going to be together for only twenty-four hours. Which means I’m going to find out all too soon whether I’m the person I’ve always thought I was. Or someone far smaller and stingier.

Bree

I’m floating on a cloud of postconference euphoria Saturday morning when I climb into the Uber that will take me to Lauren’s. During the ride I check my phone for messages. There’s still no response from Lily and only a brief text from Clay saying that everything’s fine. I don’t know how Kendra has survived Lauren’s silence because my family’s lack of communication for just three days has left me worried, angry, and no longer sure why I felt I had to rush home.

Next I scroll through e-mails looking, yet again, for responses from the agents I queried. When I accidentally end up in my spam folder I find e-mails from three out of the original five. They’ve been sitting there since Thursday.

My hands shake with excitement as I open them; an excitement that evaporates when I read one rejection after another,each following an identical format with my name and the name of my book plugged into the same spots.

The breath I’ve been holding escapes in a loud rush as the Uber pulls up in front of a large limestone building that takes up an entire block of Central Park West. I see it through a blur of tears and a gut wrench of disappointment.

This may be my first trip to New York and to the Upper West Side, but even I know that any building this close to Central Park has to be outrageously expensive. It is a tangible testament to Lauren’s success that I’d give anything not to have to see right now.

So is the man in livery who tips his cap, greets me in an accent I have trouble deciphering, then ushers me into a marble-floored lobby decorated with gilt, gilt, and more gilt.

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