by Emily Giffin
“Hey,” he mouthed, waving at me. I had heard from Josie, who occasionally saw him out at the bars, that he was better-looking than ever, but I still wasn’t prepared for how gorgeous he was, standing there in jeans, a T-shirt, and an Ole Miss baseball cap.
“What are you doing here?” I could feel myself beaming. “My dad was supposed to pick me up.”
“Yeah, I know. I played golf with him today. I told him I’d get you.” He mussed my hair as if I were twelve—although he hadn’t actually mussed my hair at any age. “You look great, Mere. Wow.”
“So do you….I’ve missed you,” I said.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, grinning and carrying my bag to his car.
As he drove me home, we quickly caught up. He told me he was still working in his family business, his father grooming him to eventually take over. I told him about my law firm, and some of its juicier politics. We talked about our parents, how sad it was that mine had divorced, but that his really needed to do the same. We gossiped about people we knew in common. Many had left Atlanta for college, but most had returned to settle down and start families.
“Why aren’t you married yet?” I asked playfully. “Commitment-phobe?”
“Nah. Just haven’t found the right girl,” he said. “What about you? Are you seeing anyone?”
“Not at the moment,” I said. “I work too much.”
Our only moment of silence came as we passed Grady Hospital. Neither of us said Daniel’s name out loud, though it hung in the air anyway.
When we got to the intersection at West Paces Ferry, he pointed to the OK Cafe. “Remember the night we went there?” he asked, as if we had shared countless dinners alone together.
“Of course,” I said.
“Can you believe it’s been almost seven years?” he asked, lowering his voice, staring intently at the road.
“No. I really can’t,” I said, feeling a stab of pain in my chest. “He’s missed so many things.”
“I know. A lot has changed. You’ve changed….I can’t believe I haven’t seen you on any of your trips home,” he said, as he slowed for a yellow light he could have easily made. I had the feeling he was stalling, prolonging our time together.
“I don’t come home that often,” I said, thinking of all the times I’d found an excuse to stay at school or work.
He looked at me sideways, his expression suddenly changing from mournful to playful. “Little drama student turned big city hotshot lawyer.”
“Nothing hotshot about my job,” I said, which was the truth.
“Those heels you’re wearing would say otherwise,” Nolan said, glancing down at my shoes. “They’re nice….Nice legs, too.”
“Thanks,” I said, smiling out my window.
“You know…I’d heard that you’d…blossomed.”
“Who told you that?” I said, basking in the compliment.
“Just the word around town,” he said, shaking his head. “Smart, successful, and beautiful.”
I nearly pointed out that he was confusing vigilant grooming, compulsive exercising, and general Manhattan polish with true beauty, but decided not to correct him.
A few minutes later, he was pulling up to my childhood home, where my mother still lived. Josie’s car was in the driveway, and I anticipated a long night of counseling her through the Will crisis.
“Hey, Meredith?” he said as I was getting out of the car.
I looked back at him, feeling an ancient twinge of attraction and residual adolescent hero worship. “Yeah, Nolan?”
“I know you’re here to visit your family…but do you think I could I take you out while you’re home?”
“You mean, like to the OK Cafe?” I asked with a trace of coyness.
“No. Like on a real date.” He cracked his knuckles and shifted in his seat to get a better look at me. “Assuming you think Daniel would be all right with it? He had a pretty strict don’t-date-my-sister rule back in the day.”
I stared into his eyes, my stomach fluttering a little. “Yeah. I know he did…but that was really more about Josie,” I said with a smile, thinking that she was the one Daniel’s friends wanted to ask out. “And besides…I think he’d make an exception for us.” I was sealing our fate, although I didn’t yet know it.
—
WHEN WE TELL “our story,” we always start there, on that night, with the surprise of seeing him at the airport and that innocent lift home. Nolan always brings up my heels—and I laugh and say it was a good thing I’d forgotten to put a pair of flats in my carry-on. We talk about how nice it was to see each other, how we picked up exactly where we’d left off years before.
At this point, we fast-forward past our first date. How we went to dinner at the Lobster Bar, caught a buzz, then returned to his condo, where we drank more wine, then got into his unmade bed, and had sex. If we were to share that part of the story, I’m sure we’d say that it had been a long time coming, that it felt preordained. But in reality, it just sort of shockingly and quickly happened. It wasn’t like me to have a one-night stand, and in the intimate aftermath, my head on Nolan’s chest, I told him as much.
“Well,” he said, stroking my hair, “you can’t really have a one-night stand with someone you’ve known your whole life….And besides, who said it was only going to be one time?”
I laughed, then confessed my ancient crush, the way I’d felt that night in my brother’s room. He pretended to be surprised, then told me he’d felt something, too.
I rolled over, pushed up on my elbows, and looked into his eyes. “Did you really?” I wasn’t sure why it mattered to me at this point, but for some reason, it did.
He nodded. “Yeah. I felt really close to you that whole night.”
“Because of Daniel? Or something else?”
