“Any lingering regrets about all the men you didn’t marry?” Bellini asks me, watching Eric as he heads her way.
I shake my head. “I’ve finally realized you can’t go back. All you can do is move forward.”
Tom comes up next to me. I think for a moment about how much fun we’ve had tonight and all we still have to discover about each other.
I can’t begin to guess what the future will be. Maybe twenty years from now, I’ll look back and remember him affectionately as a man I didn’t marry. Maybe I won’t think of him at all. Or maybe I’ll be waking up next to him in bed every morning, blissfully content.
Tom holds out a hand to me. “May I have the first dance?” he asks.
“Of course,” I say. I smile to myself, realizing that if you let yourself, you really do learn from the past. A few short months ago, I would have hemmed and hawed and made excuses about how I have two left feet. But now I just add, “Though maybe we should get our real shoes back first.”
“Absolutely not,” says Bellini, the arbiter of the au courant, as Eric reaches for her hand. “Ballgowns and bowling shoes. I love it. You two could be starting a whole new trend.”
We all laugh and I slip into Tom’s arms to glide across the dance floor. A trend? Probably not. But with any luck, we’ll start something a little longer lasting.
Between them, JANICE KAPLAN and LYNN SCHNURNBERGER have lived in three countries, raised three children, and published nine books— including the bestselling novels Mine Are Spectacular! and The Botox Diaries . They’ve produced hundreds of hours of network television shows and written articles for just about every women’s magazine in America. Both have appeared regularly on television shows including The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and Today. Each is happily married and living in New York. Visit their website: www.janiceandlynn.com
Also by Janice Kaplan and Lynn Shnurnberger
MINE ARE SPECTACULAR!
THE BOTOX DIARIES
The Men I Didn’t Marry is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are the products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
2007 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random
House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kaplan, Janice.
The men I didn’t marry: a novel / Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Divorced mothers—Fiction. 2. Middle-aged women—Fiction. 3. Upper class—
Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Suburban life—Fiction. I. Schnurnberger,
Lynn Edelman. II. Title.
PS3561.A5593M46 2006
813’.54—dc22
2005057089
www.ballantinebooks.com
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-41725-1
v3.0
The Men I Didn't Marry Page 31