Arranged (26 page)

“I know. I’m doing a good thing today.” She looks so happy that I can feel tears forming. I think they’re tears of joy. I cry so much these days, it’s hard to tell.

“Stop that,” Sarah says. “You’ll get me going, and I’ll have to redo my makeup.”

I wipe my tears away. “Sorry. Hey, you want to hear a funny story?” I’m not sure it is funny, but I want to change the subject. “I got a copy of Jack’s book in the mail today.”

She gets a look on her face. The same look she had when she told me about her meeting with Jack.

“Sarah?”

“Please don’t be mad at me, Anne.”

“Mad at you for what?”

“I read it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack sent me a copy a few days ago, and I read it.”

I try to act indifferent. “Was it any good?”

“Why do you want to know? Are you going to read it?”

Yes. No. Maybe.

“Don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“I think you should read it, Anne.”

“What’s with him sending it to you, anyway? I really don’t like this whole pattern you two have going. Will you be going for drinks soon?”

“Don’t be silly. He sent it to me for the same reason he sought me out before—to convince you to read it.”

“His strategy seems to be working.” I sound petulant, I know, but I feel like pouting.

“Anne, I’m your best friend. I wouldn’t tell you to do something I didn’t think was good for you. I don’t care about him. But I think you might feel better after reading it. It might allow you to put this all behind you.”

The hairdresser picks up a can of hair spray to polish off Sarah’s look.

“Wait. Don’t put that stuff on her!” I reach up and bat the can away from Sarah’s head.

“Thanks,” Sarah says, turning her chair toward me. “So, what do you think?”

“You look beautiful.”

And she does. She looks beautiful and happy and ready to get married.

I
clink my wineglass to get everyone’s attention. I’m in my soft pink bridesmaid’s dress, facing a roomful of people in their finest. Large round tables glow with candles and pink and white tulips.

“So, I’m here to talk about Mike . . . I mean Sarah, of course. Sarah.” [laughter] “What can I say about Sarah? First of all, I think she deserves a round of applause for pulling off this flawless event today.” [clapping] “If you only knew how many lists went into it, how many trees were killed with the endless drafts and redrafts.” [small laughs] “Seriously, tonight’s been lovely, and I think everyone knows that planning parties is not Mike’s strong suit.” [a drunken yell from a college buddy whom I can’t quite make out]

“Okay, enough jokes, before Sarah never speaks to me again. I do want to say a few words about my best friend. We met in the third grade. I believe the exact occasion of our meeting involved a barrette emergency (guess who needed the barrette and who provided it). All I know is, one minute I was having the worst day of my young life, and the next, everything was all right again. And ever since then I’ve had someone in my life who’s there for me unconditionally. It sounds so trite to say that out loud, but it’s rare, so rare, to have that in your life. And if you can have one person like that, you’re so lucky.

“Mike has been there for Sarah since they met. He sees how beautiful and smart she is, but I know he loves her most for her little quirks. So I’d like to raise a glass to Mike and Sarah. Sarah, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t know how I’d get through my life without you. And Mike, you’ve restored my faith in happy endings. To Mike and Sarah.”

I lift my glass, and the room follows suit. I take a drink of the fizzy champagne and walk over to Sarah to the applause of the guests. Her eyes are shining wet. We hug, and she whispers in my ear, “Read the book, Anne.”

L
ooks like it’s just you and me.” William extends his hand, inviting me to dance. He’s wearing a dark suit and a white rose in his lapel. He’d look serious and handsome if it weren’t for his untamable hair. I take his hand, and we walk onto the dance floor among Sarah’s cousins and college friends. The band is playing an old U2 song. He waltzes me around the floor in a fast slow dance that feels like high school. We look ridiculous, and are attracting a bit of attention from the crowd. Sarah and Mike, glowing, half drunk, and exhausted, left a few minutes ago.

“I feel like this is the end of
My Best Friend’s Wedding,
” I say.

