Since she’d been with Gary, Alex and I had talked less and less often. Our phone calls—never all that frequent—had dwindled to maybe once a month. Alex had been busy, and so had I. She and Gary had moved in together six months ago, and they’d gotten engaged four months later, on a chartered sailboat as they toured the Amalfi coast. She’d sent me a photo of them clinking champagne glasses at sunset. Even in that moment of spontaneous joy, Alex’s pose for the camera was calculated and model-perfect. Her hips were twisted slightly, her shoulders were thrown back, and her chin was tilted up. I’d stuck the photo in the back of an album instead of a frame.
I’d see them both tomorrow night at their engagement party. All of our neighbors would be there, too. So would my parents’ friends, and some of my and Alex’s high school classmates. I rubbed my temples; the headaches that had plagued me for years were starting up again. I pulled off my jeans and sweater and T-shirt, then changed into the pajamas I’d left folded on my pillow. I climbed under my old blue comforter, wondering if I could squeeze in a catnap before dinner. Maybe I was coming down with something after all. I never took naps.
But the thought of tomorrow night was exhausting. I’d have to spin lie after lie, like a circus performer struggling to keep plates spinning on a pole, and act as though I was living the life I’d always wanted, the life everyone always expected of me. I’d do it, though, and I’d do it with a smile on my face. After all, what alternative did I have?
Nine
HAWKINS COUNTRY CLUB LOOKED like a fairy-tale castle. A winding macadam driveway lined with graceful topiary bushes and gas torchlights led to the imposing main building, which was surrounded by acres and acres of lush, green lawn. The evening was crisp and clear, and the country club’s roof seemed to stretch forever into the sky. Tonight, in honor of Alex and Gary’s engagement party, dozens of white silk bows wreathed the stair railings and a white carpet was rolled out over the stairs, making me cringe to think about the dry-cleaning bill. It was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. Gary was a member here, and Alex would be, too, now, I supposed.
“Classy,” Dad noted as we pulled up. Unfortunately, he drove over the curb with an awful scraping sound. He backed up and tried again, with even less success. A gloved bellman sprang forward to open our station wagon’s doors.
“Tip him,” Mom hissed.
“I’m not going to tip him,” Dad bellowed while the bellman stood by with an expressionless face. “He only opened my door. I could’ve done it myself if he’d have just given me a second.”
Mom rummaged around in her purse, came up with a crumpled dollar bill, and pressed it into the bellman’s hand.
“Thank you, sir,” she said loftily.
I climbed out of the backseat with as much dignity as I could muster (it could fit in a thimble with ample room left over for a thumb) while Dad wrestled with the car key, struggling to remove it from his key chain.
“Never give them the whole ring,” he stage-whispered to me. “That’s giving strangers keys to your home. While we’re at the party, they could be cleaning out our house.”
Just making a graceful entrance, Rose family—style. The bellman remained impassive, but I was pretty sure he was going to funnel sugar into our gas tank.
We stepped inside the club, and my breath caught in my throat. The foyer ceiling stretched up imposingly, and the walls were lined with beautiful arched windows. At the end of the hallway was an enormous stone fireplace with leather couches cozily clustered around it. I’d been inside some pretty nice places before, but this club could compete with the best of them.
A slim, middle-aged woman in a winter white suit approached us, a welcoming smile on her face.
“You must be the bride’s family,” she said. I wondered what could possibly have given us away as not being distinguished patrons of the club.
“I’m Diana Delana, and I’m coordinating Alex and Gary’s engagement party.”
Within minutes, Diana had relieved us of our coats (she seemed a touch eager to ferry Mom’s and Dad’s matching marshmallows away to the checkroom), given us a quick tour of the club’s main rooms, and gone over the evening’s schedule. The other guests wouldn’t be arriving for an hour, but Alex had wanted us here early for family pictures.
“Alex is with the photographer now,” Diana said. “I’ll take you to her immediately.”
“May I use the ladies’ room first?” Mom asked.
