My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

by Wendy Wax

  “It is.” I’m careful to keep the irritation and, yes, the jealousy out of my voice. If I’d gotten on that bus with Lauren I might have had the same success she has and I could have fallen in love with someone creative and worldly and faithful. And while I realize that plenty of people in Manhattan probably cheat on their spouses, I’m pretty sure everyone doesn’t know it. Of course, if I’d gone I wouldn’t have Rafe or Lily. Or the bookstore. Or Clay’s family. Or the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother, just around the corner.

  My hands are tight—too tight—on the steering wheel. I manage to unclench them by reminding myself that I haven’t failed at anything. I’ve got the home and family I dreamed of. And now I’ve finished my novel. It’s not about how long it takes to write a book, but how good it is. Plus, no marriage or relationship is perfect. I’d like to forget all the nasty things I said to Lauren when she informed me that Clay wasn’t ready for marriage, though I’m sure she never has. I’ll need to be careful not to let my anger at and disappointment in Clay become too obvious. As far as I’m concerned I’m the wronged party in her and my personal mini-drama. And I’m not about to open myself up to an I told you so.

  Normally, arriving at Kendra’s is a mood brightener, but my stomach roils as I make the turn onto her driveway. Clay pulls in right after us, but I don’t look back. I will not walk into the Sandcastle scowling and unhappily married. I intend to at least appear friendly and approachable just like Kendra asked. If Lauren chooses not to respond in kind, that will be on her.

  Lauren’s smiling when we walk through the door and already hugging Lily before she makes it all the way into the kitchen. “Oh my gosh! Look how grown-up you are!” Lauren exclaims in what looks like delight. I try not to stare at the perfect haircut that frames and flatters her face or the jeans and blouse that appear casual but are no doubt “designer.” She’s still tall and lean, which makes the extra six or seven pounds I can never seem to drop feel like twenty.

  Lily dimples as Lauren introduces her to Spencer then expands the introduction to include Clay and me. Clay hugs her without the slightest hesitation then shakes hands with Spencer while Kendra throws her arms around Lily and Clay. Lauren and I don’t turn our backs on each other, but we don’t move any closer, either. “Congratulations on your engagement.” My words sound hollow and stiff in my own ears even though I’m pretty sure I’m still smiling.

  “I hear you did it up right,” Clay says as he shakes Spencer’s hand. “Down on one knee in some fancy restaurant with people doo-wopping.”

  “Yes,” I say without stopping to think. “I can just imagine how Lauren felt being surprised that way.” My comment goes right over Clay’s and Spencer’s heads, but Lauren’s eyes meet mine for a split second. An acknowledgment of how well we once knew each other.

  We linger in the kitchen that’s filled with the warm and wonderful smells Kendra’s cooking always produces and that I’ve filed away under the category heading of home. I watch Lauren surreptitiously. We used to know what the other would say before they did. And would have felt free to weigh in with anything that crossed our minds. But that’s no longer true. What would have been a simple observation then, would be a criticism now. We’ve been avoiding each other for so long that the best course of action is probably not to see or say too much. For the first time I realize that this works both ways.

  Kendra pours mimosas and hands them around. Even Lily gets a tiny bit of champagne in hers. Then Kendra raises her glass and says, “To Lauren and Spencer. I’m so thrilled that you’ve found each other. I know we all wish you a real-life happily ever after.”

  “To Lauren and Spencer!” We all clink glasses and drink. I’m careful not to look at Clay, who seems to see no irony in drinking to happily ever after, after trampling all over ours.

  Lily laughs and downs what I assume is her first sip of champagne then lifts her phone to get a photo of the happy couple.

  “Clay, can you refill the glasses?” Kendra asks as Lauren and I automatically stand and begin to carry food to the table as we have so many times.

