by Megan Crane
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents arethe product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resem-blance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Megan Crane
All rights reserved.
Warner Books
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
First eBook Edition: October 2005
ISBN: 978-0-446-50711-0
Contents
Also by Megan Crane
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
About the Author
Praise for Megan Crane and English as a Second Language
* “What are ex-boyfriends for, if not to propel you on a life-changing journey? I enjoyed every step of the way in Crane’s very funny, from-the-heart debut.”
—MELISSA SENATE, AUTHOR OF THE SOLOMON SISTERS WISE UP
* “Entertaining.”
—EXCLUSIVEMAGAZINE.COM
* “Uproarious, fast-paced fun . . . While the plots and subplots are fantastic, the cast of characters is magnificent . . . Grab a pint, get comfortable, and prepare yourself for the time of your life! Crane is definitely an author to keep an eye on.”
—MYSHELF.COM
* “A tale that will ring true for anyone who’s ever faced that scary task of deciding what on earth you want to do with your life.”
—KING FEATURES WEEKLY SERVICE
* “A rollicking good time with enough pints, pubs, and hilarious personalities to keep you turning the pages . . . Cheers to Megan Crane.”
—JENNIFER O’CONNELL, AUTHOR OF BACHELORETTE #1
* “Breezy . . . an accurate take on twenty-somethings who thought adult life began after college.”
—BOOKLIST
* “A lighthearted look at growing up and finding your place in the world. Alex is an endearing character, and the hilarious secondary characters add to the interest of the plot. Hoist up a pint and kick back with an enjoyable summer read!”
—BOOKLOONS.COM
* “Will keep readers busily turning the pages . . . Anyone who’s ever been through grad school, or their twenties, should recognize themselves here.”
—THEROMANCEREADERSCONNECTION.COM
* “A breathless, gossipy read that you’ll giggle your way through. When it comes to love we’re not so different, whichever side of the pond is your natural home!”
—CAROLE MATTHEWS, AUTHOR OF BARE NECESSITY
* “Breezy . . . funny.”
—CURLEDUP.COM
* “Alex Brennan’s British grad school experience is fueled by too many pints, bad pop music, a crush on her teacher, and a wild assortment of friends. Our reading experience is fueled by Megan Crane’s wry humor an sharp observations.”
—ELLEN SUSSMAN, AUTHOR OF ON A NIGHT LIKE THIS
* “As funny as it is endearing. I couldn’t put the book down!”
—SUZANNE SCHLOSBERG, AUTHOR OF THE CURSE OF THE SINGLES’ TABLE
ALSO BY MEGAN CRANE
English as a Second Language
To Adrianne, Marshall, and Noelle.
And to Catie, who said I should write a book about family.
Acknowledgments
To Julie Barer, who continues to be the greatest agent in the world, and Karen Kosztolnyik, who makes editing seem easy and even fun. Thank you both from the bottom of my heart. And thanks to Michele Bidelspach, Keri Friedman, Brigid Pearson, and everyone else at Warner for all their support and hard work.
Thanks to my writing/therapy/you-are-not-a-hack group: Josie Torielli, Kim McCreight, and Louise Austin. Special thanks to Dan Panosian for last-minute artistic suggestions. Thanks also to Lani Diane Rich, Charmaine DeGrate, Amanda Lower, anyone else who read this book in one of its various drafts, and all my wonderful friends and relatives. Extra thanks to my parents for their support while I was writing this novel—and for not being the parents described here, despite the fish!
And a million more thanks to Jeff Johnson, my clown in reverse, for everything else.
Chapter 1
I would rather parade naked through the streets than find myself in the backseat of a tacky stretch Hummer, cruising from bar to bar in bright banana-yellow splendor. Unfortunately, no one had offered me this choice.
It was just a bachelorette party. I would survive it.
Probably.
Not that I was out of options entirely. I could always throw myself under the wheels of the eyesore we were riding in. Suicide by Hummer, however, seemed like it would only add insult to injury at this point. Besides which, Washington Street in Hoboken was not really the ideal place to stage my death. Entirely too many drunken frat boys for any kind of emotional resonance.
It wasn’t that bad, I told myself philosophically, trying to rally. I looked down the narrow interior of the Hummer toward Jeannie Gillespie, my former best friend from high school and, more recently, my brother Christian’s fiancée. Jeannie was waving around a bottle of champagne and looked to be having a blast. She met my gaze from down the long, long interior and grinned.
“Come on, Meredith!” she cried, lurching forward with the champagne bottle in her hand.
She misjudged the distance between the plush leather seat and the console, and ended up crumpled facedown on the floor in a tangle of expensive sandals. Being Jeannie, she merely shook with laughter and ordered the legs out of her way. The other bridesmaids let out earsplitting cackles and turned up the radio, the better to rock out to some eighties anthem. They also moved out of Jeannie’s way.
I wasn’t too proud to admit my own foot was tapping along. After all, everybody had to cut footloose. It was practically hardwired into my generation.
