So, he just honestly didn’t know. My roommate and very best friend in the whole world had told her fiancé so little about me that he didn’t even know my preferred name. I felt my throat starting to close up with tears.
“I go by Annie, actually,” I said brightly, forcing my tone to stay light. “And don’t worry about the wrong answer. It happens. Everyone flubs one once in a while.”
“Next time, I will defer to you.” Mark stood and glanced around the table. “Allow me to atone for my sins.” He winked at Kelly, who beamed. “Another round of drinks?”
“Thanks, honey!” Kelly blew him an air kiss as he headed up to the bar.
“I love him,” Yessi said when Mark was out of earshot.
“Me too.” Kelly grinned.
“How did you two meet?” I popped a fry into my mouth. My best course of action was to keep my mouth full at all times—whether with food or drink—to numb the sad, wistful feelings that had started creeping up and to keep myself from saying anything that might rub Kelly the wrong way. She was currently seeing the world through the lenses of someone who was about to marry a dude who owned a wine shop.
“It’s really cute, actually.” She examined her ring, watching the light play off the substantial diamond. “I’d just had the most frustrating day with my parents—” She raised her eyebrows, and Yessi and I understood the shorthand. As much as she loved her mom and dad, the three of them didn’t see eye to eye on much. Living with them for a few months had to have been tough on her.
So that’s what this was. Mark had gotten her through a tough time. Their relationship was like Keanu and Sandra Bullock at the end of Speed—based on an intense experience. Kelly was now back to her real life in Chicago, far away from Galena. Soon she’d no longer need Mark. Suddenly I pitied the guy. He was about to be cast aside, and he had no idea.
“I had to get out of my mom and dad’s house for a little while,” Kelly said, “so I drove into town and found this adorable little wine shop, and I started chatting up the owner.” She gestured toward Mark at the bar, and I turned to find him laughing with Dax, just two guys enjoying each other’s company. I frowned. Poor Mark. I gave their engagement a month, tops.
Kelly kept going. “I told Mark all about my family situation, and he helped me pick out the perfect wine to get through the night with my parents. Then he told me to come find him if I needed someone to talk to later.” She grinned. “I took him up on that.”
“How long ago was this?” I asked. “I mean, did you guys get to spend a lot of time together in Galena?”
“You met him right away, didn’t you?”
My mouth fell open as my eyes traveled to Yessi, who was tapping away, unbothered, on her phone. “You knew about this?”
She looked up at me, wide-eyed. “I… No.” She clamped her mouth shut.
“You did,” I said, my chest about to cave in on itself. I’d assumed Kelly had kept Mark a secret from everyone, but nope. Just from me.
“Annie.” Kelly reached for me, but I pulled my arm away and shoved four fries into my mouth. Three months. She’d been seeing this guy—seriously, as there was a ring involved—for three months and had not said one word about him to me, though she’d told Yessi all about it, apparently. The lack of balance in our relationship turned the crispy potatoes to glue on my tongue.
Yessi squeezed my hand. “I haven’t known that long,” she promised. “Mark had been looking for some legal advice, and Kelly came to me.”
I nodded slowly, taking that in.
“She was kind of forced to tell me about their relationship.” Yessi laughed. “She couldn’t call me up and be like, ‘Hey, Yess, here’s a random guy from the street who has a question about a rental lease.’”
“Sure.” I supposed that made sense, but it still didn’t explain why no one, over the course of three months, had ever let it slip that Kelly was seeing someone. And the fact that both Kelly and Yessi knew while I didn’t made it sting even worse. It was one thing for Kelly to have a secret on her own. She was allowed to have her private life. But two of us should not hide information from the third one—unless for the express purposes of a surprise party.
Yessi grabbed one of my fries. “I think what we need to talk about now is getting Annie to join the club.”
“What club?”
“You’re next.” Yessi’s eyes glinted mischievously, and she pointed to the wedding ring on her left hand.
“Ha-ha.” Since when had my dating life become an acceptable topic of discussion? First my mom and Kelly, then Darius today, and now Yessi. “You both know I’m fine on my own.” Besides, I wouldn’t be “on my own” for long. This thing between Kelly and Mark would play out, and then our lives would go back to normal.
“We know you are, Annie,” Kelly said, glancing at Yessi, “but wouldn’t it be fun for all of us to be able to get together with our significant others? You all can come out to Galena—”
I held up a hand to stop her. “Wait, what?”
Kelly’s face grew pale. “Galena,” she said. “I’m…well, I mean, I’m moving there, of course. It just makes sense. Mark’s business is really taking off, and my mom and dad will need me around more and more as they get older. I can do real estate from anywhere.” She grinned. “It will actually be great. You guys can come stay for the weekend. Mark has this huge, beautiful house in the Galena Territory.”
I stared at Yessi. “I suppose you knew about this, too.”
She squirmed under my gaze and pretended to check her phone.
I chewed another tasteless fry as Mark came back to the table with a bottle of wine and four glasses. “This is an excellent vintage,” he said.
“None for me,” I said, shaking my empty cocktail vessel. “I’m one and done.” Probably another tidbit of information about me Kelly hadn’t yet shared with him.
