by Ana Novak
“Imagine,” I said flatly.
“But here I am, getting fitted for a tux I don’t want and paying a fortune for a wedding I don’t need,” he said. “Mel wants it, and I get that it’s important to her, but if it were up to me we wouldn’t waste our time.”
“Would you rather elope?” I asked, genuinely curious now.
“Taylor, I’d rather hit up the Justice of the Peace and get it over with. No more wedding planning, no more guest lists.”
“So it’s not marriage you have a problem with, it’s the wedding.”
“Hell, I don’t know.” He ran a hand through his hair, unintentionally fluffing his hair with an agitation that was almost comical. I had to bite my lip to hide my smile. “I guess. The whole thing seems so fake. Look at Dad. He married my mom and kept yours on the side.”
“Ouch.” I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t want to think about that. Neither of us have parents who provided us with a shining example of monogamy. But who cares? You’re not Arnold. And I know I’m not exactly the poster child for lasting commitment, but I still believe that marriage should be for life. Maybe someday I’ll want to try it again, and maybe I’ll find someone who feels the same. But there’s one thing I do know. Whether you have a big wedding or not isn’t going to have any effect on your relationship’s staying power.”
He looked unconvinced. “It seems like a death sentence. All the biggest weddings end in divorce.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “Epic weddings- and especially epic wedding dresses- are always a good indicator for whether or not it’s going to last.”
Van gave me an incredulous look. “Seriously, Taylor? You’re going to tell me that now?”
I remembered belatedly that Mel’s wedding dress was definitely on an epic level, and Van was undoubtedly aware of that, even if he hadn’t seen it yet. “I’m just kidding. Kate Middleton and Prince William are still together,” I said. “Her wedding dress was trending on Twitter for weeks. And Sarah Jessica Parker wore a black dress on her wedding day, and she and Matthew Broderick have been married for more than twenty years.”
If anything, Van looked even more grouchy. “Why did I invite you out for lunch again?”
“I’m going to hope it wasn’t to lift your spirits about the wedding,” I said ruefully. “I’m sorry I’m not helping. I suck.”
He didn’t respond, and I tried to think of something to change the subject. Only one topic came to mind.
“The guy I left the club with last night was Shane Kruger,” I blurted out. “We reconnected when you stood me up at the cafe.”
“I texted you to say I wasn’t coming.” Surprisingly, the identification of Shane as my one night stand didn’t seem to affect Van at all.
“I got your text after I was already there and had ordered a latte,” I said. “Shane really bailed me out.”
“Dave said he would meet you there so you wouldn’t have to eat alone.”
I rolled my eyes. “Has it not occurred to you that perhaps sending my ex-husband to keep me company isn’t the best choice, given the whole ex factor?”
Van shrugged. “You said you were on friendly terms.”
“Did I?” I didn’t remember saying that, but it sounded like something that would come out of my mouth if I was trying my best to be appeasing. “Even if we are, that doesn’t mean I want to have lunch with the guy. We’re divorced for a reason.”
“Do you want me to uninvite him for Thanksgiving?”
Van’s question caught me off-guard. “No,” I said. Yes, my inner voice insisted, but I ignored it. “That wouldn’t be fair to him. He doesn’t have any other family.”
Don’t be such a doormat, my inner voice snapped, and I had to agree. I was most definitely being a doormat, but Van didn’t need any other points of stress this close to the wedding, especially not when it involved his sister and his best friend.
“I’m not averse to hanging out with him every once in a while if you’re there,” I said finally. “I know you guys are friends and I don’t want that to change. But leaving us alone together probably isn’t a good idea. There’s a lot of history there and I don’t want to keep reliving the past.”
“I guess that’s what we all have to look forward to.” The car came to a stop, and Van unbuckled his seatbelt. “The inevitable death of relationships and the painful awkwardness that follows.”
“Don’t be so doom and gloom,” I scolded. The driver opened Van’s door, letting him out, and I scooted across the seat and outside behind him. “Plenty of marriages do last.”
“Give me examples,” he said wryly.
“Yours will. In twenty years, you’ll be eating your words,” I said, and looked around. “Where are we?”
“The best-kept secret in the city,” Van said, and led me inside. The hostess immediately sat us in a far corner of the dimly lit room, which had unadorned brick walls and white tablecloths over spindly metal tables.
“This looks like a place you’d take someone for a mob hit,” I mused when she’d left us alone with our menus. “Should I be worried?”
“Not unless you’re allergic to Italian,” Van said. “Shut up and enjoy the ambiance. And don’t think for a second that I’m letting you off the hook over Shane Kruger.”
“Even if there was a hook, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be on it,” I said, opening my menu and scanning the lunch options. “Besides, doesn’t talking about him make you grossly uncomfortable? One night stands aren’t exactly a typical lunch topic between siblings.”
“Okay, one, I know this was at least your second date, so you can’t call him a one night stand anymore,” Van pointed out. “And two, you brought him up so I’m gonna take that as a sign that you want to talk about it.”
“What’s good here?” I asked in a not-so-subtle attempt to stall for time.