He looked thoughtful and then said, “Yes. Because of Daniel. But not only that. After all, I’m not in bed with Josie, now, am I?”
“No,” I said, smiling at him. “You’re most certainly not.”
I resisted asking him if he had ever been attracted to her because I guessed that the answer was probably yes.
“Are you going to tell her about this?” he asked, sounding tentative.
I told him no, that I wanted it to be our secret.
“Okay,” he said earnestly. “Whatever you want.”
—
ON SUNDAY NIGHT, I returned to New York, wondering when I’d see Nolan again, guessing it would be another half dozen years. But he had other plans for us, showing up at my Upper East Side doorstep only five days later, holding a dozen red roses. Any points that I would have docked for the cliché he more than made up with his usual style and panache.
“Told ya it wouldn’t be a one-night stand,” he announced.
I laughed and said, “How’d you know I’d be free?”
“I took a chance,” he said. “Are you?”
I shook my head and told him I had a blind date.
“He’s blind?” Nolan said.
I laughed again, and he told me to “blow the guy off.” And so I did, then played tour guide to Nolan that whole weekend. I couldn’t believe it was happening. But I kept telling myself that it wasn’t, not really. We weren’t embarking on a relationship. We were just having a fling, living in the moment, motivated by sentimentality.
Yet we kept living in the moment, visiting each other every couple of weeks while keeping our secret from my family. I didn’t want to get my mother’s hopes up the way Josie had with Will. Deep down, I think I didn’t want to get my hopes up, either, and somehow delude myself into thinking that we could ever be a real couple. I wasn’t even sure that was what I wanted.
Even after Nolan told me he loved me that Christmas, and I said it back, and we went public with our long-distance relationship, I kept my expectations in check, silently reminding myself that we loved each other but weren’t in love—nor were we long-term compatible. On paper, I was probably too cerebral for him—and he was too good-looking fo
r me. I was an introvert; he was an extrovert. I loved the arts; he loved sports. I wanted to stay in New York; he couldn’t leave his family’s business in Atlanta. Our breakup was inevitable, a question of when, not if.
Then, one muggy Saturday in July, about nine months after our first date, Nolan and I went for a long walk through Chastain Park, ending up on Wilkins Field, where he and my brother had played baseball for so many years. We strolled along the bases and then sat in the empty dugout, looking through the chain-link fence, out over the beautifully groomed diamond. It was just before dusk, the sun casting a golden light over the mound where Nolan had pitched and Daniel had occasionally relieved.
“This was Danny’s favorite place in the world,” Nolan said, seeming to be talking to himself more than to me.
“Yeah. I know,” I said, wishing I had spent less time playing with Josie in the bleachers or making trips to the concession stand, and more time watching my brother play.
In our reflective silence, Nolan took my hand and gave me a soulful glance. I suddenly had the feeling he was going to end our relationship, something that I’d been contemplating lately—or at least anticipating. It had been a good run, and a lot of fun, but something just felt missing. I was still sad, though, hating endings of any kind.
Bracing myself, I mumbled, “Go on. Just get it over with.” At least that is Nolan’s recollection and where we pick up with our official tale.
He looked at me, confused.
“Aren’t you about to break up with me?” I said.
Nolan laughed and shook his head and said, “No, Meredith. I’m not going to break up with you.” Then he got down on one knee in that dusty dugout and asked the question I had never imagined hearing from him, or anyone for that matter. Will you marry me?
For a second I thought he was kidding. Until he produced a beautiful, sparkling princess-cut diamond ring. I stared at it, then at him, feeling stunned and a little scared. In my heart, the answer was no. Or at the very most maybe. But I said nothing, just shook my head, bit my lip, and blinked back tears.
“Say something,” Nolan said with a nervous laugh.
“I…can’t.”
I think I meant to say that I couldn’t marry him, but it sounded like I was telling him that I couldn’t speak. So he just kept talking, giving me a rambling, heartfelt speech. First he told me how much he loved me, that he’d never known a girl like me. Then he went on to tell me how he’d asked my parents for permission and both of them had wept, my mother calling him her surrogate son. He talked about all the memories we had shared over so many years. He said that he and I—we—were the only possible silver lining to Daniel’s otherwise useless death. He said he could picture my brother up there, rooting for him, just as he had so many times from this field, this very bench.
And with that final comment about my brother, my no or maybe turned to yes, and for better or worse, my uncertain future became something I’d always imagined for my sister.
—
OUR ENGAGEMENT WAS short, both because I didn’t want a big wedding and because I worried that if it were long, one of us might call the other’s bluff, point out that for as long as we had known each other, we didn’t know each other well enough to get married. After all, we’d been together less than a year, all of it long distance, our time together feeling more like a vacation than normal, everyday life. Despite the horrible thing we had been through so long ago, our relationship itself had never been tested. We’d never even had a major argument. Yet not once did I express any of these reservations to Nolan, which I think said a lot, in and of itself.