An urge to bolt hit me, but I fought it. And I blinked back tears that stung my eyes. My friends had been keeping two huge secrets from me, and as much as I wanted to believe this Mark thing was a phase, Kelly was moving to Galena for him. She was packing up her life and leaving me.
I tried to drum up some happiness for her, but any sympathetic joy I felt was muted by my own fear, sadness, and uncertainty.
For more than twenty years, ever since we met on day one of our freshman year of college, Kelly and I had been there for each other. We’d watched boyfriends come and go, together. But now she’d gone and met someone, and, though she’d opened up to Yessi, she had kept him a secret from me for three whole months.
The walls of certainty about my own life crumbled around me.
I started to rise, ready to make a break for it, but Ronald announced the next category: movies. I had to stick around for that. I knew even more about movies than I did about history and geography. I had a duty to my team and to the honor of quiz night itself, and I would not let them down.
“Make sure you have your sheets for the fifth round.” After a brief pause while we gathered our things, Ronald said, “Question number one: Which two twenty-first century Best Director Oscar winners each won twice for movies that did not win Best Picture?” Ronald paused. “Bonus points if you can also name the movies.”
I tapped my pencil against my teeth, thinking, running through the last twenty or so years of Oscar nominees and winners. At least this was a good distraction from the sinking pit of despair growing in my stomach.
“I know this!” Mark whispered. “Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese!”
“Yay, Mark,” Kelly said, clapping her hands.
“Wrong.” With authority, I wrote the correct answer on the line. They would not pressure me into throwing Mark a bone this time. Not on a movie question. “Martin Scorsese won for The Departed, which also won Best Picture. He’s out. Spielberg won for Saving Private Ryan, which famously did not win Best Picture, but his only other
win was for Schindler’s List, which obviously did. And both of those movies were made in the nineties, anyway, so he’s automatically disqualified.” I showed my team the paper. “The correct answer is Ang Lee—Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi—and Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity and Roma.”
Mark grinned. “Wow, Annie. You really know your stuff.”
“I do.” I waved off his praise and listened hard for the next question, ready to crush the competition and show everyone in this room who was boss.
Chapter Eight
Tequila Mockingbird
We lost to the Very Stable Geniuses.
The young suits at the front table fist-bumped each other and downed shots of Malört in celebration, because of course they did. I watched their puckered faces as they pretended to enjoy the taste.
“We’ll get ’em next time,” I told my teammates as I stacked papers and collected our pencils to hand back to Ronald. I avoided mentioning that we only lost by one point—one point that could’ve been made up if they hadn’t insisted I listen to Mark on the Mongol Empire question. But that was water under the bridge. I’d already practically moved on.
“We definitely have to do this again.” Yessi draped her purse over her shoulder. “I loved getting out of the house for a while.”
“For sure.” Kelly gave her a hug. “I will definitely make a special trip in for this.”
A frown overtook my forced grin. “Special trip?”
“I mean…” Kelly glanced nervously at Mark. “I’m moving out to Galena as soon as possible. Why keep trying to sell houses here when I won’t be around to see the sales through to closing?”
“Right,” I said.
She wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “But I’ll still be back a ton. It’ll probably take me months just to get all my crap out of your house.” She laughed.
“Yeah,” I said, imagining her space in the basement—bare and cold and lonely. What would I do with it? Set up yet another TV-watching station in my house? Maybe I’d try again to convince my mom to move in with me. Still, I plastered on a happy face and said, “Your crap is welcome to stay as long as you need.”
Kelly beckoned Yessi and me to her. “Ladies,” she said. “I want to ask you something.”
I drew in a deep breath. Here it came—the inevitable question, the one I knew was coming since the moment she flashed that ring: the bridesmaid inquiry.
Smiling shyly, Kelly asked, “Will you two be my maid and matron of honor?”
And there it was.
I’d been maid of honor in Yessi’s wedding, too—or, well, Kelly and I had been co–maids of honor, standing solidly as a unit in our singleness. We got a little drunk together (this was back when Katherine was still at the practice and I could afford to let loose once in a while), made fun of all the pomp and circumstance and hearts and flowers, and then she went and hooked up with one of Polly’s brothers that night while I passed out alone in my hotel room with Frasier blaring on the TV.
It’d probably be more of the same for me this time, but without a similarly perpetually single girlfriend to back me up. I’d be forty by then, the last unattached woman standing, forced to do shots—probably of Malört—in the corner with Kelly’s college-aged cousins.
Still, I pulled her into a hug, because what else could I do? “Kel, of course I’ll be your maid of honor.” She was my best friend forever. In sickness or in health. Through a dating drought or a marriage, I would be there for her.
I glanced over my shoulder at the bar. We needed to commemorate this moment somehow. Our era was ending, while the Mark and Kelly dynasty was just beginning, and, though my world was crumbling around me, I would buck up and do my solemn duty as maid of honor. “You guys want to do a shot or something to celebrate?”
“I really have to go,” Yessi said. “I’ve got to get home to pump and dump before I explode.”
“Understood,” I said, knowing better than to argue with a woman sporting a pair of engorged mammaries. “Kel?”