“Everything. I’m getting spaghetti.”
“Ooh, so adventurous.”
“I guess I might look pretty damn boring to a woman who just spent the night with Shane Kruger.”
I winced. “That sounds so wrong coming out of your mouth. Does this not feel squicky to you in the least?”
“If that means I’m worried about my little sister dumping my best friend and hooking up with a guy whose Rolling Stone cover showed him snorting a line of coke, then yeah, I’m feeling fucking squicky.”
“Shane was on the cover of Rolling Stone?” I said, unabashedly impressed.
Van’s eyes narrowed.
“All right, all right. I didn’t know about the Rolling Stone cover. And I don’t know what kind of drugs he did back when he was in UnAlive, but he’s not like that anymore,” I said. “He had two shots with me and the girls last night and shared a couple sips of my Cape Cod, but other than that, he didn’t drink at all. And no drugs.”
“As far as you know.”
“As far as I know,” I conceded. “He really doesn’t seem like that kind of person, though.”
“Do you even know anything about this guy?”
“I’ve Googled him,” I said defensively. “The dirt the media has on me is way more scandalous than anything I found on him.”
The server came to take our orders then. I let Van order for me and tried hard not to show him how much his negative opinion affected me, or how unnerving it was to hear about Shane’s involvement with drugs. I knew most musicians were into that kind of scene, with very few exceptions, but Shane simply hadn’t struck me as the type. He seemed more like Van, who was altogether too obsessed with physical fitness to put anything into his body that wasn’t healthy.
My phone rang while Van was ordering our food, and I silenced it quickly, noting with some annoyance that Dave was calling me now.
“Kruger has a great PR team,” Van said once the server had left. “When all that shit went down with you and Dave outside that hotel, they worked overtime to make sure no one touched him.”
“What do you mean? The paparazzi raked us across the coals on that one. Why d
o you think I moved back to California?”
“I know you left to avoid the shitstorm. But there was no negative press about Kruger at all. It was all about you, the homewrecker.” At my wounded expression, Van rushed to qualify his remarks. “I didn’t say it was accurate. I’m saying Kruger’s people spun it so he came out smelling like a fucking rose. Instead of the story being about him busting up your marriage, it became about you abandoning your husband to be with Kruger.”
I couldn’t argue. That was exactly how the tabloids had portrayed it.
Van shook his head. “It was total bullshit. I work with the guy because business is business, but that doesn’t mean I’m cool with the way he threw you under the bus.”
“Shane didn’t owe me any kind of protection,” I said, but the quavering in my tone belied my words. “It really was just a one night stand. He couldn’t control how the narrative went.”
“He sure as shit controlled his own narrative,” Van said, sounding disgusted. “I’m telling you, it’s your choice who you want to be with, but I’d watch your back around that guy. He’ll burn you the minute the heat is on.”
My phone buzzed, indicating that Dave had left a voicemail. “Aren’t you just a blinding ray of sunshine,” I said dourly. “Can we talk about something else?”
“I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“And I just want to punch you in the nose,” I muttered. “Thanks for your concern. I feel heaps better.”
The server saved me by bringing our soup then, and I forced myself to choke down a few mouthfuls, not feeling hungry at all but wanting an excuse to avoid talking.
We ate in silence for a few minutes before Van said, “The label is doing a benefit concert on Black Friday.”
“The day after Thanksgiving?”
“Is there another Black Friday I should know about?”
“I guess not.” I frowned, tracing circles in my soup with my spoon. “What’s the occasion?”
“Fifty years in the business.” Van shook his head. “It’s all acoustic, very private. They’re bringing in their biggest artists to play a few songs.”
“So obviously you’ll be there.” I kept my tone light.
“Me and a handful of others. I was wondering if you wanted to be my date.”
“What about Mel?”
“Well, you and Mel. Both of you. I was wondering…” He hesitated. “I was thinking that maybe you and I could perform together.”
“In front of people?” I asked, frowning. “I mean, in front of the whole label?”
“Yeah. It’d be good publicity for both of us. And I was thinking that maybe I could introduce you as my sister. As Taylor Kane Merrick.”
The enormity of what he was suggesting dawned on me. He and I had never clarified the nature of our relationship to anyone but our inner circle of friends and colleagues. That made it easier to avoid any bad press coming back on our dad. But Van was suggesting that we put our private lives- our father’s affair with my mother, the circumstances of our friendship, everything- out in the open for everyone to know.
“Why?” I said softly. “Why now?”
Van took a sip of water and sat back in his chair, seeming to consider his answer. “I don’t like them questioning how you and I are connected. I understand that Dad wants to keep some things private, but his mistakes shouldn’t mean you can’t be seen with me without being called a homewrecker.” He met my eyes for a moment, and shrugged before looking away. “I’m tired of it, that’s all. I want people to know you’re my sister.”
I nodded slowly. “I…I guess I want that, too.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So you’ll do it?”
“Sure.” I wasn’t particularly excited about performing in front of a crowd, but it wouldn’t be the first time, and Van was right. It was time to end the speculation.