Jeannie laughed up at me as she fought her way through the tangle of legs, and then handed me the bottle when she reached my feet.
“Drink, for God’s sake,” she said, struggling to her knees. “You’ve got that killjoy face on again.”
“I am not a killjoy,” I retorted immediately, extending my hands automatically for both the lukewarm champagne bottle and Jeannie’s arm. Together, we hauled her from her knees to the seat beside me.
She flopped into place and heaved a sigh like she’d just conquered Everest. Given the amount of Jell-O shots she’d consumed at Bahama Mama’s, our previous stop along the bachelorette Trail of Tears, getting from the floor to a seat really was an incredible achievement.
“I can’t believe you came all the way up here from Atlanta to be the Queen of Killjoys,” Jeannie told me, leaning close.
“Hey—” I’d come all the way up from Atlanta because I had been informed in no uncertain terms by various members of my family that my presence at Jeannie’s party was nonnegotiable. And to be honest, I kind of agreed, and had left the comfort and safety of my usual weekend plans with my boyfriend, Travis, to travel north and take my place in the ceremonial Hummer.
Which made my sister Hope’s absence all the more offensive, but I wasn’t going to think about that. Not with Jeannie tipsily pontificating three inches from my right ear.
“Meredith,” Jeannie intoned, entirely ignoring my attempt to speak, “this is a sacred r
itual. It is up to me to make an ass out of myself without actually crossing any lines that might endanger my relationship with your brother. I have accepted this challenge.” She swept a dramatic hand over herself, inviting me to look.
Jeannie had the requisite tatty veil pinned to the back of her head and was wearing the expected sexually explicit T-shirt. She was even sporting a headband festooned with wobbly pink penises, which had made two of her sorority sisters spit out mouthfuls of their apple martinis at the very sight of such naughtiness.
“That’s right,” she said now. “I’m wearing a penis headband. I’m allowing myself to be photographed while wearing a penis headband.”
I felt my mouth twitching, but tried to control it. She saw it, though—I could tell from that glimmer in her eye.
“And why, you ask?” Jeannie leveled a look at me. “Do you think I like parading around the streets of Hoboken, making a spectacle of myself?”
I tilted my head at that one and opened my mouth to respond.
Jeannie snickered. “Don’t answer that.” She took the bottle back from me and took a swig, then returned it. She glared at me until I surrendered and tilted the bottle up to my lips. Warm and bubbly liquid filled my mouth. I choked on it, but drank.
I wasn’t too proud to drink, either. Bachelorette “events” made me suspicious, true, but really I just didn’t like Jell-O shots, which had been hard to convey in a dark, deafening bar in the middle of a screaming pack of bridesmaids. It was a texture thing.
But I could make up for that now, I figured, no matter how unpleasant cheap champagne was when warm. And it got notably less unpleasant with every sip I took.
“I’m doing this because it is the Girl Code,” Jeannie was saying in that same serious tone. She could have been delivering a sermon to the troops. “It is my responsibility to prance around like an idiot, making single women sneer and then weep over my engagement ring, wondering how anyone would want to marry a drunk loser like me. This is my duty, Meredith.”
“You’re a giver, Jeannie,” I agreed solemnly. I took another gulp. Or three.
“I’m happy to sacrifice my dignity for the amusement of others,” Jeannie said. “It’s the least I can do.” She pointed at me again. “In turn, however, you have to do your part. I can’t allow any slacking.”
“After all, the bachelorette party is really nothing more than a preemptive strike,” I drawled, sinking back against the pink seats.
“Too true.”
We’d discussed this before, years ago when we were closer than close, and even more recently, when the topic of Annoying Weddings was one of the few we could navigate without stepping on any of the private land mines that littered our relationship.
But I wasn’t thinking about any of that tonight, I reminded myself. Sternly. I took a hefty, restorative pull from the champagne bottle.
“It’s the bridesmaids’ only revenge for ugly dresses and uncomfortable shoes,” I continued instead. “Not to mention the horrible posed pictures that will hang on the happy couple’s wall for the rest of their lives.”
“Ashley Mueller made us wear petticoats,” Jeannie told me in a whisper. “And hats. All of it very, very green.”
Ashley Mueller herself—she of the pinched mouth and ruthlessly blown-out blonde hair—had a new last name that I couldn’t be bothered to learn and was perched at the other end of the limo, clutching a checklist of humiliating and sexually charged activities for Jeannie to perform in the bars. Ashley Mueller took her maid of honor duties entirely too seriously. She was exactly the sort of person who would obscure the relative attractiveness of her bridal attendants in butt-ugly petticoats with matching hats. Moreover, she would do it for that very reason. Not because she had some green petticoat fetish, but because she, by comparison, would look like a supermodel angel in white.
I’d never been happier that she hated me—a sentiment I had returned since sometime in the seventh grade—and had thus excluded me entirely from her wedding drama sometime last summer.
“I don’t believe you,” I told Jeannie with a shudder. Although I definitely, gleefully did. I took another swig. It was amazing how the rush of warm bubbles against the tongue got less and less repellent.
