My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

by Wendy Wax

  The soundtrack of Lou Rawls’s “If I Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda”—so sad and soulful and heavy with regret—plays in my head.

  As I sit waiting and praying for Lauren to call me back, I tell myself that she’s an intelligent forty-year-old woman who’s about to get married and who might even have children of her own. Surely that will let her see this through the eyes of an adult rather than those of a hurt child.

  I know that nothing I say or do is going to erase what’s happened or eliminate the mistakes I’ve made. I’m going to have to live with the fact that our relationship may never be what it was. That she may never again look at me in the way she used to. But, oh God, please let her forgive me enough to be a part of each other’s lives.

  Just before sunrise Sunday morning I finally fall asleep on the living room couch, curled into a ball and clutching my cell phone. I blink awake to the sound of it ringing. Hope spikes through me. As I fumble the phone to my ear I tell myself that things are going to be okay. That Lauren just needed a day to cool off and absorb everything and that now she’ll hear me out.

  “Hello?” My heart pounds as I push out the word.

  “You need to come right now and deliver a cake or something.”

  I slump back on the couch at the sound of Dee’s voice. “I’m not scheduled to cook or deliver anything today.” I scrub at my eyes and look out the window. The sun is already up. The sky is a clear, vibrant blue.

  “I know. But Lauren’s here having coffee with her . . . with her father.” There’s a brief pause as we both absorb the word. “I can find a way to keep her here until you get here, but you’ve got to hurry.”

  This time there’s no spike or even glimmer of hope. “She hasn’t answered her phone and she hasn’t called back. What makes you think she’s going to stand in the same room and talk to me?” The mental image of Lauren turning her back or brushing past me while I try to plead my case makes me curl back into a ball.

  “Since when are you afraid to talk to your own daughter?”

  The answer, of course, is since yesterday when she found out all the things I kept from her, but I can’t even bring myself to say so. “I’m planning to give her a few more days to calm down. Maybe she’ll be ready to listen then.”

  “That’s an awful plan.” Dee’s voice drops to a whisper and I picture her hiding in her office off the kitchen because Lauren and Jake are communing nearby. “She could decide to go back to New York early. Or think you aren’t taking her reaction seriously.”

  As if.

  She lists other reasons why I’m making a mistake by not rushing over, but I can’t listen to all the things that could make the situation even worse. Bottom line, I don’t have the courage to try to force Lauren to accept my apology or listen to an explanation. I hit the salient points yesterday and she rejected them completely.

  “Do you remember how long it took her to get over finding out Santa Claus wasn’t real?” I ask. “I have just unloaded an emotional bombshell that would leave anyone reeling on someone who doesn’t respond all that well to even a good surprise like a marriage proposal.”

  “But . . .”

  “Really, Dee. I appreciate your concern. Your friendship means the world to me. But there’s no point in trying to force her to listen to anything right now.”

  “But . . .”

  “I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for trying to help.” I hang up before she can say anything else.

  A moment later a text dings in from Dee, who has been known to like to have the last word. You are making a big mistake.

  I try not to think about the fact that she could be right.

  * * *

  I’m still lying on the couch hours later when someone knocks on the door. I burrow deeper into the cushions, cover my ears, and try to ignore it.

  When it finally stops Jake strides into the living room and over to the couch, where I’m curled up in a fetal position. “You’re not dressed and your door wasn’t locked.”

  “So?”

  “So, I could have been an ax murderer.”

  “At the moment dying doesn’t seem like such a horrible idea.” I hate the pitiful whine in my voice. But I’m beyond pretense. I am both pitiful and whiny.

  “You live here alone and you don’t bother to lock your door.”

  I just look at him. Nags Head has gotten bigger and more crowded but most of us old-timers still don’t bother locking our doors. At the moment I have much larger problems than someone wandering by and deciding to rob or dispatch me. I don’t have the energy to point out that the inn where he’s staying doesn’t lock its doors, either.

  “Fine.” He runs a hand through his hair and leaves it standing up in that way that is still both attractive and endearing. Which reminds me that I haven’t looked in a mirror once during the last twenty-four hours and am undoubtedly the opposite of attractive and endearing. “I understand that yesterday was a big shock for everyone. I am sorry the truth came out the way it did. But I’m not sorry it came out.”

  Tears gather and prick my eyelids. I attempt to blink them away, but I don’t argue. I’m too tired. And as much as I wish he’d given me that extra day, I can’t fool myself into thinking the outcome would have been any better. I mean, how do you start that conversation? “By the way, sweetheart, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you about that father I told you was dead”?

  No. As much as I wish I could lay the blame at Jake’s feet, I’m the one who bungled everything so badly. In the end we’re both getting what we deserve. I have been banished and he is finally getting to know his daughter.

  “So.” I straighten and swallow around a lump of pain and regret. “I hear you’re spending time together.”

  His smile is a quick flash of white teeth. “She’s lovely. And so smart and strong willed. And I like Spencer. I’m glad she’s chosen someone who appreciates her.” The smile fades. “But she’s so hurt and angry. You need to talk to her and find a way to help her through this.”

