Nearlyweds (12 page)

I ignored all the barbs and instead teased, “I think someone has a crush on you.”

She sniffed. “Nonsense. I’ve told him a hundred times I’m not interested.”

I poured myself a huge mugful of java. “Then why’d you give him our phone number?”

Renée rustled the newspaper and refused to respond.

“Did
he
have a good Thanksgiving, at least?” I prompted.

“I didn’t ask,” she said sourly.

“Where’s your new best friend?” David demanded.

“Still sleeping.” I crossed over to the table and kissed the top of his head. “Where’d you end up last night?”

“The couch,” he grumbled. “We’re giving that dog back to Stella today.”

“Can’t do it,” I replied brightly.

“Erin.” David shot a sidelong glance at Renée, who was
clearly fascinated by the argument brewing between us. “You have to.”

“The only thing I have to do today is shop,” I said.

Renée was aghast. “On Black Friday? Have you lost your mind?”

“Just my fashion sense. I need some cute clothes like nobody’s business. Casey’s picking me up in twenty minutes. We’re going to the mall.” I hitched up my jeans and told Renée, “I’m going to get you the best Christmas present ever.”

“Erin…,” David warned.

“Have a good day, sweetie. And don’t forget to walk the dog.”

S
o did Nick ever call you back?” Erin asked Casey as we browsed the Macy’s makeup counters. We had already torn through the lingerie and coat sections like a tornado, and now we had moved on to lipstick.

“I have no idea—I turned off my cell phone and unplugged the land line.” Casey’s voice was badass, but her eyes looked miserable. “He can stay in Detroit till spring thaw, for all I care.”

“So I take it you still haven’t told him you’re not legally married?” Erin pressed.

I turned to Casey, my mouth open. “You haven’t told him yet?”

“Oh, I told him. On his voice mail. And then I told him hell would freeze over before I’d remarry him.” Casey set her
jaw. “Forget it. I already called our landlord, and the locksmith is coming on Monday. It’s
my
apartment. I’m the one who signed the lease.”

“Surely he’ll be back by Monday,” Erin said, dabbing a bit of blush onto the apples of her cheeks.

“Who knows?” Casey rubbed a mauve lipstick sample on the inside of her wrist. “Maybe he’ll take a road trip to Mexico to celebrate his return to bachelorhood. Maybe he’ll run off to Anna Delano’s house and shack up with her. But you know what? I don’t care.”

“Maybe you care a little,” I said gently, replacing the mauve lipstick with a wine-red shade. “Here, this is more your color.”

“I don’t care!” She smeared the red lipstick on top of the mauve with bright-eyed fury. “I don’t! If he doesn’t want to be with me, no one’s got a gun to his head. Let him run off with Anna—she’s wanted him since eighth grade.
She
can do all the cooking and cleaning and turn off
her
shower with a wrench. I’ll find someone better, someone who really appreciates me.”

“Like Hugh,” Erin said dreamily.

I frowned at her. “Who?”

“Nothing.” She stared down at the blush palette.

“Give me that.” I took the blush away from her. “Stay away from oranges, okay? You’re a summer. You want pinks and lavenders.”

“I hate pick and lavender,” she protested. “I want blacks and reds. And leopard print.”

“Don’t you work in a medical office?” I reminded her. “Like, with infants?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not for work. For after work.”

“For all the fancy nightclubs in Alden?” Casey said dryly.

Erin shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I used to be cute, okay? I was the party girl of my med school class. I was notorious!”

I managed to keep my mouth shut as I looked her over: severe, shoulder-length brown hair, faded jeans, and her puffy parka. No makeup, no jewelry except for her wedding rings, and flat, roomy loafers.

Erin caught me staring. “What?”

My gaze zoomed back to the nail polish samplers. “Nothing.”

“What? You think I’m boring, don’t you? Old and boring and blah.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do! Every guy who walks through this store looks at you. You! No one even notices Casey and me.”

“Hey,” Casey protested.

“Well, it’s true,” Erin insisted. “No sense denying it. Stella looks like Angelina Jolie’s little sister and we…and I…” She sucked in giant gulps of air. “I’m just
stuck
here. Forever.”

“Oh, boy.” Casey grabbed her arm and towed her through the crowd toward the exit. “Existential crisis time.”

“It’s okay,” I said as Casey plowed ahead, parting the crowd like a bouncer. “Deep breaths.”