  I glance at Lauren at the same moment she glances at me and I know we’re both remembering the three of us sitting around this table together. Of all the meals we shared, it’s the dinner that Kendra prepared the day I moved in that I remember best. Not because of what it tasted like but because of the thought that Kendra put into it. The lasagna was made from my grandmother’s recipe. The crusty garlic bread was baked fresh that day, because Kendra knew how much I loved it. Dessert was Kendra’s now-famous triple-chocolate cake that she was trying to perfect at the time and that she said was not yet good enough to serve to anyone outside the family.

  I remember how grateful I was to be the third member of this tiny family. How I thought Lauren and I would always share everything. When she’s in New York the loss and betrayal are muted, but when she’s here . . . Her presence is a stark reminder that that was little more than wishful thinking.

  “This looks great.” Spencer appears genuinely pleased with the food that’s coming his way. Conversation flows around me as we fill our plates. Clay, who’s been making conversation with Spencer, throws back his head and laughs. Since I’m trying to ignore my husband I have no idea what was said, but I feel a fresh spike of anger that he seems to be having such a great time.

  Then Kendra says, “Before we dig in, I’d like to toast one more happy event.”

  We all raise our glasses and Kendra says, “Brianna has finished her novel. I think that’s something well worth toasting.”

  I feel the blush spread over my cheeks even as I note Lauren’s surprise. Clearly, she never thought this would ever happen. That surprise stings and it’s all I can do not to tell her where she can shove her Central Park West apartment and her multibook contracts. I can barely bring myself to take a sip after everyone clinks glasses.

  “I always knew you’d do it,” Kendra says. “Look at all you’ve created—your family, the store, and now a completed novel. You just put other things first.”

  “She put everything first,” Lauren says.

  I tell myself not to respond, that this is not the time or place, but the words nonetheless come rushing out. “Maybe that’s because I didn’t have someone else’s outline and notes to work from.”

  Kendra winces. Clay takes a long pull on his mimosa. Spencer looks confused.

  “I take it Lauren never mentioned that her first published novel was one we brainstormed and plotted together?” I grind out.

  “That was fifteen years and twelve books ago,” Lauren snaps. “I think our publishing records speak for themselves.”

  “That book jump-started your career,” I shoot back, shocked at how easily the words I’ve swallowed all these years spew out.

  “That and all the ad writing, and articles, and blogging and ghostwriting,” Lauren responds. “Not to mention all the crummy jobs I had to work to stay afloat when I lost the roommate I was counting on. And FYI—notes and a rough outline are not a book—and certainly not a bestseller.” She barely pauses. “And it wasn’t like you were ever going to do anything with it.”

  I take the blow. There’s some small part of me that acknowledges the truth in her statement. But that book belonged to both of us and today I can’t seem to turn the other cheek. “Maybe not. But it was a huge hit and in all these years you’ve never once mentioned or acknowledged that you didn’t come up with the idea yourself.”

  “Girls. Please.” The distress in Kendra’s voice is evident. We both know she wants us to do more than stop arguing. But I’m far too angry to apologize. Lauren stares straight ahead and chews as if her life depends on it.

  We sit in an uncomfortable silence. Some of us pretend to eat. Clay doesn’t look at me. Neither does Lily.

  Finally Kendra scrapes back her chair. “I think it’s time for dessert,” she says, standing and picking up her plate. We all
jump up to help clear the table, men included. “I’m pouring coffee. Will you please serve your blueberry crumble, Brianna?”

  I do as Kendra requests, not bothering to ask who wants any before I thump plates of it around the table, wincing when I realize that I thumped Clay’s hardest of all and that eagle-eye Lauren no doubt noticed. I feel especially small and petty for ruining the meal for Kendra, but I can’t bring myself to apologize and I’m sure as hell not going to take it back. It’s only the truth. I should have said it a long time ago. I’ve imagined telling Lauren off a million times. And in every imagining having my say made me feel infinitely better. But that’s not how I feel now. In fact, although I wouldn’t have thought it possible, I feel even worse than I did when I arrived.