  “I would think you’d be thrilled to have her to yourself.”

  “I probably would be if she weren’t in so much pain.” He shakes his head. “I was so furious when I decided to come here. I thought I’d sweep in, right some pretty big wrongs, and claim my daughter.”

  “And you’ve done that.” I can barely get the words out.

  “Yes.” He runs his hand through his hair again. “Only she’s miserable. She feels completely betrayed.”

  “Of course she does.” I, who always sought to protect her, have done this to my child. “I’d give anything to make her feel better. But she’s not answering my calls or returning them. She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  “So you’re planning to just wallow on the couch and do nothing?”

  I look at him through the blur of tears that I can’t seem to hold back.

  “The Kendra Munroe I knew was way too impulsive and made some really horrible choices, but at least she acted. She wasn’t a coward.”

  “Yeah, well, that was a lifetime ago. Maybe two lifetimes.” My voice cracks. Is that really how he sees me? As a coward? “And those horrible choices finally taught me that you can’t just go charging into a situation without considering the consequences.”

  We look at each other. Me through the blur of those blasted tears. Him through the distorted lens of memory.

  “You have to see her,” he says. “This is not about us. Not now anyway. You have to at least try.”

  The floodgates open. Hot tears slide down my cheeks. I cry at the futility of trying to fix what I’ve broken. At his belief that this is even possible. I cry because I’ve been called a coward by someone who once loved and respected me. And because he’s right.

  “I don’t understand how you can just sit here and do nothing!”

  My head jerks up at the accusation. He may think he still
knows me, but I don’t see how that’s possible. I don’t even recognize me anymore.

  “I’m not doing nothing, damn you! I’m grieving.”

  * * *

  Lauren

  Spencer and I spend a good part of Sunday afternoon wandering around downtown Manteo. We linger in front of the Tudor-style Pioneer Theatre, which has been owned by the Creef family since the ’30s. “It’s the longest-running family-owned movie theater in the country,” I say proudly, as if I’ve had something to do with this other than growing up watching movies here. “Bree and I used to come to the matinee every Saturday.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Didn’t matter. Then we’d go browse Davis’s Everything to Wear or the Attic Addict and end up at Title Waves, where we’d read all the back-cover blurbs and opening paragraphs of the new releases and imagine our own novels on the shelves.”

  “It’s not everyone who makes as many of their dreams come true as you have.”

  “No.” I look into his eyes and a smile tugs at my lips. “We’re lucky, aren’t we?”

  “Ummm-hmmm,” he agrees. “What’s that old saying? The harder you work . . .”

  “. . . the luckier you get. My mother . . .” I stumble on the word. “She used to say that to me.”

  “Lauren . . .”

  “No.” I can tell by his tone that he intends to use my mention of her as an opening, and I’m nowhere near ready for that. I turn and head for the waterfront and am relieved when he falls in at my side without argument. In silence, we stroll the boardwalk past boats bobbing in their slips at the marina then walk out the dock to the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse. Sunlight dances on the water and marsh grass sways gently in the breeze on the opposite bank where the Elizabeth II, a reproduction of the ships that sailed from England to Roanoke Island in 1584 and 1587, is moored.

  I keep the conversation casual. I tell him about how the waterfront was revitalized—turned from a working port into the idyllic setting it is now.

  “This is really lovely.”

  Despite my efforts to keep things light, my head is still spinning with yesterday’s revelations and the arrival of a father whom I’m thrilled to meet but who showed my mother to be so much less than I’ve always thought. “Sorry. What did you say?”

  “I said, the waterfront is lovely.”

  “Oh. Yes . . .”

  We watch a boat leave a nearby dock and head out into the sound. My brain keeps circling back to the one place I don’t want it to go.

  There are so many things I planned to show Spencer. A week is nowhere near enough time to do the Outer Banks justice. Or to look at even a portion of the possible places to hold a small, intimate beach wedding. Not that I have any desire to get married here now that my past has been so radically altered.

  My mind stumbles on the word altered and I realize that it’s not just the venues that have lost their allure. Now that I know my mother ran from my father and never actually got married in it, THE DRESS no longer feels like a harbinger of happily ever after.

  Bottom line, if it weren’t for Jake I would have driven us straight back to the airport yesterday. We’d already be home in New York.

  “You really need to talk to your mother.” Spencer says this quietly, but with determination.

  “No, actually, I don’t.” I look at the boat, the water. Even the sky is preferable to meeting his eyes and engaging in this conversation.

  “Okay, let me rephrase that. You really should talk to your mother. You need to hash this out. Both of you will feel better.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to feel better.”

  “Lauren. Even really good people make mistakes.”

  I look up from the great blue heron that’s perched on the distant shore and feel the anger wash over me again, an emotional tsunami. “A mistake is forgetting to pay a utility bill. Or accidentally calling someone by the wrong name.” I take a breath, trying not to take my hurt and anger out on him. But it’s not like I’m in control of my emotions. Between my lost mother and my found father I’m a mess. “Telling your daughter that her father is dead and letting her believe that she has no family, is not a mistake.”