She took her fiancé’s hand. “Mark and I had better head out, too. We’ve got a long drive back to Galena. I’m staying there through the weekend.”
Galena. Tonight. So, she really was basically living there. “You’re driving the three hours tonight? You guys know you can crash at my place.”
“Mark has to open up the store early tomorrow,” Kelly said. “But we’ll definitely take you up on that another time.”
“You know you’ll always have a room in my house.” I forced another smile. “Well, it was good to see both of you. Mark, nice to meet you.” Barely looking at him, I nodded toward the new guy, the man only I hadn’t known existed until tonight.
“Nice to meet you, Annie.” I knew the kinds of guys Kelly usually dated—sullen artsy types with tattoos, like Dax, honestly. Mark seemed more my speed—safe, responsible, ink-free. I couldn’t imagine what had drawn Kelly to him. It was the kind of thing I would’ve loved to discuss with her, if she had bothered to tell me she’d met someone special before it became “ring official,” but now I felt like I had to keep my mouth shut. She hadn’t trusted me enough to let me in before the engagement, so why would she want my opinion after the fact?
When the door had closed behind my friends, I finally fully exhaled the breath that’d been stuck in my chest for hours and headed up to the bar. I parked myself in front of the new redheaded bartender. “Hi,” I said. “What’s your name?”
“Peter.” He shot me a sweet, gap-toothed grin on his pale, freckly face. He looked like Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, and not much older. Peter was even younger than Dax—maybe fresh out of college. He probably saw me and wondered how many grandchildren I had.
“I’m Annie.”
“Nice to meet you, Annie.” He flashed me a kind smile. “What can I get you?” He wiped down the counter in front of me.
Sucking in my bottom lip, I scanned the shelf of liquor behind him. I’d already had my allotted drink tonight. I had to stay in peak shape in case any of my patients needed me. But, hell, what was one more? I never did this kind of thing, and what were the chances that someone would need me tonight of all nights? “Give me a shot of something, please.”
“Tequila?” he said.
“Sure, because no one’s ever made a bad decision on tequila.”
Peter set a glass and a lime in front of me, and Dax, who had been listening in, pushed a shaker of salt my way.
I wet my wrist, poured on some salt, and licked that off. Then I held up the shot as a toast and downed it, finishing up the ritual with a lime. Damn, that tasted like regret. “Another one,” I told Peter.
He obliged.
“So, your friend’s getting married,” Dax said, coming up next to Peter.
“I suppose so.” I drained another shot and twirled my index finger in the air, indicating I’d like another round.
Instead Dax set a glass of water in front of me. Buzzkill.
“You like the guy?” Peter asked.
I rolled my eyes. “No, but what does that matter?”
“Seems cool to me,” Dax said, as if anyone had asked his opinion. “Knows his stuff about wine.”
“Yeah, because that’s what truly matters.”
Dax, probably realizing his rookie mistake of wandering into this conversation, turned away and focused on glasses that needed wiping.
As I downed my third shot in short succession, the guilt started settling in. I was too responsible not to worry about the ramifications of my actions. I was the good girl, the A-student. I didn’t shirk my responsibilities. I pulled out my phone and texted my assistant Tina. Hey! Sorry this is last minute. Are you available to take calls from patients tonight? My BFF got (ring emoji) and we’re (celebration emoji) (champagne toast emoji).
OMG, she wrote back almost immediately. Forward everything to me. I’m just (squirrel emoji) (fish
emoji) (guy dancing emoji). No problem!
I had no idea what any of those emojis meant, but I wasn’t about to question it.
Tonight I, a single woman nearing her forties who had just gotten very disappointing news, would doff her doctor hat and behave irresponsibly for once in her life.
“My friend kept her new fiancé a secret for three months,” I told Peter. “Three months.” I scoffed. “Though she told our other friend about him.”
He frowned. “Why do you think she did that?”
“I honestly don’t know.” I glanced at the door, holding out hope that Kelly would rush back into the bar to admit she was wrong—that she hadn’t meant anything by telling Yessi and not me. “She and I… We were supposed to grow old together, to travel the world after we retired. I even brought that up this week with her. I feel like a fool. She had so many opportunities, but she never mentioned she’d met someone.”
“You’re mad she told your friend and not you.” A little wrinkle appeared between Peter’s eyes, like he, the new guy here, was trying to catch up to my little personal soap opera.
“Yeah, Peter.” He didn’t get it. He probably lived in a one-bedroom apartment with his six best pals. He had a good ten to fifteen years before he knew how it felt to be the one left behind.
Dax wordlessly set one of his stellar old-fashioneds in front of me, wiped his hands, and walked away.
With stinging eyes, I squeaked out a “thank you.” My throat had closed up.
One of the guys from Very Stable Geniuses sidled up next to me at the bar. “Good game tonight, Wine O’Clock,” he said.
“Annie,” I choked out. My old-fashioned had gone down the wrong pipe.
“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I’m Brad.”
Of course he was.
“You doing the citywide tournament?”
I shook my head, the alcohol and my mood and the Kelly of it all hindering my comprehension of this conversation. My brain had started to grow very fuzzy. “The what?”
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