The only time I discussed my fears at all was with Josie, the weekend she and my mom flew to New York to help me find a wedding dress.
“I really don’t know if I should have said yes,” I blurted out, standing in my underwear, staring at my ring in a posh dressing room at Mika Inatome as the salesgirl left to retrieve another dress. It was the one appointment my mom missed, as she was back at my apartment with another migraine.
“To Nolan?” my sister said, looking appalled.
I nodded.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” I said softly. “I think I’m having second thoughts.”
She furrowed her brow, then reassured me that it was just a little case of cold feet.
“I think it might be more than that,” I told her.
“C’mon, Mere,” she said, launching into a pep talk that I could tell she believed completely. “You’re marrying Nolan Brady. He’s gorgeous. He’s loaded. He’s funny. And he’s a really nice guy.”
“I know,” I said, feeling guilty and ungrateful.
“I mean…look at that rock.” She took my left hand in her right and shook it.
“I know,” I said, gazing back down at my ring. “But it’s not really me. Neither are these gowns.”
“So what? Those things don’t matter….You’re marrying a great guy. Are you seriously finding something to be unhappy about here?” she said in the tone of voice I often took with her.
I sighed and tried to explain. “It’s just…sometimes I feel like we rushed into this…that the ring was a bit of an impulse purchase. That I might be an impulse purchase.”
“C’mon, Mere. You act like you just met at a bar….You’ve known each other forever,” Josie said. “For your whole life.”
“I know, but we haven’t been together for very long at all. And I don’t want him to regret it,” I said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Josie said. “He adores you. He worships you.”
“Maybe,” I said, because I did get the feeling that Nolan admired a lot of things about me. He was proud of my career and how smart I was. Special was the word he always used. He made me feel special.
I took a deep breath and said, “But is he in love with me? Or the idea of me?”
“The idea of you?” Josie said. “You’re not Julia Roberts. What do you mean, the idea of you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, frustrated that I couldn’t describe the way I was feeling to my own sister, though I knew it had something to do with Daniel, and the reasons I had said yes.
“Do you love him?” she asked.
I told her yes, because I did, wishing I could put my finger on the thing that felt missing. I thought of Lewis, not for the first time in recent months. I was way over him, but longed for the intense way I’d once felt. But then I asked myself whether that kind of passion was necessarily a good thing—or a feeling that would always, inevitably fade. I was so confused.
“Look, Meredith,” Josie said gently. “You’re looking for something that doesn’t exist. And if you break up with Nolan, you’ll regret it forever. Like I’m regretting Will…” Her voice shook a little, then trailed off. She still hadn’t told me all the details of their breakup, and clearly was never going to, but I knew that Will had already moved on with another serious relationship.
I nodded, having always been motivated by fear of regret, and agreed that she was probably right. “Thanks, Josie,” I whispered.
“Of course.” She smiled, putting her arm around me, then pulling me into a full-on hug. “Now, come on. Let’s do this.”
I hugged her back, feeling a tiny bit better, just as our salesgirl bustled in with a new gown—this one more embellished than the others, lacy with extensive beadwork along the bodice.
“Oh, I love it,” Josie said, turning to me. “What do you think, Mere?”
“Too fancy,” I said, shaking my head.
“Just try it,” she insisted.
I sighed, letting the two of them help me into it, then zip me up and arrange the train at my feet.
“Wow,” Josie said as she spun me toward the mirror.
I looked at my reflection and couldn’t resist a small smile.
“See?” she said. “I told you.”
“It is pretty good, isn’t it?” I asked my sister.
“It’s perfect. And so is the ring. And so is Nolan. And so is
your life, you bitch.”
“You’re the bitch,” I said, smiling back and deciding, once and for all, that I was going to go through with it.
And that was that. In the next few months, everything happened quickly. I resigned from my job, landed a new law firm job in Atlanta, and bought my childhood home on Dellwood from my mother. It was the perfect solution, as she felt that the house was too big for her to live in alone but desperately wanted to keep it in our family.
Then, one beautiful, bright autumn afternoon, I stood in the front of the church where Daniel’s coffin had rested and exchanged vows with his best friend.
chapter seven
JOSIE
The morning after my last date ever, Pete calls while I’m still asleep, leaving me a rambling voicemail.
“So I’ve given it a lot of thought,” he launches in without saying hello. “Well, as much thought as you can give something in less than twelve hours, of which seven were spent sleeping….So anyway, contrary to your opinion, I think chemistry can develop over time. In fact, I can think of several significant examples in film and literature in which one or both parties had absolutely no romantic interest in the other at the outset of their interaction—only to find that it blossomed—intensely—later.”
I smile as I listen, suddenly genuinely interested—not necessarily in Pete himself, but in where he’s going with this.
“So I say we give it another try, just to be sure….In fact, if you’re free tonight, I’m going to a rooftop party. I’d love for you to join me…and you’re welcome to bring a friend—so she can judge me, perhaps offer a second opinion. Soooo…give me a buzz and let me know what you think.”