On Second Thought

by Kristan Higgins

  Ainsley, who'd been with Eric since college, considered her own de facto mother-in-law as her best friend. She and Eric's mom went away for shopping weekends together and met for drinks at least once a month, laughing and giggling like...well, like sisters.

  That would never be Eloise and me. I took a deep breath and hit Call Back. "Hi, Eloise, it's Kate."

  "What can I do for you, deah?" She had an upper-crust Boston accent, rather sounding like Katharine Hepburn--that clenched jaw, the slight slur.

  "You wanted to schedule a portrait?"

  "Oh, yes, of course. Unfortunately, I'm terribly busy today. Would you mind ringing later? I'm afraid I must run."

  "No, no, that's fine!" My voice was chirpy. Trying too hard. "Have a great day!"

  "Well, I'm off to visit children in the burn unit at the hospital, so I probably won't, but thank you for your good wishes. Goodbye, deah." She hung up.

  "Shit," I muttered.

  I was determined that if Mrs. Coburn--Eloise--would never really warm up to me, I would never hate her. Nathan was close with his family--Brooke, his older sister, was married and had two sons, Miles and Atticus, who were in elementary school. Once a month or so, Nathan went out for a drink with Brooke's husband, Chase. (I know. The names came right out of the WASP directory.) Nathan played golf with his father and sent his mother flowers on the first of every month. I wasn't going to mess that up.

  I thought of that pregnancy test, buried in the trash upstairs. Two lines would've made a lot of people happy. Two lines, and we could tell the elder Coburns that they'd have a Coburn grandchild. We could announce it just before their anniversary party, and by then, we might know if the baby was a boy or girl.

  My parents, too, would be glad; Mom had thought Nathan and I were rushing (she had a point), and a baby would reassure her. My father adored kids in the "Let's see how high I can throw this little fella!" way. Ainsley would be a very fun aunt, I knew. My brother, Sean, had two teenagers, Esther and Matthias, and three years ago, he and his wife, Kiara, had a surprise pregnancy, resulting in the delicious and adorable Sadie.

  A cousin, another baby in the family, would be very welcome.

  Maybe next month.

  But of course, Nathan would be dead by eight o'clock tonight.

  I just didn't know it yet.

  Chapter Two

  Ainsley

  There, tucked beneath Eric's blue-and-red yacht flag boxer shorts, was a small turquoise box, the words Tiffany & Co. written across the top.

  Thank the baby Christ child.

  Not that I was looking, of course. No. I was searching. I was a bloodhound on the trail of a missing child who'd stuffed his pockets full of raw meat. I was Heathcliff looking for Cathy. I was Navy SEAL Team 6.

  I'd been hoping to find this box for years now, and especially these past few months. But it was so like Eric to wait for tonight, for his "To Life" party, for a crowd. He'd definitely developed a flare for the dramatic since being diagnosed with cancer. And I had to hand it to him. Proposing to me tonight, celebrating not just his life, but our life, and our future...it would be perfect.

  "Hon?" I yelled to ascertain that he was indeed downstairs, rearranging the photo montage for the tenth time. Our dog, Ollie, the world's sweetest little dachshund mutt, was lying on the bed with the ratty blanket he dragged everywhere. He pricked up his ears, thinking I was talking to him.

  "Yeah, babe?" Yep. Downstairs.

  "Oh, never mind. I couldn't find my phone," I lied. "Got it right here."

  Should I wait to see the ring? I should. Eric wanted to surprise me, and I should let him. "Should I wait?" I whispered to Ollie. He wagged his tail. "I don't think so, either."

  After all, I'd opened other turquoise-blue boxes before, and they hadn't contained engagement rings. On our fourth Christmas together, upon seeing the small box, I burst into tears and threw myself into his arms.

  Gold hoop earrings.

  On my twenty-ninth birthday, an opal pendant.

  Both lovely, mind you. Just not what a woman expects when presented with a box of a certain shape and color. So tonight, if there was anything other than an engagement ring in that box, I needed to know before a hundred people watched me open it.

  Like a cat burglar, I slid the box out of the drawer and removed the turquoise lid. Inside was the black velvet box, just like those that had held the earrings and pendant.

  I peeked, then inhaled sharply.

  It was an engagement ring.