Van made small talk after that, and we were careful to steer clear of any discussion about Shane for the remainder of our lunch together. Afterwards, when he dropped me off at home, I sat down listlessly at the bottom of the stairwell, not wanting to go up to my apartment.
I’d meant it when I’d said that Shane had owed me nothing after that night. For all he knew, I really had slept with him to get back at Dave. I hadn’t helped things by ignoring his texts. But it was difficult to accept that he might have had something to do with the paparazzi publicly tearing me to pieces. At the time, I’d assumed he’d been just as affected by the fallout as I was, but thinking about it now, I could see that it had only been my private life that was scrutinized and dissected. The information that had been published about Shane- his recent divorce, the summaries of his music career- had been curiously objective and lacking in detail.
My phone vibrated again. Another text from Dave. I stood up and shoved my phone in my pocket, driven to total frustration.
As a child, when I had a bad day, my mother would cook for me. I’d come home exhausted from school and she would summon me to the kitchen, where we would painstakingly work through the steps of one of her too-complicated recipes. Admittedly, most of our dinners turned out nearly inedible, but over the years as my skills improved, I began to take over kitchen duties. For me, cooking became an escape from real life. In fact, my love for cooking was probably to blame for the extra weight I’d carried through much of my adulthood. Now I was making healthier choices, but maybe today could be a bit of a cheat day.
I’d planned to make thin crust pizza tonight. I hadn’t eaten pizza in what seemed like forever, and I wanted to try a new dough recipe that didn’t require any rising time. I wasn’t hungry now, despite having eaten next to nothing at lunch, but maybe I could work up an appetite with a walk around the neighborhood.
I stood up and headed out the door of the apartment building, shoving my hands in the pockets of my coat to ward off the early November chill. My fingers brushed against my phone.
I took it out, deliberately avoiding looking at Dave’s texts, and dialed Mistral’s number.
She answered on the second ring. “What’s up, girlie?”
“I’m having a bad day,” I said.
“After taking home that hot piece of ass last night? Seems doubtful.”
“That hot piece of ass is exactly who is ruining my day,” I retorted. “Van says that Shane’s PR team spun our one night stand so that I came out looking like the bad guy. He says it’s because of Shane that the tabloids went after me so hard two years ago.”
There was silence on the line for a moment. “You talked to Van about Shane?”
“Obviously,” I said crossly.
“Well, girlie, there’s your first mistake. That man is too busy preening in the mirror to take any real interest in other people’s lives.”
“He’s my brother, Mistral.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to turn a blind eye to his selfishness.” She clucked her tongue. “Need I remind you that Shane was your first hook-up after ditching Van’s best friend?”
“I get why Van wouldn’t like him. But Van’s not the type to lie about something like this, no matter how much he dislikes Shane.”
“That may be true, but he’s not exactly unbiased.”
“But what if he’s right? What if Shane’s team did pull some strings so that the paparazzi wouldn’t touch him?”
“What if they did? Does it really matter?”
“It does to me.”
“Why?” she asked. “So Shane has a PR team to protect him from tabloid gossip. Is that a crime?”
“It’s a problem if they purposely shifted all the blame to me! That really tore me up, Mistral. I moved across the country to get away from it.”
“Yes, but Taylor, you’re more sensitive than most. If a few tabloids outed me for seducing Shane Kruger, I’d be screaming it from the rooftops.”
“I got death threats because of that!”
“From anonymous nobodies hiding behind their online handles,” she said disgustedly. “But you also got o
ne hell of a career boost. Don’t tell me you don’t at least owe part of that spot on the NYT bestseller list to Shane and his considerable sex prowess.”
“I know that,” I said reluctantly.
“Then before you jump to any conclusions about how Shane and his publicist supposedly manipulated the media into stalking you, why don’t you give the man a chance to explain?”
“That would require talking,” I said, waiting for the light to change before hurrying across the crosswalk.
“Oh, and you’re too busy banging his brains out to bother with conversation?”
“No! We talk. But this would be- this is talking, Mistral. Like the kind of talking you do in relationships.”
“Doll, you’ve got to get over your relationship hang-ups. Anything that lasts longer than a one night stand means some kind of commitment, and you and Shane are heading that direction.”
“Are we?” I scowled, sitting down on a bench next to the tiny community garden. “We’ve only spent two nights together. And a morning. I’m not looking for anything serious.”
“You keep saying that, but I think what you’re really worried about is getting your heart broken again.”
“Could you blame me? My husband had an affair with someone he met on Tinder.”
“Humiliating, I know. Match.com would have been less mortifying.”
“God, no, that would have been worse.”
“But that was over a year ago,” Mistral said, uncharacteristically patient. “It’s okay that you’ve taken this long to get back in the ring. But it’s time to let go of the past.”
My phone buzzed against my ear, and I groaned. “That would be so much easier if Dave would leave me alone.” I pulled the phone away and looked down to see the notification, but it wasn’t a text from Dave. It was from Shane.
We still on for pizza tonight?
Had I invited him over for pizza? I racked my brain and came up blank. I couldn’t remember even mentioning it to him. I put the phone back to my ear.