“Could stand a pit stop myself,” Dad announced.
“Certainly,” Diana murmured, her face a mask of discretion.
That impassive look must be a requirement for working here. They probably made employees go through a rigorous training course, and those who couldn’t keep a straight face when confronted with a gassy father of the bride or a toothpick-chomping, shotgun-toting, country cousin named Hoss were washed out of the prospective employment pool.
“I’ll take you to the restrooms first,” Diana said. “Please follow me.”
“I’ll go ahead and find Alex,” I said.
“Sure you don’t want to wait so we can all go together, honey?” Mom asked.
I’d navigated dozens of foreign cities on my own, stood up to bully millionaire businesspeople, and elbowed my way through feisty crowds of New Yorkers to hail a cab during thunderstorms. Now my parents thought I needed them by my side to traverse a suburban country club?
“I think I can manage,” I said, smiling at Diana as if to say, “Parents.”
She smiled back understandingly.
“Just take the elevator to the second floor and walk straight ahead into the Chevalier Room,” Diana told me. “You won’t be able to miss Alex.”
Story of my life, I thought wryly.
I walked down the endless hallway toward the elevator. This place really was outrageously delicious. Every possible surface was covered with crystal bowls full of perfect white tulips, and whoa—was that an actual Monet hanging on the wall, just above the original Chippendale table? Probably; I’d heard the initiation fee for this club was close to six figures.
Another white-gloved employee was waiting to press the elevator button for me so I wouldn’t sully my index finger. As I rode up to the second floor, I checked my reflection in the mirrored elevator walls. I wore a long navy blue dress and simple diamond earring studs. My hair was a bit longer than I usually liked it, but I’d pinned it up in my usual twist. All things considered, I didn’t look too bad for an unemployed twenty-nine-year-old who lived with her parents, although I suspected the competition wasn’t all that fierce.
The elevator doors opened, and I saw ornate lettering spelling out “Chevalier Room” on the door of a room directly ahead, just as Diana had said. I crossed the hall, my heels sinking soundlessly into the lush Oriental carpet, and opened the door.
“Beautiful!” someone was saying.
Yep, Alex had to be here.
“Stay just like that,” a man’s voice said so quietly I had to strain to hear. “Don’t move.”
I eased the heavy door closed behind me as I stood there, taking in the room. Alex was partly hidden from me because I hadn’t ventured out of the small entrance area, but from my angle I could just see her leaning up against an open window on a far wall. I moved a step farther into the room, making sure I didn’t make any noise so I wouldn’t interrupt the photographer’s concentration.
I immediately saw why he’d posed her against the floor-to-ceiling windows. The windows opened in the middle, like French doors, and both sides were thrown back to reveal the background of the evening sky. Alex wore a shimmery silver dress that shone as brilliantly as the stars behind her. I stayed tucked away in my hiding place, staring at her for a full minute as the camera flashed. Her hair was loose and wavy, and she’d gotten even thinner. Her waist seemed impossibly small in that dress, like Cinderella’s. But as always, it was her face that captured my attention. Its structure had always been classic, but those extra few missing pounds made her cheekbones even mor
e pronounced and her blue-green eyes seem bigger. She looked more hauntingly beautiful than I’d ever seen her.
“Should I toss my head back?” Alex asked.
“No,” the photographer said, so softly I had to strain to hear him. “I don’t want you to pose.”
Something about his voice was tugging at my mind. It sounded so familiar.
“Posing is what I do for a living,” Alex said, her voice playful. “Want me to look sultry? Blissfully happy? Or should I pout? Let’s have a little direction here, Bradley.”
“I want you to look like you,” Bradley said gently.
Bradley?
I shrank back against the entranceway wall, my mind swirling in confusion. Bradley was here? He was taking pictures of Alex? What was going on?
“I’ve got enough from this angle,” Bradley said.