  The diamond glittered at me, pulling me under its spell, the depth and sparkle of it, the mystery. It was perfect. A gorgeous solitaire, simple but so elegant, tiny diamonds on the band, the bigger stone dazzling. And big. A carat and a half. Maybe more. Oh, Tiffany! Well done!

  "Check this out," I whispered to Ollie, showing him. He licked his chops, and I idly petted his silky little brindle head, staring at the ring.

  My eyes were wet as I closed the lid and replaced the velvet box into the blue one, then put the package back under the boxers.

  Finally. Finally.

  Then I pumped a fist into the air and did a little end zone victory dance around the room, happy little squeaks coming out of my throat. Ollie joined me, whining with joy, as he himself was an accomplished dancer.

  At last! I was getting married! And the ring was flippin' gorgeous! And it was about time!

  Eric was the love of my life. We'd been together since our senior year of college (eleven years ago, mind you). There'd never been anyone else. He'd been the third boy I kissed, the first boy I slept with and the only boy I'd ever loved.

  And after the past year and a half, during the terror of his life-changing diagnosis, during the treatment and illness, I wanted to be married more than ever. No more partner, no more boyfriend, no more significant other. I wanted him to be my husband. The word was as solid and comforting as a bullmastiff.

  In my heart, we already had a marriage-level commitment, but I wanted the whole package. You know how some people say, Heck, we don't need a piece of paper to show our commitment! They're lying. At least, I was lying and had been lying for, oh, ten years now.

  The wait was over.

  I glanced at my watch, then bolted into the bathroom. If I was going to be an engaged woman tonight, I was also going to get laid tonight, and I had to shave my legs. All the way up.

  *

  Two hours later, the party was in full swing. I wore a white dress (bridal, anyone?) and red heels, and I was nursing a glass of cabernet, feigning calm, though my palms were sweaty and my heart stuttered and sped. Ollie wandered around, greeting guests, sniffing shoes, wagging his tail, all shiny and sweet-smelling, since I'd given him a bath earlier that day.

  This was Eric's big night, and soon it would be our big night.

  The house looked fantastic. It wasn't as big or fabulous as my sister's new place, but it wasn't shabby, either. And unlike Kate's home, my house was lovely because of my work. Kate had walked into a fully furnished showplace designed by her architect husband, filled with custom-made furniture and tasteful modern art paintings.

  Our place was my doing. Since my former career in television imploded, Eric funded 90 percent of our lifestyle, being the Wall Street wizard he was, but home was my domain. Every piece of furniture, every photo, every throw pillow, every paint color had been my decision, making this house our home.

  Was our relationship a little retro? You bet. I liked it that way. And while Kate and Nathan's house was more impressive, I liked to think ours was a little more welcoming, warmer, more colorful. Kind of like Kate and me--her always a little reserved, me always trying too hard.

  The caterers zipped around with trays of pretty food and bottles of wine (good wine, too; Eric had a man-crush on Nathan and asked for some recommendations, since Nathan had an actual wine cellar). There was a martini bar on the deck, and everyone was laughing and smiling with good reason. Eric had beaten cancer, and this party was his way of thanking everyone for their love and
support since that awful day when he'd found the lump.

  As if reading my thoughts, Eric glanced over at me and smiled, and my heart melted and pulled like warm taffy. His dark hair was still short--it used to be longer, but after he shaved his head in anticipation of hair loss, he liked the cropped look. His black-framed glasses made him look attractively dorky, but the truth was, he was gorgeous, and since the diagnosis and his organic macrobiotic diet and exercise plan, his body was smokin'.

  There was a velvet box-sized shape in his front pocket.

  My fiance. My husband.

  The very first time I saw Eric Fisher, I thought, That's the man I'm going to marry. It had never been a question of if, just a question of when.

  That question would be answered tonight.

  "Ainsley, the house looks amazing!" said Beth, my across-the-street neighbor, who'd been wonderful about bringing food and leaving little bouquets of flowers from her garden when Eric was sick. "What a happy day!"

  "Thank you, Beth! You've been so great. We can't thank you enough. Get a martini, quick!" She smiled and obeyed.

  So many friends were here--Eric's fraternity brothers, his coworkers from Wall Street, Eric's parents and grandparents. My friends, too, from town and college and the magazine, though no one from my old job at NBC had even RSVP'd. My brother and his wife hadn't been able to make it, but their older two kids were here, not by choice. I had the impression Sean and Kiara left Sadie with a sitter, dropped the teens off here and sneaked out to dinner rather than come to the party.

