“Who is this from, I wonder?” he said.
I looked up as he wagged his eyebrows at the guests around the room. Everyone turned their heads, looking for someone to claim the gift. Tilting his head, he joked about the mystery gift and then he ripped open an envelope and pulled out the embossed card.
Reading it out loud, he said, “‘A trip for two to Italy for your honeymoon. Enjoy your time together. Love, June and Jessica.’”
The room exploded in applause at the unprecedented generosity. Henry and Charlotte jumped up and hugged June. Scarlett loudly offered to give Charlotte time off for a honeymoon next year, and everyone laughed.
If the gift had come from anyone else, if it had been opened at any other time, I would have been happy for Charlotte. But now I wanted to burn the card in the hurricane lantern on the table until it turned into tiny pieces of ash.
After everyone stopped gushing over June’s gift, we were back to the next present: Mary Conrad’s gift. I stole a look at Nick as Charlotte read his mother’s card. Was he feeling this? He didn’t seem the least bit affected.
After pulling off the wrapping paper, Charlotte lifted the lid of a box and pulled out a beautiful log cabin quilt that must have taken Mary weeks to make. I saw the lady who couldn’t handle a four-hour drive to Hilton Head whisper something to Scarlett. Charlotte was polite enough to exclaim over the beauty of the quilt and I wondered vaguely how it would have looked in Nick’s barren apartment. Of course he wouldn’t have used it.
Heat rose to my face and I felt like the room was closing in around me.
From the perimeter of the crowd I caught a glimpse of Nick edging toward me. What did I do now? Wasn’t I smiling properly? I swallowed past the thickness in my throat and clutched the pen so hard my knuckles were turning white. Henry said something about blankets and bedding that made people laugh, but I wasn’t listening anymore.
My deepest prayer was answered when the last gift was eventually handed to Charlotte. This couldn’t end soon enough! But my heart dropped when I recognized the silver wrapping paper. Aunt Addie had walked around with a smug smile after shopping in Gaylord two weeks ago. She wouldn’t tell anyone what she had bought Charlotte, and I hadn’t given it much thought.
Until now.
It was Henry’s turn to open the gift and with every tear of the paper I felt a piece of my composure shred.
Henry lifted the lid of the box and held up Aunt Addie’s gift in wonder.
A burst of laughter and exclamations erupted around the room. Aunt Addie’s was the loudest. The men in the back jeered and pointed. Henry grinned as he held up the gift. A transparent black negligee with feather fringe and lace thong underwear.
I thought I would die.
Tears rushed to my eyes and thankfully no one noticed as they continued to exclaim over the tawdry gift. Gift opening was finished. Everyone left their seats and made their way toward a dessert table, I jumped out of my chair and ran through the doorway. I headed toward a set of doors that led outside and barely made it before a sob escaped my throat.
It had been a very long time since I’d cried. It wasn’t that I never felt sad, I just never felt tears ever did any good. But as I braced my arms against the stone wall, I sobbed. For my father who wasn’t here, my sister who was never coming home again, and for myself—because I felt so helpless. I had no idea how long I stood there, but after a while I became aware of a steady rain falling and a dark form standing nearby. Nick leaned over me, shielding me from the rain. Somehow I wasn’t surprised. Nick always seemed to be around for my most embarrassing moments.
As he stood with me under the dark overhang, I thought about how good it would have been to cry into Nick’s wide shoulder. But I couldn’t. Even in the middle of my emotional breakdown, I was too proud to cry on Nick’s shoulders.
He was the enemy.
He lived in a cold and desolate apartment.
He was friends with all these people.
He never came home.
And I had divorced him . . . figuratively, at least.
He handed me something. I looked down at a handkerchief. I didn’t know men still used those, but I took it gratefully and blew my nose indelicately.
With clear sinuses I became aware of the smell of wet cement and pine needles, carried by the stiff breeze. They helped the fuzziness in my head recede as I wiped the last of my tears away. When I was ready to face Nick, I turned around.