“Remind me to show you the tragic photographic evidence,” Jeannie murmured. “I cry over it once a month when the PMS gets really bad. But the point is, I was forced to retaliate, and that is why Ashley was required to wear a strap-on throughout her bachelorette event. A big, hairy, revolting strap-on. Picture that.”
The image penetrated even the champagne.
“You’re lucky Christian is so hot!” one of Jeannie’s sorority sisters brayed at her suddenly, jerking both Jeannie and me out of an appalled contemplation of Ashley Mueller and a strap-on dildo. We both choked back laughter.
“He’s pretty damn hot,” Jeannie agreed lasciviously, and toasted my absent brother with my champagne bottle. I eyed her as she drank a big gulp, and then swiped the bottle.
“Hell yeah!” shouted another. “You won’t even want to stray, with him around!”
“You guys have big mouths,” yet another one admonished them in a stage whisper they could probably hear across the Hudson River in downtown Manhattan. She pointed down the long interior of the car at me. Her arm wobbled dramatically, but they all looked at me anyway. “One of his sisters is right there!”
“Let’s definitely not talk any more about how hot he is,” I agreed hurriedly.
That sort of thing had been bad enough in high school, when Christian and I—at ten months apart and often confused for twins—had been in the same grade and I’d had girls falling all over me in attempts to get near him. All these years later, he was still too cute for his own good, but he and I weren’t as close as we’d been. No one would bother trying to get to him through me, not anymore.
But there wasn’t any time to nurse the pain on that one, because the Hummer was pulling up in front of yet another Hoboken club. I upended the remains of the bottle down my throat and climbed out of the limo. It took a group effort to dislodge Jeannie, but eventually we had her upright and past the surly bouncers. Sometimes it was actually useful to be part of a group of scantily clad sorority girls. I made a mental note.
Inside the club, dance music was pumping and immensely breasted women in gravity-defying bikini tops circled through the crowd dispensing bright-colored liquid from little boxes that hung around their necks. Everything seemed particularly blurry and frenzied—or, possibly, the champagne had gone to my head. Our group staked out a position near one of the three bars and Ashley commenced ticking off the items on Jeannie’s checklist.
Which she kept brandishing around ostentatiously, in case anyone forgot for five seconds that she was In Charge.
I reminded myself that I had to deal with her only tonight, and then at the wedding, and then, if there was a God, never again.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she snarled at me when I accidentally ventured too close to her.
“Was I looking at you?” But it was Jeannie’s party, so that came out nicer than I meant it to. A little more warm champagne and that wouldn’t be a problem.
“You have no idea what Jeannie put me through at my bachelorette party,” Ashley barked at me. I looked at her mean little eyes and thought about dildos, which made whatever other nonsense she was spouting more than okay in my book. I only realized I was smiling when she smiled back. “Jeannie has to follow the rules,” she told me.
Jeannie herself had been swept up in the giggling arms of some of her sorority sisters, and was even now leaning in and whispering in various ears. Hopefully about Ashley and her strap-on.
“It’s time for body shots!” Ashley commanded, loud enough to perk the interest of several eavesdropping gentlemen. The shortest and—not coincidentally—loudest of the group stepped up and offered his services in an accent straight from The Sopranos.
Jeannie caught my eye briefly and waggled her brows at me.
S
he was right, I thought. This was about duty.
And I was nothing if not capable of doing my duty.
So I ordered myself a margarita, and dove in.
Sometime later, I was reclining in a plush booth, just barely keeping my head above the table. Not because I was drunk—although let’s not kid around, I was pretty drunk—but because Jeannie was singing.
Normally, Jeannie didn’t sing, thank the gods. She was tone-deaf and music-dumb, and made the Cameron Diaz character in My Best Friend’s Wedding sound like Whitney Houston. Usually, Jeannie used her singing voice as the weapon it was: she would sing along in car rides to the worst songs, thereby ensuring that the driver would play only her favorite tunes.
But this was a bachelorette party. More than that, it was Battle of the Brides.
The freaky emcee at the karaoke place had been delighted when we all trooped in, none of us particularly steady on our feet.
“You’re the second bride tonight,” he smarmed at Jeannie. Luckily for him, she was too wasted to reply in her usual fashion.
The first bride was draped in tulle and had clearly had a recent mishap at the hairdresser’s. Either that, or she preferred to have bright orange Ronald McDonald hair. She watched our party approach with the light of battle in her eyes and a pitcher of margaritas in one fist.
“You and me, sweetheart!” she bawled at Jeannie.
“You and who?” Jeannie asked, blinking at her.
“Winner takes the happily ever after!” Tulle Bride shouted. With that, she took to the stage and began belting out “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong”—the extended version. Her bridesmaids hooted and hollered like she was winning the Super Bowl.
“No way is some clown-haired bitch taking my happily ever after!” Jeannie slurred, breaking for the stage.
It was maybe inevitable that she chose “I Will Always Love You,” shattering glasses and eardrums with every syllable she sang.
Or, more precisely, yowled.