  Esther, who was thirteen, was slumped in a chair, the only sign of life her thumbs moving over her phone. Matthias, at fifteen, was similarly slumped, eyeing the young female servers when he thought no one was looking.

  "You guys can go down to the cellar if you want and watch TV," I told them, stroking Esther's curly hair. They jolted back to life and practically trampled each other in the race to the cellar door, Esther shielding her eyes as she passed the photo montage. Poor kid. No teenage girl should have to see that.

  "Hello, Ainsley."

  I managed to catch my flinch at the sound of the voice. My boss was here--Captain Flatline, as we called him. Ollie trotted up to greet him, cheerfully sniffing his shoes, then putting his paws against Jonathan's knee. Jonathan ignored him.

  "Hi, Jonathan!" I said brightly, though almost everyone else at the magazine called him Mr. Kent. I didn't. I had an Emmy, thank you very much (though I probably should've given that back after the debacle).

  "Thank you for inviting me." He looked like he was at a funeral, still in a suit and tie from work, face as cheerful as the grave.

  "I'm glad you could come," I lied. "Is that for us?" I nodded at the bottle of wine in his hand.

  "Yes." He handed it to me. "I hope you enjoy it." Still no smile. "I'm sorry you couldn't make your employee review this afternoon."

  I faked a frown. "Yeah. Me, too. That call with the pumpkin farmer went on longer than I thought."

  He lifted an eyebrow. We both knew I was dodging the review. The thing was, the job wasn't that hard, and I did it well. Or pretty well, anyway. As the features editor, it was my job to assign articles to our vast army of freelancers, all of whom wanted to be the next host of This American Life and/or winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

  Hudson Lifestyle, however, was glossy fluff. Lemonade stands and barn restorations, new restaurant openings and the history of Overlook Cemetery. Before I worked at the magazine, I'd been a producer on The Day's News with Ryan Roberts, the second most-watched news program in the country. I could handle Ten Ideas for Fall Porch Decorating.

  That being said, yes, I had some difficulty in following every one of Jonathan's many rules to the letter. He liked us to roll in at exactly 8:30 every morning, which didn't take into account the fact that I might change outfits or get caught on the phone with my grandmother. He didn't allow food to be left in the employee fridge for more than four days in a row. No personal phone calls at work? Come on. No checking Facebook? What century was this?

  These were the things Jonathan had discussed last year in my review, before I knew that dodging them was a friendly competition held among all Hudson Lifestyle employees. The current champion was Deshawn in Sales, who'd gone three years without one and was now flirting with Beth at the martini bar.

  "Hello! Are you married?" Gram-Gram, my stepmother's cheerful and slightly senile mom, popped over and beamed up at Jonathan.

  "Gram-Gram, this is my boss. Jonathan, my grandmother, Lettie Carson."

  "Hello!" she said, taking his hand and kissing it.

  He glanced at me, alarmed, then said, "Very nice to meet you."

  "You, too! Ainsley, I was wondering if you could help me, honey. I'm on a dating website, but I can't seem to swipe. How do you swipe on your phone? My swipe is broken."

  "Um...well, show me, and I'll help you." She handed me her phone.

  Jonathan didn't seem compelled to move on. He watched us, expressionless.

  "Tinder, Gram-Gram? It's kind of...trashy. And hey, that's my picture! Not yours! You have to use a picture of yourself, you know."

  Gram-Gram humphed. "I hate pictures of myself. Besides, you're so pretty."

  "Well, you're misleading people."

  She winked at Jonathan. "Maybe they'll date me if they think I look like her."

  "Shame on you," I said. "Here. Smile!" Before she could protest, I'd snapped a shot, opened Tinder and changed her profile shot.

  "Fine," she grumbled, scowling at it. "Thank you, I suppose. I'm getting more champagne! Nice to meet you, young man!"

  "Go easy on the booze, Gram-Gram." She wandered away, patting people in her wake. I force-smiled at Jonathan. "She's quite a character."

  "Yes."