  “It was wrong. But people often do the wrong things for the right reasons.”

  “You need to get your homilies straight. And the fact that she claims she was only thinking of me and Jake and his family doesn’t make it true.”

  “But you can’t know that unless you at least hear her out. Surely you don’t want to go back to New York without talking to her. You owe her that, don’t you?”

  I’m on my feet now. “You don’t know what you’re saying or asking.” My voice rises and so do the tears. “What if your mother had done this to you? Could you really go about your business as if she’d only made a silly mistake?”

  “No, of course not. That’s not what I’m saying. I just . . .” He reaches for me but I shrug him off. Something I’ve never done before.

  “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I can’t.” And I really don’t want to cry in public, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to help it.

  “Tell me what you want, Lauren. Tell me what I can do. Because I sure as hell don’t seem to know what I am and am not allowed to say.”

  “Is that right?” I’m beyond anger now, and I can tell the tears are at most a couple of seconds away. For some reason my greatest concern is not the man in front of me—on whom I’m clearly taking out all my anger and hostility—but making my escape before I break down completely. “Tell you what. I’ll give it some thought and get back to you.”

  And then I’m striding away from him as fast as I can with no idea at all where I’m going.

  Twenty-two

  Bree

  Monday-morning breakfast is cereal and defrosted and reheated blueberry muffins that I’m hoping Lauren won’t recognize as Kendra’s. Clay devours two muffins and downs a cup of coffee while scrolling through his cell phone. Lily’s still upstairs. Normally I’d be yelling for her to hurry—not that this ever works, it’s just that you have to do something—but Rafe’s bedroom door is still closed and Lauren and Spencer haven’t shown themselves yet. It’s possible they could still be sleeping.

  I buzz around the kitchen like a bumblebee unable to find a flower, somehow needing to be in motion even if I’m not accomplishing anything. The whole world feels oddly upside down since Kendra’s confession. Technically it has nothing to do with me. I’m not the injured party, but I can’t quite come to grips with the fact that the woman I’ve revered and looked up to as a role model has apparently created a backstory that bears little resemblance to reality. Add to that the fact that my ex-best friend with whom I’ve communicated only on the most superficial level for the last two decades is sleeping in Rafe’s bedroom with her fiancé. And, then there’s the fact that the completion of my novel—something that has taken me more than a third of my life—feels almost insignificant in comparison to Kendra’s bombshell and Lauren’s reaction to it.

  * * *

  “Morning, sweetie.” My smile for Lily when she finally enters the kitchen is automatic. The one that acknowledges having conceived, carried, and delivered this person into the world. Even when I’m truly angry at her behavior that smile—and the squeeze of my heart that accompanies it—is Pavlovian.

  “Mmmph.” Lily’s blond hair falls across one eye and cascades over her shoulders in a way that looks natural but that I know took her a good thirty minutes. Her makeup is expertly applied and she’s wearing her new jeans with the knees torn out and a sleeveless crop top that just barely reaches the top of her jeans. She has her father’s height and slim build as well as his almost-aqua-blue eyes and the white-blond hair he had before it started to darken. She looks like she belongs on the cover of some teen fashion magazine. Which both amazes and frightens me because sometimes beauty opens so many doors
there’s no need to develop other attributes.

  She reaches for a muffin as she plops down at her place, but I know she won’t take more than a bite or two. I place a banana beside her plate and slide a glass of milk in front of it, because that’s what mothers are supposed to do. Her eyes remain on her phone and the texts that are already dinging in. It takes every ounce of willpower I possess not to peel the banana for her or wave the muffin under her nose.

  “You ready?” Clay wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed no matter how late he goes to sleep and regardless of how hard he might have partied the night before; a trait I used to envy but now find extremely unfair and annoying. I mean, shouldn’t a person pay some price for excessive behavior?

  There’s a creak of movement upstairs and Lily glances up from her phone. She’s been following Lauren around like a puppy and peppering both her and Spencer with questions about New York publishing and theater like some poor castaway on a deserted island who suddenly glimpses a rescue ship.

  “If you’re not going to eat, let’s go.” Clay’s scraping back his chair and taking a last swig of coffee. “I need to get up to Corolla by nine.”

  Lily sighs the beleaguered sigh she normally aims at me.

  “Or you can walk.” He shrugs, making it clear he’s not going to ask again.

  Manteo High School is, in fact, an easy walk from our house, though not necessarily in the platform sandals Lily’s wearing. She stands and gathers her books.

  I peck each of them on the cheek and tell them to have a good day.

  “Will you ask her for me?” Lily glances upward once more as if I might not know whom she’s talking about. “Mrs. Parsons is really excited about having a New York Times bestselling writer come talk to our class.”

  I sigh. My daughter is even more excited about being the person who knows the New York Times bestselling author personally. “You should ask her yourself. But honestly this isn’t the best time. There’s a lot going on.” Talk about your understatement. “And they’re only here a few more days. Maybe on their next visit.” I don’t let myself wonder if there will be a next visit. Or if Lauren would actually leave without even speaking to Kendra.