Now would be the perfect time for me to clear my throat and step forward. But I couldn’t move. Since when was Bradley doing the photos for Alex’s engagement party? No one had told me about this. I felt blindsided, like a wife opening her husband’s office door and catching him feeling up his secretary. Jealousy roared through me, weakening my knees and roiling my stomach. Bradley was staring at Alex through his camera lens, capturing her perfect face again and again. My Bradley. He didn’t even know I was in the room!
“Can we try something different?” Bradley asked.
“Sure,” Alex said. “What do you have in mind?”
Why was it everything she said sounded like a double
entendre?
“Sit down,” Bradley said.
“On the carpet? I’ll ruin my dress,” Alex said, but she sat on the floor anyway. Her dress pooled around her like spilled mercury.
“Take off your shoes,” Bradley said.
“You’re a kinky one, Bradley Church.” Alex laughed. She slipped off her delicate silver sandals and wiggled her toes. “Oh, that feels so good. Those heels were killing me.”
Bradley’s camera flashed.
“Hey!” Alex cried. “You didn’t tell me you were shooting me like this.”
“Relax,” Bradley said. “It’s just us here. You don’t have to pose.”
He moved closer to her.
“I don’t?” Alex said. She leaned her head back against the wall, and I could see her shoulders relax. Her collarbones were as delicate and fine as a bird’s wings. Why did every single part of her have to be so perfect?
I craned my neck and strained to see exactly how close Bradley was to her. Two feet, maybe. Too close. Much too close.
“Nope,” Bradley said. “I don’t want you to look perfect.”
“You’re the first photographer who has ever said that to me,” Alex said. “Trust me, they’ve said everything else.”
The teasing note was gone from her voice. She crossed her arms over her bent knees and leaned her head forward, resting it in the cradle of her own arms.
“Are you tired?” Bradley asked.
Alex nodded, then she lifted her head and looked worried. “Do I look tired?”
“No,” Bradley said.
He didn’t say anything else—didn’t tell her that she was breathtaking or gorgeous or flawless—but that simple word seemed to reassure her like nothing else could. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Bradley slowly raised the camera to his face and snapped another picture.
My heart was thudding so loudly I was surprised they hadn’t heard it. I couldn’t see Bradley’s face from this angle. Was he frowning, like he usually did when he was concentrating? Even when he frowned, Bradley never looked fierce. His face was too gentle for that. I studied his back, which was all I could really see from my vantage point. His hair had gotten longer and it curled a bit around his neck, and he was wearing a suit, but I’d bet he wasn’t wearing a tie. Bradley hated ties; they made him feel like he was suffocating. Did Alex know that? She couldn’t know that.
She didn’t know Bradley nearly as well as I did, I thought, my eyes swimming with angry tears. She didn’t know that, in the fifth grade, he ate Wheaties for a solid year for breakfast because he desperately wanted to win the hundred-yard dash at our school’s field day, and that he’d come in a crushing fourth place. She didn’t know that Bradley had memorized the words to dozens of Beatles songs. She didn’t know that he’d given the eulogy at his mother’s funeral after she’d died of breast cancer when he was only seventeen, and that I was the one who listened to him the night before the service while he practiced. His voice had broken when he’d spoken about how she’d spent an hour reading to him every night at bedtime long after he learned to read for himself, but after he’d rehearsed three times, he was finally able to get through his speech without crying.
Alex didn’t know anything about him.
Why hadn’t Bradley sensed I was in the room yet?
“Okay,” Alex said. “Do you know what I really want to do?”
“Tell me,” Bradley said.
“I want to stick my head outside that window and breathe,” Alex said. “I’ve been running around all day, and it took the hairdresser an hour to make my hair look like I just rolled out of bed, and my head is killing me because she kept yanking at my hair with her brush. I think a redhead must’ve stolen away her first husband and she was taking it out on me. And I’m going to have to talk to people all night and I’m horrible at remembering people’s names so I’ll probably offend half the guests.”
She grinned wickedly. “Which means they won’t give me nearly as expensive wedding gifts as they should.”
Bradley laughed.
“Do it, then,” he said.