  I suppressed a sigh. Though my boss was somewhere around my age, he gave the impression of being a seventy-year-old minor British lord, an ivory-topped walking stick firmly impacted in his colon. In the two years I'd worked at his little magazine, I had yet to hear him laugh.

  "Well, thank you for coming, Jonathan, and for the wine. That was very thoughtful. Here, come talk to my sister. I don't think you've met her. Kate! This is Jonathan Kent, my boss."

  Yes. Let Kate have to deal with him. Like Nathan (and now Kate), Jonathan, too, was a platinum member at the Cambry-on-Hudson Lawn Club. From the corner, Rachelle, who answered phones at the magazine, made a sympathetic face. To be honest, I'd invited the boss only because he overheard me talking about the party this very morning. Jonathan was, to put it kindly, a downer.

  But he had given Eric the online column--just a WordPress spin-off that Eric posted himself, the magazine's website providing a link and a byline. Eric loved writing The Cancer Chronicles, so I guess we owed Jonathan for that, though it hadn't been easy convincing him to say yes.

  "Nice to meet you," Kate said. "This is my husband, Nathan Coburn."

  Being that it was Cambry-on-Hudson, Nathan and Jonathan had met sometime in the past. Ah, yes. Hudson Lifestyle had done a feature on Nathan's house a few years ago, before my time.

  I wondered if I'd ask Kate to be my maid of honor, even though she'd eloped and hadn't even asked me to come as a witness. If I asked, would she somehow make me feel dumb? Then again, she was my sister...well, my half sister, but still. Nathan could be in the wedding party, too. He was a sweetheart, that guy. He caught me looking at him and gave me a wink. In some ways, he felt more like a brother than Sean, who was eleven when I was born, fourteen when I came to live with them.

  Kate was lucky to have Nathan, though I never would've put them together. At least she seemed to know it. She and Nathan were holding hands, which was sweet.

  "Hey, Ains!" said Rob, one of Eric's fraternity brothers. "What kind of cancer was it again?"

  I bit down on my irritation. If Rob had been a true friend, he'd have read The Cancer Chronicles (or the CCs, as Eric called them). Or maybe even called during the past year and a half. Like a lot of Eric's friends from college, he was so
mething of a dolt.

  I picked up Ollie and petted his fluffy little head. "It was testicular," I said, still wishing I didn't have to name boy parts. They all sounded so ugly. Penis. Scrotum. Sac. Girl parts, on the other hand, all sounded rather exotic and beautiful. When I was at NBC and we did a story on teenage pregnancy, there was a girl who wanted to name her daughter Labia. I could almost see it.

  "Testicular? Shit!" Rob winced comically and turned to Eric. "Dude!" he bellowed. "Your nuts? Ouch, brother!"

  "That's the good cancer, isn't it?" asked Rob's wife.

  "There is no good cancer," I said sternly.

  "I mean, the cure rate is really high. Like 98 percent?"

  Her statistics were accurate. "Yes."

  "So it wasn't like Lance Armstrong, then? The really dangerous kind?"

  What was this? An interrogation? "It was the same type Lance had, but thank God, we caught it earlier. And all cancer is dangerous. I hope you never have to find that out."

  Sure, sure, I sounded sanctimonious, but really, people could be such jerks. Eric had talked about this in his column, how people threw around terms like "good cancer" and "great odds" and just didn't understand.

  No matter what, Eric had been afraid of dying.

  There was part of him, I knew, that had wished his battle had been a little...well, a little more dramatic. He'd been prepped to be noble and uncomplaining. That was why he asked me to get him the column at Hudson Lifestyle. His journey, he said, would inspire people.

  And it did. Well. I was inspired, of course. The blog didn't get a lot of traffic, and Jonathan was irritable about it, so I lied to Eric about the statistics. He'd been fighting cancer. He didn't need to know his views were in the dozens (sometimes not even that).

  The truth was, the CCs were kind of...bland. Eric wrote about finding silver linings, living in the moment, being present, the transformation of the caterpillar to butterfly. There was a lot of detail about his treatment. Even a picture of the pre-and postoperative scrotum, which we had to take down as soon as Jonathan saw it, since it violated the magazine's pornography rules (that was an awkward meeting, let me tell you).

  Eric liked to use quotes: Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the realization that there is something more important than fear... Live to fight another day... You are braver than you know, stronger than you think... It's always darkest before dawn. (That one made even me wince.)