The first thing I noticed was the way the breeze lifted damp tendrils of Nick’s hair and how much I liked it that way. The second thing I noticed was the shadowed expression on his face.
“Are you all right, Bump?”
I nodded and an unexpected hiccup escaped my mouth.
“What happened in there?”
What could I say? He had been there. He’d witnessed the whole thing. Extravagant and elegant gifts from Henry’s friends. Tacky and cheap gifts from the Michigan friends and family. I waited for some acknowledgment from him. But he just stood there, staring like I had grown horns.
“God, Nick! Didn’t you notice?”
“Notice what?”
“What? Are you kidding me? Are you that unaffected by the snobbery of these people?” I stomped on the cobblestone walkway, wishing his foot were beneath my shoe.
“I don’t get it . . . what?” he said.
How could he be so dense? I was so frustrated that I pushed the heels of my hands against his chest. “You don’t get it? I can’t believe it. You don’t get it?”
“Hey, Bump, calm down,” he said, grabbing my shoulders. “All I know is that with every present Charlotte and Henry opened you looked like you were falling apart a little more. I thought you might break out in tears right there in front of everybody.”
My hands were buried under his sports jacket and I had no memory of how they got there. I clutched my fingers around his lapels and felt the solidness of his muscles beneath my knuckles. How many times in the past had I wanted to be in this position? Unfortunately, I never thought it would be in the rain with mascara smeared on my face.
I tilted my head up and tried to control my voice. “Nick . . . the Lowells, Scarlett Francis, their friends, almost everybody . . . they are snobs. Every time Charlotte unwrapped a gift from home, they were looking down on us with complete . . . I don’t know . . . condescension. Like we were hillbillies.”
Nick put his hands on each side of my face.
“Annie . . .”
I tried to pull away and he held me, bringing his face closer to my own.
“Annie . . .” he said again. I felt his hot breath against my cheek. He smelled like scotch and something more masculine. The traitor in me wanted to lean in farther and capture his mouth. But then he continued. “You need to understand. No one was half as affected by this as you. Your mom and Aunt Addie didn’t care. Even Charlotte was taking it all in stride.”
“No. You don’t get it! Charlotte is going to get eaten alive by them. She is going to turn into an upper-crust professional snob who cares more about the label on her purse than the people around her. She is going to live in some cold house with marble floors and granite tables with no warmth, and she’ll never return, Nick. She’ll stop wanting to come home because we’re shabby and common and worthless to her.”
He let go of my face and took a step back.
“Is that what you think of me, Annie?”
I shook my head feebly, missing his nearness. “No . . .”
“Is that how you think everyone is? All the people you’ve met and talked with . . . and laughed with? Kevin and Richard and Henry?”
“No. I don’t think they’re like that . . .”
“Well, that’s what it sounds like you’re saying.”
I felt abandoned and leaned backward against the cold wall.
“We should go back,” he said after a minute, running his fingers through his damp hair. The rain had spattered his shoulders, forming sparkling droplets that glistened in the dim li
ght. I focused on those droplets now, trying hard to compose myself.
“Are you driving back tomorrow?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“You should wait a day. You’ve got to be tired.” I should feel flattered for his concern. But it was hard to feel flattered when I knew he just wanted to be done with me.
“I’ll be fine,” I said as we took a step toward the doorway. I pulled my hair behind my ear and stopped. “Look, Nick. You would understand what I’m trying to say if you had heard some of the things June Lowell was saying—”
“I’ve heard a lot of things, Annie! And if you ask me, the only person who has been acting like a fool is standing right in front of me.”
I turned back to him and stopped. “Are you calling me . . . did you just blame all this on me?”
“Maybe I am just pointing out that you’re taking every negative little thing about the Lowells and their friends and turning it into something overblown and exaggerated.”
“I’m not imagining things. Even Charlotte tells me she feels nervous about Henry’s family.”