His camera clicked as Alex slowly stood up. She left her shoes off. She leaned out the window, moving slowly, like she wanted to savor every second of the experience.
“It’s beautiful out, isn’t it?” she said quietly.
Bradley stood to one side, capturing her profile with a flurry of quick shots, then he moved behind her and snapped another set of pictures. It was an unusual angle; most photographers wouldn’t have captured the bride from the back. But Bradley’s photographs had always discovered beauty in the unexpected.
As Alex stood there—arms outstretched, barefoot, her hair cascading down her slim back—I could see what Bradley saw. That was what scared me.
I desperately wanted to do something—to knock against a table and send a vase crashing to the floor, or open the door and let it slam loudly—to break apart the moment. But I couldn’t; I had to watch it unfold. I had to see what was going on between Alex and Bradley.
After a minute, Alex turned around and smiled at Bradley. A real smile, one that stretched across her entire face. It would’ve been a perfect picture, but Bradley lowered his camera.
For a frozen moment, they stood there, looking at each other. Just looking.
I eased back toward the door, feeling blindly behind me for the knob. I had to leave. In a minute or two I’d come into the room again and pretend I’d never witnessed this intimacy between them. Acknowledging it would somehow make it worse—would make it real. Bradley probably treated all his subjects like this, I told myself, even as fresh tears filled my eyes and my vision blurred. It was why he was such a good photographer. His job was to connect with people and get them to let down their guard. Alex wasn’t special to him; she couldn’t be. He acted like this with everyone. And to her, Bradley was just another guy to charm. He meant nothing to her, absolutely nothing. She was getting married in six months, for God’s sake. She was marrying the grown-up version of a Ken doll. She should be ashamed of flirting with a sweet guy like Bradley.
But the worst part was, I knew Alex well enough to know she wasn’t just flirting. She wasn’t being nice to Bradley so he’d take a good picture of her.
She genuinely liked him.
As I opened the door and slipped into the hallway, I could hear Alex whispering, “Bradley? Thanks.”
Somehow, I got through the rest of the night. When Mom and Dad and Diana came upstairs a
few minutes later, I pretended I’d been lingering in the hallway the whole time, studying the artwork on the walls. By the time the three of us entered the room, Bradley was busy adjusting one of his lights and Alex’s shoes were back on. I could almost pretend the intense, charged moment between them had never happened.
“Lindsey!” Bradley carefully set down his light and walked over to me. He held out his arms, and I stepped into his familiar embrace. Bradley always gave real hugs, not one-armed, stiff embraces like most guys. I inhaled his familiar smell—woodsy and fresh, but in a way that hinted of soap, not expensive cologne—and relaxed just the tiniest bit.
I moved back and snuck another, longer look at Bradley out of the corners of my eyes. His hair was turning the slightest bit gray at the temples. It suited him, as did the new length. He’d replaced his old glasses, too, and this pair didn’t take up half his face. He was still thin, but you definitely wouldn’t call him skinny any longer. After all these years, Bradley had finally grown into his looks, I realized with a jolt. He was certifiably hot. I could see why Alex had flirted with him.
“What a great surprise!” I said, smiling. I reached out and gave Alex a hug, being careful not to mess up her hair and makeup, as Bradley greeted my parents. See? I don’t hold grudges. Kind, reasonable Lindsey, who looks like she can hold her own in a pie-eating contest—what guy wouldn’t choose her over her supermodel sister?
“Nice dress, Sis,” Alex whispered in my ear. “But what’s the point in having boobs like yours if you don’t show them off?”
“You do it enough for both of us,” I whispered back, smiling to show that I was joking, of course.
“So, Bradley, I had no idea you were coming tonight!” I gushed. Meryl Streep had nothing on me.
“Kind of a long story,” Bradley said, shooting a look at Alex.
Nonononono. Uh-uh. The two of them weren’t going to have any private stories around me.
“I’d love to hear it.” I laughed gaily. Oh, what fun we were all having reminiscing together!
The Opposite of Me Page 11