  Sixteen

  Lauren

  Clay shovels the dessert into his mouth and keeps his head down. Lily excuses herself to go to the bathroom while Bree sits there with a kind of sick look on her face. Spencer picks up his fork and begins to eat the blueberry crumble. My mother glances back and forth between Bree and me. It’s clear that all she wants is for us to “kiss and make up.”

  I’m way too furious to eat so much as a bite of Bree’s dessert. The childish angry part of me would love to reach into the Pyrex dish, pick up a glob with my bare hand, and shove it into her face. But that can never happen.

  Because although I saw Bree as a sister, my mother has always seen Bree as a victim of her parents’ neglect and disinterest, vulnerable and in need of our protection. She treated her like a wounded bird that had been pushed out of the nest and I understood that I needed to do the same. That because I was stronger and had a mother who loved me, I had to be careful of Bree’s feelings, that I should not be jealous of the attention my mother gave her, that lashing out at her like a real sister might was not an option. The way my mother has continued to treat her like a daughter even after our friendship fell apart . . . Well, it’s as if the three bears decided to adopt Goldilocks and then took the little bear’s chair away from him and gave it to Goldilocks because she “needed it” more.

  But Bree’s an adult now, a wife and mother, a business owner. She has even, as it turns out, finished a novel when no one including me ever thought she would. Am I still supposed to pull my punches?

  Bree stands and turns to my mother. “I hate to run off but Mrs. McKinnon is at the store today and asked me to come by after brunch. She had some problem with the sales receipts. Clay’s going to drop Lily off at her friend’s house. But they can help you with the dishes before they go.” She doesn’t even look my way.

  “Oh, but I assumed you’d be here while Lauren tries on THE DRESS. I hoped you would.” My mother gives us both imploring looks. “Couldn’t you come back after you finish at the store?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you and Lauren don’t need me in the middle of . . .” Bree says at the same time I say, “It makes no sense for Bree to get that close to home and come all the way back out to the beach again.” As if it’s some major journey and not a fifteen-minute drive across the Washington Baum Bridge and another couple minutes to the store.

  “Actually, I have a few errands near Title Waves. Let me go grab my list. You could go with Bree and pick up the things I need while I supervise cleanup then get THE DRESS ready.” She turns to Clay. “Perhaps you could take Spencer with you and show him around a bit after you drop off Lily.”

  She scampers off to her bedroom to retrieve—or, I suspect—concoct the list of errands before anyone can refuse. Spencer considers Bree and me. “You should go. It’ll make your mother happy and you can take a few photos while you’re there.” He gets up and reaches for a remaining plate and glass to carry to the sink. “If Clay’s busy I’ll hang out on the back deck or take a walk on the beach. I don’t think the groom should be here while the bride is trying on THE DRESS anyway.”

  “You’re welcome to come along, man,” Clay says. “I have to stop by one of our rental properties in Corolla—that’s north of Duck—but I can show you some of the sights up there and on our way back.”

  “Beach bars, more likely,” Bree huffs then glances to see if I noticed.

  “I have nothing against bars on beaches,” Spencer says. “In fact, it occurs to me that being on vacation pretty much compels me to visit at least a couple.”

  My mother comes back with a list. She hands it to me with a determined if satisfied smile. “I’ll have THE DRESS ready when you two get back.”

  “Right.”

  I look at Bree out of the corner of my eye as we leave the house and take the stairs down to the drive. She looks every bit as uncomfortable as I am at being thrown together. Neither of us speaks as we climb into her Jeep. I’m annoyed and oddly nervous. It’s no accident that Bree and I haven’t been alone since her wedding.

  As she pulls onto the Beach Road my thoughts ping all over the place, ill-formed and at random, a mishmash of the past and the present. The day Bree and I strutted around with those cardboard birthday crowns on our heads. Our certainty that being born on the same day meant something important. The way we could talk for hours and hours without any effort at all and then call each other to talk some more. The years we spent sharing a bedroom and then a college dorm room. The countless meals we’ve eaten together. The problems we’ve hashed out.

  I’ve avoided her as much as I could on my visits home not just because of my long-held anger at her, but because it hurts to have to weigh each word with someone with whom you once shared a private language that gushed out in a stream of consciousness.