“That’s because it is.”

“No, silly, that Julia Roberts movie. You know, the one where she tries to break up her best friend’s wedding and she’s left dancing with her gay friend at the end.”

William pulls away from me. “Am I the gay friend in this scenario?”

I roll my eyes. “It just has the same feeling.”

“I’m not gay, Anne.”

“I know, William.”

“I had a date last week. With a
woman.
I’m thinking of calling her again.”

“That’s great. Anyway, she’s left dancing with her friend. Is that better?”

He starts waltzing me around again. “So? Sounds like a helluva good time.”

“Yeah, but she ends up alone. She doesn’t get the guy.”

“Did she want the guy?”

“That’s not the point. She wanted
a
guy.”

“You want me to tell you you’re going to get the guy?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

He touches the pink enamel heart I’m wearing around my neck. “You can have the guy if you want, Anne.”

Chapter 26

Let’s Try This Again

W
illiam drops me at my apartment at one in the morning. I flop down on the couch in exhaustion. I take off my high heels, which have been killing me for hours, and throw them across the room. They hit the wood floor with a satisfying thud.

With no more distractions, I start thinking about Jack’s book. It’s sitting where I left it in the bedroom, waiting for me there like Jack waited for me one night when I had to work late to meet a deadline. He was reading in bed when I got home, but I knew he was waiting for me. I sat down next to him and kissed him hello, and he brought his hands up to my face in that way he has and kissed me in that way he has. His kisses traveled down my face, my neck, and down and down and everywhere, and we made love without saying another word. The experience was so intense that thinking about it now, months later, brings a blush to my cheeks.

Afterward, we lay in bed talking for hours. Talking about my article, about a weird conversation he’d heard in the park when he took a break from writing, about my favorite park as a child, about other things I don’t remember now. Our talking was nearly as intense as the sex. It felt so great to lie in his arms and talk about whatever came to mind. And I knew with the certainty you sometimes have about other people that it was what we both wanted to be doing most of all—talking to each other. We fought off sleep, and even the lingering arousal that might have led to a second round, so that we could talk and talk and talk.

The book in the bedroom calls to me. I want to hear Jack’s voice again. I want to hear him talking to me through the night. Jack telling me things I didn’t know, or giving me a new perspective on things I know. I want his perspective on things. The book in the bedroom calls to me.

In the end, I give in. I go to the bedroom and pick it up, running my hands over the picture of our wedding bouquet. I snuggle under the covers, open it, and start to read.

Married Like Me

Prologue

All my life I’ve had this idea of what the woman I’d eventually marry would look like, would be like. It sounds silly, it sounds
girlish
, but it’s true.

I don’t know where this idea came from. Maybe it was the girl whose pigtails I pulled once instead of telling her I liked her. Maybe it was a dream I had. Maybe I invented her. But I knew she was out there, somewhere.

I grew up. I met other women. I even fell in love. But I never stopped waiting for her to show up.

And then one day she did.

I was standing outside her door. I was supposed to knock on it. I was supposed to make this woman my wife. We’d met the day before. I was nervous as hell. We’d met the day before, yet I felt like I’d been waiting for her forever.

I met her in a miniature bullfighting ring at an all-inclusive resort in Cancún, Mexico. I’d gone there on purpose to meet her and marry her. To meet her, marry her, live with her for a while, and then leave her and write a book about it.

She was there because she believed the company that brought us to Mexico had matched us based on our compatibility, and that I was her perfect match. She came there to marry me without knowing me, or anything about me, without even seeing a picture of me.

When we came face-to-face for the first time, we shook hands like the other couples, all there for the same reason.

I led her outside to a bar I’d scoped out the night before as the most romantic spot in the place. We sat at a table facing each other awkwardly, both of us wondering what to say.

I studied her face. She looked like I’d expected she would. White skin with a scattering of freckles across her nose. Green eyes that looked gray in some lighting. Long red, red hair. An intelligent face.