“I’m sure every bride feels the same way. Charlotte is going through a lot of changes right now. Atlanta is a big city, and she’s just gone nationwide with her career. Of course she feels overwhelmed. But she doesn’t need her big sister egging her on!”
For the first time I understood what the expression “seeing red” meant because my vision was flashing crimson and I was losing control.
“Oh, now I see it! Well, I’m not surprised. I’m the bad guy in this. No one else is at fault, are they? You are going to make excuses for everyone else because it’s easier than looking inside yourself.”
Nick looked at me as if I’d grown two heads. “Me? Are we back to me? Go ahead, Annie. Spit it out! What is it you really want to say?”
I lifted my finger and pointed it at him. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah! I really want to know,” he said, raising his voice for the first time.
I shifted and took a deep breath, winding up to strike.
“You have turned into a stuck-up, coldhearted snob.” I could see a muscle ticking at the side of his cheek as I continued. “Something happened to you when you left Truhart. You barely smile. You live in a mausoleum. You rub elbows with people who cheat at golf... and I might add . . . you let them cheat as long as they are rich and they are your boss!”
I was just getting going and I couldn’t stop myself. “You never visit your mother or home. And why is that? Are we too common for you?”
He stepped back and crammed his hands in his pockets.
“And last but not least, you have horrible taste in women! Brittany is a stuck-up daddy’s girl with a bra size bigger than her IQ!”
“Are you finished now?” he asked curtly.
“Yes. I am,” I said after a moment.
“That was low, even for you, Annie,” he said hoarsely.
He reached around me and swung open the door. Without looking back, he walked inside and left me standing alone in the rain.
His words rang in my head. “That was low, even for you.” Nothing he could have said would have made me feel worse.
Chapter 7
The wind howled through the parking garage as I loaded my suitcase in the backseat of my SUV the next morning. Power had already been knocked out in one Atlanta suburb and forecasters were predicting several inches of rain by late afternoon.
Last night as the hurricane crept inland and broke apart in Georgia, rattling the windows of Charlotte’s apartment, I had tossed and turned on Charlotte’s couch. What little sleep I did achieve was haunted by garbled images of crystal chandeliers swinging from knobby trees and a desperate search for a wedding I couldn’t find.
Despite a headache from lack of sleep, I was anxious to hit the road. Mom and Aunt Addie were hoping their flight would not be delayed by weather. As for me, if I could get to Kentucky by early afternoon, I could avoid the worst of the storm. The prospect of my own bed and familiar surroundings fueled my need to get an early start. Rude guests and clogged toilets sounded relaxing compared to worrying about the Lowell family.
“Well, I think that’s everything,” I said as I readjusted my suitcase on the backseat. I turned to Charlotte and willed myself to smile through a fog of sleeplessness.
Charlotte wrapped her arms around her small frame. Her pink Pokémon pajamas peeked out below her jacket and, judging by the dark circles under her eyes, she looked like she needed more sleep, too.
Last night when I returned to the wedding shower after my meltdown, Charlotte and I didn’t have a chance to speak. The crowd milled around the doorway saying their good-byes and no one noticed my damp hair and red-rimmed eyes. I helped Charlotte and Henry load the shower gifts into June’s car, where they would be stored at the Lowells’ house until after the wedding. Nick was nowhere to be seen. He must have left right after my tirade.
Charlotte and Mom recapped the evening as I sat in the backseat, numbly watching the city lights flicker off the damp pavement, while Aunt Addie snored. When we arrived home, Henry picked Charlotte up for a nightcap, and I sensed that they wanted time alone. Ever polite, Henry asked me if I wanted to join them. But I had no interest in doing anything other than lying on Charlotte’s couch and wallowing in my shame. In the early morning hours when Charlotte returned to her apartment and paused by the couch, I pretended to be asleep. For the first time in years, I wasn’t up for late-night girl talk.