“I’ll never get out,” Erin wheezed. “It’ll be me and Renée and Kelly Fendt and the petty office politics and my drafty used car until I drop dead.”

“No,” I promised. “You can leave anytime you want. You’re from Harvard Med—any hospital would kill to hire you.”

“That’s what I thought, once upon a time.” She tumbled forward into the jewelry counter. “But then I emailed one of my coworkers last week, asking if the hospital might want to hire me, and I never heard back. That means no. That means he asked and he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. I left the fast track and I can never go back.”

Casey’s ears pricked up. “‘He’?”

“Oh,” I said, nodding. “Hugh, right?”

Erin laughed. “No, Jonathan. We were residents together, we dated for about two weeks and now we’re like brother and sister. David hates him.”

“Is he good looking?” Casey persisted.

“Casey. What’d I just say? Brother and sister. Besides, I’m married.”

“No, you’re not,” Casey pointed out. “None of us are. And just because you don’t want a perfectly good eligible doctor doesn’t mean I don’t. I’m back on the market, girl. I am on the
prowl!
”

Erin and I both stopped and stared at her.

“What?” Casey put her hands on her hips. “I am.”

“Your husband’s only been gone twenty-four hours,” I pointed out.

“For the last time, he’s not my husband. I need a new man.”

Erin was getting pretty worked up, too. “I need a new job. What have I done? What have I done?”

Seeing Erin’s distress, a multipierced teenage sales clerk rushed over and asked, “Are you all right, ma’am? Do you need me to call someone?”

“Oh God,” Erin keened, closing her eyes in despair. “She ma’amed me.”

“We’re fine.” Casey flashed the clerk a confident smile, then half-dragged Erin out to the food court.

Hundreds of surly, slow-moving Black Friday shoppers, all carrying bulky shopping bags, pressed in on us.

“Coming through.” Casey pushed through the crowd with the calm authority of a paramedic. “Excuse me. Coming through.” She swooped in on a wobbly table littered with napkins and ketchup packets just as another pair of women stepped up to claim it.

“Hey!” exclaimed a blonde in too-tight jeans. “This is our table!”

“Yeah, we got here first,” agreed a snub-nosed redhead who looked like blondie’s sister. “And we’ve been on our feet all day—got up at four thirty this morning to hit the sales.”

“Sorry.” Casey shrugged as she sat down in one chair and
slung her shopping bags into the other. “But to the swift goes the race.”

The blonde and the redhead exchanged exasperated glances but started stalking someone else’s table as Erin and I shuffled up.

“Sit.” Casey shoved a chair toward Erin with her foot. “Stella, you go get her some ice water.”

“I don’t need ice water,” Erin insisted. “I just need my old life back. Me and David, living in the city. With Renée on the other side of the state.”

“Ice water, stat,” Casey repeated, as if she were the MD instead of Erin. “Maybe you better get some chocolate ice cream, too.”

“No ice cream.” Erin crossed her arms. “No dillydallying. I’m going to go buy a leopard-print thong. Maybe a matching garter belt, too.”

Casey looked at her for a moment. “Erin. You realize that putting on exotic underwear isn’t going to magically transport you back to Boston.”

Erin didn’t say anything.

“And you realize that it’s not going to get your mother-in-law out of your house? Or make you twenty-one again?”

“I don’t need water,” Erin insisted. “I need air. I’m suffocating.”

I darted over to the fast-food counter with the shortest line and ordered the largest ice water they had, which turned out to be a plastic cup roughly the size of a wading pool. When I
fought my way back to the table, Erin and Casey were deep in conversation.

Erin was gesturing helplessly, her eyes bleak. “…I thought I was going into this with my eyes wide open. We were mature, we finished school, we had our finances in order, we talked about goals…”

Casey nodded. “I know! Nick and I went to all these couples retreats—well, one; I signed us up for three, but he refused to go back after the first one—and I read all these books on what to expect before, during, and after the wedding.”

I tried to join in, but the two of them were on a roll.

“It wasn’t just about the white dress and the diamond ring,” Erin continued. “I was serious about it. I still am.”

“Yeah, but no one ever tells you what happens after the honeymoon,” Casey finished. “How could they? You can’t understand what it’s like until you’re knee-deep in it.”