I knew this face. I knew it from years of dreaming, and I knew it from the research I did before I came to Mexico. I wasn’t supposed to know it, or her, or anything about her. If I’d been there for the right reasons, this would’ve been the first time I’d seen her.

As it was, because of the book I was there to write, I already knew too many things about her. I had all kinds of advantages.

We ordered drinks from the waiter and sat and stared at each other, trying to look like we weren’t staring, until I broke the silence.

“This is awkward,” I said.

“It really is,” she agreed.

“I don’t even know your last name,” I said, extending my hand, though I did know. “I’m Jack Harmer.”

She told me her full name. I lied again and asked why her name seemed familiar to me, and she told me she wrote for a magazine. I pretended to recall one of her articles and made some joke about the topic.

She knew I was a writer too. It was one of the few small details they’d told her about me, one of the few small details she was allowed to know, and so we talked about my writing.

Because I often write about outdoor things, I asked if she was an outdoor girl. She said sometimes. She might be.

Then she asked me the question I was waiting for.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked, fluttery and nervous.

“What am I doing here?” I replied.

She blushed, a light pink trail that rose from her neck to the tips of her ears. “Yeah.”

“Well . . . the same reason as most people, I expect. I’ve been in some long-term relationships that didn’t work out. I work alone most of the time, and it’s hard to meet people. I’m thirty-four, and I always thought I’d be married with kids by now. I heard about this service from someone I know who used it, and he’s still married, happy, has kids, so I thought why the hell not?”

This was the answer I’d worked out in advance. It sounded plausible to me, as plausible as I could make it.

She smiled at me. She had a good smile. “So you’re totally normal?”

I laughed and raised my hand to my heart. “I swear, I’m totally normal. What about you?”

She told me why she was there: a bunch of failed relationships, the desire to have a family. All the things you might expect.

“So you’re totally normal too?” I asked her.

She made an X with a finger over her heart. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

We stared at each other, and I felt something. A connection, a conspiracy between us. A feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. Maybe never.

We went to dinner and told each other our life stories, and the hours flew by. After dinner, she had a moment of doubt, and I convinced her to go through with the wedding. I kissed her for the first time on the beach under a nearly full moon and gave her a silver ring with a turquoise stone set across its flat top. Later, I saw her flirting with another man, and I felt jealous. She told me I had nothing to worry about, and I kissed her again, holding her close.

So there I was the next morning, trying to decide whether to knock. Could I really marry the woman I’d been waiting for all these years? Like this?

And then I did it.

My knuckles raked across her door. She looked very pretty that morning in her cream-colored dress. Her hair was pulled back from her face and trailed down her back. A touch of sunburn emphasized the green in her eyes.

I took a deep breath and said, “Ready, Emma?”

She gave me a nervous smile. “Ready, Jack.”

“You look great.”

Her smile widened. “You look nice too.”

I pulled my hand from behind my back and handed her a bunch of summer flowers. She brought them up to her freshly washed face and drank in their smell.

“I thought you might like to carry these,” I said.

“Thank you, Jack, they’re beautiful.”

She hooked her arm around mine, and we walked through the resort to the room where the marriages were being performed.

We were married by a funny little man with a thick accent. Emma looked like she wanted to laugh throughout the ceremony. I asked her in a whisper what she was laughing about, and she told me shush, she’d tell me later.

“Do you, Emma Ellen Gardner, take this man, John Graham Harmer, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer, and forsaking all others as long as you both shall live?”

She smiled and said, “I do.” She sounded nervous, but she said, “I do.” And when the minister repeated the words, I said, “I do” too. We exchanged rings, and he pronounced us man and wife. I kissed her soft lips, and we were married.

But all this is getting ahead of myself. I should start at the beginning. I should tell you why I did this. What it did to her. How I lost her.

I should tell you how I ended up married like me.