Where had it all gone wrong? Somewhere between the dress shopping and my reckless outburst, the weekend had turned into a nightmare. How could I accuse Charlotte of being ashamed of our family, and then dump all that fury and jealousy on Nick? It was like I had started the weekend as the perfect maid of honor, and ended it as the wicked witch.
“That was low, even for you, Annie.” Nick’s parting comment washed over me like a bucket of ice water. Now all I wanted to do was to click my heels together three times and go home.
And, oh my God! Did I really mention Brittany and her bra size?
I closed the back door of the car and turned to Charlotte. A gust of wind sent a blond ringlet across her eyes and I reached out to clear it from her face. I kept my hand on the side of her face and she leaned into it.
“It was great to be here this weekend,” I said.
“Oh, Annie. It was so nice of you to come all this way for me. I hope I haven’t been too much of an emotional wreck this weekend.” She grabbed the hand that cupped her face and gave it a squeeze. “What would I do without you for support? Thank you so much for keeping me grounded.”
“Not at all,” I said, stepping closer and wrapping her in a sisterly hug. I hoped she would never find out about my own meltdown.
“Give everyone back home a hug from me.”
“Well, think about coming for a visit and doing it yourself,” I said into the top of her messy blond head. Stepping back, I clutched my keys. “I know you are busy, but maybe between Christmas and New Year—”
I was interrupted by the sound of tires screeching around the corner of the parking garage. A wet, black BMW, its wipers still thrashing against the windshield and tossing out streams of water, pulled into the empty spot next to us. I was just getting ready to comment on the rudeness of the driver when he jerked open the door and bounded out.
“Nick?” said Charlotte. “Is everything all right?”
He ignored her as he pushed a button on his key fob and opened the trunk of his car. For a moment I thought I was hallucinating. Had my guilt conjured up the one person whose voice had echoed in my mind all night? I dumbly watched the rivulets of water fall from his car onto the cement floor of the parking garage, and said nothing as he pulled out a small suitcase and shut his trunk.
Turning back toward us, he said, “I need a ride.”
I blinked.
“Why?” Charlotte asked, looking confused.
“I’m supposed to fly to Detroit for an important meetin
g. But my flight was canceled. Since you are passing through Detroit, Annie, I thought I could go with you.”
Now I knew this was truly the weekend from hell. Not only had I pissed off the man I had loved for twenty-odd years, but I was going to be confined to a five-by-five-foot space with him for the next ten hours. Just yesterday I would have jumped at the chance to spend time in the car alone with Nick. Now being with a man who thought so little of me seemed like torture.
Besides, I had been looking forward to a good cry, man-bashing Taylor Swift songs on the radio, and stopping at the greasiest fast-food restaurant I could find to gorge myself on french fries and pity. But if Nick came along, I was going to have to either grovel to him until I lost my appetite, or face the silent treatment with nothing but sports radio playing in the background.
I opened my mouth and started to protest. “I don’t think—”
“Thanks!” he said without giving me a chance to talk. He opened the back door of my car and threw his bag in next to mine. Taking the keys from my hand, he nudged me out of the way. “I’ll drive first.”
I couldn’t believe it. “But I didn’t say yes. This is like being abducted!”
“I’ll pay for the gas and buy lunch.”
“Are you trying to bribe me?”
He folded himself behind the wheel and moved the seat back to accommodate his long frame. “See you later, Charlotte.”
“But what if I’m not going through Detroit?” I protested, grabbing the driver door before he could close it on me.
Nick placed his hand on the steering wheel and glared, daring me to argue with him. “Get in the car, Bump.”
I looked back at Charlotte, who was staring. She must have decided I wasn’t being kidnapped because she said, “I think you should give him a ride, Annie. It must be an important client or something if he is acting like this.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“No one’s. I just think it would be good to have someone to take turns driving. This weather is pretty bad,” she added.
Nick put the key in the ignition, started the car, and revved the engine impatiently.
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