“And if you’re on the outside, you have no idea what it’s like on the inside,” Erin said. “And then you end up at the mall on the day after Thanksgiving, having a nervous breakdown at the Clinique counter and trying to fill the gaping holes in your life with leopard-print thongs. Pathetic.”

I cleared my throat. “I’m back. Here’s your ice water.”

“Thanks, Stella.” Erin smiled absently up at me, like she was the major-league player and I was the bat boy. Then she went right back to Casey. “And they say it gets worse when you have children—the in-law drama, I mean.”

“You can’t think like that,” Casey said firmly. “You have to take it one day at a time or you’ll go nuts.”

I fidgeted, unable to contribute. It was too late for me to take anything one day at a time. Everyone who warned me not to rush into marriage had been right. I was a failure, and for the rest of my life, I would have to live with the reality that my choice of a husband—legal or not—had been a mistake.

“I think I’m going to get some ice cream,” I announced, keeping my head down as I turned away from the table. “You guys want anything?”

They waved me away, and as soon as I got in line at Ben & Jerry’s, a young mother queued up behind me, pushing a double stroller containing what I assumed were twins—a boy and a girl, both with defiant cowlicks in their soft brown hair. The boy was humming to himself and kicking the stroller in time with his tune. The little girl was drifting off to sleep, her thumb in her mouth as she stroked her cheek with her plump little fingers.

A quick look at the mom’s ring finger confirmed that she was married. Probably to a guy her own age, who’d come into the marriage without any ex-wives or hateful daughters or secret vasectomies.

I stepped out of the line and into the crowd, trying to put as much distance between myself and those twins as I could. But the mall’s corridors were packed with shoppers, and after two minutes of mincing along at a glacial pace, I lost patience
and ducked into the nearest store, a froufrou bath boutique full of scented shower gels and organic soaps.

Inhaling deeply, I willed my tense shoulders and clenched fists to relax. Aromatherapy—that’s what I needed. As long as I was in here, I should pick up some lavender bath oil and a seaweed face mask. Then I could go home, fill up the Jacuzzi…

But wait. I couldn’t go home and fill up the Jacuzzi because I didn’t live there anymore. I’d have to go back to Casey’s, rinse out the bathtub, turn on the faucet with a wrench, and hope the hot water didn’t run out, which Casey had warned me it often did.

I leaned forward to sniff a red-striped block of peppermint soap when I heard Taylor’s voice. Right behind me.

“You should have seen her, Mom. Crying over the slimy remains of the turkey. The whole thing was hilarious.”

“Well, your father never was one to help out in the kitchen,” replied an amused, cultured voice with a hint of a Boston accent. “Remember the time I put him in charge of the appetizers and the fire department had to come out?”

Taylor giggled. “I think the whole neighborhood remembers. But honestly, she’s worse than he is! Thank God their disgusting dog ate the whole dinner.”

“Don’t be catty, sweetpea.” But the tone was indulgent.

I froze, my face inches away from the scented soap, afraid that if I turned my head even an inch to the side, I’d be recognized.

“Well, anyway, that’s the last Thanksgiving I’ll have to spend with
her.
” Taylor sounded overjoyed. “They had a huge fight right in front of me and Marissa—about the dog, of all things—and she packed a bag and left. What a hag.”

“Lots of people have fights over the holidays—I’m sure they’ll work it out.”

“Daddy doesn’t think so,” Taylor announced triumphantly. “He says she’s gone for good and he knew it was coming all along.”

“Really.” Her mother sounded skeptical. “He said that?”

“Yep. He was as mad as she was, maybe madder. I swear, if he’d had a bottle of champagne in the house, he would’ve opened it.”

My eyes started to water from the overpowering smell of peppermint.

“Good-bye and good riddance. That’s what he said. And she deserves it! Like he didn’t give her everything she ever asked for. That gigantic diamond ring, for starters. I can’t even believe how much he spent on that thing. He said he was going to buy me a new car last summer, but as soon as
she
came along…And they didn’t even last six months.”

“Hmm.” The other voice was still skeptical. “Well, she’s young, you know. Very young.”

“Not that young,” Taylor shot back. “She’s the same age as me, and I know enough not to have tantrums just because some stupid turkey didn’t turn out perfect.”

“Well, it’s your father’s marriage, not ours. So really, it’s none of our business.”

“Ha! My family, my business. She’s a
nanny,
Mom. It’s so clichéd. And she’s not even that pretty.”