  It’s easier to not think about her when I’m in New York. But she was such a part of who I was here that without my connection to her this place feels out of context, much less like home.

  I try to tamp down my impatience. Surely my mother doesn’t think that putting us in a car together and sending us out to do unnecessary errands is going to fix everything between Bree and me. But then I think that if my mother does have some sort of medical issue or illness—something my imagination refuses to let go of—then maybe that’s what’s driving her to get us back together. Maybe this is some sort of Hail Mary pass.

  We’re on the Washington Baum Bridge, Roanoke Sound flying by on either side—a drive we’ve made together countless times—when I surprise both of us by asking, “Have you noticed anything odd about my mother’s behavior?”

  I continue to stare out the window but I feel her eyes on me. “Odd meaning . . . ‘out of character’?”

  “Yes,” I half snap because I’m already sorry I was first to speak. And because I’d forgotten Bree’s habit of double-checking definitions. “I’m pretty sure that’s what it means.”

  She turns her eyes back to the road. Just when I think she’s not going to respond she says, “Well, she has seemed a little stressed out lately. Why?”

  I’m not going to tell her what my imagination has been conjuring. How out of control it’s been lately. “Nothing concrete. She just feels a bit off to me.”

  “Maybe you don’t see her often enough to be able to tell the difference.”

  Before I can react to the dig she says, “Sorry. That was out of line. I’m just irritated with . . .” She cuts herself off as if there’s any chance I don’t know she’s complaining about Clay.

  “But I’m guessing you’ve already turned your mother’s behavior into a fatal illness.” She smiles almost reluctantly but her voice is no longer quite so irritated. “Remember when you had the flu that time, but you were convinced you were dying? It was right after we saw that revival of Love Story at the Pioneer.”

  Her words stir memory. I can still smell the acrid, burned metal smell of the projectors that almost drowned out the smell of popcorn. (Which was no mean feat given how much buttered popcorn had been popped in that place since it first opened in 1918.) “I may have overreacted a little.”

  “A little? As I recall you wrote out your last will and
testament.”

  “Hey, you were going to get my prized copy of Gone With the Wind.”

  “Completely dog-eared.” Without looking I know she’s rolling her eyes.

  “Well loved,” I counter.

  As we come off the bridge and turn east to Manteo, more memories knock on the door I thought I had nailed shut. This is the route my school bus took to Manteo Elementary School, where we first met, and which I know from my last visit bears no more resemblance to its old, original self than we do. I stop just short of asking if she knows what happened to Mr. Daniels, who was our favorite PE teacher. Open too many floodgates and a person can drown.

  She takes a right on Sir Walter Raleigh, which is lined with nicely maintained clapboard homes with beautifully manicured lawns then passes Essex, where my mother’s friend Deanna’s Dogwood Inn sits on the far corner. The waterfront is a block away. I can see the tip of the re-created Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse at the edge of the boardwalk that lines the Shallowbag Bay Marina.

  Bree turns into an alley and pulls into a reserved spot with a sign that says, I READ THEREFORE I PARK.

  “Nice.”

  “Just one of the perks of being a titan of business.” She reaches for the door handle. “Come on. Mrs. McKinnon is expecting me. Do you have the list?”

  “Such as it is.” I slam the car door and follow her into the tiny pharmacy that has somehow survived the onslaught of chains and superstores.

  “Why, Lauren, how great to see you.” Mrs. Endicott, a jovial woman who’s had a cloud of white hair for as long as I can remember and merry blue eyes that sparkle with mischief, greets us from behind the counter and congratulates me on my engagement. Her husband, who died shortly after I moved to New York, had a white beard and a belly that jiggled when he laughed. When I was little I used to imagine that Mr. and Mrs. Endicott were Mr. and Mrs. Claus in disguise and that maybe he delivered gifts from here in the Outer Banks instead of the North Pole because it was closer even though I never saw a sign of an elf or a reindeer or even a sleigh.